Uae4arm: Amiga emulator with JIT and DispmanX

[Methanoid]

So is this emulator now effectively dead? Does anyone know if there is an alternative? Was hoping Chips might at least dignify us with a reply, but it would appear he's not bothered

Has it suddenly stopped working now? I'm sure a sarky comment will force Chips to reply

[Haemogoblin]

Not sarcastic, simply an observation. I've messaged Chips directly multiple times over the past few months and he's read and ignored each one. I'd understand if he wasn't active on the forum but he is, so it feels very much like he's chosen to just abandon development with little in way of an explanation to the users who've been supporting / praising / admiring his work thus far. Given a broad number of us are actively using uae4arm it would be nice to have some clarification.

Aside from Amiberry, I believe uae4arm has been the reigning champion for emulating Amigas on the Pi till now. If support has ceased, it's very unfortunate and warrants least a little explanation.

Had chips gone as far as he could with it or was it simply a case of being bored?

[Methanoid]

I beg to differ. If I use a piece of FREE software then I don't expect the author to be obliged to do anything. It can be buggy (then don't use it), it can be one version and nothing more (nobody is forcing you to use it), they can fail to communicate. It is their choice. Now if you had PAID for it then it would be a different story but we didn't, did we.

It might frustrate but if it's free then we have no rights. I wouldn't stress it. You're right he probably did get bored but that's his choice and his as to whether he wants to respond or explain.

[Haemogoblin]

Regardless of whether it is paid or freeware, if your going to develop or provide software in the public domain. You have a certain degree of responsibility to that user base.

[Methanoid]

Regardless of whether it is paid or freeware, if your going to develop or provide software in the public domain. You have a certain degree of responsibility to that user base.

In your opinion.. Others may differ. Legally, you'd be talking out of your bottom

[Haemogoblin]

Legally your of course correct. I was thinking more from a moral stand point. If i develop software for others to use. If it then becomes popular amongst a steady group of users, who look at me for support.
When I'm ready to move on do I;

A. Drop them and not give it a second thought.
B. Explain reasons for moving on and see if anyone wishes to take over development.

Option A, won't win you many fans. :-/

[Chips]

There is nothing more to say than my previous post... i could come back on uae4arm if i get some time and/or desire.
Anybody can improve things anyway since it's open source, i've seen a fork in github regarding some control management but haven't look and i've seen that there is a new version for pandora which could be merged in my source...

[Haemogoblin]

Hi Chips

Thank you for popping in, it's much appreciated. Your work on this fork of the pandora source has been nothing but fantastic. So much so that I built an AmigaPi system around it, I know I'm not the only one . Please dont view my comments to harshly, it's only that like others I've followed what you've been doing since the beginning and would hate to see it end. Especially when it's currently imho the best Amiga emulator for the Pi.

[TomBPand]

I created a repository of UAE4ARM (https://github.com/PandTomB/uae4arm), which contains the code from Chips and new stuff. This version will be maintained and improved at least for the next months. I'm also working together with the people from Amiberry project. So parts of my code will become part of Amiberry and vice versa.

[Chips]

Code to navigate in menu by joystick has been merged from another repo.
It works with a plain joystick, perhaps with strange joystick like PS3 it's not perfect (i don't have mine anymore).

I created a repository of UAE4ARM (https://github.com/PandTomB/uae4arm), which contains the code from Chips and new stuff. This version will be maintained and improved at least for the next months. I'm also working together with the people from Amiberry project. So parts of my code will become part of Amiberry and vice versa.

Why not create a fork from mine so that cherry picking would be easier ?

[Chips]

I just merged an updated version from TomB.
I've taken too the flicker fixer and implemented the trigger button of cartridge. Now you can use Action Replay on uae4arm

I feel like the ondemand scheduling is quite aggressive. It can be seen if you activate Status line: the first number which is free CPU oscillate.
If you set to performance, I fell like it's more stable:

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sudo cpufreq-set -g performance

Is it only me ?

[Haemogoblin]

Awesome, I would give it a spin but the other half is playing Bards Tale on the AmigaPi.

Thanks chips!

[oz2cpu]

Hi folks,
FIRST : I have been SUPER happy for my UAE4ARM
thanks a million times to all who have been working on this,
I use it with Raspberry Pi 3

Intro to Question :
The game DYNABLASTER is the coolest multiplayer gave ever, even today it is the best gameplay and fun factor in battle mode, As it support up to 5 player at the same time !
two are in the normal joystick ports, one on the keyboard, and two extra joysticks via amiga parallel port. just a cable was used to connect two DB9 connectors to the DB25
no electronics was used with the A500,
QUESTION :
how can I add the two parallel port joysticks to my Raspberry pi3 so Dynablaster will read the bits as correct directions ?
Any one ? pretty please with sugar on top

[Haemogoblin]

Hey buddy!

Welcome to our little AmigaPi club!

I hate to give bad news, but at present I don't believe it's possible to hook up the old joysticks without some sort of usb adapter to convert your controller in to a HID compatible device. I think some people have patched controllers in to the gpio pins. Not sure how that works.

A lot of us with Keyrahs's have been begging for key mapping for some time, but it's a case of priorities I guess. Fixing bugs first is more important then trying to implement yet another feature.

IMHO Chips is awful busy with other projects and I think his time on UAE4ARM isnt what it used to be sadly.

If were lucky someone with the coding mojo might come along and shake things up. But that not to under play what's been done so far. This emulator truly does rock on the pi!

[oz2cpu]

hi there, thanks for a reply, but you dont understand my question.
I all ready got USB to DB9 joystick converter that handle two joysticks,
that is how i get player 1 and 2..
DYNABLASTER is a special game that hande 4 joysticks at the same time, 5 players.
two of them (the two extra 3 - 4 ) are normally using the parallel port on a real amiga.
and the 5th player is on the keyboard.

my question is only about the player 3 -4 via parallel port.
how do i make dynablaster read from what it thinks is the amiga parallel port,
when i use UAE4ARM on a raspberry pi.

(yes i too would be happy if GPIO's could be parallel port or joystick inputs, seems like the most natural thing to do in the first place)
but lets not ask for solutions, that is all ready solved with usb to joystick thingys

[Haemogoblin]

Goodness knows, i imagine this would also effect skidmarks. As you can have 4 player races. Never tried hooking more then two joysticks in at once lol

[oz2cpu]

i did try to hook up two of them two in one USB adapter,
and YES Linux and UAE4ARM, the F12 menu, see now 4 joysticks,
and I can of course assign any of them to port 0 and 1,
but since those games dont use a joystick port as player 3-4
but other systems depending on game type, Skidmarks uses another amiga via link cable, to add 2 more players.
So this sounds also a bit tricky to solve with an Emulator.

[Haemogoblin]

Actually no, there is a 4 port joystick adapter you can use. My friend uses it on his CD32 all the time

[oz2cpu]

>on his CD32

hello
we talk about UAE4ARM, that is an emulator, not the real Commodore hardware,
we all know how easy it is just to solder two DB9 connectors and a few wires into a DB25 connector
bingo there you have it, two more gameports for your favorite game: DYNABLASTER
so maybe it is easier and cheaper just to dig up an old A500 or CD32 and play this game the way it was designed to be played,
but now I just was to see if it can actually be solved with UAE4ARM.
Anyone ?

[Chips]

A lot of us with Keyrahs's have been begging for key mapping for some time, but it's a case of priorities I guess. Fixing bugs first is more important then trying to implement yet another feature.

Can you try this repo ? There is a correction for the custom mapping...
https://github.com/AngryLawyer/uae4arm-rpi/

DYNABLASTER is a special game that hande 4 joysticks at the same time, 5 players.
two of them (the two extra 3 - 4 ) are normally using the parallel port on a real amiga.
and the 5th player is on the keyboard.

This is currently not supported .
The current uae4arm version is aligned with winuae 3.3 which support that. However the code is currently never called in uae4arm (function handle_parport_joystick) moreover the GUI would needs to get updated in order to be able to select the joystick for port 3 & 4.

[oz2cpu]

thanks for the info chips,
by the way for us noobs, when some thing new and cool is released,
how do we update ?
a link to git hub dont really help me, when i type update, in Linux cli, it say i got the latest version,
so that is where my Linux skils stop for now.

[Haemogoblin]

Hey thanks chips! I shall give that a go!
If this means I can actually use my old joysticks, boy I'd be happy!

Btw I've notice something odd, I don't know I feel it's just the A600 keyboard in conjunction with a keyrah. But regardless of whether is set left alt or left control, the left Amiga key seems to bring up the menu.

[oz2cpu]

>If this means I can actually use my old joysticks, boy I'd be happy!

I soldered this one:
http://www.hexagons.de/index.php/USB_Joystickadapter

took me 30 mins, it support two joysticks, pop up in the GUI select and play, easy for a hardware dude
all the files and info you need, is in the download link called
Joyadapter-20150309.zip

[Haemogoblin]

I think you might miss understand, I already have two serial mouse ports built in to my keyrah. They are mapped to the cursor keys and the num pad. Hopefully what chips has directed me to, will mean I can use those ports. It would be nothing short of paradise.

[Chips]

thanks for the info chips,
by the way for us noobs, when some thing new and cool is released,
how do we update ?
a link to git hub dont really help me, when i type update, in Linux cli, it say i got the latest version,

Which distribution do you use ? Not all of them use my uae4arm version...

Perhaps i need to make the uae4arm github mainpage more noob compliant.
So from a linux terminal, do the following:
First you first need git:

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sudo install git

Then clone my source code to your raspberry. Do it where you want it to be:

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git clone https://github.com/Chips-fr/uae4arm-rpi

Then go to the source you retrieve:

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cd uae4arm-rpi

If you look at github uae4arm page, i descripte the following part: you need to install some package. Then do a command "make" and wait.

I think you might miss understand, I already have two serial mouse ports built in to my keyrah. They are mapped to the cursor keys and the num pad. Hopefully what chips has directed me to, will mean I can use those ports. It would be nothing short of paradise.

Yes but for me this solution is better than this stupid keyboard mapping used by keyrah...
I'm not sure the repo i indicate will solve everything keyrah related but for some joystick direction it should.let me know what key would be missing for keyrah...
EDIT: i feel like it works for mapping a key to another key but when i choose a joystick direction it fails ...