Post by Kelvin SherlockYou can save yourself a lot of pain by using Ample.
https://github.com/ksherlock/ample
https://github.com/ksherlock/ample/releases
Your comments on the trials and tribulations of installing MAME
is part of the reason Ample exists.
In older versions of Mame, command-control-esc didn't work and in even
older versions, command and option are backwards. LEFT control F12 does
a reset but you may need to include a function key as well if you have a
fancy keyboard. In UI mode, esc quits. UI Mode is rarely needed with
Ample, fortunately.
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Ample is a much improved interface to Mame! Well done! Now that I know
about Delete and then Tab, it seems to make Apple //e emulation basically
usable.
To make it work, I downloaded the Ample.zip release, and then cleared
quarantine with the following from a Terminal window:
cat Ample.zip > a.zip # this clears all xattributes
unzip a.zip
open Ample.app
And then I don't have to turn off any security precautions. By default,
Ample.app wouldn't run due to the app not being signed.
When Ample first starts up, it offers to automatically download ROMs from
archive.org. This is very helpful, but it fails to download many ROMs.
Mame is user hostile, so it's not really clear if any of these ROMs are
needed for Apple II (I made a README of my own for the ROMs Mame needs to
be an Apple //e, and it's quite complex). I just ignored the problems and
moved on.
But IIgs emulation is still problematic for me. I always pick ROM 01 since
that's what I know best. I have Caps Lock and Control swapped in the Mac
System Preferences->Keyboard->Modifier keys (since I like the Apple II
keyboards which have Control below tab, and I'm using a keyboard which has
Capslock there). And so I don't get a control key in Ample either. I suspect
this is a SDL problem, but I don't really know.
When I turn the swap off in Mac System Preferences, I get control and capslock
(I can do capslock and see that I get capital letters, and I can do Ctrl-X to
get the \ and cancel the input line). But I still cannot do Ctrl-Cmd-Esc to
get to the Control Panel (I tried all combinations of both control keys, all
of my Alt/Command keys). And Ctrl-F12 does not reset. But: I just quit out
and started Ample again--and now Ctrl-F12 and Ctrl-Cmd-Esc are working fine.
Hmmm. I still cannot have Ctrl and Capslock swapped in System Preferences,
though.
The default setting of Full Screen caught me unawares, I just hit "launch" to
see what Ample was like. I eventually quit out with some combination of every
modifier key and Cmd-Q. If the normal ways of leaving full screen are not
available (which is moving the mouse around the top of the screen, and
selecting the minimize button, or pressing ESC (which of course won't work)),
I suggest a short warning of how to exit full screen before entering it for
the first time. I've now seen the docs that say Option-Return toggles full
screen. This works, but when I leave full screen this way, the mouse cursor
remains hidden, which makes it tough to do things like resize the window.
I was also unable to get a Mockingboard in slot 4 to work in IIgs mode.
Mockingboard works fine on Apple //e, etc. To work on a IIgs, you need the
card in slot 4, and to change the IIgs Control Panel->Slots->4 to Your Card,
and then do a reset (since the IIgs firmware doesn't change the actual slot
settings until after a reset). This doesn't seem to work in Ample/Mame.
Kent