Acorn BBC Micro Emulator (current?)

Retro Arcade Fan

Been looking through old posts on adding the Acorn BBC Micro to the RP4. All of these older posts have either unsuccessful attempts, or very complex attempts that don't work completely. Wanted to ask the community if there is any new scripts to add this emulator? Or is this one still in a bit of limbo?

Thank you!

Folly

@Retro-Arcade-Fan

Did you have look using my b-em 3rd party scripts ?
https://github.com/FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share/tree/main/00-scriptmodules-00/emulators

Retro Arcade Fan

@Folly Thank you for sharing that info, but I'm not sure what to do with that information. Does adding those files somewhere add the additional emulators to the Pi? And if so, can you please instruct me on how to add them? I would appreciate it!

Thank you.

Folly

@Retro-Arcade-Fan

First of all, try to use a new separate clean image.
If something goes wrong it doesn't hurt that much and you can just start over again and you don't screwup your existing image !

I would advice you to use my add-ext-repos.sh script so multiple 3rd party module-scripts can be downloaded into the RetroPie-Setup/ext/<repository> directory.

If you use a regular RetroPie image you can enter commands by ssh or you can exit emulationstation into the terminal and do some commands over there.

~~So add add-ext-repos.sh it with these commands~~ don't use this anymore :

cd
mkdir -p RetroPie-Setup/ext/RetroPie-Share/scriptmodules/supplementary
cd RetroPie-Setup/ext/RetroPie-Share/scriptmodules/supplementary
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share/main/00-scriptmodules-00/supplementary/add-ext-repos.sh
cd

Then start Retropie-Setup and goto config/tools and find add-ext-repos.
Select the repo you want and it will download the files to the RetroPie-Setup/ext/<repository>/ directory.
For adding my scripts choose FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share .
When you go back, you will go to manage packages and select experimental packages.
Here you will find the b-em packages that you can install.
For more b-em information check the package help !

I recently tested both so it should work.

Let me know how it goes.

Retro Arcade Fan

@Folly That seemed to work pretty well! I'm not sure what the difference is between electron and bbcmicro. But the roms work in the electron folder and Acorn Electron shows up in the theme.

Thanks again for your help. I appreciate it.

Folly

@Retro-Arcade-Fan

The Acorn Electron was a lower-cost alternative to the BBC Micro educational/home computer, also developed by Acorn Computers Ltd.

You probably used also my elkulator script which will use the electron rom directory.
Thats the one for elektron and indeed that works pretty good too.

Remember that not all the software is fully compatible between systems.

There is al lot of information on how my scripts evolved over here : https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/29402/bbc-micro-acorn-electron-emu

Since you already got my scripts you can now also use this project :
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/29682/development-of-module-script-generator-for-lr-mess-lr-mame-and-mame-standalone
( you can skip the part of copying add-mamedev-systems.sh to your RetroPie-Setup because you already have it now )

MAME and lr-mess can also emulate bbc micro computers.
Though I have a better experience with the other emulators.
But if you want some exotic things then I would recommend to try this project too. ;-)

smartgenes

@Folly I followed your instructions but when I go within emulationstation to Retropie Setup- Configuration/Tools, I don't see add-ext repos in the menu?

smartgenes

@smartgenes Ah, I see the issue, the file should be in

/home/pi/retropie-setup/ext/RetroPie-Share/scriptmodules/supplementary

(with no capitals in retropie-setup) in my case.

I then moved the script modules Retropie downloaded into the relevant folders in etc in my retropie-setup (no capitals) folder.

However, I got an error message 'Could not successfully build even (/home/pi/retropie-setup/tmp/build/beebem/src/beebem not found ).'

Folly

@smartgenes

You have probably used and installed a wrong beebem module-script.

The ones I made for the experimental section are :

b-em-allegro4 (which creates a build dir with the same name and creates a b-em, no beebem)
b-em-pico-pi (which creates a build dir with the same name and creates xbeeb and xmaster, no beebem)

I think you might have installed one that doesn't work anymore from @valerino 's RetroPie-Setup fork.
https://github.com/valerino/RetroPie-Setup/blob/master/scriptmodules/emulators/beebem.sh
Besides, I think Valerino stopped with his fork.

So try to install b-em-allegro4 from FollyMaddy RetroPie-Share.

smartgenes

@Folly Thanks, are both good for Raspberry Pi 4?

Folly

@smartgenes

As far as I can tell they both should work, but It has been a while.

I just installed b-em-allegro4 with succes on my Debian 11 / Pi4 setup.
I tested both, running a game, in my Desktop environment.

My guess is that they both should work on your installation.

Folly

@smartgenes

Just tried @valerino 's beebem script and I got it working now.
Have to do some more investigation though.

smartgenes

@Folly Getting a lot of errors from the Valerino fork, e..g. script module was skipped as wifi is already used by retropie-setup/scriptmodules/supplementary/wifi.sh and so on, what's the best way to purge it/remove the error messages?

Folly

@smartgenes

You probably have a duplicate error.
Just remove that one of Valerino and you should be fine.

Any progress on running these b-em's ?

smartgenes

@Folly Rather than remove I saw there was an option in Retropie Setup under Valerino's BeebEm to 'clean'and that worked.

I fired up Countdown to Doom and Axe of Kolt and both appear to be working great :-)

One question though, after I updated RetroPie, many emulators, e.g. ZX Spectrum and this BBC Micro emu aren't opening in a full-screen which fills the page but in a window, any idea why?

I also have an error which I haven't been able to get rid of for a while 'xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default'.

Folly

@smartgenes said in Acorn BBC Micro Emulator (current?):

BBC Micro emu aren't opening in a full-screen which fills the page but in a window, any idea why?

If you are talking about b-em-allegro4 then that is correct.
You have to go to the menu and select fullscreen each time.
There is no way around that, only if the emulator is patched somehow to open in fullscreen at start.
But that is something we only managed with elkulator, sadly not b-em.
The xbeeb and xmaster work in a matchbox and should start fullscreen if you do not run it in the Desktop environment.

Folly

@smartgenes said in Acorn BBC Micro Emulator (current?):

xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default

Try to do the same command like this :

sam@trinity: xrandr
xrandr: failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 1024x768+0+0 0mm x 0mm
  1024x768     76.00*

If you have somewhat the same output, with only one resolution, then your video driver doesn't work properly or your monitor/TV can't do many resolutions.
Are you using a regular PC, not an RPI ?

xrandr is used in X11/Desktop environment or when using XINIT.
So when a program tries to get supported resolution through xrandr it will fail with : xrandr: failed to get size of gamma for output default

A good output should be something like this :

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1600 x 900, maximum 7680 x 7680
HDMI-1 connected primary 1600x900+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 440mm x 250mm
   1600x900      60.00*+
   1920x1080     60.00    59.94  
   1440x900      59.90  
   1280x800      59.91  
   1152x864      75.00  
   1280x720      60.00    59.94  
   1024x768      75.03    60.00  
   832x624       74.55  
   800x600       75.00    60.32    56.25  
   720x480       60.00    59.94  
   640x480       75.00    60.00    59.94  
   720x400       70.08

smartgenes

@Folly When I type xrandr I get
Failed to get size of gamma for output default Screen 0: minimum 592x448 maximum 592x448 etc,
just one measurement.

I have LXDE - Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment, this was a pre-made image which was useful to me as it has the desktop environment on top of Retropie, which is great for building gamelists. I'm not sure how exactly it was built. (It's Pi not PC)

I've had the xrandr error message a while, what can I do to get rid of it?

The ZX Spectrum emulators changed from full screen to an inset box with a large black border after update and also some other emus seemed to open differently to before. So I thought it might be a similar issue with the BBC emulator (b-em-allegro4) but I guess in this case it's just a limitation.

Any idea what could cause the change in the Spectrum emus? I've been hunting about but don't know where this type of setting would be amended.

smartgenes

@smartgenes Actually the Valerino scriptmodules messages still appeared when I was in a music app. I went to home/pi/retropie-setup/ext and deleted the Valerino folder, hopefully that takes care of that.

Folly

@smartgenes

The questions you are asking are a bit off topic.
For you I think it better to re-start creating your own image.
I suggest you start with a fresh Buster with Desktop and install RetroPie-Setup on top of it.
Would be good to open a whole new thread regarding using RetroPie on a distribution with Desktop environment.

Btw.
I will go on vacation tomorrow so I will probably not reply for 2 or 3 weeks.