Gp2xmess 0.7-beta Released

[telengard]

I've just released a new version of gp2xmess (0.7-beta).

(I'm posting this only in here following the forum rules. If someone wants to link it in the General forums that's cool...)

This release has support for:

- virtual keyboard (please read the README before using it as it follows the way std mess does it)
- coco driver (color BASIC 1.0, not full-speed) coco3 is not enable yet.
- numerous bug fixes/enhancements (see CHANGELOG)

Here are some pics...

My 'l33t' BASIC coding skills on the coco

Inputting my name into Alpiner on the TI99/4a

Next I'll be concentrating on the scaled blitting so I can enable a bunch of drivers like the Apple ][, Odyssey2, and Coco2/3. Also I'll be adding an in emulator clock speed setting/changer.

I'll consider this out of beta once the above mentioned stuff is implemented. You can grab the latest here:

http://users.adelphia.net/~bsturk/gp2x.html

Enjoy!
~telengard

 

[TelcoLou]

Sweet!!

Quick question, how did you get alpiner to run? I have all the correct files (methinks)?

I have two versions, one witn a "c" at the end and one with "g"; alpinerc does not show up in the list when I mount it, and alpinerg does, but when I select '2 for english', I just get a blue screen.

This happens with a fe other games as well.

Thanks again!

 

[remowilliams]

You don't have two versions - you have the two roms that make up the game. Mount them both.

TI carts are split in up to 3 pieces.

And Hooray for the virtual keyboard!

 

[TelcoLou]

You don't have two versions - you have the two roms that make up the game.  Mount them both.

TI carts are split in up to 3 pieces.

And Hooray for the virtual keyboard! 

​

Thanks so much!!!

I'll tell ya .. it's not so bad being a temporary moron, with such a nice community as this :lol:

Edit to tell a short story:

Y'know ... this is such a treat, being able to play these games with the sound synthesiser active. I was never able to afford one for my TI-99/4a, but my (rich) friend did. Man, was I jealous when I got home and played the same games without speech; I felt so left out :lol:

Microsurgeon, in particular has me smiling now for the past 15 minutes ... that's a hard task being at work

 

[telengard]

You don't have two versions - you have the two roms that make up the game. Mount them both.

TI carts are split in up to 3 pieces.

And Hooray for the virtual keyboard!

​

Thanks so much!!!

I'll tell ya .. it's not so bad being a temporary moron, with such a nice community as this :lol:

Edit to tell a short story:

Y'know ... this is such a treat, being able to play these games with the sound synthesiser active. I was never able to afford one for my TI-99/4a, but my (rich) friend did. Man, was I jealous when I got home and played the same games without speech; I felt so left out :lol:

Microsurgeon, in particular has me smiling now for the past 15 minutes ... that's a hard task being at work

​

Hi TelcoLou,

Glad to hear you are enjoying it. Alpiner has lots of speech too. I'm pretty amazed at how well it runs on the gp2x considering it's emulating quite a lot. And as remowilliams said most of the TI games are broken up into parts and it doesn't matter which cart slot you load them into as long as they all are loaded.

I was actually even more envious regarding the TI99/4a. I never owned one as a youngster but would spend a lot of time playing on the one in the nearby Caldor. I own one now and really enjoy using it. My fiancee's one computer growing up was a TI99/4a and she's very excited about the emulator too. I'm going to probably pick up a gp2x for her so she can enjoy these games also.

~telengard

 

[remowilliams]

I was actually even more envious regarding the TI99/4a. I never owned one as a youngster but would spend a lot of time playing on the one in the nearby Caldor. I own one now and really enjoy using it.
~telengard

​

Caldor - LOL - I haven't heard that name in ages. Had them here as well B)

I remember TI99 heaven at K-Mart by me when I was a kid. They had the carts on a retractable chain mech, and the TI had the speech synthesizer and that crystal clear tiny little TI monitor, and the PE box hooked up. Yup - TI99 heaven

 

[ingrin]

Next I'll be concentrating on the scaled blitting so I can enable a bunch of drivers like the Apple ][, Odyssey2, and Coco2/3.  Also I'll be adding an in emulator clock speed setting/changer.

Apple II AND Odyssey2 *faints*
Thats like, completes my emulation wishlist...
Well, I'm curious to see if someone can get solid Amiga emulation going, but in terms of misty childhood memories, Apple II + Odessey2 + Atari 2600 (Stella is coming along nicely) is the trifecta....

*EDIT* Why aren't you a Guru yet? TelcoLou, go bump your thread please...

 

[TelcoLou]

Next I'll be concentrating on the scaled blitting so I can enable a bunch of drivers like the Apple ][, Odyssey2, and Coco2/3.  Also I'll be adding an in emulator clock speed setting/changer.

Apple II AND Odyssey2 *faints*
Thats like, completes my emulation wishlist...
Well, I'm curious to see if someone can get solid Amiga emulation going, but in terms of misty childhood memories, Apple II + Odessey2 + Atari 2600 (Stella is coming along nicely) is the trifecta....

*EDIT* Why aren't you a Guru yet? TelcoLou, go bump your thread please...

​

*already bump'd*

 

[Greenchili]

Nice. Ti-99 was the first computer I typed a program into, and I didn't even own one!! :lol:

Now I just need a good TI resource since I dont think I really have anything for it. I'll have to dig around.

 

[DaveC]

Is there any way a virtual keypad could be made for Colecovision? Some games needed a selection other than "1" to start and play.

 

[Hooka]

wooh, COCO!!! sorry to always get so hyped up I just can't ever think of a day when I was a kid that I didn't enjoy a new game on the coco had acouple three inch binders full of disks and tonnes of carts BUT somebody decided to get rid of it all on me, now all I have is rad warrior (still a good one though )...

 

[telengard]

Is there any way a virtual keypad could be made for Colecovision? Some games needed a selection other than "1" to start and play.

​

Hi DaveC,

Yep, there already is one I actually added it in this release. It's a little BIG but it works. I am planning on adding system specific keyboards so for example, w/ the Coleco, you'd only see the keys or buttons that are relevant for the system you are using.

The right shoulder button brings up the keypad.

~telengard

 

[telengard]

wooh, COCO!!! sorry to always get so hyped up I just can't ever think of a day when I was a kid that I didn't enjoy a new game on the coco had acouple three inch binders full of disks and tonnes of carts BUT somebody decided to get rid of it all on me, now all I have is rad warrior (still a good one though )...

​

Hiya Hooka,

Don't expect too much from this particular driver for compatiblity. It only has Tandy Color BASIC 1.0 which of all the cassette images I tried I couldn't find any to work. My guess is that they are all written to support the Extended BASIC. This version of BASIC also doesn't support disk commands. I was able to get some .pak files to run but for some reason there are issues loading them on the gp2x. I'm still investigating that. I'd appreciate any feedback on things that *do* run so I can try them and try to narrow down why my .pak files aren't loading.

As soon as the new blitting code gets in there I will enable coco1 (I believe is the same as coco but w/ extended BASIC which has disk commands), coco2, and coco3 which are much more compatible (and useful).

~telengard

 

[DaveC]

What is the directory name and structure for where the ROMs go? Can they go anywhere or only a certain place? Can the ROMs for different systems go into separate directories or do they all just go into one big pile (I hope not that would be a mess). I looked in the readme but couldn't find this info.

I am trying to install now and am a bit befuddled :blink:

 

[telengard]

What is the directory name and structure for where the ROMs go? Can they go anywhere or only a certain place? Can the ROMs for different systems go into separate directories or do they all just go into one big pile (I hope not that would be a mess). I looked in the readme but couldn't find this info.

I am trying to install now and am a bit befuddled :blink:

​

They can go anyway you'd like. You can separate them if you want or keep them together. Nice choice of words w/ the 'mess'.

I'd probably separate them into different directories just so that you don't accidentally choose the wrong rom for a system (I haven't hooked ANY of the error checking to display on-screen so you'll just probably either quit out or see nothing).

When in the emulator the left shoulder button brings up a menu. Choose "File Manager" and then traverse to where your roms are and select. The Atari 7800 has a pre-launch chooser which starts up in the same directory gp2xmess is located in.

One thing I haven't documented yet is that you can change the .gpe files to set the directory to start in when choosing files through the menu. It's sort of an advanced thing, but I'll add it to the README at some point. It involves setting the "software path" for xmess on the command line.

I will add some more details to the README about roms placement etc. Thanks for the feedback.

~telengard

 

[DaveC]

Now the bios ROMs all go into that bios dir. You say to name the same as the GPE. Does that mean the .zip file has to be named the same, or the file IN the zip has to be the same or BOTH have to be the same. Often the roms will come with a long name with a bunch of funny characters in it.

There tons of different bios for ti-99, Which one to use?

Also for the AppleII and Odyssey etc will you offer an unscaled 1:1 mode for those too? I hate the uglyness of scaled graphics.

Thanks.

 

[telengard]

Now the bios ROMs all go into that bios dir. You say to name the same as the GPE. Does that mean the .zip file has to be named the same, or the file IN the zip has to be the same or BOTH have to be the same. Often the roms will come with a long name with a bunch of funny characters in it.

Also for the AppleII and Odyssey etc will you offer an unscaled 1:1 mode for those too? I hate the uglyness of scaled graphics.

Thanks.

​

The zip has to be named that way. The contents stay the way they are. If the zip didn't come named that way I'd be surprised and wonder if it is the correct BIOS. If the emulator quits out quick you'll know that to be the case.

Yes, I want to support that if possible. I'm not 100% sure if that is doable. If it were I'd be able to support those games right now. The issue is that by default, xmess has it's notion of the resolution of the system. For the apple it's 560x192. I assume this is to assume the "worst case" scenario which is double hi-res. If there is a way for me to detect that it doesn't need to be scaled I won't do it. Believe me, I don't want to scale this stuff either. It means more work and not as great display. But if that's my only choice to get those drivers going I'm going to have to do it.

~telengard

 

[DaveC]

Now the bios ROMs all go into that bios dir.  You say to name the same as the GPE.  Does that mean the .zip file has to be named the same, or the file IN the zip has to be the same or BOTH have to be the same.  Often the roms will come with a long name with a bunch of funny characters in it.

Also for the AppleII and Odyssey etc will you offer an unscaled 1:1 mode for those too?  I hate the uglyness of scaled graphics.

Thanks.

​

The zip has to be named that way. The contents stay the way they are. If the zip didn't come named that way I'd be surprised and wonder if it is the correct BIOS. If the emulator quits out quick you'll know that to be the case.

Yes, I want to support that if possible. I'm not 100% sure if that is doable. If it were I'd be able to support those games right now. The issue is that by default, xmess has it's notion of the resolution of the system. For the apple it's 560x192. I assume this is to assume the "worst case" scenario which is double hi-res. If there is a way for me to detect that it doesn't need to be scaled I won't do it. Believe me, I don't want to scale this stuff either. It means more work and not as great display. But if that's my only choice to get those drivers going I'm going to have to do it.

~telengard

​

I think Apple games were all like 320 x 192 or something like that. Also I can't imagine that Odyssey2 was more than 320 x 240.

My bios are not already zipped so I have to do it. They are part of one large archive so I will have to take out and re-zip and name it. I don't know if the name inside the zip is correct or not.


Also what is a TI-83, TI-85, TI-89 etc? the place that I have bios has those but no TI-994A.

 

[telengard]

Now the bios ROMs all go into that bios dir. You say to name the same as the GPE. Does that mean the .zip file has to be named the same, or the file IN the zip has to be the same or BOTH have to be the same. Often the roms will come with a long name with a bunch of funny characters in it.

Also for the AppleII and Odyssey etc will you offer an unscaled 1:1 mode for those too? I hate the uglyness of scaled graphics.

Thanks.

​

The zip has to be named that way. The contents stay the way they are. If the zip didn't come named that way I'd be surprised and wonder if it is the correct BIOS. If the emulator quits out quick you'll know that to be the case.

Yes, I want to support that if possible. I'm not 100% sure if that is doable. If it were I'd be able to support those games right now. The issue is that by default, xmess has it's notion of the resolution of the system. For the apple it's 560x192. I assume this is to assume the "worst case" scenario which is double hi-res. If there is a way for me to detect that it doesn't need to be scaled I won't do it. Believe me, I don't want to scale this stuff either. It means more work and not as great display. But if that's my only choice to get those drivers going I'm going to have to do it.

~telengard

​

I think Apple games were all like 320 x 192 or something like that. Also I can't imagine that Odyssey2 was more than 320 x 240.

Yep almost all Apple games I've played are that resolution. I'm not exactly sure why mess defaults to that resolution. As for the odyssey, I had compiled the driver and it had crashed in the same way the others do when they are trying to use a resolution higher than 320x240. I just checked and the odyssey has a resolution of 160x240 so that should be just fine. I will look into that more. I had seen the crash and chalked it up to the resolution and figured I'd look at it after the blitting code is done. Hmmmm......

My bios are not already zipped so I have to do it. They are part of one large archive so I will have to take out and re-zip and name it. I don't know if the name inside the zip is correct or not.

Also what is a TI-83, TI-85, TI-89 etc? the place that I have bios has those but no TI-994A.

​

I'm not sure what you are referring to. The bios directory in the gp2xmess package should be empty. Those I believe are calculators, someone asked me to port an emulator for one of those not too long ago. So the archive you have has all those directories in it but not ti99_4a? Chances are there are not the mess compatible ti99_4a BIOS roms.

~telengard

 

[luteijn]

Yes, this is a flame... It will also answer some of your questions, and help you avoid asking for obvious things in the future, so read on...

Also what is a TI-83, TI-85, TI-89 etc? the place that I have bios has those but no TI-994A.

Dave, have you heard of this wonderful website I just found on the internet? It's called google, and you can type stuff in it, and it will tell you stuff about this stuff you typed in!


Those are graphic calculators.

For instructions of getting the 99/4a's roms out of your unit, look at the documentation for something called 'v9t9'. In case you are unable to use aforementioned l33t haX0R site to locate this fine material, here is a link: http://www.99er.net/cgi-bin/schlabo/dl.pl?docs. I do suggest you learn how to use google though, as from the above it seems that you don't own a TI99/4a, or maybe don't even have a clue as what TI means... so will want to steal the rom-dumps. If you want to be a thief, fine, but don't look for henchmen here.)

P.