Acorn BBC Micro Emulator (current?)

Lord Vek

@Folly It would be nice if the B-em was to be even better!

MrNoHolster

@Folly Thanks for your hard work on this! So much love for this emulator that it'd be a superb addition to Retropie gaming.

Lord Vek

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

For example you can test it by editing line 12 in b-em-allegro4-multiload.sh for the disc load commandline into this :

/opt/retropie/emulators/b-em-allegro4/b-em $1 -disc "$2" | xdotool sleep 1.5 keydown Alt+Return sleep 1 keyup Alt+Return sleep 1.5 keydown Shift_L+F12 sleep 1 keyup Shift_L+F12
(tested and it looks like it's working ok)

Hello,

I discovered that, when I make this change, it is changing back, probably after an update. What I should do to make this change permanent?

Folly

@Lord-Vek

Hmmm...
If you update my scripts than yes it's overwritten.

Perhaps I can add it to my module-script, though I have to add a message on how to quit before the emulator is loading.
Will have to think about it.

mitu

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

If you update my scripts than yes it's overwritten.

Own/user 'emulator' lines in emulators.cfg won't be overwritten by updates.

Folly

@Lord-Vek

As @mitu said the own/user 'emulator' lines in emulators.cfg won't be overwritten by updates unless you install it again.
Did you do that too ?

Lord Vek

@mitu No, I didn't. So, should I edit \retropie\root\opt\retropie\configs\bbcmicro\emulators.cfg? And what lines should I change into what?

mitu

@Lord-Vek You should duplicate the line that was overwritten by the update/upgrade and save it with a custom name. I.e. if the emulator start looks like:

..
emulator1=/opt/retropie/emulators/b-em-allegro4/b-em $1 -disc "$2" | xdotool sleep 1.5 keydown Alt+Return sleep 1 keyup Alt+Return sleep 1.5 keydown Shift_L+F12 sleep 1 keyup Shift_L+F12
..

just add a similar line, but name the emulator entry differently:

...
emulator1-custom=/opt/retropie/emulators/b-em-allegro4/b-em $1 -disc "$2" | xdotool sleep 1.5 keydown Alt+Return sleep 1 keyup Alt+Return sleep 1.5 keydown Shift_L+F12 sleep 1 keyup Shift_L+F12
...

You can then use the runcommand launch menu to choose this custom emulator to run games.
Since this is a custom emulator (using @Folly's scripts) I don't know what the defaults are and what is the emulators.cfg looks like.

Folly

@mitu

Thanks for the help.

Though the structure of the loading the emulator is a bit different.
The runcommand loads a script that will detect if the media is tape or disk and with what system to load and loads b-em with the appropriate options..
So the part @Lord-Vek is asking about is the part of simulating Alt+Return implementation in that script.
So if he changed the loading script and then reinstalled it with my module-script the loading script will be overwritten and the key simulation presses of getting full-screen are gone again.
That is because the solution hasn't been implemented in my module-script.

So the solution for him is to change the loading script again like suggested in post 42.
Note : editing has to be done as root (super user) otherwise changes in the file /opt/retropie/emulators/b-em-allegro4/b-em-allegro4-multiload.sh will not be saved.

Or I have to change my module-script and add that solution so in the future the key simulation presses of getting full-screen is added from the install and not by manual editing.
I will have a look at this solution when I can, seems the best one.

Folly

@Lord-Vek

I have updated the script :
https://github.com/FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share/commit/893fc7dc4259ded92f827f604c9cd366843eda71

Replace your old module-script with the new one and re-install it.

Optional :
Or if you don't want to compile the b-em emulator, if it is already there, then do the following commands to only configure and save the loader script :

cd RetroPie-Setup
sudo ./retropie_packages.sh b-em-allegro4 configure

Lord Vek

@Folly I replaced the b-em-allegro4.sh with the new one, then from Retropie's setup I uninstalled the b-em allegro emulator, then installed it again from source. But now the emulator is hanging up, it doesn't even return back to game selection.

Folly

@Lord-Vek

I have that same issue.
I seems you have to press Alt+Return fist before you exit.
This prevents a crash.
I think that issue was there all along you probably forgot.
I updated my script again to fix some more.
I added a message about quitting before the emulator starts so we don't forget.
https://github.com/FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share/commit/0600e67d96004925bd1b35c9e16417aa06620f57

Sadly not all perfect solutions.

Edit :
Found that the dialog msgbox creates the issue of hanging totally when not using linux desktop.
Will test some other stuff or just remove it.

Folly

@Lord-Vek

Sadly I didn't expect my changes to have an impact on the crashing before even loading the emulator.
But it seems I had so, I have removed the dialog message.

I think everything is good now :
https://github.com/FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share/commit/6b36f162832696ad5d7db0925c4dc707ca5f7c2c
(remove and install it again)
Let me know if it works for you ;-)

As a reminder here, I added this to the help :
QUIT information:

Press ALT + RETURN to quit full-screen.
(use above to prevent a crash when quitting)

Press F11 to go into the menu.
Then use the mouse or press ALT + F and press E to exit.
Or use ctrl+c instead !

Supported ROMS/MEDIA : .uef .ssd
ROMS/MEDIA have to be in $romdir/bbcmicro

Folly

@Lord-Vek

Some latest news :
I took a look again at the b-em source code.
To my surprise I was able to implement :

booting in full-screen
adding a hotkey to exit (with leaving full-screen first so the resolution is still good after quitting)

I choose the hotkey to be Alt + Esc so we still can use the Esc key.
I also found that there is an autoboot option for loading discs.
This means I can remove simulating the autoboot key presses.
Will have to see how I can implement it.
I also have to do some tests first.

Lord Vek

@Folly Yes, it is working OK now. Thanks a lot to you and mitu and be well!

Folly

@Lord-Vek

I have implemented all source code patches and I am very happy with it.
It's quite an improvement.

Can you test this update for me ?

https://github.com/FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share/commit/757790da4a5c05b8dc61631c69a90c4cc4fce8fc

Lord Vek

@Folly Sorry I didn't see your post in time.
Yes, the new version is working well. The start in fulscreen part, and the Alt+Esc shortcut are also OK. Thanks again!

Folly

@Lord-Vek

Thanks.

duglor

@Lord-Vek Is there a very detailed step by step reading i can do from 1. obtaining the new emulator 2. installing the new emulator 3. using the new emulator?

Folly

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

@Lord-Vek Is there a very detailed step by step reading i can do from 1. obtaining the new emulator 2. installing the new emulator 3. using the new emulator?

Just download my repository and copy and paste the the ones you want in the appropriate directories.
You can see how it's done over here with this module-script :
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/29682/development-of-module-script-generator-for-lr-mess-lr-mame-and-mame-standalone

Here are the b-em ones :
https://github.com/FollyMaddy/RetroPie-Share/tree/main/00-scriptmodules-00/emulators

So paste them in this folder :
/home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/emulators
or place them in :
/home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/ext/RetroPie-Share/scriptmodules/emulators

Run RetroPie-Setup and the should pop up in experimental packages.
Then install and check the help for information.

Remember, can be that not all module-script, in that directory, will still work,
I am confident that both b-em module-scripts should work for you.