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

bbilford83

@Folly, I know it's been forever, but randomly today I discovered the existence of a system I had never heard of before, the Elektor TV Games Computer. It seems this is emulated (though "imperfectly") on mame, and I was able to install it with the script. To my surprise, at least from here it seems there were many, many games, but I don't see a software list mame set by that name. Just wondering if you have heard of it or ever gave it a try?

Hope all else is well!

Folly

Hi @bbilford83,

Interesting :-)
I will have a look too, if I can.

Folly

@bbilford83

Doing this command revealed that it can use the vc4000 software list :

/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -listsoftware elektor

(I used the terminal from within Desktop mode and made sure that I could scroll back at least 4000 lines in the terminal)

This wiki shows more info.

Saw that these games will indeed run however the elektor seems to differ from the vc4000 as keybindings concerned.

There don't seem to be software lists for cassettes and quik load.

For quik load I found .tvc files on the internet.
They seem to work but whenever I try to start the game I get some sort of input line or lines.
So you seem to have to find out what key you have to use in order to run the game properly.
Sadly, I did not find yet.

Could not find any cassette files on the internet either.

There are some docs on the internet archive that possibly can explain how you have to use this TVGC.

bbilford83

@Folly thank you! It's interesting, there is a MAME software list set for VC4000 and it has 37 games in it, which seems to match the 40 games (with three unreleased) listed on wikipedia for VC4000. They are all zipped bin files. But even though the Elektor is described as able to run these games with an added "cartridge slot," it seems like the Elektor somehow still had its own games before the VC4000 existed. The wikipedia page for the Elektor says "Many VC 4000 games were adapted versions of TV Games Computer games" which wouldn't make sense if there weren't some (non-cartridge?) games that existed first on the Elektor.

Re: the inputs/mapping, it seems like the Elector controller (which I can't find a picture of) didn't have the "keypad" buttons that the VC4000 had. Probably the better way to go about it is to just install the VC 4000 and try the games that way, but it does seem odd there is no way to play whatever "Elektor-only" games it had.

I'm solo parenting for the week but may try to mess around with this a bit over the next few days.

Folly

@bbilford83 said in Development of module-script generator for lr-mess, lr-mame and mame standalone:

@Folly thank you! It's interesting, there is a MAME software list set for VC4000 and it has 37 games in it, which seems to match the 40 games (with three unreleased) listed on wikipedia for VC4000. They are all zipped bin files. But even though the Elektor is described as able to run these games with an added "cartridge slot," it seems like the Elektor somehow still had its own games before the VC4000 existed. The wikipedia page for the Elektor says "Many VC 4000 games were adapted versions of TV Games Computer games" which wouldn't make sense if there weren't some (non-cartridge?) games that existed first on the Elektor.

Re: the inputs/mapping, it seems like the Elector controller (which I can't find a picture of) didn't have the "keypad" buttons that the VC4000 had. Probably the better way to go about it is to just install the VC 4000 and try the games that way, but it does seem odd there is no way to play whatever "Elektor-only" games it had.

Good thinking,
Seems like these games aren't added in the software-list.
There are more systems that don't have that.
I think it due to how much time and effort the mame dev's can, are willing and are able to put into it.
Not sure enough, but I think I also read in a doc from the archive that many program listings have been lost over time.

I'm solo parenting for the week but may try to mess around with this a bit over the next few days.

Let me know if you find some more info about this.
Have you found the .tvc to try ?

Folly

@bbilford83

I found quite some stuff.
It seems to be hit or miss.
Search for "elektor amigan".
pro files can be loaded as cart (you might have to rename to bin)
tvc files can be loaded as quik
Helicopter seems to work ok.
Stuff for the enhanced version don't seem to work.

Edit:
There is a list called ess.txt which contains the start adres of the programmes.
For example :
09-D Raster Raster $08C0-$0FFF $0900 E Yes

Found in the doc's that when you press "p" you will view that start adres.
If not then you can enter that start adres.
After that you press the "up" key to start the program.
I had to use another key to get Raster going, not sure yet which one but Raster began to run and I used the "-" key to shoot the green box.

I have made a key-layout picture.
The right part is like a numpad and seems to be used for controlling the directions in a game.
For RocketShooting A=up,2=down,5=left,7=right,6=shoot

This should be the solution to get more working.

Conclusion for me is that you have to read the documents thoroughly to understand this computer in order to play with it.

bbilford83

@Folly Thank you very much for jumping in, doesn't seem as straightforward as I would hope. But I didn't know about the Interton VC4000 before and since that has a mame software list I may try to get that working and add a gamelist to my shared gdrive folder. Seems much more straightforward control-wise too.

Folly

@bbilford83

Indeed, good choice to begin with !

TPR

@Folly I've been searching around trying to find the answer, but figured you'd be a good one to ask... if I'm wanting to try to get CD-I up and running on a Pi 5 build, where is a good place to start now?

I haven't seen anyone mention this in a while and I'm not sure how outdated some of the previous information is.

Folly

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

@Folly I've been searching around trying to find the answer, but figured you'd be a good one to ask... if I'm wanting to try to get CD-I up and running on a Pi 5 build, where is a good place to start now?

I haven't seen anyone mention this in a while and I'm not sure how outdated some of the previous information is.

You can use my script and install cdimono1.
3 patches are installed to get it working like it should.
Info is displayed so you can read what they do.
However there is no guarantee it will work for you.

Second option is to use the module-script lr-same_cdi.
The module script is here now (removed it from my repository):
https://github.com/Exarkuniv/RetroPie-Extra/tree/master/scriptmodules/libretrocores
lr-samecdi is a patched lr-mess with only the cdimono1 driver compiled.
It has been a while since I used that, so not sure if it will work better than regular mame and lr-mess

Can you tell me know what works best ?

TPR

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

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

@Folly I've been searching around trying to find the answer, but figured you'd be a good one to ask... if I'm wanting to try to get CD-I up and running on a Pi 5 build, where is a good place to start now?

I haven't seen anyone mention this in a while and I'm not sure how outdated some of the previous information is.

You can use my script and install cdimono1.
3 patches are installed to get it working like it should.
Info is displayed so you can read what they do.
However there is no guarantee it will work for you.

Second option is to use the module-script lr-same_cdi.
The module script is here now (removed it from my repository):
https://github.com/Exarkuniv/RetroPie-Extra/tree/master/scriptmodules/libretrocores
lr-samecdi is a patched lr-mess with only the cdimono1 driver compiled.
It has been a while since I used that, so not sure if it will work better than regular mame and lr-mess

Can you tell me know what works best ?

I will give the lr-samecdi a try first. That one I can wrap my head around easily.

I'm not exactly sure what I need to install with your script exactly. There's a LOT to go through in this topic and it was a little much for me, not gonna lie.

TPR

@Folly So looks like lr-same_cdi works pretty well and pretty easily. I assume still no way to get the digital video games running? Aside from that initial tests seem pretty positive!

Folly

@TPR

Thanks for the info.
Indeed, digital video games do not work.

TPR

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

@TPR

Thanks for the info.
Indeed, digital video games do not work.

Then I would say the lr-samecdi script is a success! Thank you!

TPR

@Folly I have found one game that seems to have a scrambled screen:
Pac-Man Screen Shot 11-11-24, 11.23 AM 2.png

Adventures of the Space Ship Beagle. Not sure if it's just not emulated well, but I tried two different roms and the same results. This one doesn't require the digital video adapter but I'm going to guess it just isn't emulated in MESS properly?

Folly

@TPR

I can't find that game in the cdi.xml hash table so your probably right that it will not work correctly.

Edit :
Just tried it too and it didn't work on mame 0.266.
I think it could be an NTSC-J issue something is described over here :
https://retrostuff.org/2020/01/11/philips-cdi470-pal-ntsc-modification/

TPR

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

@TPR

I can't find that game in the cdi.xml hash table so your probably right that it will not work correctly.

Edit :
Just tried it too and it didn't work on mame 0.266.
I think it could be an NTSC-J issue something is described over here :
https://retrostuff.org/2020/01/11/philips-cdi470-pal-ntsc-modification/

Yep, must be it... I just tested "AIUEO" which is another Japan exclusive and it did the same thing.

So far in my testing, all US and EU non-digital video required roms do seem to work perfectly. Also, I added .cue to the es_systems and cue/bin files seem to load up just fine. Not sure if that's something that helps you out or not, but so far I've tested .chd and .cue/bin to work fine.

However I did notice that .cue/bin files in a .zip file do not seem to load.

Folly

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

Yep, must be it... I just tested "AIUEO" which is another Japan exclusive and it did the same thing.

I tested "Anniversary - Yuki Saito (Japan)" and does work with a small glitch so I am not yet convinced if it is an NTSC issue.

TPR

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

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

Yep, must be it... I just tested "AIUEO" which is another Japan exclusive and it did the same thing.

I tested "Anniversary - Yuki Saito (Japan)" and does work with a small glitch so I am not yet convinced if it is an NTSC issue.

If you figure out any solution for those Japanese games, please let me know! I'll keep trying things on my end too.

DTEAM

@Folly

MAME 0.271 is released

265-in-1 Handheld Game (SPG2xx based) [David Haywood, TeamEurope] (All in 1)