MAMEWorld Forums - News - Re: MAME 0.221

My thanks to all the various contributors in the different areas of updates.

>Milton Bradley Microvision [hap]

I figure the vast majority will be going for Snoopy G&W, but I want to say thanks to
hap, Sean, and some appreciation to Paul R. regarding this MB handheld. I only got Blockbuster with the unit (didn't buy other cartridges) and played that continually throughout 1979 year...so this will bring back some memories.

>btime.cpp Pro Tennis (Japan) [ShouTime]
>decocass.cpp: Verified cptennis DIP switch settings against documentation. [Guru]

A good find by ShouTime since it shows another example of DECO Cassette game that was also a dedicated pcb hardware game as well.

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model2.cpp: Fixed airwlkrs ROM loading – fixes polygons and textures. [ElSemi]
model2.cpp: Re-dumped airwlkrs data ROMs. [Guru]
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Good to see a few familiar 'MAME older era' names helping here and there along with Kale, Palazzolo and a few others.

>pcxt.cpp: Added support for filetto voice output. [Carl]

A pc-like hardware coinop game with speech output samples? It almost reminds me of the 1980s era IBM DOS based Mindscape brand wrestling game that also supported speech (and not in a good audible way by any means iirc )

>netlist library updates: [Couriersud]
* Added pre-compiled static solvers (must be manually rebuilt when netlists are updated).
* Improved performance of time step calculation.

An early thanks to Aaron and couriersud [Palazzolo too] for recent extensive netlist updates including the rom/prom handling part since this means more future non-cpu prom usage hardware might have a better chance of appearing including a fair number of games even though still down the road because of other devices/components yet to be emulated. I am so looking forward to the Cinematronics / Vectorbeam vector monitor hardware games analog audio (netlist related) updates in case they get added to baseline/mainline MAME source code in some future update.....especially Star Hawk. Armor Attack is probably the one that most Cinematronic dedicated fans are wanting analog audio to be playable. I seem to remember Armor Attack being most popular, but when Space Wars (Cinematronics' first vector monitor game), Space Wars did attract a lot of attention since that was first vector monitor game I recall seeing in arcades back in mid 1970s.

>mw8080bw.cpp: Added netlist-based audio for gunfight. [Colin Howell]

Props to Colin with analog audio working with the game, but also doing extensive hardware details documentation of describing some of the hardware components that work to generate analog audio output.

btw:

a part Gun Fight / part transwarp back to 1970s era Time Out ('cool story bro') moment meme from 2001 AD... gregf-mode length anecdote:

Way back when Nicola was in charge of MAME back in early era, and when Gridle was running old MAME.net and was doing MAME WIP updates and in November 2000, Keith Wilkins had sent in first draft of centralized discrete analog audio support somewhat moving discrete audio support from individual driver files into some centralized support system to provide a centralized support system that multiple games drivers can refer to, which was considered a potential improvement. That update didn't have any meaning to me at the time, but Stiletto knew what the possibility meant since Stiletto applauded it and considered it important.

Keith had put it to use when doing Atari Fire Truck as an example back in spring 2001, but that work also put a dent on Atari Asteroids audio output. heh. Older generation MAME users from years 2001 to 2004 will remember that long standing issue....especially PacDude since he brought it up to criticize MAME like he always did.

Thankfully Derrick Renaud eventually came along in 2004 and help improved a lot of Keith Wilkins analog discrete work and got Atari Asteroids analog audio back in working shape around 2005 iirc.

Going back to late 2000, when visiting a family member in Denver, CO and going south to Manitou Springs, CO I spotted an Atari Sprint 2 cab in basement arcade family center at Cave of the Winds tourist attraction. Knowing that MAME was using external audio samples, I was going with idea of maybe taking audio recordings of Sprint 2 for external audio samples. When visiting family member again in summer 2001, I called Cave of the Winds and was able to talk to the manager 'Sean'. iirc Sean was familiar with arcade emulation and MAME and knew how the Sprint 2 audio recordings would be used if able to get them as external audio samples it.

I went in Cave of the Winds in early hours before the attraction opened to public and was able to make nearly a half hours worth of Sprint 2 audio recordings. It wasn't really possible to use recordings as external audio samples in MAME, but Derrick Renaud was able to use the audio recordings for analog audio reference and eventually was able to implement analog audio emulation of Sprint 2 and reuse the same code for other 1970s era Atari Sprint games which is why the various 1970s era Atari Sprint games have analog audio emulation.

After I concluded making audio recordings and I visited Sean briefly while he had time to spare, Sean had recommended me to drive down into Manitou Springs valley main boulevard and visit Arcade Amusements, but visit there in fall when the place wasn't busy.

Sometime in October 2001, I took Sean's advice and visited Arcade Amusements. Since the place was not busy, I talked to an attendant and the attendant had me follow over to a closed room. Attendant opened up the room and said something along the line of "Welcome back to time warp of mid 1970s like you once remembered in your youth."

Sure enough. I replied ".... almost like Time Out arcade used to be like back in 1970s decade with electromechanical games standing next to videogames and pinball."

A lot of Allied Leisure cabs, Midway cabs, and then for videogames, Kee Games Quiz Show and Midway Wheels and Midway Gun Fight. Atari Tempest and a few other 1980s era games.

I was able to play Midway Gun Fight a couple times. Eventually since the place was closed for winter season, attendant and I left after closing the room down and turning off power before heading outside.

The interesting part during conversation was when the attendant had indicated that finding replacement parts and components was a challenge especially control panel hardware compared to pcb components. Somewhere was the quote of: "if parts are listed or at least shown in schematics, then there is a chance for repair work..."

Being a MAME newbie user that first discovered non-commercial emulation and also MAME in late spring of 2000 and here it was in October 2001, (nearly 18 months gone by) and it took someone to say 'schematics' in person and then it clicked that maybe that was how Keith Wilkins had emulated analog audio for Atari Fire Truck. It also provided a better understanding of why many of the already emulated cpu based 1970s era coinop games had no audio support. It made me realize then how emulation in MAME still had a long ways to go back in those early era post 2000AD years even though a lot of games had already been emulated by late 2001.

MAME might still have a ways to go here and there, but since 2001, the progress has been damn impressive imo with a lot accomplished that I did not expect to happen.

Edited by gregf (05/19/20 10:33 PM)