MESS_MAME_ROMS . VZ200, VZ300, Microbee, Aquarius.

MESS and MAME ROMs - #VZ200 #VZ300 #Microbee #Aquarius computers.

mbee.zip : Microbee: put this zip file, compressed as is, into the ROMS directory of mess/mame.

roms.all.zip : VZ200 / VZ300 / Aquarius: Extract this zip file into the ROMS directory.

Mess/mame will read directly from the zip files and read the appropriate ROM binary within each ZIP file for whichever computer.

I got sick of loosing URL's for these ROMs, so dumped them here for my future reference. I physically own all of these machines, so this one liner disclaimer hopefully can avoid any and all copyright issues should someone have a go at me. I can't help it if others find this repositry.

Ensure that within the .ini file, the rom path is set correctly. For older versions of MESS, eg (v1.49 from 2009-2011 era that works extremely well and is easy to use) Find, download and use the extra front end startup utility called MESSUI.EXE

Mess emulation for the VZ Dribble

MAME is the biggest and largest combination of emulators on this planet. All rolled up into one heck of a single platform. Juergen Buchmueller and Dirk Best were both members of the VZ Yahoogroups list in the early years, and wrote the VZ emulator within MESS/MAME. Disk drive and serial terminal emulation works.

http://www.mamedev.org MAME

https://messui.1emulation.com/ Downloads.

https://messui.1emulation.com/howto.html How to. Website still alive Feb 2022.

https://docs.mamedev.org/usingmame/index.html Basic MAME Usage and Configuration

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kIcY2f7f_A fx.vz running on MESS (Youtube)

https://www.planetemu.net/roms/mess-roms Download ROMS from here.

2. Quick Setup overview =======================

3. Find and download MESS.

4. Install to C:\MESS

5. Command prompt, Go to drive letter, CD \MESS

6. MESS -CC (creates MESS.INI)

7. Create c:\mess\ini

8. move mess.ini to c:\mess\ini

9. create sub directory c:\mess\roms

10. create sub directory c:\mess\ini

11. edit c:\mess\ini readconfig 1 writeconfig 1 inipath ini menu 1 filter 0 hlsl_enable 0 rompath c:\mess\roms

12. Find these files

     	vtechv20.u09
     
      	vtechv20.u10
     
     vtechv20.u12
     
     	vtechv20.lo
     
     	vtechv20.hi
     
     	vtechv20.rom
    

13. ZIP up vtechv20.u09 and vtechv20.u10 and rename ZIP file to: LASER210.ZIP

    ZIP up vtechv20.u12 and rename ZIP file to: LASER310.ZIP

    ZIP up vtechv20.lo and vtechv20.hi and rename ZIP file to: VZ200.ZIP

    ZIP up vtechv20.rom and rename ZIP file to: VZ300.ZIP

14. MOVE ZIP files to c:\mess\roms

15. From command prompt within c:\mess , type : MESS LASER310 Screen should come up. Type in 'ok', and the VZ screen should then come up. From c:\mess should be able to run MESSGUI.EXE and run any of the listed VZ/Laser systems.

16. MESS File Manager and Settings PRESS :

    Press : then

    Down-arrow down to SNAPSHOT. Go looking for a .VZ file.

Try directly loading from the command line: MESS.EXE VZ300 -dump .vz

ie: MESS.EXE VZ300 -dump hoppy.vz

Or use the builtin file manager: MESS.EXE VZ300

then press ScrLock to disable full keyboard emulation, press Tab and select the File Manager, then load hoppy.vz into the Snapshot slot.

4. More info ============

• MENU KEY WHEN IN EMULATOR : SCROLL / NUM LOCK

• Press F5, this will scan your roms so that MESSUI will know which systems can be run.

• Click on View, Customize fields... - you can choose which columns to display in the list of systems

• Click on View, and make sure the first 5 choices are ticked/checked.

• Click on View, Show Pictures and choose which things you would like to see on the righthand side.

• Click on Options, Directories and for each item in the list, choose where it is located. The list is somewhat daunting, so for now do nothing, it can be fine-tuned later.

• Click on Options, Background Image... - navigate to a folder containing PNG files, then choose a nice-looking one.

• Now, the system list might be hard to read, so click on Options, System List Font, and choose another colour. Note this changes ALL text in MESSUI.

• Click on Options, System List Clone Color - if you want clones to be another colour, choose it here. You can't choose a different font.

• Click on Options, Default System Options - this should be the same as you had set up in MESS.INI earlier, but you can change it here. It only applies to systems you have never run.

• Now, exit MESSUI so we can save our settings. If MESSUI crashes, any changed settings are lost.

5. Words from Dirk Best. ======================== MESS can be confusing to use, it's the price we have to pay to support a few thousand systems and run on many different operating systems.

Some tips:

First time you run MESS, start it with "mess.exe -cc", this creates the mess.ini main config file. I like to edit it and disable fullscreen for example.

Some keys:

• ScrLock: Disables or enables full keyboard mode. In full keyboard mode, all keys are grabbed and sent to the emulated system (so you can't even exit the emulator with ESC). In partial keyboard mode, the UI keys respond as normal.
• F12: Screenshot
• F11: Display current emulation speed and framerate
• F10: Toggle throttle, if you don't want to wait for something to load (great for tapes)
• Tab: Open builtin menu, to load files or configure the emulator

Starting a system from the command line with the -listmedia switch will display the files it accepts. For vz300:

d:\workspace\mame>mess64.exe vz300 -listmedia SYSTEM MEDIA NAME (brief) IMAGE FILE EXTENSIONS SUPPORTED

---

vz300 printer (prin) .prn

         snapshot    (dump)     .vz
     
         cassette    (cass)     .wav  .cas
     
         cartridge   (cart)     .rom
     
         floppydisk1 (flop1)    .dsk
     
         floppydisk2 (flop2)    .dsk

So you can use "-dump file.vz" to load it.

-ramsize ram_value'', where //ram_value// can assume one of the following values

2k - standard model

18k - with 16K memory expansion

66k (default) - with 64K memory expansion

4098k - with 4MB memory expansion

MESS Debuger mess.exe vz300 -debug (type help)

Loading a file from command line mess.exe vz300 -dump FX.VZ

Using the builtin file manager mess.exe vz300

					Press <ScrLock> to disable full keyboard emulation.
					
					Press <TAB>
					
					Select the File Manager and then load FX.VZ into the Snapshot slot.

Dumping to AVI video file mess.exe vz300 -dump FX.VZ -aviwrite fx.avi

6. Running MAME on Linux - Command line example

===============================================

mame laser210 -mem laser_64k -video soft -ui_active -bp ~/.mame/roms -resolution0 1280x720 -aspect 1000:750 -skip_gameinfo -nowindow -dump thejungle.vz