Bankswitching and emulators

[Gip-Gip]

Quick question: how do you format banks for emulators such as JS99'er? I can get the separate bank files, which would be great if I were writing files to EPROM, but for testing with emulators I'm not entirely sure how you'd combine them, load them, etc.

[+Lee Stewart]

1 hour ago, Gip-Gip said:

Quick question: how do you format banks for emulators such as JS99'er? I can get the separate bank files, which would be great if I were writing files to EPROM, but for testing with emulators I'm not entirely sure how you'd combine them, load them, etc.

 

I am not sure about JS99er, but I would think it similar to Classic99, which needs them put together just as you would for EPROMs. You should package them in bank order, either inverted or non-inverted, on 8-KiB boundaries, i.e., pad each bank with whatever values you like to fill them out to 8 KiB. Terminate the filename (before the extension) with ‘8’ for non-inverted order or ‘9’ for inverted order or you can tell Classic99 how to process the ROM in Classic99.ini (see Classic99 manual for details).

 

...lee

[+mizapf]

As for MAME, I can say I strictly stay with the existing hardware switching concepts, so there is no special emulation bank switch.

[Tursi]

Lee's restriction for Classic99 is only if you want it to autodetect (which, despite being the most restrictive case is also the most used, even I rarely do anything but ). Sometimes, for development, it can be easier to keep your various object files separated. In that case you use Classic99.ini to spell out the ROM layout you want from as many separate files as you want (should be documented in the manual).

 

On the other hand, since you eventually need a merged file for distribution, it's usually easier to just make it part of your build script anyway.