Apple I - RetroArch (Mame) - (Almost) Complete Setup 1.0.0

Very Important !! I forgot to write in the instructions that you MUST add the following lines in the Retroarch module for Rocketlauncher where it's needed:

MSystem := "Apple I"
mTypeVar:= Apple I|mame_libretro|apple1

Thank you!

I will definitely install this today.  This is very impressive for a first-time complete system upload, this is not an easy system!

Thanks, I hope you will not be disappointed after installing it.

If you and other people can install this Apple I system without too much trouble that will be a motivation for me to post more setups, as I have a few ideas in mind.

For example I was looking to follow up with other Apple computers (I am not an Apple fanboy, quite the opposite, but I still think they deserve some love).

However there are no games in the mame software list for the Apple Lisa, and concerning the Macintosh I have been able to launch the Grand total of 2 games (you warned me !).

There is a minivmac core in retroarch and I can launch the system correctly but I can't launch any games yet (I manage to launch games with the minivmac standalone emulator). I haven't found any videos of macintosh games running in retroarch yet so that might be a bad sign.

I was thinking about Macintosh but I looked at the very small list of games and it seems like it would be better to wait.  I know there is a much bigger library of games than what is listed.  I think it's still in the preliminary stage.

If I can't make the minivmac core working I will probably do a retroarch/mame setup for the 2 games I have been able to launch. That would serve as a basis and hopefully would improve with the years.

I still hope to make minivmac working in retroarch though. I just need one thing : Being able to load dsk or img files within the emulator. It works easily with the standalone emulator but I haven't been able to do it with the retroarch core which uses different function keys it seems. I have found in the corresponding github that it should work by pressing the Y button on an Xbox360 joypad but it doesn't work for me (the other buttons are working as intended ) . That is very frustating because it is probably the only obstacle to make it work. Minivmac has a good compatibility and can run a lot of those old monochrome games.

I keep searching and working on it.

Its working great!

I just had to add the ".auto" to the end of the save states.  Do they work for you with just ".save" extension?  Maybe I can learn something new.

Making the videos include the bezel is an interesting shortcut to eliminate the Video border in the theme.

You had two main wheels and I didn't want to choose so I combined them.

I made a minor adjustment to the default theme.  It is still using all the same images.  I tried to correct the video dimensions and avoid the overlap with the wheels.

Keep up the good work!  It was so nice to quickly add a system!

default.zip

Fantastic ! Your modifications on the wheel and default theme are great !!

Concerning the default theme, I am, obviously, not comfortable at using hypertheme and I am glad you improved it yourself.

I have not asked him but I sure hope Mackano can come up with some other media too. He is doing such a good job with your setups.

For the save states I had no idea you could add the .auto reference. Can you explain a bit more ? I had them running automatically by switching on the option auto load/save states in Retroarch. It's not really convenient because it always save where you end the game while you might want to restart at the beginning each time you run it. With your explanation I may be able to update the files accordingly.

Concerning my macintosh project I am progressing with the minivmac core. Sadly this core doesn't use the savestates so I am considering creating .cmd files to launch the games (as it need to load both the system and the game rom at first). This process seemed too complicated to be applied on the Apple I setup but is much easier for the minivmac core.

Thanks for your support, that gives me the motivation to go on 😅

Your themes are good. Keep going! Almost every system theme has been made/remade multiple times. If you didn't make your theme, no one else would make any media for Apple I.  You enable people to create more media by eliminating the difficulty of setting up the system in MAME. That is what's important!

Save States:

You just edit the file extension of a standard save state.

example: awesome_game.state1 -> awesome_game.state.auto

the auto save on exit method can work but I create an .ini file for the system to avoid all the systems using that method.  And you can set the file to "read-only" in properties to keep it locked on to the same moment every time.

I attached the states

note: I had to change the game: bowling to appbowling so it didn't conflict with an existing save from another system. You can change it back.

states.zip

Thanks for the explanation. Tomorrow I will update the setup with your improvements if you don't mind. 

The .auto trick is a very nice solution and a nice feature for retroarch.  I was bothered by this auto save problem and it does solve it.

what games for the machintosh do u have running......i only use android but its all more or less the same thing when it comes to retroarch........i have several games running thru mame...i can take a look and see.....also for yeti, can u post 1 ini sample....i want to use save states but not for all cores 

39 minutes ago, sanchezmike01 said:

can u post 1 ini sample

To enable autoload states, just set autoload state = "true" in your retroarch.cfg or your individual core cfg.

For the autosave on exit method with ini, I wrote instructions on my recent Tesla Ondra upload in description.

5 hours ago, sanchezmike01 said:

what games for the machintosh do u have running

From the software list I only have Beyond dark castle (despite a warning saying disk 1 needs redump) and Airborne running. The other few games gives me an error or doesn't show anything. I am using the Macintosh 128 or SE with the same results.

I have not tried to launch non-software list games yet.

This weekend I should be able to check further..  Oregon trail doesn't load for me but these 2 did

I used a mix of dsk and chd loading from the command line on RetroArch android 

I can't run lode runner from the mame software files as it says that I need to put the original disk in the drive (as if the game's not cracked). I don't know about grid wars. Are your games coming from a different romset (not from the "official" software files) ?

Sanchezmike I have a question for you as you seem familiar with the .cmd files for retroarch: Is it possible to use relative paths in the command line instead of absolute path so the cmd file can be portable, independant of where retroarch and the games are installed. I would like to use this process to create the macintosh setup with minivmac but I don't want people to manually change every command files to fit their own paths. 

Thanks in advance for your help

Hi, I'm currently at work. I use android so I have no choice but to use the full rom path...im not sure about relative paths on windows...BUT a simple batch script can simplify the cmd files for all users..,as far as Softlist, no I got a few games from coinops people....what is the official name for mame Softlist pertaining to this system? And is it somewhat new...on Android I am limited to mame 0.227 and below. Any Softlist systems past 0.227 causes mame RetroArch to crash on Android..I have everything for 0.227 so I may already have the games...if not then private me so I can locate the full Softlist for this system 

I will check for the relative paths, I am afraid I am not skilled enough to create the batch file.

So you have been able to use non software list games with mame_libretro. I have to try that but maybe, when you will be back home,  you can check the kind of files you are using (dsk, img,...?).

The software lists for mac are mac_flop and mac_hdflop and I think that most of the roms are pre-0.227. Tell me if you need them.

I have spent a large part of my off day trying to figure out the macintosh emulation on PC and, well, now I understand why there has been little activity around it for years !

Mini Vmac standalone would be the obvious choice for a setup but there is no official module as far as I know for Rocketlauncher, only a very barebone one that was not completed.

The mini Vmac core for retroarch is also a work in progress and lacks many features. I don't know if it's discontinued or not.

I have managed to launch multiple disks games with the cmd files but I am still struggling to make them work. The reason is quite frustating and stupid.: When I try to launch an old monochrome game (which was my goal at first !) it asks me to put the screen in 2 colors but there is no monitors option in the control panel (I am booting with the few, most populars, system disks). The core is emulating a Mac II and the systems disks are launching a 7.0 or a 7.5 OS. I have not yet been able to launch the core with older OSes.

I am really not versed into the macintosh world and it takes me a lot of time to follow tutos and try new solutions.. 

I have no such problems with the more recent games, at least for the handful I tried.  I want to do a monochrome setup because of the unique look of those games but I may do another one for the color macintosh if I find enough "exclusive" games (like the marathon series maybe).

Any game compatible with MAME can be added to the hash file as long as you give the zip files lowercase names without spaces.

If a game requires use of a dsk and chd file, they can both be added to a single game entry in the hash.

An example from the fmtons_cd.xml I worked on:

<software name="kiwame2">

<description>Kiwame II</description>
        <year>1994</year>
        <publisher>ログ (Log)</publisher>
        <info name="serial" value="HMF-158 / MTC-1094"/>
        <info name="alt_title" value="極II" />
        <info name="release" value="199406xx" />
        <info name="usage" value="Requires 2 MB RAM"/>
        <part name="flop1" interface="floppy_3_5">
            <feature name="part_id" value="User Disk" />
            <dataarea name="flop" size="1261568">
                <rom name="Kiwame II.hdm" size="1261568" crc="1095e60c" sha1="a4f27fedb0d4c5b1aeaf39bbf2fbbd104c40760b" offset="000000" />
            </dataarea>
        </part>
        <part name="cdrom" interface="fmt_cdrom">
            <diskarea name="cdrom">
                <disk name="kiwame ii (japan)" sha1="5ade123de0cd29a24779ae3a5c04afbc37d2280a" />
            </diskarea>
        </part>
    </software>

Mame knows what hash to use depending on the directory name "fmtowns" as long as there is a "fmtowns.zip" bios file in that directory it will attempt to launch any game on the "fmtowns_cd.xml" hash.

Game name is "kiwame2.zip" which is an empty zip file. This tells mame to look for a directory of the same name within "fmtowns" directory.

Within kiwame folder is a User Disk (.HDM) and the game disc (CHD). The hash entry identifies both files and loads them into the specified slots devices.

This process is using relative paths and is command line free.

Macintosh would use a similar process.  To make things easier you could create a .ini file with one of the mac_hdd CHD images permanently loaded (not sure slot device).  Then the mac_flop.xml and mac_hdflop.xml would load the floppy disks because the chd is already loaded.

BUT...There are so many machines to test.  Each game may require a different one.

mac128k    Macintosh 128k
mac2fdhd    Macintosh II (FDHD)
mac512k    Macintosh 512k
mac512ke    Macintosh 512ke
maccclas    Macintosh Color Classic
macclas2    Macintosh Classic II
macclasc    Macintosh Classic
macii    Macintosh II
maciici    Macintosh IIci
maciicx    Macintosh IIcx
maciifx    Macintosh IIfx
maciihmu    Macintosh II (w/o 68851 MMU)
maciisi    Macintosh IIsi
maciivi    Macintosh IIvi
maciivx    Macintosh IIvx
maciix    Macintosh IIx
maclc    Macintosh LC
maclc2    Macintosh LC II
maclc3    Macintosh LC III
maclc520    Macintosh LC 520
macpb100    Macintosh PowerBook 100
macpb140    Macintosh PowerBook 140
macpb145    Macintosh PowerBook 145
macpb145b    Macintosh PowerBook 145B
macpb160    Macintosh PowerBook 160
macpb170    Macintosh PowerBook 170
macpb180    Macintosh PowerBook 180
macpb180c    Macintosh PowerBook 180c
macpd210    Macintosh PowerBook Duo 210
macplus    Macintosh Plus
macprtb    Macintosh Portable
macqd700    Macintosh Quadra 700
macse    Macintosh SE
macse30    Macintosh SE/30
macsefd    Macintosh SE (FDHD)
pmac6100    Power Macintosh 6100/60
unitron    Mac 512
utrn1024    Unitron 1024

The first step (before testing in MAME) would be to identify what Macintosh model each game is compatible with or at the very least the most universally compatible macintosh machine.

I have mainly tested minivac_libretro with the results I have explained before but I had the intention to come back to mame and your explanations will help a lot.

I have tried the few games available in the software list with many different models and the results are always the same, working or not. I think that the later macintosh models have a good retrocompatibility. However the level of maturity is different for each model is different in Mame and I have to take care of that. I must also determine the right HDD/OS version for compatibility.

Can you tell me what instructions the ini should contain in order to systematically load the chd ?

I'm not sure if we need any of the chd hdd images at this point.

I got all the mac_flop software list games running

Machine: macsefd    Macintosh SE (FDHD)

Airborne!: boots and can use autosave/read-only method

Beyond Dark Castle: boots and can use autosave/read-only method

Balance of the Planets: I modified the zip to also have system software sys608.  Modified hash to load sys608 and bot disk 1.  launched BOT from file and created autosave

Lode Runner: Bad Dump

Super Cars: just a utility disk and not a game

Attempted mac_hdflop

Machine: maciisi    Macintosh IIsi (has a built in HDD)

can't read Macintosh High Density Disks with slot device 35dd (Apple/Sony 3.5" HD Superdrive)

I need to know which of the supported machines uses a compatible slot device to read mac_hdflop romset

If I'm given more mac_flop slot 35dd compatible disks I can add them to hash.  At this point I succeed at running the entire list of mac_flop software games but it doesnt seem worthwhile to make a setup.  Get me more games and I will continue.

Ok...I think my issue is the mame version....again because of android I am limited to mame 0.227....I tried on windows and everything launches....ill upload the wheels , vids, and mame to use...just launch the bat files and the magic happens....all credit goes to pipmick from coinops...u will need a main and default theme and the correct folder setup

https://mega.nz/file/P1Q0VDqR#OhomZHj6XPgNnlgfMAz0IY4RLrd8lT_n-4INf7fjf7U

THANKS A LOT  Sanchezmike, that will help tremendously !