MAME newbie could really use some advice

[masto]

Hello folks,

Being able to use MAME for testing things would be really convenient, but for the fact that I can't quite figure it out. I want to preface this by noting I'm using a Mac, so while the Windows version from gtamp.com works great out of the box, I'm struggling a lot to replicate the experience natively on Mac OS.

What I've gotten working so far:

* Install MAME with Homebrew: `brew install mame`
* Put the ROM in roms/nabupc/nabupc-u53-90020060-reva-2732.bin
* Start MAME with `mame -verbose nabupc -verbose -window -kbd nabu_hle -hcca null_modem -bitb socket.127.0.0.1:5817`

I had to discover that I could press Tab at the intro screen to get into a menu where I could adjust the baud rate to 115200 and 2 stop bits, before the emulated serial port would work properly. But at that point, it boots into software and can do stuff. So far, so good. But there's one major issue I would love to know the answer to, and a bunch of minor ones.

How do I reset the thing? Everywhere says F3, but it doesn't respond to F3 or F3 with any modifiers, or for that matter, any function keys. The keyboard in general is a mystery. Tab works at the intro screen, but I can't get into the menu from there on out. I also haven't found a way to type any of the special NABU keys like restart/exit/help, yes, no, or page forward/back. This somewhat hampers being able to get very far.

I'm also curious about what the other -hcca options are, what -bitb accepts, and whether there might be any native WebSocket support. Also, it really wants to slide my spaces to Desktop 1, which is a minor annoyance.

I know there's MAME expertise out there (people in this community have written the emulators)... I feel like these are pretty basic questions but I haven't had much luck with them so far.

[DJ Sures]

If you type MAME -h, you'll get the command line help options.

Usage: mame [machine] [media] [software] [options]

mame -showusage for a list of options
mame -showconfig to show current configuration in mame.ini format
mame -listmedia for a full list of supported media
mame -createconfig to create a mame.ini file

the mame -showusage is a big one and lists everything so be prepared to scroll and take time to read.

But for the TAB menu. You press TAB to start it. and TAB to exit it. In there, you can specify the shortcut keys. However, you may benefit from using a known working CFG and INI. I've attached them here:

cfg.zip

(4.81 KiB) Downloaded 537 times

[masto]

I can get into the tab menu once, before starting emulation, but then none of the keys seem to work regardless of how I've assigned them.

I can try your configs, maybe that will help.

Yes! That did it, now F3 works to reset it, I can get into the menus, etc. Thanks very much!

[DJ Sures]

You bet!!

[intangybles]

I can get into the tab menu once, before starting emulation, but then none of the keys seem to work regardless of how I've assigned them.

I can try your configs, maybe that will help.

Yes! That did it, now F3 works to reset it, I can get into the menus, etc. Thanks very much!

Hi, what hardware platform are you running on? I can't seem to get the network connection going on the M1 Macbook Air I use? My Pi server is running great! I connect to it from the PC and the even Windows 11 under Parallels but on Mac OS I can't get it to connect!

[masto]

I'm using an x86 iMac.

[intangybles]

I'm using an x86 iMac.

Thanks, yes i'm guessing its an M1 issue! I will try it out on one of my Intel Mini's