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PostPosted: August 3rd, 2010, 12:55 pm 
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Well, currently, it's more about curiousity regarding they way you'd eventually be handling the systems/software

FM7 and FM77AV lists are split - but there are no separate X1 lists for the standard model(s) and the Turbo variants for example, is this something for the future, or are there specific reasons that will keep them as they are?

Another question has less to do with Japanese machines, but inofficial hacks/conversions from other systems.

The TOSEC sets often don't mark those, so you have something like Konami titles in the list of the SVI machines, even though these were never officially released (they should be MSX conversions afaik). What's the policy regarding this?

Regarding actual mistakes, I think there are some cases where publisher information is wrong (at least as I understand it, e.g. with licensed titles, where the original western publisher is listed instead of the Japanese one). I plan to eventually go through the lists and supply some additional dumps (none for the rare systems you asked for, I'm afraid), I'll let you know then what exactly I think could merit correction also.


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PostPosted: August 3rd, 2010, 4:41 pm 
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Starscream's post requires a lot of answers, hence please forgive my verbosity ;)

However, mods feel free to split the conversation if we are going too much off topic w.r.t. the original subject

Starscream the 2nd wrote:
Well, currently, it's more about curiousity regarding they way you'd eventually be handling the systems/software


First of all, we will never remove the possibility to load any program from command line (by specifying the full path) or from the GUI (by mounting the images from the directories you store them in). Part of the fun if you owned the emulated system is to load in the emulator the programs you had written back in those days :)

However, in addition to this classical behavior, we have recently added the new lists of software you mention. These lists allow to load software, from both command line and GUI, by using shortnames like in MAME

Unfortunately, the support of these lists is still preliminary for non-cart software (like tapes and disks).

To give you an example: in the future, there will be an easy way to load the disk/tape you want at start and to cycle through the various disks. But at the moment, if you load a game using shortnames, you can only load from zip the first file listed in the xml and then you must manually change to the other ones by using the internal interface.
As a result, in version 0.139 I suggest to handle multi-image games by mounting them separately through the interface, as in the older MESS versions.

We will see how the new code turns out :)

Starscream the 2nd wrote:
FM7 and FM77AV lists are split - but there are no separate X1 lists for the standard model(s) and the Turbo variants for example, is this something for the future, or are there specific reasons that will keep them as they are?


As I said some aspects are still in progress, and the current division (or lack of it) depends on the choice of the list creator. However, in the end having separate lists or not should mostly influence the way people have to store the images, not the emulation itself.
E.g. once the support is finalized, you will be able to load a 3.5" floppy inside (more or less) any 3.5" drive for any computer, exactly like it is already possible to load a GameBoy Color game into a B&W GameBoy (and watch the "This game require a GBC" warning screen)

For the specific X1 case, the lack of distinction between games running on a base X1 unit and games requiring Turbo (or even TurboZ), is basically due to my laziness (I wanted to start immediately the PC8801 list I'm currently working on and I postponed the improvements to the X1 list).

However, I'm still not sure if the X1/X1Turbo lists will be split or not (what do you think would be the better solution?)

Starscream the 2nd wrote:
Another question has less to do with Japanese machines, but inofficial hacks/conversions from other systems.

The TOSEC sets often don't mark those, so you have something like Konami titles in the list of the SVI machines, even though these were never officially released (they should be MSX conversions afaik). What's the policy regarding this?


The policy is still under discussion, so I don't have a clear answer at the moment. It would probably be decided system by system (based on things like: who made the SVI conversions from MSX?)

What would be a good policy, in your opinion?

Starscream the 2nd wrote:
Regarding actual mistakes, I think there are some cases where publisher information is wrong (at least as I understand it, e.g. with licensed titles, where the original western publisher is listed instead of the Japanese one). I plan to eventually go through the lists and supply some additional dumps [...] I'll let you know then what exactly I think could merit correction also.


Fixes would really be welcome (e.g. I always found misleading to have Dempa arcade ports labeled as games by Sega/Namco in TOSEC, so I'd like to fix as many inaccuracies as possible)
Especially because there are so many lists and so many files in them that any help in sorting out errors would be great

Similarly, if you want to send me/post lists of the games which requires specific versions of the hardware (like the above-mentioned X1-vs-X1Turbo-vs-X1TurboZ), I will add the correspondent info

Of course, missing dumps are welcome as well :)

Starscream the 2nd wrote:
(none for the rare systems you asked for, I'm afraid),


Well, I hoped that at least some images had leaked from Japan. Hopefully, one day something will show up and we'll be able to progress further...

In the end, I'm really interested in feedback (both on the new supported systems, on MESS in general and on the new lists) and suggestions from whoever wants to contribute


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PostPosted: August 7th, 2010, 3:35 pm 
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Thanks for the detailed reply. I don't have much of an opinion regarding the lists yet, I do think though that the mentioned conversions should at least be marked. At one point I thought I'd discuss that with the Tosec folks.
As for splitting, I guess it depends on the system. I don't expect the PC 8801 list to be splitted anytime soon in standard/mk2/SR for example, that would be lots and lots of work. :wink:
X1/Turbo should be doable though.

Regarding this
Quote:
Well, I hoped that at least some images had leaked from Japan. Hopefully, one day something will show up and we'll be able to progress further...


I was disappointed too, to find so little as of yet, but I guess it shouldn't be that surprising. Some obscure western systems suffer from a shortage of preserved software as well, and sharing that should be easier for a number of reasons.

Alas, this brings me to the Hitachi systems on your list.
I recently learned that an Hitachi 6809 machine was released in Australia and New Zealand, marketed as the "Hitachi Peach", and unlike the western NEC releases, googling actually reveals some people remember using it. The specs seem similar to the early basic master systems.
Here's a review and an ad (also mentioning available software, including what I believe are clones of known arcade games):

Image
Image

Ad:
Image

This magazine included Type-ins for it:
http://www.trs-80.com/wordpress/magazine-micro-80/

Australia and NZ had a small Userbase, but at least there no language barrier, so, on to the hunt and people of Oceania to the help :wink:


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PostPosted: January 18th, 2012, 4:38 pm 
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Realy interesting stuff, but it kind of depends: did alot of these computers even have any noteworthy exclusive (or any exclusive) software to bother trying to emulate them ?


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PostPosted: January 18th, 2012, 6:49 pm 
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apachacha wrote:
Realy interesting stuff, but it kind of depends: did alot of these computers even have any noteworthy exclusive (or any exclusive) software to bother trying to emulate them ?


I get your question (my guess is probably not, excepting maybe some "doujin"), but when we're talking about something like MESS (or MAME, for that sake) we should have present that the goal is preservation, that includes (reproductions of-) hardware platforms as well as its software, even when this software is not as much interesting as the software available on another platform. The priority always goes to the mainstream or popular, but when it comes to obscure shit it better be preserved soon than.. never.


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