Basilisk II ROM identifier

About BasiliskII, a 68k Mac emulator for Windows, MacOSX, and Linux that can run System 7.x through MacOS 8.1.

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sentient06
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Basilisk II ROM identifier

Post by sentient06 »

Hi there!

One thing I always missed in my OS X Basilisk is the ability to check which ROM image I am using.

So, while developing another bigger project, I extracted some of its code and made a smaller application to do that. If you wish to check, download it here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46986138/MacApp ... n%201b.dmg

It is a cocoa-based application. It will only check for Basilisk ROM files, not Sheepshaver (yet). It is in beta stage and though I wish to improve it, I don't have plans to give it new functions.

I will put the code in a repository soon, if someone wish to give it a try.

I tested only in a Snow Leopard machine running at 64-bit. If you wish, I can make new compilations.

Enjoy!
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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Re: Basilisk II ROM identifier

Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

I never knew that my favorite rom file of unknown origin and with the general name "MAC.ROM" is in fact a Macintosh LC III rom file. Nice to know. ;-)

Small bug: If you close the window, ROMan continues to run with no way to open again the window. Maybe ROMan should quit when the window is closed?
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sentient06
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Re: Basilisk II ROM identifier

Post by sentient06 »

Oh, good call. I will implement a window menu option to open again this window.
It has also a under the hood support for lots of files at the same time. Maybe in next version I can show a list with all valid ROM images.
I also want to check some Sheepshaver compatible files. This code is being used in my alpha of the Basilisk Cocoa GUI I am working now.
If anybody wants to help with the ROM files recognizing, I can post here the steps to check the first bytes of it and update this list.
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sentient06
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Re: Basilisk II ROM identifier

Post by sentient06 »

Fixed some bugs. Now the application also reopens the main window when clicking the icon on the Dock.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46986138/MacApp ... %201b2.dmg
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24bit
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Re: Basilisk II ROM identifier

Post by 24bit »

Thanks for your work. As a Quadra650 owner, I´m using the ROM from that one.
Your app may provide some useful info, if strange behaviour with BII should occur.
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David Foster
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Re: Basilisk II ROM identifier

Post by David Foster »

sentient06 wrote:So, while developing another bigger project,
What kind of project? I'm curious because I'm also doing a project that benefits from ROM identification functionality.

In my case, I'm working on a system that automatically configures a Mini vMac, Basilisk, or SheepShaper program depending on what combination of ROM, OS, etc that you feed it. It has a lot of other planned functionality as well, but that hasn't been finalized yet.
sentient06 wrote:I will put the code in a repository soon, if someone wish to give it a try.
I look forward to it. You might just save me a lot of effort.
sentient06 wrote:I tested only in a Snow Leopard machine running at 64-bit.
It works on my 64 bit Lion machine.
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sentient06
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Re: Basilisk II ROM identifier

Post by sentient06 »

Hey David, how are you?

Shame I've been away from the forum in the last year and didn't read your post. Sorry about the late answer.

I think we are doing the same thing here.

The other project I talk about is a manager I called Medusa (lots of basilisks, geddit?). The primary goal is to have a Cocoa-based application to handle all configurations for Basilisk II. As an extra feature, I am testing Sheepshaver also.

I am going back to the project now and finishing uncompleted pieces I was working on last year. After that I want to move the preferences files from both emulators to the user's preferences folders (application support), which is the right place for it on OSX; later I want to completely remove it and maybe access the data directly from the SQLite database I use in the project. but that is messy. Since the base-code for both emulators is old-fashioned C and C++, I think even the first step will require a recompilation for Snow Leopard 32-bit and 64-bit, Lion and Mountain Lion. Now, ML doesn't have native X11 support. I also thought of using the compiled unix executables inside my application, so I can start each emulator directly from it.

I am now checking the status of this Sheepshear, since it looks like a very good effort on merging both emulators. It is full of issues on OSX, but maybe in the near future we will have a working version.
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David Foster
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Re: Basilisk II ROM identifier

Post by David Foster »

So far I have a simple script (box_up.py) that isolates a Basilisk/Sheepshaver instance and automatically configures it based on a "box", which is a special directory structure that contains a ROM, mounted disk images, and hints about the OS that affect the emulator settings. No modifications to Basilisk or Sheepshaver were required, since I don't feel like maintaining them.

The larger CPM project (which I mentioned before) is currently stalled due to lack of interest from the general public. Given current trends on my free time (or lack thereof) I'll probably get around to posting box_up.py and related documentation sometime late this year (2013).
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adespoton
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Re: Basilisk II ROM identifier

Post by adespoton »

Reviving an old thread, to cross-pollinate it with this one:
http://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewto ... =33&t=7363

Seems like a bunch of us have been doing similar things. I hadn't personally thought to check the ROMs too... should be pretty easy to do for BII; need to do a bit more footwork for SS I think.

Years ago I cobbled together optimal bundles of OS and ROM for BII and SS as stand-alone bundles; never really shared it because I didn't think there'd be much interest. Seems there's at least four of us :)

My project outline (or at least parts of it) is over here: http://macscene.net/component/kunena/75 ... t?Itemid=0
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David Foster
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Re: Basilisk II ROM identifier

Post by David Foster »

adespoton wrote:Reviving an old thread, to cross-pollinate it with this one:
My project outline (or at least parts of it) is over here: http://macscene.net/component/kunena/75 ... t?Itemid=0
Looks like a good reference. Thanks for sharing. :smile:
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adespoton
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Re: Basilisk II ROM identifier

Post by adespoton »

No problem; I just updated with a more recent and detailed list of my configurations; might help others. Note that I wasn't actually going for "best config" here but was trying to create common config scenarios for each OS version -- so some of the hardware systems being emulated, while possible, can be a bit buggy for doing certain tasks.

http://macscene.net/component/kunena/75 ... rt=20#3769
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sentient06
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Re: Basilisk II ROM identifier

Post by sentient06 »

Hello, just passing by to warn you I updated the application, it is still beta, but an interesting beta.
The update is detailed in the page.

Please refer to:

https://github.com/sentient06/MacROMan/ ... ag/1.2.0b4

Also, please notice I changed the application's name. You can delete the old one, if you have, and use this one instead. There are no extra files anywhere, but feel free to use AppZapper if you wish. It runs on 64-bit OSX and I tested on Snow Leopard 10.6.8. I didn't test in Lion, Mountain Lion and Mavericks but I suppose there is no reason it wouldn't work.

If you want to know, I am updating other projects as well and they share some code. I'll release more cool stuff soon.

You are more than welcome to give any feedbacks, bug reports and suggestions, I am not neglecting them.

And one more thing: you may notice that with some ROMs the app suggests, sometimes, an emulator to be used. I didn't test all ROMs (check the help for a list) in the emulators, so I didn't finish to detail all supported ROM Images. If you know about any particular ROM, please drop me the checksum displayed there and details (example: works in Basilisk with FPU) and I will update here.

Thank you everyone for your support!

Image
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24bit
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Re: Basilisk II ROM identifier

Post by 24bit »

Many thanks for the "warning"!
Looks like you spent a lot of work on it.

Image

Works in 10.8.4 as you said.
A49F9914 - Classic (with XO ROMDisk).rom does not seem to work in VMac or MiniVMac for me.
Last edited by 24bit on Tue Sep 24, 2013 10:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
Renegade
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Re: Basilisk II ROM identifier

Post by Renegade »

sentient06 > Here's some feedback.
I'm running mavericks DP7.
Dropping a rom file into Mac ROMan's window doesn't produce any effect.
(tried several rom files)
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Re: Basilisk II ROM identifier

Post by emendelson »

Works beautifully here (10.8) with a dozen different ROMs. Thanks!
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sentient06
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Re: Basilisk II ROM identifier

Post by sentient06 »

Hello and thanks a lot for the feedbacks!

24bit, I have this rom, but I didn't test yet. To emulate the Mac Classic in vMac, you need to compile vMac with the option "-m Classic" (http://minivmac.sourceforge.net/doc/options.html).

It says in their site the emulation is not 100% accurate, but it is supposed to work.. (http://www.gryphel.com/c/minivmac/bounty/classic.html)

But yeah.. this is not obvious anyway, so I think I must point that out in the comments as well. I'll try compiling and test it soon.

And yes, I've been spending a lot of time in these things, but not on Mac ROMan specifically, more on the other project (https://github.com/sentient06/Medusa/wiki/Requests). Since they use the same rom identification class, I thought it would be nice to update both. =D

Renegade, I have DP2, I will update today and try to debug tomorrow. I really appreciate you had it tested.

Emendelson, thanks!
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Re: Basilisk II ROM identifier

Post by adespoton »

A few clarification:
1) you're talking about Mini vMac, not vMac.
2) I've used that ROM with Mini vMac Classic (using the correct compile flags -- you can also download the right binary off the Mini vMac website, it's just hard to find) and it works fine. IIRC, it needs to be named Classic.ROM.
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Re: Basilisk II ROM identifier

Post by adespoton »

A few years later... I've cloned the project. Until sentient06 accepts my pull request, you can download an updated version at https://github.com/adespoton/MacROMan. You'll need to let XCode re-optimize your project and change the target OS to 10.8 if you're using XCode 10, but the new version has the ability to identify all known good Mac ROMs except one; it also has more accurate identification for the ROM source, and the emulator list is somewhat updated. Feel free to test the ROMs out and provide feedback on which emulators they work with. I haven't added in PCE/MacPlus, MESS and similar yet; that may be worth doing. But QEMU is added (even though it doesn't require you to extract the ROM to run OS 9) :)
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