pi400 RetroPie - How to get keyboard working? [particularly with Spectrum emu]

drdoak

I was hoping to use the pi400 keyboard with the ZXSpectrum emulator - but have so far not been able to get it to work.

I have installed RetroPie 4.7.1 and can get a gamepad to work (e.g. for menu navigation SNES emu etc) - but have had no joy with the pi400 keyboard

Is there a guide / FAQ ? Does anyone have any ideas?

Any help much appreciated.

mitu

@drdoak What emulator are you using for Spectrum ?

drdoak

@mitu It's the vanilla RetroPie install - I believe the Spectrum emu is Fuse.

mitu

Keyboard should work in Fuse - what game/rom/program are you trying on and it's not working ?

drdoak

@mitu Chaos / Laser Squad tried so far. Front end menu is looking for a numeric key press.

drittz78

I was just popping on to see if anyone else had this issue as well. It looks like the keyboard on the pi400 doesn’t work with fuse.

BuZz

It works. You're using the libretro core I guess which will by default map to a joystick. Some info further down https://docs.libretro.com/library/fuse/

Also see
https://retropie.org.uk/docs/ZX-Spectrum/

But you may well be better off with the standalone emulator for keyboard use. Fuse standalone is installable from optional packages in RetroPie-Setup.

Chris3535

Do you manage to get this working? I am going to get a Pi 400 for my dad for Xmas and he will need the keyboard working for some speccy games. How did you manage to get it to work? just so I can refer back to this should I encounter the same problem.

drdoak

@chris3535

TLDR: I haven't got it to work .

I can get the keyboard to work in the RetroPie menus (i.e. by setting it as the input controller device and mapping some keys to gamepad axes and buttons). It will then carry those mappings into playing a selected rom within an emulator. However, this is obvs not the same as using it as a functional full keyboard within the Spectrum emulator.

I was hoping that it would be possible to have a gamepad as the default RetroPie controller (i.e. for navigating top menus and as default input for games) but to then be able to switch to using the keyboard (as a keyboard!) in the Spectrum emulator. I assumed that was the purpose of the 'hotkey' mapping for the controller but I have had no luck so far.

A shame - because it seems to me that would be a cool thing to do - effectively allowing you to use the pi400 as a Spectrum / C64 etc... and play games using gamepad or keyboard as desired.

Most of the people I have spoken to, or seen comments from (on Twitter) want to be able to just do that - the design and form factor of the pi400 make it a terribly appealing prospect!

The RetroPie / Retroarch environment and the emulators all seem to be highly configurable - I bet it is possible to do what I want. However, my experience so far has been that it is not very intuitive.

Chris3535

@drdoak OK so just so I am understanding this correctly... When I get the pi 400 am I not able to do the following..

Pick and load a spectrum game and once its loaded it might for example as you to type your name in.. So what your saying is you can't use the pi 400 keyboard to do this?
I imaged you would be able to use the keyboard to type your name in and then when you start the game use your joystick to play the game.. But your saying this is not possible?

Does this only affect the spectrum emulator or is it all of them?

drdoak

@chris3535

I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm saying that, so far, I personally haven't been able to get it to work - although I may be missing something blindingly obvious (I'm certainly not a RetroPie expert!).

@mitu & @BuZz may be able to help - their replies suggest that they believe it ought to be possible.

I'm sure lots of others will want to do the same kind of thing - so I imagine that someone will have a solution eventually.

BuZz

@drdoak I've already given a solution above. Installing the standalone fuse emulator.

Chris3535

@buzz sorry am new to this.. How do you install the fuse emulator? And can this still be accessed within retro pi menus

mitu

@chris3535 See this doc page for how to install a new emulator. The fuse emulator is in the optional packages section.

Chris3535

@mitu so if I went to the optional section and installed fuse. Does this mean there would be 2 spectrum emulators when re start retro pie? Would the Roms default to both?

And finally if I decided to just get a normal pi4 and plugged in a USB keyboard would this solve the issue with the default emulator?

mitu

@chris3535 said in pi400 RetroPie - How to get keyboard working? [particularly with Spectrum emu]:

Does this mean there would be 2 spectrum emulators when re start retro pie? Would the Roms default to both?

You can select the emulator from the Runcommand launch menu, when you start a game. You can change the default emulator for all roms or choose the emulator per-rom - your choice.

And finally if I decided to just get a normal pi4 and plugged in a USB keyboard would this solve the issue with the default emulator?

No, why would it ? The built-in keyboard on the Pi 400 behaves the same as a regular keyboard, so it wouldn't make a difference.

Chris3535

@mitu Sorry for the basic questions and thanks for your help

rbbrslmn

@chris3535 I had the same problem as in original thread. Installing fuse gave me a new set of problems as I don't know how to make a global save of options with that. However lr-fuse was usable by setting the option for controller port 3 as Sinclair keyboard and saving that as core remap file

Molokkoplus

Having the same issue, but with Vice and Commodore64. The optional package manager will only let me install the vice version with the gamepad frontend. And when I try to install manually via sudo apt, it says the repository doesn't contain it.
As @drdoak already pointed out, using the Pi 400 just like one of these old machines, is one thing I was really looking forward to.
Any hints still highly appreciated. thx

mitu

@molokkoplus said in pi400 RetroPie - How to get keyboard working? [particularly with Spectrum emu]:

Having the same issue, but with Vice and Commodore64. The optional package manager will only let me install the vice version with the gamepad frontend. And when I try to install manually via sudo apt, it says the repository doesn't contain it.

Not sure what the problem is, the 'package manager' can be operated by keyboard just as well as a gamepad. After installing Vice from RetroPie's package list, you can then select it as the default emulator during a ROM/game start-up from the Runcommand launch menu.