Hello all. New to this forum.

[miniemu1234]

I have been using emulators since the early days of NESticle.
Recently started build my dedicated emulation PC and currently have several MAME systems that I have to launch directly via MAME or command prompt. I would like to better streamline this as I have a few frontends loaded already to cover the systems I am running.

What I am wondering is there a place to request new MAME/MESS core systems to be added to RetroBat?
Or could someone recommend a good UI to launch the below as an interim solution as the MAME gui is not great and command prompt is less great.


I don't want to post in the wrong place or overstep.
The list of systems is:
Casio Loopy
Aamber Pegasus
APF Imagination Machine
Apogee BK-01
Casio PV-2000
Dragon Data Dragon
Interton VC 4000
Lviv PC-01
Mattel Aquarius
Philips VG 5000
VM Labs NUON
Sega VMU

[tartifless]

Hello,
Retrobat does not manage these systems and there is no plan to add them for now.
Maybe you can try with other frontends like ES-DE and see if they manage or if there is a way to add them manually.

[miniemu1234]

@tartifless Thank you for the quick reply. I have thought about writing a quick and dirty launcher for it in VB.NET. Maybe parse some needed values directly from the MAME XMLs.

[tartifless]

If you find out more about these, whether they require special commands, etc.
Do not hesitate to post here.

I'll see eventually if I can try them based on some games from their software list

[miniemu1234]

What I have been doing to run them from the command prompt is simply
mame.exe <CoreName> <GameName>

For example, mame.exe vc4000 pinball
Is how I run Interton VC 4000 pinball. Assuming the ROM is in the expected folder with expected name.

For running games that are in alternate folders with alternate file names I use:
mame.exe aquarius -cass "D:\MAME\roms\aquarius_cass\Aliens(Tape 1 of 2).caq"

This strategy is my plan for a simple VB.net front end where I can just select the MAME core from a dropdown combo list. Then specify a roms root folder and browse child folders for the games to launch. I will likely also have a dropdown for software type (cart, cass, flop1, etc..) unless I can be clever and match the target file's CRC to the MAME xml and extract the media type from that, but that may be version 0.0.2. =)

[tartifless]

Some systems require commands like LOAD etc..
For example the APF

[miniemu1234]

I have just been entering those when the system "OS" loads.

I could put those together per system above as "post load commands"

[tartifless]

If you know them yes, would be fine

[miniemu1234]

May take me a day or two to get all of that together. Oldest daughter has prom today so I will be a bit busy.

[miniemu1234]

Found some free time to pull this together.  A few holes in some of the data but mostly there.

SYSTEM MAME: command Example: Post Load Command:
Casio Loopy : mame casloopy animelnd : None

Aamber Pegasus : mame pegasus invaders11 : None

APF Imagination Machine : mame apfimag -cart basic -cass alphacnt : cload (Note Enter is mapped to ])

Apogee BK-01 : mame apogee badroad : loading software from cass for
                                                                apogee :
                                                                i => (press I at the command
                                                                        prompt to load)
                                                                Press TAB, goto tape control and
                                                                      press PLAY, exit with TAB
                                                                g => (press G at the command
                                                                          prompt to run)


Casio PV-2000    :     mame pv2000 galaga : None

Dragon Data Dragon : mame dragon64 darkpit : Unknown, still looking for
                                                                         matching cas dumps

Interton VC 4000 : mame vc4000 hippodro : None

Lviv PC-01 : mame lviv -cass "D:\MAME\roms\lviv\CAVE.LVT" : cload\n run\n
                                                                                     (Note keyboard
                                                           layout is WAY off, almost DVORAK)

Mattel Aquarius : mame aquarius tron : None

Philips VG 5000 : mame vg5k labyprl LOQD\n : (Note Q and A are reversed on
                                                                    keyboard)

VM Labs NUON : mame n501 jm3 : None

Sega VMU : mame svmu aliens : None

[miniemu1234]

Had a few wrong commands in the above.

System Name Arguments
Casio Loopy casloopy -cart ${RomName}
Aamber Pegasus pegasus -rom1 ${RomName}
APF Imagination Machine apfimag -cart basic -cass ${RomName}
Apogee BK-01 apogee -cass ${RomName}
Casio PV-2000 pv2000 -cart ${RomName}
Dragon Data Dragon dragon64 -cart ${RomName}
Interton VC 4000 vc4000 -cart ${RomName}
Lviv PC-01 lviv -cass ${RomName}
Mattel Aquarius aquarius -cart ${RomName}
Philips VG 5000 vg5k -cass ${RomName}
VM Labs NUON n501 -cart ${RomName}
Sega VMU svmu -quik ${RomName}
APF M-1000 apfm1000 -cart ${RomName}
Socrates Socrates -cart ${RomName}

[miniemu1234]

I had mentioned building a quick and light VB.Net launcher for these systems.

I have uploaded it to GitHub.

https://github.com/MiniEmu/C.H.L.O.E.

Please have a look and provide any feedback.

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