I can't get the Uzebox emulator to run

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Stardust4Ever
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I can't get the Uzebox emulator to run

Post by Stardust4Ever »

I tried double-clicking on the exe (yes, I've got the required DLL file). A window appears and immediately vanishes. There is some text in the window, but it disappears before I have a chance to read it.

I tried starting the program by right-clicking the .uze rom and using the "open with" dialog. Same result.

I have a confession to make:
I've been using PCs for years and I can't do command line. My first computer was windows 95 when I was a teenager. I quickly realized that the command prompt was a pain to use and there were better ways of getting things done in Windows. My latest is Windows 8. I never learned how to use the command line because I've never needed to. I've hacked NES ROMs with a hex editor before, and I still never needed to use a command line. I'm almost finished with my degree in Electircal Engineering Technology. Still never needed to use a command line for anything.

It's 2013 people! There's absolutely no reason to be releasing command line software anymore. Is it too much to ask to implement a simple simple browse dialog to select files? Even many old DOS programs did that.

And all the ROMs are download in HEX format, meaning they won't run off my newly assembled Uzebox (yes, I soldered everything myself and I didn't need a command line to do that either). So I download the conversion utility, and it's a command line too. Somebody crated a GUI converter tool, and I copied the .uze files to it but the .uze roms aren't showing up on the SD card menu on my Uzebox. The CRC values don't match either, so I decided to test them in the emulator. Problem is I can't use it because it requires the command prompt. So I opened up command prompt and realized I had forgotten how to navigate to the directory with the exe file (I haven't played with the command prompt in about 15 years). Either way, I shouldn't have to memorize a bunch of parameters and key them in every time I load the emulator.
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uze6666
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Re: I can't get the Uzebox emulator to run

Post by uze6666 »

Hi,

Yes, uzem.exe is a command line tool, it does not have a GUI. Though it *should* run .uze files by double-clicking, I noticed it doesn't work anymore for some reasons (I'll open a ticket for this bug). HEX files can be run by uzem, so double-click one and associate it with uzem.exe.
It's 2013 people! There's absolutely no reason to be releasing command line software anymore. Is it too much to ask to implement a simple simple browse dialog to select files? Even many old DOS programs did that.
All Uzebox project tools are multi-platform since lots of members are Linux and Mac affectionados. The problem is try doing a portable gui using SDL (the graphics API used by uzem). A real pain and all existing widget toolkits sucks. So yeah, it's a valid point for the emulator but how is a compiler supposed to work with a GUI? What about game resources conversions part of an automated build process? etc. Sorry to say that, but I'm pretty sure command line tools won't disapear anytime soon from software engineering.
So I download the conversion utility, and it's a command line too. Somebody crated a GUI converter tool, and I copied the .uze files to it but the .uze roms aren't showing up on the SD card menu on my Uzebox. The CRC values don't match either
No sure what is going on here. What version of PackromGui.exe did you use? What .HEX did you try to convert and what is the bootloader version?

Edit: Dragging a .UZE on uzem.exe does not work but dragging a .UZE on uzem.bat (which just call "uzem.exe %1") works!?! :?
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DaveyPocket
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Re: I can't get the Uzebox emulator to run

Post by DaveyPocket »

PackromGUI still has problems... Unfortunately I haven't had much time to work on it. I'll upload the sources within the week so other people can commit if they want.
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Speeddemon
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Re: I can't get the Uzebox emulator to run

Post by Speeddemon »

Hello to all ... So who is gona make a new windows a non comand line based uzem emulator / and tools ?????... :idea: :geek: ???
Stardust4Ever
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Joined: Sun Mar 10, 2013 9:34 am

Re: I can't get the Uzebox emulator to run

Post by Stardust4Ever »

Is there a way I can create a batch file to run the emulator with a ROM and save it with notepad so that I don't have to open a command line every time? Is there a way I can do this without creating a separate batch file for every ROM I want to run?

EDIT: Nevermind, I discovered that "open with" dialog works with the hex files to run in the emultor. Now how do I change the inputs to work with a USB game pad? I'm pretty retro, so the SNES Retroport is my preferred input device (universal plug and play HID driver):
http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.ph ... ucts_id=29

FYI, the file i tried to convert is here:
http://uzebox.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=336#p2988

pacman.hex

I wanted this version of Pacman because it has the cool arcade marquee that's for some reason missing from the pacman lite version in the SD card menu.

And I tool I used is the GUI packrom latest version .35 or something. It can be found here:
http://uzebox.org/forums/viewtopic.php? ... t=10#p9791

The filesize of the resulting .uze file I got is 63,100 bytes. I copied it to my SD card into the root directory with the other .uze files but I couldn't find it on the SD loader menu. My understanding is that the game files cannot exceed 60 binary kilobytes (61440 bytes) plus the 512 byte header for a total maximum .uze filesize of 61952 bytes, so I don't understand why the GUI converter application output a 63100 byte file unless it's adding some type of garbage data to it. I also wanted to try out the Ms Pacman WIP, but it apparently displays a blank screen in the emulator but I hear sound effects. Pacman displays fine however.

IMO, this could easily have been avoided if people provided both the .uze and .hex file formats together with source in a nice little zip format. If someone can give me some sample code I could probably make a .BAT file to convert .hex to .uze files. Command line is a pain to work with because I have to look up the parameters every time and type it out perfectly. I've long since forgotten how to navigate to a specific folder using the command prompt, although I used to use it with DOS back when I played around with QBASIC in the late 90s. I'm not a total newb with computers, but if you don't use something for 15+ years you generally forget how to do it.
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Kilo
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Re: I can't get the Uzebox emulator to run

Post by Kilo »

Stardust4Ever wrote:Is there a way I can create a batch file to run the emulator with a ROM and save it with notepad so that I don't have to open a command line every time? Is there a way I can do this without creating a separate batch file for every ROM I want to run?
Yes, I do it the same way!
Just make a new editor file like a textfile, write this:

Code: Select all

@ECHO OFF
CLS
f:\uzebox\bin\uzem f:\uzebox\demos\megatris\default\megatris.hex
and save it as e.g. EMULATOR.BAT
The last digit of Pi is 7! I calculated this, as I counted to infinity yesterday!
Leraven
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Re: I can't get the Uzebox emulator to run

Post by Leraven »

Speeddemon wrote: Mon Mar 11, 2013 4:10 am Hello to all ... So who is gona make a new windows a non comand line based uzem emulator / and tools ?????... :idea: :geek: ???
Would be great if someone has done this.
Last edited by Leraven on Thu Mar 28, 2019 7:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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nicksen782
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Re: I can't get the Uzebox emulator to run

Post by nicksen782 »

These are web-based:

Emulator/Player: https://www.nicksen782.net/UAM/APP_emu/emu.php
gConvert (JS): https://www.nicksen782.net/UAM/APP_gconvert

Works in Firefox and Chrome.

Do these help?
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Jubatian
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Re: I can't get the Uzebox emulator to run

Post by Jubatian »

Leraven wrote: Thu Mar 14, 2019 12:56 pm
Speeddemon wrote: Mon Mar 11, 2013 4:10 am Hello to all ... So who is gona make a new windows a non comand line based uzem emulator / and tools ?????... :idea: :geek: ???
Would be great if someone has done this.
Also keep in mind that you found a really old topic here, there are things which doesn't apply today. Like Nicksen above is mentioning: We have a web-based emulator (since a little more than a year), and on the Wiki every game should have a working link to it, so you could try the games out directly in your browser. If you prefer the native emulator (which provides better quality emulation), you can get the binaries from the main site, and they should work fine once you associate .uze files to them (download a game's .uze file, double-click, when Windows asks what to use to open it, find the emulator's executable). Almost all games should have a proper .uze file on the Wiki (for sure, about two or three years ago this was a problem, many games lacked the binary, or the link was broken).
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