Old Computer Appreciation Thread

Folly

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly

I compiled Box86 following instructions on the github for Box86, and Wine using sudo apt install.

I did some research on box86.

Seems my idea with a "windows wine binary" isn't the right one.

If you like to read, @George is busy with this.
You can read his first post, to find out more:
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/28528/box86-and-wine-on-rpi4

Seems he uses a developper version of a linux x86 wine and extracts the files from a deb directly.

It's best to wait a bit longer.
I am hopefull George will nail it.

Zering

@folly Ah well, considering the amount of DOS games I've just added to my Pi, I think I can wait a little bit to play Arcanum and Unreal ^^

AdamBeGood

I bought a gaming laptop this week as we have a working from home allowance at work, and they don't really check what we spend it on. So I'm playing some pimped N64, PSP and GameCube games without worrying about them not running quickly enough.

I bought CyberPunk 2077 as well. I'll be back on proper retrogaming soon, it is where my heart is.

I just thought I'd explain my absence! Also, work have blocked this site on their servers which makes it less convenient for me to have a look as I work.

Edit: Have you played Sturmwind on Dreamcast? Seems up your street, @Zering and it looks pretty cool for a Dreamcast game.

Zering

@adambegood I've got it, haven't played it. What is it?
Cyberpunk looks utterly unappealing to me, I already hated The Witcher 3. I hope you enjoy it though, it certainly seems to be making a big splash.
I'm a bit jealous about the GameCube though, I love that console. Has one as a kid ; the remake of the original Resident Evil was my favourite game on there, and for the time it looks absolutely incredible.

Folly

@zering

Got apple2gs working with lr-mess.

Thexder works pretty good.

Got the missing bios files from the apple mirror ftp.
Used "progettoemma (source files)" partly for checking sums.
apple2gs uses flop3 for .2mg files
Updated my scripts for flop (all floppy numbers can now be created)
Manually enabled mouse in core options.

Zering

@folly I've had that system working on mess fir a while with Valerino's scripts. Well done though!
Did you happen to try Wolfenstein 3D? I never got it to work.

Folly

@zering

I don't have that game yet.
Most games do not work though, you can only run them from "prodos" or something like that.

I can only run zipped files. It looks like it still uses softlist names.

Zering

@folly I don't doubt that GSPlus would be a better alternative. I've had that installed for a while but I can't figure out what .gsp files are meant to be, or how to use them.

Folly

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly I don't doubt that GSPlus would be a better alternative. I've had that installed for a while but I can't figure out what .gsp files are meant to be, or how to use them.

.gsp is a sort of .cmd file but with much more information.

I now have a wolf3d, I will try now.

Boots in "ProDOS" and said disk got damaged
So perhaps wrong file.

Zering

@folly Probably not. I've had the same issue.

Folly

@zering

I had a little succes.
With a different version without "prodos", it could not boot because prodos is missing.
So I booted with the one with prodos and adding the second in flop4 (in commandline):

/home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/run_mess.sh /opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-mess/mess_libretro.so /opt/retropie/configs/apple2gs/retroarch.cfg apple2gs /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS -flop3 "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/apple2gs/wolf3d.zip" -flop4 "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/apple2gs/wolf3d.2mg" --appendconfig /dev/shm/retroarch.cfg

From ProDOS booting the second disk booted into wolf3d.
It crashed after pressing OK to go into the game. But it is a step futher.
Now we know its also possible to boot multiple disks theoratically.

Zering

@folly Damn, I'm sorry, I only just saw that.
Do you think Wolf 3D might be playable in GSPlus instead?

Folly

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

So if i use the output I can bulk generate.

Isn't that a magnifisent idea ;-)

(EDIT : I see now that the outputs are not what I hoped they would be, will give it a shot anyway.)

Using mame to play, for example x1, is also a possibility in the future.

It is a magnificent idea!
Why are the outputs not what you hoped they would be?

I'm adding your Amiga recommendation to the list.

Yes, If you make a post about what I have to change I can put it in.

It's not so much a change as it is an addition. The MD5 sums for PC88 bios :
d675a2ca186c6efcd6277b835de4c7e5 N88EXT0.ROM
e844534dfe5744b381444dbe61ef1b66 N88EXT1.ROM
6548fa45061274dee1ea8ae1e9e93910 N88EXT2.ROM
fc4b76a402ba501e6ba6de4b3e8b4273 N88EXT3.ROM
cbcade0d0057bb9eee79a6b370b4dd3a N88JISHO.ROM
d81c6d5d7ad1a4bbbd6ae22a01257603 N88KNJ1.ROM
41d2e2c0c0edfccf76fa1c3e38bc1cf2 N88KNJ2.ROM
2ff07b8769367321128e03924af668a0 N88N.ROM
4f984e04a99d56c4cfe36115415d6eb8 N88.ROM
793f86784e5608352a5d7f03f03e0858 N88SUB.ROM
@AdamBeGood Here is the .sh file I did for Fallout.
#!/bin/bash
/opt/retropie/emulators/dosbox/bin/dosbox -conf "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pc/INTRPLAY/FALLOUT/FALLOUT.conf"
When I launch the game using the .sh file, I get booted back to ES.

I tried adding the info to the manual.
But there is a conflict, all sums in the manual are sha1sums.
So It's better to use that. Can you give me those if you have time ?

Zering

@folly I don't understand. The SHA1 sums are already in your documentation aren't they?

Folly

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly I don't understand. The SHA1 sums are already in your documentation aren't they?

If I want to resolve the issues from the pull request and so later on succesfully merge my manual into the official RetroPie-docs, then I have to somewhat follow the rules on what they think is important to the doc.

Adding md5sums is doubling the information, because you can do the same thing with the sha1sums. If I change too much, more questions are being asked so it becomes more difficult to get a succesfull pull request in the future.

Also if I added the md5 to the existing sha1 it could mean that they present 2 different files.

As an example : same file, different sums

pi@raspberrypi:~/RetroPie/BIOS $ md5sum coleco.rom
2c66f5911e5b42b8ebe113403548eee7  coleco.rom
pi@raspberrypi:~/RetroPie/BIOS $ sha1sum coleco.rom
45bedc4cbdeac66c7df59e9e599195c778d86a92  coleco.rom

So in this example the sums mean the same thing.

I hope you understand now.

Folly

@Zering @AdamBeGood

Earlier I discribed booting lr-mess with a sort .cmd file.
In this ".cmd" we can now also implement -autoboot function.

This is very interesting.

A month ago I read this, but could not find it anymore.
Now I have found it again :
https://docs.mamedev.org/commandline/commandline-all.html#mame-commandline-autobootcommand

This is an example of booting a cas file in msx with a ".cmd" file :

hbf700p -rp /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS -autoboot_command load"cas:",r\n -autoboot_delay 8 -cass "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/msx/cas-tests/OILSWELL.CAS"

So, if you load your game with a ".cmd" file you don't have to type the load commands.
This should work for other systems also.

The commandline in emulators.cfg, looks like this :

lr-mess-msx-cmd = "/opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch -L /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-mess/mess_libretro.so --config /opt/retropie/configs/msx/retroarch-for-cmd.cfg %ROM%"

retroarch-for-cmd.cfg for linking the seperate system specific core options :

# Settings made here will only override settings in the global retroarch.cfg if placed above the #include line

input_remapping_directory = "/opt/retropie/configs/msx/"

core_options_path = "/opt/retropie/configs/msx/custom-core-options.cfg"

#include "/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg"

ps. adding this in a valerino commandline in emulators.cfg works also.

Zering

@folly So essentially you're using .cmd files the same way we're using .sh files in DOSBox, albeit with a different operating system?

AdamBeGood

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@adambegood I've got it, haven't played it. What is it?
Cyberpunk looks utterly unappealing to me, I already hated The Witcher 3. I hope you enjoy it though, it certainly seems to be making a big splash.
I'm a bit jealous about the GameCube though, I love that console. Has one as a kid ; the remake of the original Resident Evil was my favourite game on there, and for the time it looks absolutely incredible.

I always thought I should play Witcher but never got around to it. I'll let you know what I think when I've played some of 2077. It looks good though, aesthetically.

I remember Resident Evil looking ridiculous for the time also, I'm just loading it up for the first time now on the laptop.

Folly

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly So essentially you're using .cmd files the same way we're using .sh files in DOSBox, albeit with a different operating system?

I am still experimenting with this.
But indeed this works the same way.
The idea is to add this in my script, so we can generate scripts for .cmd files too.
Then we will be able to generate our own starters for games.

Zering

@folly I have to say I still find .cmd files intimidating, mostly because I don't understand what's supposed to be in them.
More importantly I'm not sure I understand how you intend to add them to your script? Wouldn't you have to do this for each game? Or would you be able to create a script that generates cmd files automatically, much like your code for m3u?

@AdamBeGood Resident Evil is spectacular. To me it still holds up graphically even today, and I think it's one of the five best survival horror games ever made (Code Veronica being my favourite).