Release BeebEm alpha, Acorn BBC Micro emulator


Oh excellent. Also I think there`s a bug in the key map section. Once you select a Pandora key for a BBC key, then you have to... hang on... I can`t remember... I`ll be back in a while once I try it again ;)
 
Ok, can you try this version @levi & @Stainy (and other too of course).

Most things should be fixed with this one.

*EDIT*: removed pnd (it doesn't work anyway).
 
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Hmm, now it's complaining about config/romimg.rc not being there. I tried removing my appdata folder, but it still complains.

It also fails to update the framebuffer at the end, forcing me to use the Yen key to get out, but that may be to do with some testing I was doing with UAE4ALL before which also ended on on the wrong display.
 
Cool, that boots fine now, and savestates now work, as do the graphics for the keyboard LEDs. It still won't load disc images or make new ones though - it's complaining about the value in DISC_IMAGES_DIR, I think it said.
 
Nope, it still moans about that directory not being there. As a workaround, I've created that folder to be able to test this more thoroughly.

Shoulders now work as shift (and presumably ctrl too, not tested that), but the keyboard shift has been disabled - that's not a problem for me personally though. I couldn't find any way to shift+break (the standard way of booting discs), but thankfully the run game option seems to do that in practice - it inserts a disc into drive 0 then shift+breaks it.

The appearance of the mouse pointer in menus seems somewhat erratic. On first boot it's generally there and lets you select options until you've chosen your first key binding in the configuration screens, then disappears leaving you to use the d-pad to select instead.

But despite those gotchas, it's pretty usable for playing games already, and should be usable for those wanting to play with BBC BASIC on it (provided you bind caps lock to one of the game buttons, I suggest, and maybe * (star) to another). Game specific keypad bindings work too provided you actually read the instructions!

I did notice a graphical gotcha in Dare Devil Denis (the only game I have for test at the moment, as all of my old games are stuck in ADFS format tar files for now, (erk!). Seems that the bottom line of the display on the teletext mode menu in that game is often corrupted - sometimes it repeats press A-F from above, and sometimes it shows the truncated last line of the previous game (which is in a different graphical mode, so shouldn't be possible). Bringing up the virtual keyboard and dismissing it fixes that though, and it shouldn't be game-breaking in most circumstances anyway.
 
levi said:
The appearance of the mouse pointer in menus seems somewhat erratic. On first boot it's generally there and lets you select options until you've chosen your first key binding in the configuration screens, then disappears leaving you to use the d-pad to select instead.
Click to expand...

That`s what I was trying to explain.
Also I don`t know how to get a : mapped... I can`t seem to get a : colon.. I can`t shift the BBC B key to get that..

thanks

Darren
 
Just go to the keyboard mapping screen, pick a button to redefine, and define it as the colon/asterisk key. It'll be reported as the asterisk key, but if you press it back in the emulator, it'll output a colon, If you press it with left shoulder held (one of the Pandora's two shift keys) it'll produce an asterisk.
 
Thanks Levi.
PtitSeb: Can you fix these last remaining things... ( that you broke ;) ) please

Then at least me and levi will be happy.

EDIT: Found the dir images dir ( in saved.kbd )
 
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Well if you are going to put it in the repo you need to change the dir_image_dir in saved.kdb because it`s defaulting to your directory setup.
Also the ( maybe ) the mouse pointed disappears after you choose the first mapped key.. but that`s not really a biggie..
I`ve noticed the graphics corruption at the bottom of Dare Devil Dennis before... this came about after you fixed the gp2x horizontal screen thing...

again.. not a massive problem really..
But it would be great if this has some PtitSeb polish on it before the repo :)

thanks man
 
I suspect for that one you'll just need to clear more of the canvas when changing mode - IIRC the teletext mode is not as tall as the other graphics modes. But it shouldn't take me long to test out a few commands and see what's actually happening.

Yeah, the SEBEXT path in that setting is the only real showstopper before publishing IMO - everything else is nice to have. Just grep the PND mounted for SEBEXT to find all the entries.
 
Just to be sure, the problem with the "Teletext" mode is the text that is repeated in last line ("To start game press A to F") as shown in the screen shot here. (I have fixed the discs folder and tried something for the mouse cursor, but not sure it's fixed).
[doublepost=1461530732,1461527562][/doublepost]Well, I think all is fixed now.
 

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Yes, that's the glitch. Once you play a game it'll show the bottom half of the bottom line of the graphical game screen there instead.

Actually that's a good point, I'm not sure how that 'Press A-F' line gets there. It's not left over from some previous screen as far as I know. I'll have to do some testing this side, to see if I can reproduce this outside of this game.

Unfortunately I don't have any other games to test with at the moment, but I'm working on understanding the .ssd format, to see if I can build my own .ssd files from my ADFS copies.
 
Mouse cursor is working for me now during a quick test of mapping keys - looks good to me!

The discs folder has now changed to a discs folder in appdata, but you don't create that on the first run, so that still fails (though at least I now only need to make one level of mkdirs to fix it!)

And the graphical glitch in Dare Devil Denis is now fixed as well! Nearly there now - I make that at least 2.5 out of 3 bugs squished.

FWIW I tried to reproduce that graphical glitch using my own code. I couldn't reproduce it using the BASIC MODE command to switch to graphical mode (I used mode 2) and back to teletext mode (mode 7) after filling the screen with junk, but the first time I tried switching mode using the VDU 22, command I got a little garbage at the bottom of mode 7, which would be impossible to get on a real BBC. But trying to make a test case with repeatable steps, I couldn't get it to do it again. There's probably a way by poking somewhere above HIMEM to do it, but I'm not sure I ever knew about that, and didn't investigate it.

I haven't tried again on the latest version, but I have played a few games of Dare Devil Denis to try to reproduce it, so I think that's fixed.
 
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