MAME newbie could really use some advice
Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2023 1:49 am
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.
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.