Win994a under LINUX (F15 with Wine)

[KirkDCO]

I've installed Win994a on my Fedora 15 LINUX box using wine. Under the installation directory (.wine\drive_c\Program Files\Burrsoft\...) I see there are Disk/ Tape/ and Carts/ directories, so I put the various pieces in those directories appropriately. When I start Win994a, I get the Win7-type window but when I go to cartridges, disks, or tapes, they are none shown. I assume I need to tell Win994a where to look for these, but they were within its own directory tree so I assumed they would show up automatically. Also, when I click on the big circle on the left of the ribbon, a pop-up menu appears but it is completely black. I assume there are some preferences/settings that need to be configured, but I cannot see what is available under this menu. Also, it seems that I'm not getting any sound - no beep on start up.

 

One option would be to install the whole lot under Windows running in VirtualBox. It would be nice if I could get this running almost natively in LINUX. If anyone has this set up, I would appreciate any tips you can provide.

 

-Kirk

 

BTW - I also have Classic99 and MESS up and running. Classic99 has the same sound problem, which I assume is due to running through Wine. MESS seems to work OK, but I haven't been able to get it to recognize a disk yet. I tried copying a Win994a disk to have a .DSK extension and then starting mess with 'mess ti99_4a -flop1 disk.dsk' but it failed. I think the Win994a cartridges are not compatible across emulators and I get errors if I try. It looks like Classic99 has a nice collection of cartridges, but Win994a has a huge collection more, and MESS has none. It would be nice if all of this ran under one emulator, but I may have to get multiple ROMs, disks, etc. for each emulator. Of course, it would be nice if I were independently wealthy and smart enough to stay that way, too. 8^)

 

BTW2 - I also have Atari800 and Stella running. I should be set for a while, right?

Edited May 31, 2011 by KirkDCO

[John Doe]

Edited February 22, 2014 by Tony Knerr

[+stephena]

BTW2 - I also have Atari800 and Stella running. I should be set for a while, right?

I assume you mean you have the Linux version of Stella running? Because if not, be aware that there's a native version of Stella for Linux, and it will work much better than running the Windows version through Wine.

[matthew180]

The guy who writes Win994a made a proprietary format for the cart files and he is not willing to share the format (and no one has enough energy or cares enough to reverse the format.) The author probably did that to try and protect his ass a little since it is technically illegal to rip and distribute ROMs like that. However, Win994a does not come packaged with the cart files, so I think that is another tactic the author is trying to use to protect his ass "just in case". But the fact that his simulator can only read those specific format files, and is the *only* program that can read those files, pretty much makes the separation a mute point.

 

At any rate, the Win994a author did not rip all the ROMs, he copied them from various places and can really only be credited with bringing the collection together. So no, you can't rename the Win994a cart files for use with other emulators, but all the cart ROM dumps are available elsewhere.

 

On the other hand, the author of Classic99 (Tursi on the forum) has written legal permission from TI to distribute all the carts and systems ROMs he has available for Classic99.

[KirkDCO]

Tony - ah, yes, WHT! I hadn't thought to check there for MESS additives. Obviously, MESS doesn't come with anything, but the WHT resource is incredible.

 

stephena - yes, I have the LINUX native Stella running. I grabbed the 64-bit Fedora/Mandriva rpm from their site. As for Atari800, I built that one from source in about 5 minutes. Amazing it takes that little code to operate.

 

matthew180 - all that makes sense. It seems that I have plenty of options among the three emulators/simulators

 

Thanks for the info, folks!