Well, I’m not really working on boards or 9010A scripts right now because I know the 9100A keyboard converter is near complete (or at least I hope! :)  So I’ve been playing around with something that kev and John were talking about a while ago.

I’ve been hacking around the MAME code, and I’ve got it to the point where I can walk through the data structures and pull out information like ROM files and addresses, and read & write addresses. What I am thinking of building is a simple “pre-code” generator that will help you build a 9010A script based on this simple memory map. It would build the map for any of the supported MAME games (even if the game isn’t working; that is not what is important). It could also link you directly to the MAME source code for quick reference. Just wondering if people would find this helpful or useful. Although it would be a first pass, here are possible pitfalls:

* ROM banking is frequently “hacked” in MAME (see Qix.c)

* read/write addresses in software are not always read/write in hardware

* I have no good way to insert the actual 9010A signatures right now because I would need to have all of the MAME ROMs (I don’t) and my programs don’t yet unzip the ROMs

* I don’t know exactly how precise or accurate the memory map is in MAME

* I almost guarantee mismatches between reality and the MAME driver :) Not that the programmers didn’t do a good job, but just that the software emulation might not match the actual hardware

But… the good would be that you have something to start with given a game that you’ve never worked on (the memory map is usually where I start). I would also be able to add in other hardware information to my database (CPU, # CPUs, type, etc.) and provide a cross reference to other games.

Does this reference material sound helpful? John, is this sort of what you’d had envisioned?

--James Bright
www.QuarterArcade.com
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