MAMEWorld Forums - News - Re: MAME 0.208 - Rebound related annecdote

>Rebound (Rev B) [TTL] [DICE Team, Couriersud]

A late thanks and kudos for all the recent netlist work.

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2019-03-12 New working machine
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Rebound [DICE team, Couriersud]

I forgot about my older post from 3 years earlier and briefly describing Tickle emulator.

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Re: Pong emulation with MAME
02/08/16

http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/sho...part=1&vc=1

Going by memory, the first emulation example was by A. Scotti and his Tickle emulator that was displaying images of Atari Rebound in 2006.
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Any of the long time MW forum folks recall seeing Alessandro Scotti's briefly attempted Rebound page in which it displayed a small screen image of Rebound back around maybe 2004 or maybe 2005?

I had thought it was shown in 2006, but maybe it was earlier such as in 2004. Here are old screens of Alessandro Scotti web pages.

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Tickle is Copyright (c) 2004 by Alessandro Scotti

https://web.archive.org/web/20040813212508/http://www.ascotti.org:80/programming/tickle/tickle.htm

https://web.archive.org/web/20040901053813/http://www.ascotti.org/programming/tickle/about.htm

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*gregf-mode length non-cpu memories annecdote then in 2004/2005*

When first following MAME since mid 2000 (I wasn't around when Pong was first simulated in MAME and removed by Nicola Salmoria when Nicola was running the show then), my main thing was wanting to have discrete audio being emulated in MAME. I somewhat knew why non-cpu games were not emulated, but not having EE knowledge knew what it would all take to get non-cpu games emulated. MAME had lots of stuff yet to be emulated and even the Sega FD 1089 and FD 1094 had yet to be figured out, CPS-2 was relying on Razoola's XOR's files and CPS-3 and the various Gaelco 'Dallas - MCU protected' games were considered eventually to be extinct games at the time. That was the thought back then.

Derrick Renaud was just getting started with improving Keith Wilkins' 'centralized' discrete emulation system and getting some discrete audio sounds emulated and Asteroids long ago awful sounds had still yet to be fixed at the time.

It was around 2003 that someone had asked Derrick what it would take to get Pong emulated in MAME and Derrick provided an informative post at the time of what all it would involve to get non-cpu games emulated in MAME

I had photocopied schematics pages of Gremlin's Frogs manual along with some pages of schematics of Ramtek's Clean Sweep and mailed copies to Ontario, Canada to Derrick Renaud
at the time. Derrick messaged a few days later explaining Frogs discrete audio would require loads of work and the simplest that could be quickly done was the tongue/zip sound effect. Derrick was trying to get best biggest work accomplished that would not require way too much work and the primary game targets were Atari and Midway 1970s era games which is understandable since hardware components of various games utilized similar setup such as engine sounds or the generic one shot crash sound effects. I can understand why Derrick chose to work that path and it is good that many of the sound effects are now emulated these days.

Besides Derrick answering about Gremlin's Frogs analog audio, Derrick had also explained that Ramtek Clean Sweep uses proms and before there was/is any chance of Ramtek Clean Sweep being emulated, the proms had to be dumped first.

Derrick's Clean Sweep answer bummed me out at first so I continued back with the analog audio stuff for a while......but an interesting moment took place either in 2004 or 2005...I don't recall.

Someone had either posted on old MAME.net forums or more likely it was here on MAMEWorld at the time. It could have been either MASH or maybe Stiletto....not sure since the old thread is long gone.

The post pointed to homepage of 'Tickle' is Copyright (c) 2004 by Alessandro Scotti
...but they also pointed to a page showing an emulated/simulated snap of Rebound at the time.

It was a big thing back then because there were a fair number of posts and comments about the Rebound example that Alessandro Scotti was showing and as he explained on his web page that it ran extremely slow even though it wasn't fully emulated at the time.

Seeing Alessandro Scotti's work provided inspiration for me to get started and buy any non-cpu pcbs that might use roms and proms so they can be dumped. The Rebound image showed an example that there was hope that maybe something could be done in MAME, but for any chance it literally required a major overhaul over next few years and that was what took place when Aaron Giles and others rewrote MAME to treat cpus just to be a simple device like all other components were treated. This work went from mid 2007 through about late 2009 iirc.

Although there were various donation efforts being done by Guru or Mr. Goodwraith with Dumping Project (a few years before Smit and Dumping Union started), the non-cpu stuff was still off to the side since there were still many more important items to get that were not yet emulated.

iirc I bought a couple pcbs, but wasn't sure who could dump the proms. It turned out that 'siftware' resided within a 30 minute drive from me and it worked out because siftware dumped a fair number of pcbs with proms and documented pcbs that either I bought or (donated by Stephen S.) or on loan. And also others including Tingoes with Stunt Cycle pcb had also got roms dumped before netlist emulation finally became a reality in MAME in late spring 2012. And other contributors (Andy Welburn, blinddog and number of others) have also helped over past 5 years getting the roms and proms documented in MAME source even though it may be a while before games are emulated.

What worked out great was Adam Bousley and Rich [DICE] showed proof that several of the prom dumps appear to be valid and in working condition when used with DICE including Tingoes Stunt Cycle (dumped by Guru) pcb. Also to add is Moogly getting preliminary prom support working with netlist and couriersud fixing the support so future various rom and prom chips can be supported later.

If it weren't for Alessandro Scotti and the Rebound page and image snap at the time in 2004/2005 providing inspiration that "if Alessandro Scotti could use Rebound paperwork to do preliminary emulation of Rebound and show it was possible, maybe an outside chance of non-cpu games that use roms also have an outside chance of being emulated". But it also helped that Stephen S., siftware, keshbach, Tingoes, Andy Welburn, Stiletto, etabeta, Osso, Moogly, Tafoid, blinddog helped here and there along the way...and to Aaron Giles and MAMEdevs for overhauling MAME to handle a diversity of hardware these days besides just coinop videogames.

A tip of the hat to Alessandro Scotti for showing things may have been possible then with preliminary Rebound image and to couriersud for proving the possibility being a reality in getting Rebound actually supported in MAME.

*hopefully fin*

Edited by gregf (04/09/19 09:33 AM)