Macintosh (Basilisk II) 8-bit Color

spud11

@mediamogul While having a look at the emaculation website again, I came across the following thread about creating aliases (shortcuts, I suppose) to applications so that they start automatically on starting up MacOS. I haven't played with this yet, but it looks like a way of getting around the fact it doesn't seem possible to start a game automatically from the command line in Retropie.

https://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6133

mediamogul

@spud11 said in Macintosh (Basilisk II) 8-bit Color:

I came across the following thread about creating aliases (shortcuts, I suppose) to applications so that they start automatically on starting up MacOS.

It's funny, because the system I'm emulating on this humble $35 Raspberry Pi (MacOS 8.1) is actually the first computer system I ever ran, back when it cost an arm and a leg. I remember adding those aliases to the startup folder to do all manner of things. I've thought about doing it here myself and it should definitely work.

As far as launching the xboxdrv map automatically. I do something similar to what I've seen @edmaul69 do by adding another emulator system launch command to /opt/retropie/configs/macintosh/emulators.cfg. I don't have it in from of me, but outside of the 8-bit color considerations, I believe the launch command is basically the default. However, it does have a different name, something like 'b2-pop2', which I use to trigger the xboxdrv command from runcommand-onstart.sh in the same way as you might for any other system.

FranceMSR

@mediamogul said in Macintosh (Basilisk II) 8-bit Color:

Perhaps, but can you prove it with math?

There is a guide that explains HOW TO install MacOS 7.5.3 on a blank disk and HOW TO set 256 colors mode. If you follow that guide it ALWAYS works! This is a mathematical fact.

If you use another guide with a different basilisk's configuration file and a disk with a pre-installed OS it's not my problem

Meneer Jansen

@francemsr said in Macintosh (Basilisk II) 8-bit Color:

@mediamogul said in Macintosh (Basilisk II) 8-bit Color:

Perhaps, but can you prove it with math?

There is a guide that explains HOW TO install MacOS 7.5.3 on a blank disk and HOW TO set 256 colors mode. If you follow that guide it ALWAYS works! This is a mathematical fact.

If you use another guide with a different basilisk's configuration file and a disk with a pre-installed OS it's not my problem

There's nothing special about setting a (virtual) Mac to 256 colors. Click on the Apple logo at the upper left hand side and choose: Control panels --> Monitors --> tick "Color" and "256" (see this post). You just don't understand how a classic Mac works. How, and where, this setting is kept I don't know. Maybe somewhere in the virtual hard disk (i.e. disk.img) maybe in the (hidden) files /home/pi/.basilisk_ii_prefs or /home/pi/.basilisk_ii_xpram. To keep on advising people to make their own disk image is misanthropic. It's not necessary. And when the "make your own disk" method goes wrong you advise people to use a backup of the image that was made. That's the same as re-downloding the "PoP Macintosh Total Pack" and using those disk images again.

Furthermore, making a Macintosh disk image can not be done on the Pi because the BaiiskII version of the Pi does not have a GUI.

You're trolling this topic w/ statements that aren't true and by referring to a forum in Italian that is incomprehensible for non-Italians (even when run through Google translate). Don't point to other topics in this one to get people stop people reading this one please.

FranceMSR

Are you kidding me??? Here the problem is not set 256 colors mode but that if you do this in the wrong way the emulator shows a black screen.

The italian guide ALWAYS works... In the italian forum there are 3 BLANK disks for installing MacOS.

You said:
"And when the "make your own disk" method goes wrong you advise people to use a backup of the image that was made."

WHEN IT GOES WRONG AND... WHEN I SAID THIS???

Stop trolling, thanks. I'll post a translation of the italian guide so maybe you can open your mind.

mediamogul

There's room enough for two guides. Please try to be civil on both sides before this ends up escalating. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go write my own guide, with Blackjack and hookers. In fact, forget the guide.

mitu

@mediamogul So this is what you look like alt text

mediamogul

@mitu

Close, but my robot floozy is way hotter.

spud11

@mediamogul I started with the Commodore 64 back in the mid-80s, progressed to an IBM-compatible PC in 1990 (386 and 486) and have kept going ever since. It's only in the past 4 years that I've repurposed some older hardware using Ubuntu as the main operating system. I much prefer Linux to Windows, albeit my scripting abilities are pretty limited.

The Raspberry Pi 3B has been a godsend. I've got 4 of them now - one as a media centre, 2 doing Retropie duties and the last one acting as a NAS (using openmediavault). It's pretty remarkable what these things can do for the price, thanks to the community getting on board too.

I'll have a look around for 'b2-pop2' too. Thanks for that.

I've also got aliases to work and have basically set up 3 separate hard drive images of 500mb each - one for POP1, one for POP2 and the last is just for the vanilla operating system. This means I can now start POP1 and POP2 automatically from the Retropie menu. I've also figured out a way of having separate xboxdrv configs for POP1 and POP2 as well, albeit starting a game in POP1 still seems to need the keyboard/mouse at present. I just haven't figured that out yet.

mediamogul

@spud11 said in Macintosh (Basilisk II) 8-bit Color:

I started with the Commodore 64 back in the mid-80s

I had a Commodore 64 when I was a kid as well. I guess the reason I don't count it as the first system I ever used is because I only ever taught myself enough about it to start games. I really regret that now because I know I would have had a lot of fun diving in deeper.

hermit

has anyone managed to start the games automatically, without creating N discs? thank you

edmaul69

@mediamogul my first was our ibm pc jr. then my apple iie. Then i somehow became the person repairing all the apple iie’s in my school.

spud11

@hermit Excuse my ignorance, but what do you mean by "N" discs?

hermit

@spud11 said in Macintosh (Basilisk II) 8-bit Color:

@hermit Excuse my ignorance, but what do you mean by "N" discs?

Create as many disks as there are games.
as you explained some posts higher up

spud11

@hermit Thanks for the explanation.

Unfortunately, no (at least from my point of view).

The only way I found was to have a separate disk (hard drive) for each game. I only ended up doing the 2 games - Prince of Persia and Prince of Persia 2. These were the only games I really wanted and I wanted them to start automatically which they each do using shortcuts on the Mac.

hoeveler

@mediamogul I've been seeing this on the forum here about this mysterious basilisk config file that needs to be in basilisk but I haven't seen anything in the docs about this. Seems like the docs could use a lot more information about basilisk. Where can I find out how to create and use this config? I have my os 7.5.3 Macintosh img and rom working fine, all I'd like to do now is make it be 640x480 and full screen. If I do anything lower than 1600x1200 in the run command options or within the emulator using the screen settings, it displays in a smaller window in the upper left corner of the display.