MAME

[Ziggy C]

MAME is something I've kept around for the last couple decades. I find it fun and refreshing to go back to the old video games I used to pump quarters into and play them on the big screen at home. Best part is it seems to be the original code and doesn't take up a bunch of space.

And now comes the tech part of my request...

I dig Dragon's Lair. And until recently I was able to play an emulation of it on my Macbook Pro. What changed? Well, Mac went all 64-bit starting with Big Sur. And once it did, and it's not easily reversible, it ceased to run 32-bit software. In order to play Dragon's Lair, I had d/l'd the DVD and was using an free emulation software called, "Daphne" (after the princess in the game.) It was a little clunky at times. but it got me what I wanted out of the game, which was simply to play Dragon's Lair again. Daphne was also capable of running similar laser-disc-based games of the era.

Well,...now that Daphne no longer runs, I am looking for another emulation, preferably free (cheapskate, I know,) which will run in the 64-bit Mac platform.

I know I have other options:
1) Install Parallels, create a Windows partition on my Mac, and run Dragon's Lair on Daphne on the Parallels Windows partition on my MacBook Pro, where it should still work.
2) Set up one of my older Mac's strictly for Dragon's Lair playage. Laziness still gets the best of me there, as I would only dig it up once in a blue moon.

Ideally, I would like to simply have a program that runs it on my MacBook Pro 64-bit, just like with standard MAME.

Any ideas?


And speaking of blue moons. Or even blue moons over Kentucky. What's with all the fixation on different color & animal moons these days. Every month seems to have one or two. I know a good bunch come from English interpretations of Native American names. All that is good and well. It just seems that there is a bit of an over-emphasis on it. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it. This month, on April 6th, we had the Full Pink Moon. Other names for the April Full Moon, from Almanac dot com, include
• Breaking Ice Moon (Algonquin)
• Broken Snowshoe Moon (Anishinaabe)
• Budding Moon of Plants and Shrubs (Tlingit)
• Frog Moon (Cree)
• Moon of the Red Grass Appearing (Oglala)
• Moon When the Ducks Come Back (Lakota)
• Moon When the Geese Lay Eggs (Dakota)
• Moon When the Streams are Again Navigable (Dakota)
• Sucker Moon (Anishinaabe)
• Sugar Maker Moon (Western Abenaki)

Each month has its own selection of cool full moon names. So why not a full moon name each month which distinguishes a Beatles album?

The April full moon was the Beatles For Sale Full Moon.
Next month we have the Help! Full Moon.

12 UK releases = 12 months = 12 regular full moons. But what about extra crispy? Or blue moons? Well....
For this year's blue moon, August 31st, I suppose that would be the Cow Palace Blue Moon, since The Beatles played there on 8/31/1965.

So.....
What does this have to do with tech? Nothing. Unless you use your smart phone or computer to figure out when the phases of the moon are, and what the full moon will be called. Then I guess its an indirect tech thing.

Meantime, I sure hope someone can help me find a replacement for Daphne.

[MarkRJones1970]

I can't help you but it's nice to see a fellow Retro Gamer on here too. I too have used MAME for years (must be going for at least 20 now!)

I have a dedicated room with all my old games in it and my consoles set up. It's like a real museum in there. I have a machine with Daphne on it but it's connected to the TV. I did have something called a Superior until a few months back when I upgraded it to a Retro Boss from Retropia. It emulates everything from an Atari 2600 up to a Gamecube / Wii / Playstation 2. After ordering it I had it in less than a week.

https://www.retropiaconsoles.com/compare

I've been astounded how easy it is to use and how smoothly everything runs (except the XBox 360, still fiddling with the settings for that one). I've spent the last 2 weeks not really playing games but marking out my Favs and adding roms that were missing but essential to me.

So, I can't help with your question but I'm just bigging up the machine I got which does run Daphne well.

[Ziggy C]

Thanks for the reply. I haven't strayed from using my own laptop as the gaming console. Using a separate keyboard and so forth to preserve the keys on the laptop. I might consider getting retro-gaming gear with joysticks and such. But for the time being it seems I only revisit this once every year or two. And for that, I'm not quite ready to commit. Even though it doesn't cost a whole lot, it does add to the "pile of stuff." As I get older, I am more conscious of that. But these games sure do bring back the memories. Certainly a fun escape, on multiple planes.

[Ziggy C]

OK, so plan B is in effect. The test patient is a 1.67 GHz Mac PowerPC G4 running OSX version 10.5.8 (Leopard). There are no software updates for this Mac. It is maxed up to the Mac ceiling.

The DVD drive is dead. Plus, oh joy, it will not even read newly burned DVD's (of Dragon's Lair or Daphne) from an external DVD drive.
It will not allow access to google drive, or many websites for that matter as the browser software is outdated and generates auto-error messages informing me of the same. And, given that, there is no way to access newer, or even older versions of compatible browser software because the current browser(s) (Safari and Firefox) are outdated and cannot be upgraded without a more current version, and obtaining an older version of Google Chrome isn't possible, either, because the older version of my current browsers will not communicate with the servers to get those updated versions,....a nice Catch-22.

I am able to access the old Daphne emulator website and download Daphne to the Mac PowerPC. It then went through the process of Daphne auto-downloading/updating the necessary audio/video files for Dragon's Lair into the vldp_dl folder in Daphne's special folder on the documents folder on the Mac PowerPC. But that's not enough. It also needs a Dragon's Lair DVD (which I've backed-up) to draw from during the game. And how now (brown cow) to get the DVD onto the PowerPC? Can I upload it to google drive from my current MacBook Pro? And then share it? No!! Because I cannot access my google drive from an old Mac.

Since I cannot access google drive, or any sharing site, I suppose, where I might've uploaded the complete folder for easier access, I was left with a final option. And that was to go into the other room and drink myself silly.....what? You still there? OK!! Well, a couple shots later came the brainstorm of using a FAT32 flash drive to transfer the files to the PowerPC. The PowerPC sees the FAT32 and accepts the data. The Daphne program recognizes that data and assimilates it into its continuum. That worked! Hot damn! The thing plays! Oh, Magoo, you've done it again!

Now the PowerPC has everything it needs for me to play just one last game of Dragon's Lair before I play another, and then another..... This took about 4 hours. We are all "of age" here and can figure how much, in currency, this time is worth. But I didn't have to go out or online and buy anything. I just had to think a little, drink a little, and keep plugging away at it. This is what I've (we've) done for yonks. Thanks to MarkRJones1970 for reaching out. It's nice to have some ideas to keep in the back pocket. Because, who knows?

Why this litany?
It's important to pass this information along because you just never know. If it helps one person, who then carries the torch and helps another, and so on. Or if it dies right here, right now, whatever the case,...it is a kind of document which may serve helpful. In fact, I've copied this instructional into my Daphne folder so that in a year or two should I wish to attempt this again, I'll know how I did it a couple years previous, and I'll know to just boot up the old Mac and play. Time travel is fun so long as you don't muck it all up. Now, if I could've only messaged myself from the future to today. Well, who's to say I didn't.

Now on to today's NYT Wordle, Quordle, and Quordle sequence.

[RalseiDeltarune]

A Retro Gamer here. My favorite emulator is FCEUX. I have a collection of +60 NES ROMs, not including ROM hacks. I haven't used MAME that much..

[RalseiDeltarune]

Additional note; Shame about Nintendo getting all pissy on ROM sites. Damn Copyright Nazis, I'll say that much.