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MakeMultiCart tool (for EA#5)


Tursi

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I can't remember if this has already been done ;) 

 

But for @Nick99's Smurf music demo, I wrote a little tool that takes a folder of EA#5 files (in TIFILES format) and compiles a ROM-based, non-inverted multicart. It deals with the multiple file nature and seems to do the right thing... Naturally, it's a copy cart - the files are still loaded into RAM so you still need 32k to run them.

 

It builds a full selection list and copy program dynamically, but since it's very easy to have more files than the TI selection list can display, I wrapped the whole thing in the classic Multicart menu, which doesn't care how many entries there are (within reason).

 

I didn't do a ton of testing. It worked for Smurfs and I stopped there. But that covered a lot of cases so it should be working. It'll build up to 2MB carts, though I've only tested up to 256k. ;)

 

It was kind of a fun little task to have it build all the code dynamically. Classic99's cartridge maker does something similar - with pre-written blocks of code that can be assembled as needed.

 

Anyway, the Github is here: https://github.com/tursilion/makemulticart

 

and for laziness the binary is here. I haven't written much for documentation and it's just a straight up Windows command-line app:

 

makemulticart.zip - Version 1.2 - this version now finally works with random play, but you have to use the 9/7/2021 version of quickplayer in vgmcomp2 to create the quickplayer files for it to work (I had to make some changes to the player's structure).

Edited by Tursi
updated zip file
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6 hours ago, Tursi said:

Cause selecting folders in the Windows GUI is annoying. ;)

Fact check: TRUE.  There are multiple file requesters (browsers) available in Windows, and it seems the best one is rarely available.

5 hours ago, tmop69 said:

yes, I know, just allow the selection of the first file of the directory to instruct the tool to work on all the files from that path. ?  

I assume it does not enumerate wildcards?  Running the utility in Powershell will offer quite a bit more flexibility, too.

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9 hours ago, tmop69 said:

yes, I know, just allow the selection of the first file of the directory to instruct the tool to work on all the files from that path. ?  

To amend my previous message, this from the included .md file:

 

Input files must be EA#5 files with TIFILES headers. Place all of them in a
folder and pass the folder to this program:

makemulticart c:\myfolder\ c:\output\cartridge8.bin

No wildcards, no list of programs necessary.  It enumerates the entire directory.

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11 hours ago, tmop69 said:

yes, I know, just allow the selection of the first file of the directory to instruct the tool to work on all the files from that path. ?  

That's what I do everywhere I've ever needed to, but then I have to truncate the returned string. ;)

 

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5 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

I assume it does not enumerate wildcards?  Running the utility in Powershell will offer quite a bit more flexibility, too.

No wildcards, no specific file input. It appends "\*" to whatever path you provide and uses that as the filespec. ;)

 

I have no intention of expanding this utility, in case it's not obvious. ;) Opportunity for an enterprising front-end creator, I guess! ;)

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Disregard, don't bother with v1.1 (it works, but is not mandatory for anything coming up). When I went to integrate it I found I had completely misremembered how it worked. ;) So a 1.2 is coming that does everything all in one, random player included.

 

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Posted 1.2, and it works, but it's too late tonight to make a demo. You will need to also download a new copy of vgmcomp2, as the quickplayer program had to undergo some changes. If you use the latest version of everything, though, it will automatically add a 'random' option to the menu, and this random tool is capable of mixing and matching the visualizer with the musics.

 

Of course, the smart version of me would have just done that with separate programs and datas, but not me, no, I spent hours making code that could parse the exe startup and patch it all dynamically. Dumb. But it's done and it works ;)

 

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