SpiceWare's Blog

A little more progress during my lunch break. I tracked down the source from here and put it into /usr/local/share/fpcsrc/3.2.0/ which made Lazarus' config dialog happy:

 

 

I was then able to successfully build and run one of the example programs:

 

 

To be continued...

 

 

That's a bummer - turns out the source I found was not from my MenuMaker 0.2 port - it doesn't even have the DirectorySeparator constant that I mention putting in place in this comment so I think it's the original file that Richard sent me.

 

I've started to relearn how to use Lazarus so I can redo the port.  So far I've created a basic Application and have been modifying it to look like the screenshots from here. The About button works, but that's it for tonight.

 

 

 

 

Made some headway.

 

At the moment the program's hardcoded to use /Volumes/VECMULTI and /Volumes/VECMULTI/Games.

 

I downloaded Beluga Dreams, a Vectrex game I did not have, and put it in the Games directory on the SD card.  I then ran MenuMaker.

 

Beluga Dreams ended up as game #3, which was unexpected as I thought it would be sorted alphabetically and thus appear on page 2.  The routines are probably getting the files in whatever order they exist in the FAT directory structure, which is why utilities like FATsort exist.

 

 

 

Beluga Dreams in action:

 

 

I haven't tried firing up my Vectrex in a long time. I have two of Richard's multicarts: an previous-generation VecMulti that has never worked in my Vectrex (I have a fussy Vectrex), and a VecFlash, which I can't use because of a lack of Mac software.

 

Richard has a newer VecMulti that seems to do better with fussy Vectrexes (Vectri?), but I can't use it with the Mac because of software. Richard wrote:

Quote

it requires a menu packer (written for PC). Darrell's Mac version menu packer won't work on the new revision of VecMulti.

He was going to think about if there might be a solution, but that was April 2020, and I haven't wanted to press him on it.

That's a bummer.  I'll ping Richard about it.

 

Made some more progress - the SD card is no longer hard coded:

 

 

Clicking ... brings up the Volumes on your Mac:

 

 

I decided to not make the Games directory also selectable as I never used that feature, so it gets set to SDCard/Games.  The TFileListBox has a Sorted setting - it defaults to true which means it should be sorted, but as seen before with Beluga Dreams it wasn't. I decided to see if I could manually sort the list box after it loaded in the files - that worked:

 

 

So Beluga Dreams now shows up on Page 2 as expected:

 

Still a few things to wrap up such as cleaning up the code (lots of experimental code is still in there, just commented out so it won't run) as well as figure out how to get the program icon to show up. You can see it in the window's title bar in the above screenshots, but it's not showing up on the program itself:

 

 

If you do happen to figure out how to get the menu to work on the new MAC OS. Please feel free to post on Vectrex Vans Unite! I know a lot of people would appreciate it.
I currently use a VecFever to experience new games and demos, so this is not an issue anymore to me and many others that use VecFever and PiTrex currently.
I still use my VecMulti as well but just how is was last setup many years back and that's good enough for me.

Looks like Vectrex Fans Unite! is a facebook group - I'm no longer a member of Facebook, got tired of them censoring me.

 

Glad you found a solution in the meantime.

 

 

On 12/10/2021 at 7:35 AM, SpiceWare said:

Looks like Vectrex Fans Unite! is a facebook group - I'm no longer a member of Facebook, got tired of them censoring me.

 

Glad you found a solution in the meantime.

 

 

No worries.  I'll x-post there and a few other places.