BeebEm on RiscOS

I’m new to the forum and thought I would post this request for help, as I am having difficulty loading a disc image on the Risc OS version of BeebEm.

I am using Risc OS 5 on a Pinebook laptop (original version, not Pinebook Pro) and was hoping to run BeebEm to emulate my old BBC B.

However, although I have been able to find the ‘Select, load and run a disc’ option on the BeebEm Menu (by pressing f12), when selected the emulator simply reboots itself to a BBC start-up screen with the familiar BBC Beep.

I do not get the chance to select a disc image to load, as the file selection box does not appear on the screen – the emulator simply reboots.

If I then use the ‘*Cat’ command to catalogue the disc, it shows a blank disc called ‘Videotie’ mounted in drive 0.

I wondered whether anyone on the forum had found a way that I would be able to use to load an image of one of my old discs in the Risc OS version of Beebem?

Thanks for any help.

David

I can’t help with BeebEm, but have you tried using BeebIt instead? It’s more integrated into RISC OS, so you can just drag n drop disc images into it. Download it here – https://mjfoot.netlify.app/bbc.htm

Thanks Bryan, but I’m afraid that BeebIt doesn’t work on the Pinebook laptop

Oh :-(
Is that with the latest version (0.72)? In what way doesn’t it work, what error do you get? Have you set the display mode in its options to 1920×1080?

I can concur that BeebIt 0.72 doesn’t work on the PineBook and gives an error:

“A suitable screen mode cannot be found”

Checking Options>Display mode shows Auto as the only option.

The PineBook is set to Screen Monitor type “PineBook Simple” with a resolution of 1920 × 1080 (1080p).

BeebItJ also fails as well.

That’s weird. I’ve not got a Pinebook, but on ARMX6 and RPCEmu I get the following Display Mode options in BeebIt 0.72:

Auto
Low
Medium
High
1280 × 1024
1680 × 1050
1920 × 1080

In the Boot.Choices.BeebIt.Choices file it has the line:

DisplayMode=1920 × 1080

(note the spaces)

You could try hacking that into the Choices file and restarting BeebIt to see if it picks it up!

Hi Doug – just wondered whether you’d tried BeebEm on the Pinebook and had more success than me?

Thanks Bryan, but I believe that it’s something to do with the ‘Window’ needing to be scaleable for it to work on the Pinebook.

just wondered whether you’d tried BeebEm

Well it locks up but there is a solution.

Download Jan de Boer’s PatchSWP
application.

Run the beebem application file inside BeebEm though PatchSWP and save the resultant file back and it works.

Brian said of BeebIt:

DisplayMode=1920 × 1080
You could try hacking that into the Choices file and restarting BeebIt to see if it picks it up!

Well that results in some nasty things happening on the Pinebook that requires a hard reset!

Have you tried Aemulor with the Pinebook Pro?

Someone here has done a SWP module.

Don’t know anything about BBC emus, but Michael Borcherds’ (aka Murklesoft) 6502Em is now available on GitHub under GPL. https://github.com/murkle/6502Em

Thanks Doug.
I’ve run BeebEm through PatchSWP.
The emulator runs, but I still have the problem that when I ‘Select, load and run a disc’ option on the BeebEm Menu (by pressing f12), the emulator simply reboots itself to a BBC start-up screen with the familiar BBC Beep.
I do not get the chance to select a disc image to load, as the file selection box does not appear on the screen – the emulator simply reboots.
Have you been able to load a disc?

However, although I have been able to find the ‘Select, load and run a disc’ option on the BeebEm Menu (by pressing f12), when selected the emulator simply reboots itself to a BBC start-up screen with the familiar BBC Beep.

There should be instructions in the !Help file.

The file dialogs in the configuration menu are currently non functional. To load a game you first have to edit the 'DiscsPath' configuration in the 'beebem/registry' file you saved previously. e.g. DiscsPath=/<BeebEm$Dir>/games.img. Any valid filename will do as long as !BeebEm supports the file format. Quit and reload !Beebem then click 'Discs->Select, load and run a disc' in the configuration menu. This will load and run the file that 'DiscsPath' points to.

There’s a rebuilt version of Beebem available here. It now runs OK on armv8. It’s also linked with a more recent SDL library

It works! – Thank you Chris and sorry not to have read the !Help file.

Do you know if the rebuilt version allows you to use the selection menu, rather than editing the configuation file for each disc change?