Fairchild Channel F

mediamogul

I got Channel F working last night as well and was surprised to find that there's a theme for it in Carbon. Very keen!

edmaul69

@TPR so if you want it to work with the new one just edit your emulators.cfg in the channel f config folder and add the info i posted. Doing that you can switch back and forth between them since both will be in the config file.

mediamogul

@edmaul69

You might want to consider changing advmame-3.1 to advmame in your instructions above, as the latest version from the setup script is already up to advmame 3.3. Also, I couldn't get %BASENAME% to work, so i switched to %ROM% and it booted right up.

edmaul69

@mediamogul strange. BASENAME works for me and it is what all the advmame configs use as well. Now the issue with advance mame being at 3.3 it means everytime you update advance mame and it changes number, you have to manually change what folder advmess is in in the config file. So if i point to /3.1/bin/advmess you are saying i will have to change the config to look in /3.3/bin/advmess if i update advmame? Ugh. At least my original advmess wont change so i will just stick to that for the 2 systems i use it for at the moment.

mediamogul

@edmaul69 said in Fairchild Channel F:

So if i point to /3.1/bin/advmess you are saying i will have to change the config to look in /3.3/bin/advmess if i update advmame? Ugh.

The path must have been altered to something more neutral. I have /opt/retropie/emulators/advmame/bin/advmess.

edmaul69

@mediamogul that is where i had my original one before the update added 3.1. But i have 3.1 as well. Is there any way to check what version is running?

mediamogul

@edmaul69

/opt/retropie/emulators/advmame/bin/advmess -version

Edit: of course your path is currently different.

edmaul69

@mediamogul i have that path. Mine says 1.4. I guess i will have to update and check

edmaul69

@mediamogul so i just updated to 3.3. They did change where it was located. That is good. So my original config works. Awesome.

mediamogul

@edmaul69

I haven't tested it yet as I'm not near my Pi, but I added a -cfg argument to my launch command, pointing to a separate config at /opt/retropie/configs/channelf/advmess.rc that might come in handy when setting things specific to the Channel F system. My emulators.cfg is:

advmess = "/opt/retropie/emulators/advmame/bin/advmess channelf -cfg /opt/retropie/configs/channelf/advmess.rc -cart %ROM%"
default = "advmess"

mediamogul

@edmaul69

Something else to consider is that the Fairchild Channel F has a game ROM built-in (Hockey & Tennis) that can only be accessed when launching the channelf core of MESS without a game. I don't know if this is the best way to solve this, but what I did was to create an empty text file named Hockey & Tennis.txt at /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/channelf/. Next, I altered the Channel F section of /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg to recognize .txt files:

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

Then, I added a launch command to /opt/retropie/configs/channelf/emulators.cfg that will launch without a cart attached:

advmess = "/opt/retropie/emulators/advmame/bin/advmess channelf -cfg /opt/retropie/configs/channelf/advmess.rc -cart %ROM%"
advmess-nocart = "/opt/retropie/emulators/advmame/bin/advmess channelf -cfg /opt/retropie/configs/channelf/advmess.rc"
default = "advmess"

And finally, I restarted Emulation Station, selected 'Hockey & Tennis' from the menu and the set the default emulator for that "ROM" to advmess-nocart in the runcommand menu. After that, you can start a game of Hockey or Tennis by pressing the start button at the "G?" screen after the system fully loads.

There may be a better way, but it's worth having the game available, as it not only completes the library, but also represents one of the most fun 'PONG' clones of the time.

edmaul69

@mediamogul there is a hockey and tennis rom out there. You dont have to do all that

mediamogul

@edmaul69

Can you confirm that it's an actual ROM and boots normally. From what I've seen, the individual game file tends to be the system BIOS file renamed, which won't launch as a cartridge. If you have a working ROM of it, I'll try to dig it up myself.

edmaul69

It is not a bios file. The bios files are 1kb. This one is 2kb like most of the roms. It isnt just a modified txt file either as it has garble in it when viewed in a word program and it was modified on december 24, 1996. And i have played it hundreds of times

mediamogul

@edmaul69

The Channel F bios file I have is actually 2kb. However, based on my previous post, I got the idea to rename it from .bin to .chf. This act alone does just about as much as the lengthier method above, as it will fail to load the file as a cart and end up at the bios screen by default, allowing you to start 'Hockey & Tennis'. It's kind of a cheat, but to the end user, it will work all the same.

edmaul69

@mediamogul that is the correct file. It boots as a cart if you keep it named .bin and stick it in the roms folder. The bios files i have in the rom folder are:

sl31253.rom
sl31254.rom
sl90025.rom

edmaul69

@edmaul69 is your bios named [BIOS] Fairchild Channel F (USA) (SL90025).bin? I tested putting that in the game folder and it works.

edmaul69

@edmaul69 i even took my sl90025.rom and renamed it .bin and stuck it in the game folder and it booted the hockey and tennis.

mediamogul

@edmaul69 said in Fairchild Channel F:

i even took my sl90025.rom and renamed it .bin and stuck it in the game folder and it booted the hockey and tennis.

Yeah, I even had it load a .mpg file. It loads the bios as a fallback every time it doesn't find a usable cart. The only real requirement from a RetroPie point of view is that the file have the .chf extension so that it shows up in Emulation Station. For anyone who might download a set that didn't include the renamed bios, they could simply add a text file named Hockey & Tennis.chf and it would work all the same.

edmaul69

@mediamogul i dont have a single .chf file. All mine are .bin. I never used the .chf files as i couldnt get any of them to work. I wish i could because the full pacman rom is only a .chf.

Edit: i may have the completed one. It is the version with the high score saved in it