computer savvy

[fknmclane]

If any of you guys who speak computer are ever in Phoenix, look me up.  I need to get hooked up with all these stuff that you keep talking about.

[doveRBI]

What stuff?

[fknmclane]

All this emulator shit and ROMs and RBI arcade on computers.  I'm only good enough on computers to type and google.  That's it.  And download songs.  Otherwise I don't know ROM from RAM.

[RedRamage]

ROM: Read Only Memory... ROM is memory that is "burned" into a chip.  It can't be erased under normal circumstances and will always be there, even if the power is turned off.

RAM: Random Access Memory... This is memory that can be written and re-written.  It requires a constant power source to maintain itself.

You're welcome.





Seriously though, I think what you're asking is how you could have an emulator running on your computer and access NES ROMs so that you can play them on your computer.  If that's what you're asking, then it's pretty simple process.

You will first need to find an emulator... there are plenty out there...just do a google search or, if I recall correctly, there are some link to some on the dee-nee site.  An emulator is just simply a problem which runs on your computer.  Functionally it's no different than Microsoft Word or WinAMP or whatever MP3 player you use.  It's just a computer program.  Find a program, download it and install it.

Next, you need to find the ROMs to the games you need.  ROM is sort of a misnomer.  It's named after the fact that someone essentially copied the ROM from a game cartridge and created a computer file from it.  There are plenty of websites out there that let you download ROMs though do be aware that pocessing a ROM for a cartridge you don't own is probably illegal...just like downloading a MP3 for a song you don't own on CD is illegal.

Think of the emulator as similar to WinAMP (or your particular MP3 player).  It's just program designed to play MP3 file.  But instead of playing MP3 files, the emulator plays ROM files.  Open up your emulator.  From there you usually need to open up the specific ROM file, just like you need to tell your MP3 player to open a specific song.  Point it at the ROM you wanna play and away you go.

[Sam]

To be technically correct, downloading an MP3 of a copyrighted song or game file is illegal, it is irrelevant whether or not you own a copy of the CD or game cartridge. (I'm not a lawyer but my wfie is).

The only legal ROM you could have is one ripped from your own cartridge (or public domain), much like the only legal MP3 you can have is one ripped from your own CD collection (or public domain). Obviously if the ROM or CD author grants permission to download you can do it as well.

And additionally it is questionable whether you can legally use that ROM for any purpose other than backups (replacing a damaged cartridge). (And oh man I don't want to get into this...)

But yes I downloaded the RBI Baseball ROM instead of ripping it from my own cartridge. In fact Dee-Nee is breaking the law to offer it for download (unless they have permission from the copyright holder). But thank goodness they are because I enjoy playing it on my PC (better than Solitaire) and don't have any way of ripping my NES cartridge myself.

[fknmclane]

That was my other thing.  I've asked this question before and asked a guy at my work who's really good with electronics and computers.  He said it's probably possible but would take some serious time.  So anyway, here goes.

You get the ROM and somehow get it off your computer.  Then you somehow transfer it to a chip and redo one of the extra RBI cartridges I have lying around and make it into RBI arcade.  Then I'm playing either RBI on my NES and I'm the happiest man alive.

I'm sure someone has already thought of this and maybe even tried it.  So I guess I'm just babbling away.  But damnit, it's gotta be possible.  My dream must come true.  After all, I did find dee-nee.com, the home of RBI.

[BeefMaster]

FYI, I've found that a good place to look for emulators is Zohpar's Domain - http://www.zophar.net.  They have emulators for about any system you can think of (I actually spent some time recently playing around with some old Commodore 64 games), and they rate them, so you know which ones are good.

My personal recommendation for the NES is FCEUltra.  NESticle is okay (and it supports network play), but it hasn't been maintained for a few years, so some annoying sound and graphics issues never got fixed.  FCEUltra is open source and still under development.

As for the idea of putting data from a ROM on a computer to a cartridge, that would rock, but it'd also require some serious electrical engineering expertise.  I don't know that there are many NES dev kits around these days.

[fknmclane]

[As for the idea of putting data from a ROM on a computer to a cartridge, that would rock, but it'd also require some serious electrical engineering expertise.  I don't know that there are many NES dev kits around these days.

There's gotta be a way.  What's a NES dev kit?  My buddy at work might be able to do it.  He seemed kinda confident.

[BeefMaster]

What's a NES dev kit?

A development kit, like Nintendo would've provided game companies.  I'm guessing that Nintendo would've had to provide cartridge specs in addition to programming info, as you couldn't just press CDs/DVDs like most of them can now.  Given the right hardware and some knowledge of how the data is stored, there's always the chance that your buddy could do it, although I wouldn't get too confident.  You never know, though...

[Sam]

[quote author=BeefMaster
My personal recommendation for the NES is FCEUltra.  NESticle is okay (and it supports network play), but it hasn't been maintained for a few years, so some annoying sound and graphics issues never got fixed.  FCEUltra is open source and still under development.

FCE Ultra is definitely the best emulator for RBI.

[doveRBI]

I've alwasys used NESticle and FCE, but now I have a mac.  Does anyone know if there is an emulator that will work on a mac.  Holla back at a brother.

[fknmclane]

TESticle or NESticle?

[RedRamage]

You get the ROM and somehow get it off your computer.  Then you somehow transfer it to a chip and redo one of the extra RBI cartridges I have lying around and make it into RBI arcade.  Then I'm playing either RBI on my NES and I'm the happiest man alive.

This would be a good deal harder to do than getting the ROM off the cartridge.  Getting the ROM would just require reading the info... putting new info back to a catridge would require replacing hardware not just software.  The ROMs can't be rewritten so you'd need to replace the old chip with a new one.

This of it this way: If you want to copy information out of a textbook for example, you just walk up to a copy machine, slap the book down and make your copy.  Relatively simple because you don't need to do anything to the book to pull the info.

But if you want to change what's written on a page in a textbook you can't just do it so simply.  You'd need to write the info to a blank page, then remove the page you want to replace, then put your new page back into the binding somehow.

[BeefMaster]

TESticle or NESticle?

Actually, the icon for the Windows version of NESticle is basically a representation of that, with "NES" written on it.

[BeefMaster]

doveRBI: http://www.zophar.net/mac/nes.html.  Looks like there's one or two there that should work for you.  I know virtually nothing about Macs, so that's all the help I can provide.

[doveRBI]

Beef: thanks for the suggestion, just tested RockNES that I found on that site and it is awesome.  doesn't support only play, but in terms of ease, smoothness, and sound it is fantastic.  thanks again for the lead.  anyone esle using a mac, I would highly suggest.

[fknmclane]

MORE HELP

I downloaded the RBI Arcade ROM and also downloaded an emulator from MAME.  They're both zipped folders and I extracted everything.  Now I'm just sitting here with my dick in my hand looking at about twenty different programs and trying all kinds of combinations.

Some kind soul needs to walk my stupid ass through this.  How do I make the RBI program work with the emulator.  I'm stuck.  Can someone please help?

[jaylums]

I used to click and drag the arcade ROM icon onto the MAME icon, that worked.  That's until I started using the ROM for the FCE emulator, which is alot smoother to use.

[BeefMaster]

Hopefully I can be of help:

1) You need to make sure you downloaded MAME32 (I'm assuming you're on Windows).
2) Unzip that to wherever you want it to go.
3) There should be a file there called MAME32.exe.  Run it, and it should open the MAME interface, where you can play games.  This is just testing that you have it installed correctly; alternately, you can wait to open it until step 6.
4) Close MAME.
5) Put rbibb.zip in the roms folder inside the folder you put MAME in.
6) Open up MAME again, click on "Available" on the left side of the MAME window, then hit F5 to refresh the screen.  "Vs. Atari RBI Baseball" should show up in the list of games, and you just need to double-click to run it.

If you have a joystick, you'll need to configure MAME to use a joystick - in the MAME menu, select Options->Default Game Options..., then select the "Controllers" tab and select the checkbox by "Enable Joystick".  The default joystick setup worked well for me (I have a Gravis GamePad Pro, which is basically a PlayStation controller without analogs), but if it doesn't, you can change which button does what by starting the game, hitting Tab, selecting "Input (this game only)", and setting up the controls as they suit you.

Hopefully this will get you where you need to go.  If not, I'll try again.

[RedRamage]

Now I'm just sitting here with my dick in my hand looking at about twenty different programs and trying all kinds of combinations.

Okay, I think is see what your problem is.  You should be looking a porn when you have your dick in your hand, no programs.  


First question: What operating system are you using?
Second, is MAME the name of the emulator your using?