MAME: Einstein Emulation

[Lardo Boffin]

Thanks for the Mame heads up. Will install tonight if I can stay awake long enough.

[Lardo Boffin]

I'm installed and working thanks. I even managed to figure out how to get it to mount a disc image at start up so now can see the BBC Basic disc! And I played Chuckie Egg, obviously.

Just a couple of questions....

1 - how do I switch discs (as in .DSK) when running? Or mount a second disc in drive 2?

2 - how do I get files from outside an existing disc image onto a disc image?

I already have data files and a BBC Basic program (in 6502 but hopefully I can use cunning BBC Basic stuff to get it from a text file into a program) in SSD files from my beeb I want to use. I can get them out of the SSD files but how do I get them into the .DSK files?

Any help greatly appreciated thanks!

Edit - mounting a second disc is quite easy so that probably removes the need to switch discs at run time for the most part.

[sirmorris]

I've written a few tools to manipulate disk images. They're not very friendly though. No drag and drop m'fraid. Also Mac/linux only at the moment. I might have a go at doing a thing in javascript if I get some time, but until then I'll try and build the tools for windows. It won't be pretty but you can't have everything. Watch this space.

[Lardo Boffin]

I've written a few tools to manipulate disk images. They're not very friendly though. No drag and drop m'fraid. Also Mac/linux only at the moment. I might have a go at doing a thing in javascript if I get some time, but until then I'll try and build the tools for windows. It won't be pretty but you can't have everything. Watch this space.

Thanks!

I have a Mac if that helps.

[sirmorris]

Sure does. I've attached a zip containing my rudimentary packer tool. It needs:

• a 'donor' disk image, to copy the DOS and boot sector from.
• a list of the files to write

From there you run it and it will create 'floppy.dsk' which you then use as a normal image in mame, einSDein or whatever. Here's the output when invoking help:

Code: Select all

$ ./dskpack /?

usage:
  dskpack (/dos:dos205.dsk) (/list:list.txt) (/target:floppy.dsk)

/dos: specifies a pre-existing disk image that contains the DOS you want to use.
/list: is a text file containing a list of paths-to-files you want included on the disk.
/target: is the output .dsk image filename.

You can run it directly and it should produce an image with biggoil in. Any Qs let me know.
C

[sirmorris]

There is also a tool shipped with mame but I've never worked out how to use it. That might actually be the best bet.

[fatbob_gb]

@sirmorris
Do you have any tools for windows/linux, I am interested in tools to insert/extract files form dsk images if possible.

[sirmorris]

Yep, I've got something to extract all files off'v the dsk image. I'll sort it out in the next day or so. I don't have anything to insert a file into an existing image.

[Lardo Boffin]

There is also a tool shipped with mame but I've never worked out how to use it. That might actually be the best bet.

I tried that on my Windows 7 PC thanks (I use Windows 'professionally' so am more used to it) but the imgtool keeps crashing pretty much any time I try to do anything. Argh.

I thought I would be clever and use the 'identify' option to work out the image format (as this is required for virtually all imgtool operations) but it always dies.

[Pernod]

There is also a tool shipped with mame but I've never worked out how to use it. That might actually be the best bet.

I tried that on my Windows 7 PC thanks (I use Windows 'professionally' so am more used to it) but the imgtool keeps crashing pretty much any time I try to do anything. Argh.

I thought I would be clever and use the 'identify' option to work out the image format (as this is required for virtually all imgtool operations) but it always dies.

I've never used imgtool but I do know it only currently supports a limited set of formats, and the einstein dsk format isn't included.