[Coco] VCC Update

[Steve Strowbridge]

I have been using VCC for my YouTube series of Programming in BASIC,
because it's probably the easiest one to get off the ground running, and
it's pretty user friendly, despite some of it's nuances.
I started using VCC to play CoCo games when I first started posting them to
YouTube as well, when somebody pointed out the artifact colors were "off",
this led me to learning how to use Xroar, and then ultimately MAME/MESS.
I think all 3 emulators have their pros and cons, and it's nice to have
choices, but like so many other things in the CoCo community, it's these
choices that seem to sometimes create "divides" or "pissing contests",
where I don't take any sides, I believe in just using whatever tool or
program works best for a particular need, it would be nice to at some
point, see projects like this, not be 3 separate projects, but just one.
As much as I love a lot of the features of VCC like the builtin in
multi-pack interface, and others, the composite artifacting of Xroar and
MAME/MESS are better, Xroar is fairly easy to use once you drop in the
BASIC ROMS, but I could never get XROAR to run a ROM cartridge, MAME seems
to be the best overall emulator, but has the least user friendly interface.

It would be great to take what's best about these 3 projects/programs and
put them all together into the mega emulator, which, also to be noted,
Xroar and MAME are already cross-compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux.

I know there are UI loaders for MAME and MESS and that softens the blow a
bit, but MAME still lacks a level of simplicity for non-technophiles.  I'm
actually looking forward to seeing what Ron Klein did with the CoCo Pie.

Maybe that's just more wishful thinking, but if this kind of stuff keeps
up, I'm just going to have to learn how to make these changes myself one
day (Perhaps by CoCoFEST 35?)

In closing, I'm not poo pooing any product or project, I love them all, I
use them all, and I appreciate the fact they exist and there are people who
know how to do these things and actually do them, but when topics like this
continue to come up, it always makes me wonder, and want to ask, "why don't
we just focus on 1 thing and make it the best",  I don't know the answer,
but love to hear what others have to say.



Steve Strowbridge, aka
The Original Gamer Stevie Strow
http://ogsteviestrow.com
ogsteviestrow at gmail.com


On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 11:03 AM, Luis Fernández <luis46coco at hotmail.com>
wrote:

>
> >Hey David ... it can actually take a DLL *OR* a ROM file. If you load a
> program PAK ROM file directly from the Cartridge | Cartrige drop down
> menu,  what happens is the MPI functionality goes away and all you have is
> whatever ROM you loaded booting on power-up. To get the MPI back, you have
> to load the MPI.DLL from that same drop-down menu.  Then you can load each
> slot pak the same way ...
>
> Yes I know
> The idea is that in any cartridge entry (or NMI) you can choose between *
> .rom, * .dll, * .pak and * .ccc
> Review what happens from NMI
> I'm just starting to review, and catch up, I do not even know how to
> handle the project, and I do not want to do anything wrong, or sinpermiso
> community, but make some changes and ask if this is the way, because as I
> understood it Bill piece (sometimes I do not understand English well) I
> think he wants to wait and not make changes until he has a tool to compile
> cross and so can run VCC on several systems.
>
> I think that once put in C or C ++ or C # and can of migrated to several
> systems, with minimal interface changes
>
> But I just got here and I'm not an expert
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------------------
>
>
> ________________________________
> De: Coco <coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com> en nombre de James Ross <
> jrosslist at outlook.com>
> Enviado: jueves, 13 de abril de 2017 02:14 a.m.
> Para: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts
> Asunto: Re: [Coco] VCC Update
>
> David Ladd wrote:
> > ... VCC only understands DLL's for it's
> > cart input because of the way the emulator was written.
>
> Hey David ... it can actually take a DLL *OR* a ROM file. If you load a
> program PAK ROM file directly from the Cartridge | Cartrige drop down
> menu,  what happens is the MPI functionality goes away and all you have is
> whatever ROM you loaded booting on power-up. To get the MPI back, you have
> to load the MPI.DLL from that same drop-down menu.  Then you can load each
> slot pak the same way ...
>
> Which, after checking that, I just realized on my current development the
> MPI slots insert menu item does not bring up the select file dialog.  Will
> have to look into why.
>
> James
>
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