LTO Flash! - Intellivision Flash Cartridge Information

[+intvsteve]

Which controls are you using? In a past life I was a Windows C/C++ programmer. I know the C# (.NET) controls are slightly different from the C/C++ ones.

Just using a vanilla WPF TreeView.

 

Adding multi-column support and drag and drop to rearrange were the first significant features I needed to add. The drag-scroll looks pretty easy. I have my eye on a multi-select technique. The challenge becomes dealing with how these features all interact with each other.

 

I've examined numerous approaches, including replacing the entire control, but those are not to be taken lightly.

 

You'll find tons of things on Stack Overflow, Code Project, and the other usual suspects, as well as third-party businesses selling such things.

 

I've been implementing the missing features via attached behaviors, so hopefully I'll work out one that will work soon.

 

Both platforms to date (Mac, Windows) have heaps of things to gripe about. But I will say this: The Mac NSOutlineView just had multiselect built in, and it was nice.

 

This Mono regression on Mac has thrown me for a loop, so I had to drop everything to figure that one out.

[+Rick Reynolds]

 

Unfortunately there are probably about 6 people on the planet who'd ever use it. I'd rather see the effort spent on a GUI launcher for jzintv first (plus a whole bunch of other improvements that more people will use).

 

 

I would use it.

 

Yep, I'm in this boat also. I put a good deal of effort into a command line tool for organizing my rom collection and I have modules to export lists of games into the CC3 file format as well as a format that works well with my MAME cab's front end. I'd love to write a module that could call out to some command line tool to push those same lists of games to the LTO. At this point, I'm doing double entry of my info - one in my tool (which has LOTS of history in it) and another into the LUI.

 

I know I'm a crazy edge case here, so I'm not wanting anything fancy. I'm also not expecting anything soon - there are other and better ways for intvsteve to use his time right now.

[+Lathe26]

Just using a vanilla WPF TreeView.

 

Adding multi-column support and drag and drop to rearrange were the first significant features I needed to add. The drag-scroll looks pretty easy. I have my eye on a multi-select technique. The challenge becomes dealing with how these features all interact with each other.

 

I've examined numerous approaches, including replacing the entire control, but those are not to be taken lightly.

 

You'll find tons of things on Stack Overflow, Code Project, and the other usual suspects, as well as third-party businesses selling such things.

 

I've been implementing the missing features via attached behaviors, so hopefully I'll work out one that will work soon.

 

Both platforms to date (Mac, Windows) have heaps of things to gripe about. But I will say this: The Mac NSOutlineView just had multiselect built in, and it was nice.

 

This Mono regression on Mac has thrown me for a loop, so I had to drop everything to figure that one out.

Cool. Sounds like you have things well in hand. I agree that the Mono regression is more important than a Windows drag-n-drop enhancement.

[mr_me]

 

Unfortunately there are probably about 6 people on the planet who'd ever use it. I'd rather see the effort spent on a GUI launcher for jzintv first (plus a whole bunch of other improvements that more people will use).

Just because few people will benefit from something doesn't mean it's not worth doing. On the other hand, GUI launchers for jzIntv already exists. Take a look at LaunchBox for Windows, it works great with any version of jzIntv and is simple to setup. I'm sure there are others but LaunchBox and EmulationStation for Windows, and of course Windows File Explorer are what I've tried. EmulationStation is good for televisions and LaunchBox for PCs.

[Ignorama]

My cart arrived today with a nice gift, thank you Marc

 

 

Loading the cart with ROMs is a piece of cake, never thought it would be so easy. But if I use the programm it says "X/255 items", is the cart limited to 255 games?

[intvnut]

Loading the cart with ROMs is a piece of cake, never thought it would be so easy. But if I use the programm it says "X/255 items", is the cart limited to 255 games?

 

 

Each folder can hold up to 255 items (files or folders). If you have more than 255 items, you'll need to split it up into multiple folders. You can have up to 1536 total files, up to 128 of which can be folders.

[freewheel]

Just because few people will benefit from something doesn't mean it's not worth doing. On the other hand, GUI launchers for jzIntv already exists. Take a look at LaunchBox for Windows, it works great with any version of jzIntv and is simple to setup. I'm sure there are others but LaunchBox and EmulationStation for Windows, and of course Windows File Explorer are what I've tried. EmulationStation is good for televisions and LaunchBox for PCs.

 

I didn't say it's not worth doing - for the record, guys, I'm one of those 6 Linux users and I'd much prefer to have a GUI there. But the reality is, there are very few of us. Compare that to the hordes of people who struggle, and struggle mightily, trying to make a modern emulator work. I can't believe there are still people using Bliss and Nostalgia - or until now could only play ROMs via their CC3 - but I hear about them all the time. Heck, we have aspiring developers who have trouble dealing with the command line.

 

I'm just pointing out that resources are likely to be focused elsewhere, just due to demand. Never mind the fact that making a decent GUI work across various Linux distros can be a ton of fun.

 

I also, in a selfish sense, want to make sure the Linux CLI tools are well-established before we worry about prettying up the UI. I haven't kept up; have they been officially released along with everything else?

[daldude]

I just had a annoying problem happen with the LTO Flash Transfer Program for Windows. All of a sudden it in the windows on the right where you put ROMs to transfer to the Cartridge it no longer listed the Folders I created to put ROMs in and even when I clicked get from LTO Flash it did not restore the folders unless I first created a new folder and then clicked get from LTO Flash and that got my folders back but then any new ROMs I added to Folders also appeared at the bottom of the list in the Root Directory but I was able to fix that by deleting them from the Windows at the right and then clicking send to LTO Flash now all seems fine but I have not tried loading the program again.

I even tried uninstalling the App and reinstalling it but it still remembered where my back ups were and apparently did not actually clear everything from my PC so I could start over fresh again, must have not removed everything from the Windows Registry. It seemed to happen after Either I put a short cut to the program on the quick launch bar at the bottom of the dsektop or after I check marked don't ask again in the dialog box that pops up after you click send to LTO.

[+intvsteve]

I'm having a hard time following your description of what happened... Would it be possible to do a screen recording to show me what happened?

 

Is it possible you accidentally right-clicked and chose to empty the menu layout? It warns you before doing that, though... If your key repeat is fast, and you used the 'delete' key to remove ROMs (or held it down, I've been known to do that) it's possible the folders got deleted that way. And yes, I've annoyed myself with that, too.

 

If you use the 'Add ROMs' to add new ones to the system, and have them automatically added to the menu, too, it will put them in the folder you have selected in the menu layout. If nothing is selected, or a ROM at the "root" folder is selected, then it puts them at the root.

 

Uninstaller only removes the program and shortcut. The UI program does not use the registry to store any data, unless the installer puts something there for the installer to use.

 

Your data is all in the Documents directory, in a folder called "LTO Flash". The installer will never delete that data. It also does not delete your user preferences for the application. Those details, and many others, are in the readme and other documents included with the application. You can open the readme file via the main application menu.

 

EDIT: You can rename that folder after quitting to get a "fresh" set of everything.

 

On the upside, this morning I got the prototype working for "scroll dragging" for Windows. I need to tune the speed to a reasonable value.

[daldude]

It seems to have fixed it's self because it now remembers all the folders I added even after shutting down the night before and turning my PC back on the Next Morning everything was still there and no duplicate files from folders appeared at the bottom of the main Root Menu.

[Ignorama]

I loaded the entire library onto the cart, but its hard to search for titles. Do I miss something? Because I have to press "down" 124 times to get from the first to the last game. I miss something like a key which switches through "pages" or something like this.

Edited September 22, 2016 by Ignorama

[Kiwi]

Right disc will flip a page down, left disc will flip a page up. Similar to the Ultimate SD cartridge for the Colecovision.

[intvnut]

Left and right on the controller go by pages.

 

Also, if you have an ECS, pressing letters skips among titles starting with that letter.

 

EDIT: Fuller summary....

Edited September 22, 2016 by intvnut

[Ignorama]

Awesome, its exactly what I was looking for! So ECS is my best friend to use the Cart

[daldude]

It seems to have fixed it's self because it now remembers all the folders I added even after shutting down the night before and turning my PC back on the Next Morning everything was still there and no duplicate files from folders appeared at the bottom of the main Root Menu.

I figured out what was causing the New ROMs I added to folders to also appear at the bottom of the Main Menu list, I had Automatically add ROMs to Menu Option Checked.

[intvnut]

I should add, in the manual reader, pressing the left/right edges of the disc fast-scroll, while up/down slow-scroll. If you roll your finger between left and up or right and down, you can vary the scroll speed a bit, which is handy when scanning for the info you need.

[Binth]

Does LevelUp no longer carry it?

[intvnut]

They're sold out right now.

[Binth]

OK thank you, the page just goes to a 404 type page so I was not sure.

[bradd1978]

Received my copy today! Thank you Joe, you did an outstanding job! Easy setup and works like a charm

[ITAdvantage]

Received my copy today! Thank you Joe, you did an outstanding job! Easy setup and works like a charm

It really is great. Super easy to setup, don't have to dick around with micro SD cards, easy to switch between games. I have been jealous for years of all the CC3 owners because they could buy ROM only versions of games and I couldn't, or they could play the entire library of games and I had to go on goodwill or ebay to find the carts. I would listen to the Intellivisionaries, for example, their Truckin' episode and I had to just watch YouTube videos to understand what they were talking about, but now I can actually play them instead. I don't know what it is, but I really fell in love with Dreadnaught Factor after their episode on it. It's become one of, if not the favorite game of mine on the console. Such a cool mix of shmup and strategy, and you get an advantage of playing on a real console versus emulation because none of the emulators to my knowledge emulate the ship explosion properly. IIRC it was something to do with changing the border color to get that effect and the emulators can't replicate that for some reason. So just another attaboy to Joe for his awesome creation!

[carlsson]

I just found out that my copy has been waiting at the post office since last Wednesday morning. Apparently the Swedish post didn't think it was important enough to send out a package slip for me to pick it up, although they claim they did. I suppose I'll pick it up tomorrow, using the tracking number and my ID instead of the slip that refuses to show up.

[m-crew]

I received mine a few days ago ,Thanks Joe

finally had a chance to see if I can flash a couple of games on it.. Tried Christmas Carol and Stonix.. Loaded them on the flash no problem. It actually populated the Roms files on both sides automatically. The only thing is that it double showed double titles of both on both menu on the title side and layout side.

So when I sent it to the flash cart , it loaded two of each Rom.. I was just wondering why that happened..

 

Simple enough though..

[+intvsteve]

Interesting... So you have two entries for each game in the menu on the cart?

 

Do you happen to have both .rom and .bin versions of these games? Or perhaps multiple copies, but with different .cfg files (for the .bin version of ROMs).

 

The left-hand side is just a list of the unique ROMs. The right-hand side is the menu layout for LTO Flash!

 

I have plans to do a few more things via that left-hand side. Eventually.

[m-crew]

Interesting... So you have two entries for each game in the menu on the cart?

 

Do you happen to have both .rom and .bin versions of these games? Or perhaps multiple copies, but with different .cfg files (for the .bin version of ROMs).

 

The left-hand side is just a list of the unique ROMs. The right-hand side is the menu layout for LTO Flash!

 

I have plans to do a few more things via that left-hand side. Eventually.

I'm not really sure , I just downloaded ROMs tonight. This is the first for me in all.. lol

 

But was that an upgrade to populate the right hand side automatically. Because manual said to drag rom from left to right side.