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

Folly

We can add a new "handheld".
I am trying out the Atari Portfolio.
(system = pofo)

This brings back some memories as I still have 2 originals in my storage boxes.

Never knew that mame could emulate this.
So I found the correct bios files and it worked although there is no sound yet.
It seems, in a mame forum, that this computer has been improved upon in mame0233.

Now the trouble was how to add games, this was a difficult one !
Normally you had to connect a dos or an atari-st computer to the portfolio and connect them with a parallel port.
Well, trouble, haha, how on earth can we get games to this computer.
Looked for virtual parallel port things and looked into mame on how to use ports with the outside world.
No real solution here.

Edit: With the information gathered in this post I made a script for it :
https://github.com/FollyMaddy/create_atari-portfolio_roms

I found that you can add a ram card as a slot-device.
Now I could format this ram device and save a file to it.
But where is it saved ?
With mame it is saved here :
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame/nvram/pofo/ccma_ram/ccma_ram
How to load it as a -memc ?
Well, I was thinking, perhaps the ram card file structure is the same as the rom file structure then I can make a .rom file of it.
That worked, and it's off-course read_only as it is loaded as a rom now.

Now I still had to find a way to add games to the .rom file.
After a long search and peeking into the ram/rom file with hexedit if found that it could be some sort of a disk or hd image.
Later I found that it seemed to be a FAT12 image, using this linux tool it will display that it's a FAT12 structure (this is how you install):

sudo apt install disktype

I just didn't believe it at first, but you can just mount the image in linux.

mount the image in /mnt/ if you renamed your rom/ram file to fat12.img link_how_to_mount

sudo mount -o loop fat12.img /mnt/

Open the filemanager as "root" to add files to /mnt/
(we can only do this, if we are in a desktop enviroment)

sudo pcmanfm

(If not using a desktop enviroment we can use the command cp or extract zip files to the mount )

Add an autoexec.bat to /mnt/, so the rom will boot automatically from the drive "A:" , containing :

@echo off
<filename_to_run>

Unmount the image link_how_to_unmount

sudo umount /mnt/

Then rename fat12.img to folidash.rom for use with mame

This is the result with Folidash :

Folly

@dteam

Are you able to make artwork for the Atari Portfolio ?
For example only the screen.

DTEAM

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

Are you able to make artwork for the Atari Portfolio ?
For example only the screen.

To do that, I must be able to run it first. I'll try it this week. I'll add a system to my theme first.

I saw you have used pofo, I also see this "portfolio_rom_card" . What is the connection between these two?

Folly

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

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

Are you able to make artwork for the Atari Portfolio ?
For example only the screen.

To do that, I must be able to run it first. I'll try it this week. I'll add a system to my theme first.

You will find it in "mame-0.231-merged".
Just make a dummy.rom file and it wil run into DOS.

I saw you have used pofo, I also see this "portfolio_rom_card" . What is the connection between these two?

The media that can be loaded is a portfolio_rom_card.
Never had one, but they look like this ( although this is a ram card ) :

Btw.
lr-mess works but the rom images do not as lr-mess is still an older version of mame, I think that's the reason that it fails to load.

Folly

@dteam
This is the game Phoenix :

DTEAM

@folly

Folly

@dteam

Totally awesome !
I will update immediately ;-)

DTEAM

@folly
Hi Folly. I need help to set games. Could you give me an example step by step with a game like tetris. My zip file is tetris.zip. Inside I have TETRIS.EXE and TETRIS.SCO .
Do I have to cut and paste your lines above in "putty" and everything will work.

Folly

@dteam

Hi,

I made a script for it.
I have to improve some things as it is not perfect yet,
but it should works for most games.

I am going to make a repository for it, asap.
I will let you know when it's online.

Paste your .zip game files into the same directory as the script.
Use the terminal.
Go to that script directory.
Be sure the script is executable with chmod u+x 123-pofo-roms.sh
Run it with sudo ./123-pofo-roms.sh
Now it will create .rom files from all .zip files.
Copy these .rom to the roms/pofo directory.

Edit :
This is the repository :
https://github.com/FollyMaddy/create_atari-portfolio_roms

Fixed the issue of adding a .com or .exe to the autoexec.bat:

If 1 executable is found, then this file will be added to the autoexec.bat .
if more executable's are found, then you will be asked to type an executable which is added to the autoexec.bat .

DTEAM

@folly
Your script works !!!! great job. Now I have a loading issue :

hd61830.bin NOT FOUND (tried in hd61830 pofo)
Fatal error: Required files are missing, the machine cannot be run.
sdl_kill: closing audio
Enter sdlwindow_exit
Leave sdlwindow_exit

My Bios is pofo.7z from MAME 0.233

NEW EDIT: It loads and it works . I added this Bios hd61830.7z

Folly

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

@folly
Your script works !!!! great job.

Perfect ;-)

NEW EDIT: It loads and it works . I added this Bios hd61830.7z

My setup works also, as you have noticed.
But I saw in the mame log (/dev/shm/runcommand.log) that the "hd61830.bin ROM NEEDS REDUMP".
Can you tell me, do you have the same in your log or do you now have a good dump of hd61830.bin ?

DTEAM

@folly
It looks fine on my side

Starting Software List ':cart_list'
Starting RAM ':ram'
Starting NVRAM ':nvram'
Starting Portfolio ':'
  (missing dependencies; rescheduling)
Starting Video Screen ':screen'
Starting Hitachi HD61830B LCD Controller ':hd61830'
Starting Speaker ':mono'
Starting Portfolio ':'
un7z: opened archive file /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame/cheat/cheat.7z
un7z: closing archive file /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame/cheat/cheat.7z and sending to cache
Loading cheats file from /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame/cheat/cheat/pofo.xml
Attempting to parse: default.cfg
Attempting to parse: pofo.cfg
Starting Portfolio
hiscore: config found

I got it from MAME 0.233

Folly

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

@folly
It looks fine on my side

I think you may have overlooked it in the log.

What is the sha1sum of your hd61830.bin ?

This is my output of mame0233 saying also that hd61830.bin is still a bad dump with sha1sum included (mine is the same):

pi@raspberrypi:~/RetroPie/BIOS/mame $ p7zip -k -d hd61830.7z
.
Extracting archive: hd61830.7z
.
pi@raspberrypi:~/RetroPie/BIOS/mame $ /opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -listroms pofo
ROMs required for driver "pofo".
Name                                   Size Checksum
c101782-007.u4                       131072 CRC(c9852766) SHA1(c74430281bc717bd36fd9b5baec1cc0f4489fe82)
c101781-007.u3                       131072 CRC(b8fb730d) SHA1(1b9d82b824cab830256d34912a643a7d048cd401)
c101783-001a-01.u3                    32768 CRC(61fdaff1) SHA1(5eb99e7a19af7b8d77ea8a2f1f554e6e3d382fa2)
hd61830.bin                            1472 BAD CRC(06a934da) SHA1(bf3f074db5dc92e6f530cb18d6c013563099a87d) BAD_DUMP
pi@raspberrypi:~/RetroPie/BIOS/mame $ sha1sum hd61830.bin
bf3f074db5dc92e6f530cb18d6c013563099a87d  hd61830.bin

It seems no way around that, for now.

Btw :
I added "Atari Portfolio" to our database selection for the front-end script.
And I added it in the animated gif for the theme cygnus-blue-flames.

DTEAM

@folly
I don't see a baddump message in my .log, but I have the same file. So I suppose I also have a Baddump. Try to open the chess game to compare your log with me.

My hd61830.bin SHA1 : bf3f074db5dc92e6f530cb18d6c013563099a87d

Folly

@dteam

It is what it is, we should not spend too much time on it.

I checked with guichess.rom, I think the same version.

Part of my log looks like this (third line) :

un7z: opened archive file /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/mame/hd61830.7z
un7z: closing archive file /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/mame/hd61830.7z and sending to cache
hd61830.bin ROM NEEDS REDUMP
WARNING: the machine might not run correctly.
Optional memory region ':screen' not found
Optional memory region ':nvram' not found
Starting Portfolio ':'
  (missing dependencies; rescheduling)
Starting Intel 8088 ':u1'
Starting Video Screen ':screen'
  (missing dependencies; rescheduling)
Starting palette ':palette'
Starting gfxdecode ':gfxdecode'
Starting Hitachi HD61830B LCD Controller ':hd61830'
  (missing dependencies; rescheduling)
Starting Atari Portfolio keyboard ':keyboard'
Starting Speaker ':mono'
  (missing dependencies; rescheduling)
Starting PCD3311 ':pcd3311t'
Starting Atari Portfolio memory card port ':ccma'
Starting Atari Portfolio ROM card ':ccma:rom'
Starting Atari Portfolio expansion port ':exp'
Starting Timer ':counter'
Starting Timer ':tick'
Starting Software List ':cart_list'
Starting RAM ':ram'
Starting NVRAM ':nvram'
Starting Portfolio ':'
  (missing dependencies; rescheduling)
Starting Video Screen ':screen'
Starting Hitachi HD61830B LCD Controller ':hd61830'
etc.......

Folly

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

I saw you have used pofo, I also see this "portfolio_rom_card" . What is the connection between these two?

I was again busy in understanding how the slot devices are structured.
It's a real pain in the ass.
Like, for instance nes datach, it can't be listed with the normal -listslots option.
I can only detect it with the -listfull option.

So I did the same with pofo here I found the option you mentioned and more :

portfolio_ccm_slot "Atari Portfolio memory card port"
portfolio_expansion_slot "Atari Portfolio expansion port"
pofo_hpc101       "Atari Portfolio HPC-101"
pofo_hpc102       "Atari Portfolio HPC-102"
pofo_hpc104       "Atari Portfolio HPC-104"
pofo_hpc104_2     "Atari Portfolio HPC-104 (Unit 2)"
portfolio_ram_card "Atari Portfolio RAM card"
portfolio_rom_card "Atari Portfolio ROM card"

Just like with nes it's not real obvious how to load these.

Replied just for the record, as I hope to get an idea on how we can implement these slots into the script.

Folly

@dteam

Trying to find the structure here on how we can use the extended options the correct way so it can be added in the script.
And above all how do we find these options.

In doing so, I searched with :
/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -listsoftware nes | grep slot

Just like datach(a nes_slot but not listed with mame -listslots nes) I found here also disksys(a nes_slot but not listed with mame -listslots nes) and ofcourse this is also available for famicom (a nes_slot but not listed with mame -listslots famicom) .

In the MAME_0.202_Software_List_ROMs_merged there is also famicom_flop(software_list) just something like nes_datach(software_list) .

So I tried running this manual and it worked with :

/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame famicom disksys -flop "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/famicom/famicom_flop/aliens - alien 2 (japan) (proto) [b].fds"

It looks like this :

Folly

@dteam

Just like using running famicom disks I saw also an option of loading famicom cassettes.
I was not sure how to do this, but after a long search I discovered that you need to run Family Basic together with fc_keyboard.
It seems that the cassette recorder interface is part of the famicom keyboard.

I could not find the correct basic bios as stated with this command :
/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -listsoftware famicom

If you have the famibs30 bios rom the the load line will be :

/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame famicom famibs30 -exp fc_keyboard -cass /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/famicom/famicom_cass/hero.wav

Instead I found some .nes basic roms and used one of these .

This is the manual command on how to load the basic and load the cass file :

/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame famicom -cart "Family BASIC (V3.0) (J).nes" -exp fc_keyboard -cass /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/famicom/famicom_cass/hero.wav

Quite interesting that this works.
Just type load, go into the menu, press play on tape,after the load type run.

You can read more about it here :
https://www.nesworld.com/fc-familybasic.php

Edit :
#seems the famibs30.zip cannot be found in a mame archive
#famibs30 can be created from an extracted "Family BASIC (V3.0) (J).nes"
#use https://github.com/X-death25/Nes-Extract to extract to a .prg and a .chr
#check the names and sha1sums with output of "/opt/retropie/emulators/mame/mame -listsoftware famicom"
#rename and repack the .prg .chr to a zip or 7z

DTEAM

@folly
For Atari Portfolio, i’ll do an artwork with 3 views (complet system, no artwork and zoom) after my vacation.

Folly

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

@folly
For Atari Portfolio, i’ll do an artwork with 3 views (complet system, no artwork and zoom) after my vacation.

Nice, looking forward to it.

Have a nice vacation !