Would you like to play Nokia (J2ME) games on Retropie?

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@hex I didn't do anything with the j2me project at all until a few days ago. All I did then was knock-out the libretro core and respective java build.

Needless to say, I haven't played with sound, or tried the latest Anbu. Things are hectic here, so it might be a few days before I can try out my controller.

I did look in to stderr for you. I haven't tested this, but it should forward stderr from C to J and write out stderr on J's process. Also, as promised, it should pass along all the parameters, with the exception of the first, passed to J.

http://drichardson-shared.s3.amazonaws.com/freej2me-rpi.jar

Backgrounds are neat. The AWT and JavaFx builds both use a background similar to your first example, the Libretro build just has whatever RetroArch can add. I don't seem to have any control over the background color from the core.

@Stuart2773 @allanbuzzy said in Would you like to play Nokia (J2ME) games on Retropie?:

Will you put this in the Experimental section of the RetroPie Setup?

I don't have any control over that. I'm not even sure who you'd ask.

The setup process might look overwhelming, but it's not really that complicated. I can help if you have any questions about installation.

Hex

@recompile I just updated my comment when I found out about stderr being java issue and not J's

The backgrounds are only drawn once so it will make no rendering speed difference.

Thanks for the updated binary.

Let me know if you would like any help in J's development. If you are busy, take your time. The project has reached a good level. Your contributions were a cornerstone in its development.

Moving forward, when you can, please switch to Anbu source and the binary should be called anbu rather than sdl_interface from J. I would like to keep the binary's name different from sdl_*

Hex

@recompile I think the latest Jar file has broken event handling. It does not recognize any keyboard keys other than F4 to exit. For now I am reverting to using the previous version.

I am ok with the stderr hidden. The amount of errors spewed is just too much for some of the games. I shall find a different way to get logs considering it is not J's fault this is happening.

I really liked the parameter passing and it works as expected.

Hex

@recompile Can you test why this doesnt work on J while it works on microemu

https://github.com/turbanoff/j2me-2048/

recompile

@hex It uses Command and CommandListener, which I haven't completely implemented.

Why? Because this would be the second game I've seen that uses it. The first also uses mascotcapsule's micro3d (which I can't implement, due to lack of documentation), so it didn't seem worth the effort to do anything but stub it out for the time being.

Hex

Thats fine. I just wanted to bring it to your notice.

Can you provide me a binary with parameter passing without the stderr passing fix ? I tried the last JAR and I think that broke the keyboard input. No keys are recognised other than F4

recompile

@hex It's not looking likely. I have per-game configs working and sound almost done, so I was trying to decide on licensing. I'm just about settled on GPL3, which wouldn't be compatible with Anbu's terms.

Hex

Are you adding Non-Commercial ?

The licence was added till it was in development. Once done I will switch to GPL3

EDIT : Since I have finished Rotation, Scaling, 60fps limiter, background color and image, I think Anbu is complete. So might as well do it now.

I have updated Make file, Anbu source and License in the dropbox folder so you can try it out. I have added a make file too in which you can add the java compilation instructions and any modifications needed.

With this I would like to shift to binary being called 'anbu' from J, as updated in Make file.

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@hex said in Would you like to play Nokia (J2ME) games on Retropie?:

Are you adding Non-Commercial ?

Of course. This is, after all, supposed to be for fun. The whole point is to let people have fun, playing games.

When I saw your license, I wanted to vomit. I almost abandoned the entire project in disgust. That sort of thing isn't about working on a fun project, made to let other people have fun.

That was actually my primary motivation for selecting a GLP license. I had initially intended to just release it in the public domain, or something more permissive like MIT. It's a defense against people turning my efforts in to something decidedly not purely about enabling others to have fun.

The fact that I had to think about this at all is upsetting to me.

Hex

Dude sorry, I didnt mean to offend you. I didnt even know what licence to use. I have moved it to GPL3. How do you add a non-commercial to this?

Hex

@recompile Any updates?

Allanbuzzy

Is development still going on? It seems a bit quiet now.

Hex

Since @recompile is taking a break I can't say much. On the ui interface side it is mostly complete. The backend is a continuous process

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@allanbuzzy said in Would you like to play Nokia (J2ME) games on Retropie?:

Is development still going on? It seems a bit quiet now.

Yes, but rather slowly. I've been a bit busy, and haven't had much time to work on it lately. Things should slow down in a couple of months, so don't expect too much in the near-term.

Still, I guess an update wouldn't hurt. There's a lot of new stuff on the front-end and some neat additions to the back-end that open up games like X-Men Origins: Wolverine across all builds and like Doom II RPG to the Libretro build.

The latest Libretro build:
http://drichardson-shared.s3.amazonaws.com/freej2me_libretro_2017-09-19.zip

Among the more important additions are per-game configs, accessible by pressing ESC or L+R+Start on the controller. This lets you change resolutions, toggle Sound and Nokia keys, rotate the display, or quickly quit.

Mouse support is also enabled for games that require you to touch the display. For joypad users, the left analog stick will let you move the pointer. Clicking is activated by the "Y" button when the pointer is visible. ("Y" behaves normally when the pointer is not visible, or when made visible by using a mouse.) The pointer automatically hides after a "click" and will vanish on its own in about a second when it's not being moved.

Controls are mostly the same. Changes include the addition of the menu key (ESC) and it's joypad equivalent (L+R+Start), mouse support, the pretend joypad mouse described earlier, and the d-pad defaulting to Nokia nav keys. (That last change seems crazy, but Nokia keys seem to be near-universally supported. Don't worry, this can be quickly switched to the previous 2,4,6,8 per-game from the menu).

Installation is a bit different than before, but I don't think they'll need to change again going forward. Installation instructions should also be correct this time. I had a mistake in the previous build, so if you had trouble getting it working before, that's probably why. Instructions are included in the zip, but I'll post them here for convenience:

Step 1:
Install Oracle's JDK:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-jdk

sudo update-alternatives --config javac
sudo update-alternatives --config java

Step 2:
Create the necessary directories:

sudo mkdir /home/pi/Retropie/roms/j2me
sudo mkdir /opt/retropie/configs/j2me
sudo mkdir /opt/retropie/BIOS/freej2me
sudo mkdir /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-freej2me

Step 3:
Copy the file:
freej2me_libretro.so
to:
/opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-freej2me

Be sure to set permissions to 755:

sudo chmod 755 /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-freej2me/*

Step 4:
Copy the file:
freej2me-lr.jar
to:
/home/pi/Retropie/BIOS/freej2me

Step 5:
Add the files:

emulators.cfg
retroarch.cfg
to:
/opt/retropie/configs/j2me

Step 6:
Add the following to:
/etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg

  <system>
    <name>J2ME</name>
    <fullname>Java 2 MicroEdition</fullname>
    <path>/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/j2me</path>
    <extension>.jar</extension>
    <command>/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 _SYS_ j2me %ROM%</command>
    <platform>j2me</platform>
    <theme>j2me</theme>
  </system>

There's still a lot to be done on the UI side of things, but it's serviceable for now. The additions here will, at least, let you play many more games on your pi3 than the previous version.

guicrith

Is the source code available anywhere?
I might be able to help with this.

Hex

@recompile Are we completely switching to libretro?

recompile

@guicrith I'll have something soon. Following GNU's recommendations, I've got to add a tiny notice to every source file. It's rather tedious.

dankcushions

your work has been noticed :) there is now a $50 bounty on a J2ME libretro core: https://github.com/libretro/libretro-meta/issues/100

i know $50 in no way reflects the work you've done - it's just a gesture. are the conditions something you'd be interested in satisfying, eventually?

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@dankcushions said in Would you like to play Nokia (J2ME) games on Retropie?:

are the conditions something you'd be interested in satisfying, eventually?

The AWT build runs on Windows and Linux just fine. It should run on MacOS now, but I haven't had the opportunity to try it out.

It could probably be ported to Android and iOS fairly quickly with Oracle's ADF Mobile (though I believe recordstores and configs would also need changed -- though that's just two additional files.) Though for iOS, I'd need to buy a Mac and some other Apple thing to test it out. That's a big investment for just one hobby project. I can pick up an Android phone for around $100. That's not much of burden, but seems so silly to invest twice the prize to claim it.

If it needs to use libretro on those platforms as well, I don't know that I'd bother. The only reason I'm using it now is to make it work neatly on my pi3. The Java requirement makes it a poor fit for Libretro. While making it, I felt like I was doing something that shouldn't be allowed.

Someone else (who, I'd assume, has already invested in the necessary Apple things) can claim that prize once I've put out the source. I'll try to find a few hours this weekend to get it out and available.

It's really nice to see some interest in J2ME preservation beyond this thread. A good community should be able to take this and make something much better out of it.

It would be nice to see other projects pop-up as well. As you'll see, it's not exactly difficult. For the most part, it's just a lot of tedious work. With people more comfortable with Java than I, and familiar with the subtleties of J2ME development, I expect we'll see some fantastic projects appear that leave this one in the dust.

guicrith

Do you need oracle java or could you use Midpath?
I have a mac and can test iOS and Android for you.