Wolf_ Posted May 9, 2016 Author Share Posted May 9, 2016 I've heard interesting things about two games but they are from before I was born so I'm not too sure on how to emulate them. The games are: Zork - a text based command prompt game. So I'm betting that would be emulated in dosbox? and Dungeons of Daggorath which was a trs-80 color computer game. I've never even heard of a trs-80 before so could anyone just tell me what emulator to use, and if Dosbox is what I will need for Zork? Thanks for your time and helping me to experience a gaming era that I never had a chance to be a part of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drybonz Posted May 9, 2016 Share Posted May 9, 2016 Zork would be Dosbox. TRS-80 was a crappy old Radio Shack computer. It was actually the first computer I had. I have no idea if it's emulated, but would be interested to find out. I vaguely remember that game as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf_ Posted May 9, 2016 Author Share Posted May 9, 2016 Drybonz said Zork would be Dosbox. TRS-80 was a crappy old Radio Shack computer. It was actually the first computer I had. I have no idea if it's emulated, but would be interested to find out. I vaguely remember that game as well. It is, and a certain site that is a paradise for large birds has the complete collection of roms 900mb. (Emulated by mame, add the command line modifier "coco2 -flop1") Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted May 9, 2016 Share Posted May 9, 2016 Zork has also been re-made at least a dozen times too, you can probably find a web based version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted May 9, 2016 Share Posted May 9, 2016 Lol, the TRS-80 = Trash-80. Not my name for it. That's a name it was given when it was new. I remember as a kid my uncle who was into computers calling it that and I heard that term for it many times since then too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AutumnSounds Posted May 9, 2016 Share Posted May 9, 2016 Wolf_ said Zork - a text based command prompt game. So I'm betting that would be emulated in dosbox? For Zork and other Text adventures you can use one of several zMachine emulators out in the wild. For this example I'm using the windows port of 'Frotz' (get the zip rather than installer to ensure it's portable) For the ROM I've dug out my Infocom text adventures disc. * First add Frotz or whatever emulator you like in Tools > Manage emulator and add Frotz, set at default for the platform (zMachine in this case). No additional parameters are needed. * Add your game either by ROM import and fight with metadata for a while or Ctrl+N to manually add the game. I found it best to scrape info from Wikipedia. * Ensure the ROM in LaunchBox is pointing at both your ROM file and you have "use an Emulator to play" selected and pointed at Frotz. You should be all done! Launch the game just like any other in your collection. As I said, the above is just an example. There are LOTS of other zMachine emulators and different builds of Frotz. Hope that helps! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted May 9, 2016 Share Posted May 9, 2016 Thanks @AutumnSounds I didn't realize that existed. That Text Adventure compilation has me curious. :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf_ Posted May 9, 2016 Author Share Posted May 9, 2016 um stupid question but how do you start trs-80 games? I keep getting to this screen that says "ok?" and nothing I type in response does anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted May 9, 2016 Share Posted May 9, 2016 I know it's not a good answer but a lot of the older computer emulation requires some set up of keyboard type of stuff. Sometimes that is binding some key to emulate a key or sometimes the implementation of an on-screen virtual keyboard. My best guess as to what is happening is that it is waiting for some sort of of confirmation to continue so maybe it wants you to press "Enter" either on your keyboard or through a button bind. Check in the menu in Mame when you press Tab and see if there are some bindings for things in there. Console emulation is generally fairly straight forward when it comes to controls since they were really simplistic. When you get into the computer (especially older computer) side of things it gets to be a real mess. Every computer system had their own way of doing things since there was no rule book of the best way to do things. Things also varied from system to system based on the type of media, cartridges, floppy disks and cassettes were all common on these older systems. You really are diving into the deep end of emulation now when it comes to systems like the TRS-80. Most people just don't care enough about it so you have a much smaller knowledge pool to pull from on how to get it all working. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coleman Posted December 8, 2019 Share Posted December 8, 2019 Sorry to necro this one, but google pointed me here and for the one or two others who want to get a coco running through launch box, I assume it is best to keep the info together. I am trying to play a cart via MESS for Mame 0.193... I can launch coco3 from mame and start empty, but I think I am not able to see the rom I am trying to play. I am hesitant to mess with any of the MAME .ini or config because it's working for all of my arcade games via the awesome Launchbox importer for MAME... So I import a rom into launchbox under a new system for trs80. I added commands to the cl prompt as follows: coco3 coco3 -cart coco3 -cart Downland.zip "coco3 -cart Downland.zip" Nothing works. I can launch mame from the right click menu of the rom successfully. Any suggestions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coleman Posted December 8, 2019 Share Posted December 8, 2019 So I have managed to launch the game from mame, but it's not simple... Step 1 launch empty Step 2 hit scroll lock to enter partial emulation Step 3 hit tab and select file manager Step 4 select cartridge Step 5 browse and select game file It works, but would be better with a launcher... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted December 8, 2019 Share Posted December 8, 2019 If you got the game working in Mame / Mess itself then it should work through LB as long as your settings are correct. I have a separate install of Mame just for non arcade systems but I have not set up Coco of any type so I can't help with that specific system but here are screenshots for reference.Also here is the Mame / Mess reference sheet for command line parameters https://pastebin.com/18W3EbD0 Be sure to double check your platform name in the Associated Platforms window matches what you have your games imported under. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coleman Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 Thanks! Can you post a couple screen shots from a game edit window so I can try to modify my game specific settings? Not sure I want to run 2 versions of MAME Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coleman Posted December 10, 2019 Share Posted December 10, 2019 Thanks to the screen shots above and various youtube tutorials, I have it working! I noticed that the MAME emulator config was not using the "FULL\PATH\TO\ROM\FILE" argument. So I installed MESS 0.216 to create a separate emulator as suggested, but only for retro computers. Set the command line arguments the same as shown above and everything is working. I am assuming that the bios files do not need to be updated with each iteration of MAME the way the arcade boards do? Thanks for the help Monkus ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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