Development of module-script generator for lr-mess, lr-mame and mame standalone

Folly

Trying to find the structure here on how we can use the extended options the correct way so it can be added in the script.
And above all how do we find these options.

In doing so, I searched with :
/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -listsoftware nes | grep slot

Just like datach(a nes_slot but not listed with mame -listslots nes) I found here also disksys(a nes_slot but not listed with mame -listslots nes) and ofcourse this is also available for famicom (a nes_slot but not listed with mame -listslots famicom) .

In the MAME_0.202_Software_List_ROMs_merged there is also famicom_flop(software_list) just something like nes_datach(software_list) .

So I tried running this manual and it worked with :

/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame famicom disksys -flop "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/famicom/famicom_flop/aliens - alien 2 (japan) (proto) [b].fds"

It looks like this :

Folly

@dteam

Just like using running famicom disks I saw also an option of loading famicom cassettes.
I was not sure how to do this, but after a long search I discovered that you need to run Family Basic together with fc_keyboard.
It seems that the cassette recorder interface is part of the famicom keyboard.

I could not find the correct basic bios as stated with this command :
/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -listsoftware famicom

If you have the famibs30 bios rom the the load line will be :

/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame famicom famibs30 -exp fc_keyboard -cass /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/famicom/famicom_cass/hero.wav

Instead I found some .nes basic roms and used one of these .

This is the manual command on how to load the basic and load the cass file :

/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame famicom -cart "Family BASIC (V3.0) (J).nes" -exp fc_keyboard -cass /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/famicom/famicom_cass/hero.wav

Quite interesting that this works.
Just type load, go into the menu, press play on tape,after the load type run.

You can read more about it here :
https://www.nesworld.com/fc-familybasic.php

Edit :
#seems the famibs30.zip cannot be found in a mame archive
#famibs30 can be created from an extracted "Family BASIC (V3.0) (J).nes"
#use https://github.com/X-death25/Nes-Extract to extract to a .prg and a .chr
#check the names and sha1sums with output of "/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -listsoftware famicom"
#rename and repack the .prg .chr to a zip or 7z

DTEAM

@folly
For Atari Portfolio, i’ll do an artwork with 3 views (complet system, no artwork and zoom) after my vacation.

Folly

@dteam said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@folly
For Atari Portfolio, i’ll do an artwork with 3 views (complet system, no artwork and zoom) after my vacation.

Nice, looking forward to it.

Have a nice vacation !

Folly

MAME 0.234 is out !

I added the mame announcements in post one, so we can have a look on the latest improvements of mame.

This is a link to the mame forum with global information about new versions :
link_to_whats_new_in_mame

DTEAM

@folly
Nice animated Demo in your first post !!

Are you comfortable to add a "pull request" for your script on GitHub for the official RetroPie? I think your script is enough completed. Are you agree?

Folly

@dteam said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@folly
Nice animated Demo in your first post !!

It does speak much more, that animation, doesn't it. ;-)

Are you comfortable to add a "pull request" for your script on GitHub for the official RetroPie? I think your script is enough completed. Are you agree?

I think it't also quite complete and it's something that should be done in the long run.
But I don't want to get tangled in a pull request in a way that I have to make many changes again to the script before it's accepted.
So in that way I am not that comfortable doing the PR yet.

There was also a thread about @valerino wanting to do it for his fork but it wasn't accepted for several reasons.

Perhaps he can give us some clues why.

DTEAM

@folly said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

There was also a thread about @valerino wanting to do it for his fork but it wasn't accepted for several reasons.
Perhaps he can give us some clues why.

Your script is different and covers all systems and you have a menu interface. This is totally a different story.

Folly

@dteam said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@folly said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

There was also a thread about @valerino wanting to do it for his fork but it wasn't accepted for several reasons.
Perhaps he can give us some clues why.

Your script is different and covers all systems and you have a menu interface. This is totally a different story.

Indeed, you have a point ;-)

I will think about it.

Folly

@BuZz

Hi Jools,

This project is quite matured now and we would like it to take it to the next step of adding it into the original RetroPie-Setup.

I would like you to ask if you can have a look at it, in time.
(take your time, no rush here)

If you feel comfortable with it then I would like to do a pull request for the front-end script only.

Let me know what you think.

BuZz

@folly thanks for your contribution. Is it still a system that generates module files ?

Can you give me an overview as last time I checked it wasn't implemented in a way I could envisage incorporating (generating module files etc)

Folly

@buzz said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

@folly thanks for your contribution. Is it still a system that generates module files ?

Can you give me an overview as last time I checked it wasn't implemented in a way I could envisage incorporating (generating module files etc)

Thanks for your reply.

It's now evolved as a front-end tool.
Basically you can select all systems that mame/lr-mess supports.
We have added also some manual systems regarding handhelds and systems with extra hardware.

The front-end tool contains a generating part.
So the data of the selected mame system is used to create a module-scripts on the fly.
Per media-type (cas,flop,rom, etc) are generated and a normal one without the media that can be used for .cmd files or the softlist roms.
The front-end will automatically refresh after generating and install the module-scripts on the fly.
If you want to remove them you can do that the normal way.

The major advantage is that you can install for more that 30000 systems.
I think, this would be impossible if you didn't have a generating part.

Another advantage is that the "runcommand-lines" just accept normal file-names just like any other emulator would as there is no need anymore to use softlist-names if you don't want to.

We have also added downloads for :

theme artwork
mame arwork
overlay creation for handhels in lr-mess
gamelists

This is basically the overview on what the tool does.

Just like @DTEAM says in the next post, everything can be found in the first post :
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/29682/development-of-module-script-generator-for-lr-mess-and-mame-standalone/1
Summarized, it's an amazing piece of work !

How would you envisage incorporating ?

DTEAM

@folly
Your first post gives a good overview of how it works for people not aware of that or people who went directly at the end of that thread.

Folly

@dteam

Is there anything you would like to add to convince everybody that it should be added to the original RetroPie-Setup ?

DTEAM

@folly
No, that's perfect. You added that in your post above for Buzz.

Folly

@BuZz

Have you been able to look into it ?

We would like to know if we can take it to a next step and make a pull request.

If you are not comfortable with adding the script, please let us know why.

Thank you for your reply.

BuZz

@folly Not in detail as I'm super busy at the moment. I had a brief look at the github repository but as it currently I can't see it being incorporated sorry due to the module generating nature of it.

It may be possible to do in a single module if that module had a gui that allowed handling of each system etc. You can always include this as an 3rd party repo in ext if you want though to make it easier for users to include.

DTEAM

@buzz said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess and mame standalone:

It may be possible to do in a single module if that module had a gui that allowed handling of each system etc.

It already contains a GUI interface . Are you looking for that type of GUI? Everything can be found in the first post above (procedure and explanation)
alt text

Folly

@buzz

Thanks for your reply.

I understand that your very busy at the moment.
Hopefully we can discuss the solutions later when you have more time.

BuZz

@dteam (also for @Folly) Thanks - I appreciate that. However, I see the creation of automatic scriptmodules based on this to not be the ideal solution, and will be problematic (lots of dynamically created modules handled outside of git, which could break if a change was made to RetroPie-Setup, and it just doesn't feel like the right solution to me).

I would prefer it to be included in a way that a single module handles the configuration for all the mess systems, without creation of scriptmodules etc. I will look at this though when I have a chance and see if I can replicate some of the basic functionality in a different way.

BTW - the contributions are appreciated and this can be handled an external repo if needed (additional retropie module repositories can be checked out into the ext folder).

We have a lot of code in RetroPie, and a lot of contributions end up being unmaintained, so I have to be careful what is accepted and what isn't based on whether it's the correct implementation, maintainability, and so on. As often it comes down to me and a few other devs to keep everything working.