ELDOAMark Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 (edited) Hello. I was wondering if anyone might be able to help me get this running. I know years ago I had it running with MESS. I added the roms to Launchbox and it found some boxes and screenshots. I have tried using MAME or Retroarch MAME core as emulators and nothing happens when I try to launch the game. MAME says the empty cartridge slot game is not working but it seemed to work fine in the short time I tested it out.. Thanks Edited August 1, 2023 by ELDOAMark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeViking245 Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 For stand-alone MAME, make sure you have socrates.zip in the same location as your (8) V-Tec ROMs (you can find it in your MAME fullset). Then under associated platforms, for your MAME emulator in LaunchBox, use the default command line parameters for that platform: socrates -rompath %romlocation% And enjoy all 8 of those games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ELDOAMark Posted August 1, 2023 Author Share Posted August 1, 2023 (edited) Thanks for the reply and I apologize for being so late in replying myself.. I have the socrates.zip in my mame\roms folder.. I can load socrates.zip which plays the game that is built into the machine.. If I select any of the those games however it doesn't work. I think it might be because I have mame .256 romset and I have to have the corresponding roms for that version (I don't know what their short mame file name would be)? Are the other socrates games also in the regular mame set? I just downloaded a Vtech Socrates romset from somewhere and threw it in the mame roms folder Edited August 1, 2023 by ELDOAMark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeViking245 Posted August 1, 2023 Share Posted August 1, 2023 15 minutes ago, ELDOAMark said: Thanks for the reply and I apologize for being so late in replying myself.. I have the socrates.zip in my mame\roms folder.. I can load socrates.zip which plays the game that is built into the machine.. If I select any of the those games however it doesn't work. I think it might be because I have mame .256 romset and I have to have the corresponding roms for that version? Are the other socrates games also in the regular mame set? I just downloaded a Vtech Socrates romset from somewhere and threw it in the mame roms folder No need to apologize. It's a hobby. The Socrates [game] ROMs are not in the regular MAME [Arcade] romset. Only the BIOS (socrates.zip) is. The games are in the MAME Software List (softlist) set. But sounds like you found them. Are the Socrates game ROMs you found in .zip format? (i.e. amazes.zip, aworld.zip) I have an older softlist set (v0.233) but am using mame.exe v0.257 and socrates.zip v0.257 and the 1 game I tested (amazes.zip) worked. So as long socrates.zip (from the Arcade romset) and mame.exe are the same version, you 'should' be ok (even with older or different version softlist ROMs). But NEVER count on that to always be the case. In your screenshot, if on the left, you click Available, do the list of 8 games still show? If not, MAME's not finding those ROMs. Via mame.exe, can you load a regular Arcade game (i.e. 1942)? If so, continue.... If you can play "1942" but the Socrates games aren't showing when selecting Available, exit MAME, create a subfolder under roms called socrates and then move those 8 ROMs into that new folder. i.e. D:\MAME\roms\1942.zip D:\MAME\roms\socrates.zip D:\MAME\roms\socrates\amazes.zip D:\MAME\roms\socrates\aworld.zip Re-start mame.exe. Now search and open Socrates and see if they appear when you click Available. Let me know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ELDOAMark Posted August 2, 2023 Author Share Posted August 2, 2023 Thanks, it works now I couldnt find a .256 set anymore so I quickly downloaded the socrates rom from MAME .257 and the socrates roms from the softlist. The only thing now is that MAME doesn't close with ESC once it loads a socrates game .. and there doesn't seem to be a database entry so I filled it in myself and took a few screenshots Had one of these as a kid and I must admit even at 39 it was fun to mess around with it for a while lol 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeViking245 Posted August 2, 2023 Share Posted August 2, 2023 Glad you got it working. Most computer systems MAME emulates also emulates their native keyboard. To exit, you need to switch the keyboard to the non-emulated keyboard by pressing ScrollLock. Then you can press Esc to exit. To get images and videos (if there are any) set the platforms' screape-as to VTech Socrates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ELDOAMark Posted August 2, 2023 Author Share Posted August 2, 2023 (edited) Ok yep the scroll lock thing worked perfectly. The database seems to have boxes and a screenshot for all the cartridges.. I meant I had to make an entry for the game that plays if the unit is empty. I didn't even know there was other games for when I was a kid lol. I just noticed that I can get them to run in mame but no in Launchbox.. If I remove those command line parameters then I can load socrates.zip (the custom entry I made) and play that.. I made a debug log of what happens when I go to load one of the cartridge games in launchbox with the command line parameters... Debug 2023-08-02 06-53-01 PM.log Edited August 2, 2023 by ELDOAMark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeViking245 Posted August 2, 2023 Share Posted August 2, 2023 32 minutes ago, ELDOAMark said: I can get them to run in mame Now that you know they can run in MAME, put socrates.zip inside the /socrates/ subfolder (with the game ROMs) and set up the Associated Platform as shown in my 1st post (including the command line, as shown). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ELDOAMark Posted August 2, 2023 Author Share Posted August 2, 2023 (edited) I don't think I have a socrates sub folder. All the socrates roms including socrates.zip are in the mame roms folder. I should make a socrates subfolder there? Also not sure if anyone is interested, but I have created some of my own Notes for each game. I have been able to find images of all the back of the boxes that were clear enough to read the description there and have that for every game except for Cad professor which I haven't been able to find the description of anywhere. I saw that a retro games podcast once did an episode where they play that game so I sent them an email asking if they could send me an image of the back of the box. Edited August 2, 2023 by ELDOAMark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeViking245 Posted August 3, 2023 Share Posted August 3, 2023 38 minutes ago, ELDOAMark said: I don't think I have a socrates sub folder. Ahh... you went rogue. lol In that case, you don't need that latter part of the command line I showed. Just "socrates" (without quotes). If that still doesn't work, can you share a screenshot of the main Details section of your MAME emulator? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ELDOAMark Posted August 3, 2023 Author Share Posted August 3, 2023 Sorry didn't realize I went rogue.. Still didn't work. I can backtrack and un-rogue if that helps Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeViking245 Posted August 3, 2023 Share Posted August 3, 2023 27 minutes ago, ELDOAMark said: Sorry didn't realize I went rogue.. Still didn't work. I can backtrack and un-rogue if that helps I was kind of joking about the rogue part. How you have it will still work. For now. Spoiler The potential problem with not having MAME softlists in their own subfolders is if you add Arcade and a bunch of other console/computer ROMs you'll run into issues. Example: you'll find asteroid.zip is used in Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800 and Arcade. The file name is the exact same, but they're 4 completely different ROMs. In the Details section, check 2 boxes: Remove Quotes and Remove file extension.... In the Associated Platforms section, add back in that full Default Command-line like you have in your previous screenshot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ELDOAMark Posted August 3, 2023 Author Share Posted August 3, 2023 Still does not seem to work from launch box. Yeah, I thought you meant actually loading them properly as mame software list.. I'm kind of just getting back into MAME after a few years and I remember getting it running in MESS which I learned isn't a thing anymore. I am using mame .256 for arcade and everything so I thought by just downloading .257 and throwing the roms in the roms folder I could avoid having to learn how to do that properly lol. I did download a plugin for launchbox for importing mame software list (without really knowing what it was), and it asks for an xml file. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeViking245 Posted August 4, 2023 Share Posted August 4, 2023 MAME and MESS are one-in-the-same now. However you did it in MESS, you do the same way in MAME. You'll note my command line didn't have "-cart" in it as it's not necessary. But you can add it if you wish. That Software List Importer I hear works pretty well for getting softlists into LB. Not sure which xml file your talking about, but as I recall there are pretty thorough instructions on the Download page for the plugin. So don't bypass anything because of tldr: syndrome. lol But you already have your ROMs in LaunchBox, so you don't need that for this particular softlist. If you do use it in the future and have questions about the plugin, you can ask them on the Support page for the plugin. The plugin creator is fairly good about responding and helping out. Can you share 'current' screenshots of how you have it setup? Emulator Details Emulator Associated Platforms Edit one of the games and show the Launching section Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C-Beats Posted August 4, 2023 Share Posted August 4, 2023 Unsure if when following Joe's advice you noticed and corrected but in your screenshots you have a typo. You have "-romapth" instead of "-rompath" 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ELDOAMark Posted August 4, 2023 Author Share Posted August 4, 2023 Ok its working now! I looked at the Launching settings for each game and they were all pointing to the file names of socrates roms I had downloaded from somewhere else that were named with the full game name instead of their mame name. So it now works with just 'socrates' with no quotes as an added command line parameter. Thanks again.. most of my front end experience was with hyperspin about 10 years ago and this is so much better. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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