Fairchild Channel F

edmaul69

@caver01 i have tried to get apple 2 working but failed miserably. If you get it working on advmess let me know. Btw, just because systems are on the list as working doesnt mean they work good. Some system are really slow on the pi. Also some dont work in advmess

OneSwitch

@mediamogul I worked it out eventually, but thanks again. :)

This might help others trying to work out what control is what (only part done, but a good starting point):

Fairchild Channel F has 5 buttons on the actual console. From left to right these are RESET and buttons 1-4.

CONSOLE CONTROLS:

RESET =
1/TIME/2MIN = P1 START (ENTER)
2/MODE/5MIN = BUTTON 5 (5)
3/HOLD/10MIN = BUTTON 6 (6)
4/START/20MIN = BUTTON 7 (7) ----- USE THIS TO START A GAME

ON-SCREEN PROMPTS:

G? = "GAME? (WHICH GAME WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY?)
S? = "START?"
M? = "MOTION (SPEED)?"
T? = "TIME?"

JOYSTICK (PLAYER 1):

P1 STICK (U,R,D,L) = LEFT-STICK
P1 PUSH BUTTON = BUTTON 1 (e.g. in Doodle = CLEAR PICTURE)
P1 PULL BUTTON = BUTTON 2 (e.g. in Doodle = CHANGE BRUSH SIZE)
P1 ROTATE RIGHT = BUTTON 3 (e.g. in Doodle = CHANGE COLOUR)
P1 ROTATE LEFT = BUTTON 4 (e.g. in Doodle = DRAW/ERASE)

OTHER CONTROLS

QUIT FAIRCHILD MODE = UI CANCEL (e.g. use Escape key/Xbox button)

mediamogul

@OneSwitch

Very informative. I was wondering why player one had more buttons available than player two. Can either you or @edmaul69 confirm that player controls for 'Alien Invasion' are reversed? I've noticed that in the older systems, such as Intellivision, Odyssey2 and even the Atari 2600 that left and right ports can sometimes go either way for player assignment, but in this case, it could be that I'm starting in the wrong mode.

caver01

@edmaul69 said in Fairchild Channel F:

@caver01 i have tried to get apple 2 working but failed miserably. If you get it working on advmess let me know. Btw, just because systems are on the list as working doesnt mean they work good. Some system are really slow on the pi. Also some dont work in advmess

OK, I don't want to hijack this thread too much (I will post the WIP in another) but I wanted to at least mention that I am playing Karateka on Apple2ee in advmess 3.3!

edmaul69

@caver01 please do share. I would love to try it out in advmess. Please list the name of bios files emulars.cfg and everything. Thank you very much.

caver01

@edmaul69 check the other thread I linked for details of my process. As for bios, I dropped a handful of Apple2 variants as zip files, and the collection is covered. I will do a test tomorrow and pull out everything but the apple2ee.zip. If that still launches, I'll list the sub files.

edmaul69

@caver01 cool thank you

caver01

@edmaul69 ok, i checked a couple of them real quick:

apple2e.zip
  a2e.cd
  a2e.chr
  a2e.ef
  a2ealt.chr
  disk2_33.rom

apple2ee.zip
  a2ee.cd
  a2ee.ef
  a2eealt.chr

I probably only need these two. Could get away maybe just running the apple2e, but I wanted the enhanced version. It would seem MESS can dig through all zips kinda like mame does with parent roms.

edmaul69

@caver01 advmess doesnt require zip files either for bios or roms. Where are you putting those zips? Are they all going in /mame-advmame/rom/apple2/ folder or are you putting them in /mame-advmame/rom/apple2e and /mame-advmame/rom/apple2ee/ folders?

caver01

@edmaul69 I actually created an advmess folder in the RetroPie configs folder. Then I launched advmess via command line to get an advmess.rc file which ends up next to the AdvMAME.rc file. I edited the advmess.rc and pointed the rom dir to my advmess folder I created. The other relevant path is for image, which is not for pictures but disk images. But this one only really matters is using the file browser within the mess GUI as far as I can tell. Since the launch command specifies the rom explicitly (in the apple2 rom folder in my case) the image dir in the .rc file doesn't really matter.

OneSwitch

@mediamogul Yes, you're right, the controls for Alien Invasion were swapped around for some strange reason (player 2 = player 1 and vice versa). I think the controls were only seen as left-side player or right-side player, so maybe this wasn't a concern back then. Who knows!

I guess this is a wait for an update and hope, but is there any way to get the nice carbon type theme for the Channel F? So the fonts and colours are at least the same? No worries if too fiddly.

mediamogul

@OneSwitch said in Fairchild Channel F:

I guess this is a wait for an update and hope, but is there any way to get the nice carbon type theme for the Channel F?

No need to wait, as there is already support for the Channel F available in Carbon. Start by making a copy of the Carbon theme from /etc/emulationstation/themes/ to /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/themes. That will allow the original to update as time moves on without affecting your changes, but it should be noted that if anything is added or changed to the original Carbon theme, it will need to be updated manually to this new location by repeating this process.

Now that you've made a copy of the theme, all that's really left to do is alter the /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg file with the following information:

  <system>
    <name>channelf</name>
    <fullname>Fairchild Channel F</fullname>
    <path>/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/channelf</path>
    <extension>.chf .bin .CHF .BIN</extension>
    <command>/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 _SYS_ channelf %ROM%</command>
    <platform>channelf</platform>
    <theme>channelf</theme>
  </system>

To keep with the alphabetical convention of system arrangement on the carousel, you should sandwich the information in-between the appropriately lettered systems that currently reside on your setup. After that, you can restart Emulation Station and you should be good to go.

edmaul69

@mediamogul i just saw this message about checking alien invasion. I will check in a little bit. However in advmess if you set up a controller config while in a game and save it, it saves a game specific config. ( you can edit that to make a universal config to that system) so if you need it to swap controllers you can edit the controller for that game. But i have never set individual game configs so i can verify how it is. Odyssey 2 is the worst and most annoying when it comes to which controller to use.

mediamogul

@edmaul69

But i have never set individual game configs so i can verify how it is.

I've since tried it and it does indeed work very well. I have the controls switched for that one game, but I'd bet there's at least one or two more that would require it.

Odyssey 2 is the worst and most annoying when it comes to which controller to use.

You ain't lyin'. Intellivision can get a bit harry too, but thankfully jzintv has this nice feature for swapping on the fly. It's especially handy in the game 'Dracula' for when you turn one of the joggers into a zombie and can then control the ghoul by switching to the second controller while Dracula waits in the wings.

edmaul69

@mediamogul i can confirm in advmess 1.4 it is swapped controllers. Now i have to figure out why 3.3 is only booting hockey & tennis bios....

mediamogul

@edmaul69

Ha! It's always something isn't it? We can't have nice things.

edmaul69

@mediamogul found out i had a typo in my emulators.cfg. Just took forever setting up controls in 3.3. I absolutely hate how the newer advmess.rc are read. I cant edit the rc file because it names the keyboards and controllers by weird code names as apposed to keyboard 0 or 1 or joystick 0 or 1 like advmess 1.4. And since i have 2 controllers, 2 keyboards, and an ipac 2 (keyboard 3) it takes a lot to program them all. Ugh that sucked.

mediamogul

@edmaul69 said in Fairchild Channel F:

I cant edit the rc file because it names the keyboards and controllers by weird code names as apposed to keyboard 0 or 1 or joystick 0 or 1

The human readable keyboard designations (I.E. keyboard[0,a]) still work when device_keyboard is set to raw, but it is indeed frustrating that they are coded when set to event or auto. I take it that with your many devices that raw is not an option?

edmaul69

@mediamogul not sure how to change to raw? Yes it worked with my previous settings but it change most of them. However i tried to set up keyboard 1 and i couldnt even boot it. I just added the ipac the other day and only had 1 keyboard set up. I would love to keep it simple but i dont know how to set it to.

mediamogul

@edmaul69

@caver01 clued me into setting device_keyboard to raw in the advmess.rc file. It might not be ideal for your particular arrangement, but once set, all detected keyboards are read as being one and any keyboard settings persist between sessions without MESS constantly shuffling and coding the entries.