back in the olde days....

General discussion on MAME, MARP, or whatever else that doesn't belong in any of the other forums

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kernzy
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back in the olde days....

Post by kernzy »

hello everyone,
i have been playing mame for 6 years. i was given uomame 32 ver .57 by a neighbour. i was amazed. been stuck here ever since!
since only knowing and using a gui version forever i find it difficult to use the command line versions. i have had great help here from Beejay and others and i realised what a great community it is here.
after struggling with mame, even after instructions that a 10 year old could follow, i wondered how it was years ago. i see scores entered on marp from the nineties. and all mames back then were command line versions. (which i still feel need's black magic to work sometimes!)
i wondered out of all you old skool mamers, how did you find out about mame? and when you found out about it, how the hell did you get it to work?? lol!!
it would be nice to know about it's history and anything else interesting related to it's origins, etc.
any comments from seasoned mamers would be greatly appreciated.
cheers! :D
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Re: back in the olde days....

Post by mahlemiut »

First emulator I discovered was CPCEMU (as the Amstrad CPC was the home system I had way back when) in 1996, and from there when I first had an internet connection at home, discovered MAME in 1997. Was about version 0.22 then, and was DOS only. Was amazed that these old arcade games could be run on a PC, and wanted to know how it was done. I was already interested in programming, and this was a good excuse to put it to use. :) My first contribution (if you could call it that) to MAME was around v0.29. Not long after that, I discovered MARP (v0.30 was the first version to handle INP files), and decided to (try to) show off what Bubble Bobble skills I still had left... 0.37 beta 15 was the first version where primary development switched from MS-DOS to Windows. Now it builds as is for a bunch of OSes (although DOS support ended at about v0.100), and you don't need to be running Windows to use it (I run Ubuntu exclusively). Now, I mostly work on MESS (sister project to MAME, but emulates computers and consoles and so on, in case you hadn't heard) in my spare time.
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Re: back in the olde days....

Post by BeeJay »

It's a long time ago now, but it was early '97 that I first found Mame, based on the release dates I'd say it was around version 0.6 or thereabouts as that's when the readme files start sounding familiar. I found it by accident when looking for some old C=64 games. I couldn't believe it the first time I booted up a game and saw the old familiar power up sequence from the arcade happening on my PC.

As regards playing the games, it wasn't hard at all for me as I was already familiar with using DOS prompts etc from the early days of PC usage - even though I was a C=64 and Amiga user in preference to PCs, which I only used at work!! The Amiga's graphics and sounds killed anything available on the PC in those days. 4 colours, get real PC.... and eventually they did and now I run an Amiga emulator instead of my actual Amiga which now appears to be getting close to breaking completely as happened to my trusty C=64 a couple of years back. :(

v0.21 added one of my favourites... Galaga !!!

Cheers,
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kernzy
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Re: back in the olde days....

Post by kernzy »

BLOODY HELL!
thanks guys, it's very interesting to me to read your tales. both you's started in 1997. i am very jealous. i started in around 2007!!!
my 1st computer was a zx81. in 1985 i got a cbm64, and was blown away. i still hail it as the best games console there is. i stopped using it long after the amiga came out, and lost touch with pc gaming, after getting a playstaion. i remeber seeing the amiga in selfridges for £1,699. unbelievable. my cbm64 was £200.
missing out on upgrading to amiga has obviously cost me dearly in following my previous trend. i got a new pc 7 years ago, and now i feel out of my depth instead of knowing stuff like i used to before. it's a shame, but thats life.
like Beejay, i use an emulator to play c64 games, although i have 2 working models in the shed! my first one died after 15 years of abuse, it lasted very well indeed. the 2 i have work fine, but need space!
i agree the amiga was king, and before that the c64 was. they were great days. i used to love reading zzap! 64. i think the next big pc to come out was the "archimedes"?
but guy's, please tell me, how did you hear about mame, and how did you learn how to use it? maybe you both knew command line stuff already, but what about everyone else? was there some kind of instructions with it? as you know, i have trouble with it. i have a mental block from using gui versions. Brian kindly guided me through using wolf 145 and i couldn't be more grateful. i brought my knowledge to other mames and found i could not adapt it to use them!! it seems to me quite alot of them are extremely different. but thats just me. it's unfortunate as i want to watch many inp's and cannot, so i feel extremely left out!!
after watching alpha's kung fu master record i went to watch beejays bomb jack special clips and could not!! lol! #-o
no matter what, mame is a great thing and this is a great place to be. it's my graceland!!!
i hope more people add their stories, it's very cool to me.
cheers buddies!!!
ALL THE BEST,
PAUL.
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mahlemiut
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Re: back in the olde days....

Post by mahlemiut »

I started with a ZX81 also, :P

Progressed to the Atari 2600, then the Amstrad CPC, before eventually heading into PC land.

Everyone should start learning to use computers from the earliest systems, and make their way forward. Start with CP/M(1973-late '80s), Unix (1960s-present) or MS-DOS (1981-1995), then every iteration of Windows from 1.0, to 3.1, to WinNT, Win95 and so on. Easier to learn from the beginning. ;)
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Re: back in the olde days....

Post by LordGaz »

Still got my ZX81 in the loft complete with 16k RAM pack. I sold my BBC micro to a mate for £100 quid when I got my Archimedes which in turn was replaced by an A5000 which ended up in the dustbin when I couldn't sell it but a least I made a few quid selling some games I'd written for it.

I don't play MAME at all nowadays, I would try and beat your Bombjack score kernzy but I can't really be arsed, besides as you get older it gets harder and harder to justify the time playing old games especially marathons. I choose to waste my time in other ways like playing WoW :D.
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kernzy
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Re: back in the olde days....

Post by kernzy »

any excuse, mate!! lol!
it was hard to beat, man! how comes it hasn't been verified in 10 years?
you call the tourney settings marathon? how many sheets did you do it in? i cannot watch it. as soon as i try command lines my eyes go crossed and my fingernails grow like american werewolf's.
you had a lot of good computers. a lot of dough under the bridge! (you can get over £100 on ebay for your zx81 16k!)
i remember reading sinclair user and typing code in to play some useless tiny black and white game. i loved it!!
anyway, if you do go for your old crown, do it on a mame that wasn't written in the dark ages, and one with a gui!!!!!!!!
be lucky everyone!
paul.
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mahlemiut
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Re: back in the olde days....

Post by mahlemiut »

Noooo.... The more recent the version the better, I'm getting sick of using my crappy old version based on X-MAME... If you want a GUI, go use QMC2.
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Re: back in the olde days....

Post by LordGaz »

kernzy wrote:how comes it hasn't been verified in 10 years?
I'm told the confirmers die of boredom after the first couple million.
how many sheets did you do it in?
I don't remember. The key to a long game is to plan for the next sheet in advance especially the hard ones. Get the right number of firebombs on the previous screen so that the 'P' coin comes out when you want it to on the next one, I think you can even predict the direction. Knowing the alien types in advance for each screen also helps, if it's gonna be a mixture of all different types then chances are you won't be getting the firebomb bonus so you want to clear it up fast. You know all this of course.
you can get over £100 on ebay for your zx81 16k!
That's less than it cost when it came out! What was it? Something like £69 for the 1K non-kit version and £40 something for the RAM pack?
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kernzy
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Re: back in the olde days....

Post by kernzy »

i got mine for £25 from the same dude who gave me the mame disk 25 years later!
as for gameplay, check out my inp. bonus almost every sheet, regardless of p timing or baddie formations. if your gonna do something, do it right!!
you can use a ui version, right?? lol!! :D
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kernzy
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Re: back in the olde days....

Post by kernzy »

oh yeah, Barry,
i downloaded qmc2 a couple of days ago. upon set up, the first box, it could not find mame.exe no matter what mame i tried.
stumped again! #-o
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Re: back in the olde days....

Post by mahlemiut »

I seem to remember that you're supposed to point it to the MAME executable you want to use. It might even ask on first run... (not that I've used it much myself, I find the commandline more efficient to use)
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kernzy
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Re: back in the olde days....

Post by kernzy »

dude, and everyone reading this,
i have had to give up trying command lines.
i have had superb instructions and managed to get an old mame to work. (cheers Brian!!!)
but, i cannot utilise that newfound knowledge to any other mames. i only really wanted to watch a few inp's. alpha's kungfum, Lord Gaz's bombjack record, and also "karol's", to see what my competition was. also bj's bombjack secrets, and any scores that beat my records on tg that i could learn from.
(i still wonder why the records on marp are not on tg, apart from the time line, they are better!)
i must say, a couple of months back, i got command lines to work properly, thanks to you guys. it was a breakthrough to me. i was elated. i relaxed after and never used again, as gui is much more efficient in my unedumacated mind.
knowing what i did, i went to watch beejays bombjack secret inps, and could not. it gave me a whole new database that i never saw before, and after trying to fill in the blanks, failed. i tried a few others, and they gave a ui frontend which needed command lines. immediately stumped. any recording i made was not in the inp folder.
i tried a few more mames, as i downloaded every mame i needed to watch the inp's i wanted to witness.
i cannot use any of them.
so next, i download the frontend Barry recommended, qmvc or something, it did not find the mame.exe of any mame i have. so i'm stumped at the first hurdle.
then, i went to use wolf 145 again, after a few weeks, which beejay walked me through in extensive detail. what do i get? mame is not recognised. bombjack is not recognised. nothing is recognised. even with the instructions i got open on the same page.
so i must admit defeat, even though there is just one tiny thing i do not get, it is an everest in the mind of an incompetent. it really is a mind fuck for me and i am going round in failing circles, and it's driving me mental. so i give up.
i can get 400,000 on crazy kong, but on donkey kong, i can get only 150,000. that is my gui command line formula. i can play one, but cant fathom the other. i have a mental block.
i used to programme the c64, now i am an idiot.
great thanks to every one who advised me.
i need a console.
command line is cantonese. no one can tell me otherwise!!!
感謝所有幫助過我的人!你是輝煌的,但我不是。
all the very best,
paul.
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Re: back in the olde days....

Post by Chad »

I couldn't resist since you said c64: Do you know there's emulators for all pretty much all console machines including the c64? (and there's another website like MARP to store them called HARP.)

I understand your CLI fear, but Don't worry the console emulator MESS (that emulates tons of consoles) has always had a gui (for every wolfmess version from 109-147 has a 32gui included), tho everyone will probabably still use qmc2 since it works for them since the windows gui for mess might go away.
-skito
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Re: back in the olde days....

Post by mahlemiut »

MESSUI (and newui) has already gone away. It was dropped a few versions back largely because it was a bunch of buggy, unmaintained, Windows-specific code from the dark ages. One person currently tries to keep MESSUI and newui up to date (and complains whenever there is some major change to the MAME core ;))
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