Before you give up, if you are on Windows give this a try.
1 Like
Thank you for all the help.
It’s working now.
1 Like
Have you tried the PC-9801 version? It is virtually identical to this and you can load the user disk via playlist or disc control.
1 Like
I haven’t added a PC-9801 yet. Not sure if it fits on my couch setup. I didn’t add the PC-FX for the same reason. But the x68000 and FM-Towns have many arcade games. Not a huge fan of Home Computers tbh, they are annoying in such setup.
1 Like
Then you probably wouldn’t be interested in the AppleII version that is easy to run using MAME apple2gs SL.
1 Like
I’d like to add Apple II if i could get a nicely curated game list…
And if there’s a solution for the so many multi-floppy games. Kinda like Amiga’s WHDLoad (and the one X68000 has). I have setup some other homes like the ST, C64, CPC and Spectrum but the Apple II seems to have a bigger ratio of multi-floppy games. Swapping isn’t fun with a controller while sitting on the couch.
2 Likes
Just this past Sunday I found out that (13 years ago) MinivMac supports Myst, I started to run it and booting the System is easy, but I can’t get a human way to run the games.
The MAME SL XML for Apple II and Apple II GS cracked floppies, already supports multiple floppies.
<software name="dyohachd">
<description>Design Your Own Home: Architectural Design (cleanly cracked)</description>
<year>1984</year>
<publisher>Avant-Garde Publishing Corp.</publisher>
<info name="release" value="2015-03-17"/>
<part name="flop1" interface="floppy_5_25">
<feature name="part_id" value="Program disk (no mouse)"/>
<dataarea name="flop" size="143360">
<rom name="design your own home - architectural design (4am crack) disk 1 - program disk without mouse support.dsk" size="143360" crc="7a636e73" sha1="cc5db5f4babe23b6949e4649dcb4b064db26f8a2" />
</dataarea>
</part>
<part name="flop2" interface="floppy_5_25">
<feature name="part_id" value="Program disk (mouse support)"/>
<dataarea name="flop" size="143360">
<rom name="design your own home - architectural design (4am crack) disk 2 - program disk with mouse support.dsk" size="143360" crc="a560a7fe" sha1="2cc71bcc086775800cd523e759956604be7f8be2" />
</dataarea>
</part>
<part name="flop3" interface="floppy_5_25">
<feature name="part_id" value="Data Disk"/>
<dataarea name="flop" size="143360">
<rom name="design your own home - architectural design (4am crack) disk 3 - data disk.dsk" size="143360" crc="6181b68e" sha1="fad415f43ce90278ad8ed5e1e8118316e0542fc2" />
</dataarea>
</part>
</software>
So no swapping is needed. Although most multi-disk titles are software not games.
TBH if all you want to run is Myst, I recommend Win 3.11 on DOSBox Pure.
If you creatively coordinate an overlay, or use the Mega Bezel to crop, it is indistinguishable from any DOS title.
Maybe i’m downloading the wrong files?
To me it looks like not only most games are multi-part but they are also using the biggest number of floppies per game compared to most other homes. When i saw this i didnt’ want to bother but maybe i’m doing something wrong?
Myst was the first thing I tried on PURE, it’s in my top 4 games, 
it runs exactly the same on 3.1, 95 or Win98, is quicktime the OS doesn’t matter, it’s the processor.
Myst 1 is one of the few games (or the only one) that is better on Mac. On Windows it has a programming bug that affects the transitions, the author himself said that he overcame it and never fixed it. On Mac you have smooth transitions and it is better polished in general. Yes, you can put a 486 in PURE and you will have better transitions, but the rotations are totally broken.
1 Like
I’m not sure, but I think you have to use the mame set, “Software List ROMs”.
I hope that’s not the case because these might be impossible to scrap for box art, videos and other stuff needed for the frontends, because of the naming scheme. I had the same issue with Amiga WHDload for a while, some scrapers don’t like those coded filenames.
But you have the dats/xml, with that you can generate the list with correct names.
I need the filenames to make sense, not the list in the MAME UI. Scrapers read files not xml lists. Or maybe i just don’t know how to do it.
1 Like
I think most mature front ends can use the MAME SL names to scrape.
Otherwise you can use a [Scrape-able Game Name].cmd as content containing a command line to run the game. If the games are in a SL folder all you need to do is call the core with the zip name. Then scrape the *.cmd files.
Then the scraper won’t scrape the BIOS files either.
I can set up a *.cmd as an example when I get home.
I had no idea it was a Scraper, MAME is particular, but it would be a big failure not to work with it. It can be very complicated to scan 16 thousand roms, to download snaps, flyers and videos. Usually MAME works the other way, you have the image sets, Cheats and other stuff in “MAME Extras” and the video ones “MAME Multimedia”, which are usually shared with the ROM/CHDs.
Myst running on a Macintosh LC III in MAME.
Cropped to use more of the screen in the Mega Bezel.
Sound is a bit garbled.
1 Like
Thing is i don’t use MAME’s own UI, i use other frontends like EmulationStation.
1 Like
OK.
This is a simple example.
You will need to add a -rompath to the command. Here is a “Frogger II - Threedeep.cmd”.
apple2gs -rompath "E:\Temp\apple2gs" frogger2
Of course you will need to edit the rompath.
Now when you scrape you can just use CMD as your file extension, and load the “Frogger II - Threedeep.cmd” as your content.
For the arcade roms I find it hard to believe that a modern frontend can’t scrape using the MAME filenames. If it doesn’t have a built-in database you should be able to feed it an xml dat file.
1 Like