Lets go back to dos....anyone wants to get onboard?

[abispac]

So i found a very good condition old motherboard, that is compatible with the bkst ghost image that was very popular in the mid 2000. It works with advancemenu and dos. The main image was a "master" wich you could just use to clone multiple discs. The so called master had the power to make then an special hardrive that could install especifi options for each compatible motherboard. Now, the reason this image was so popular back in the day is because you could output 15khz in those especial motherboars, or use a regular lcd screen too. Now, the only interest i got in this image is, i would love to build a dedicated robotron, so  i just extracted the contents of the image and took a look at them and they do not have robotron, ok i guess i can just added myself. But since i want to just use it as a robotron game, i would like to get rid of most of the stuu i dont need and use the configurations for the especial motherboard and be ablet to load snes key, and then the game directly instead of the advancemenu.  So i ned to go back in time and see if i can achieve that. If i recall right, that bkst image had some sort of protection, so what ill try to do, ill just try to do the install of the files i need my self. YES YES I KNOW, why dos? raspberrys today are more powerfull thatn thos old motherboards, new mame its more acurate, but i just want to use what i got available, pluse the motherborads looks to be in good  conditions so ima give it a try, plus no especial conectors, i can use the vga cable i have, no especial video cards, no vga66 or anything like, just straight software. Thought i dont know if advancemame had the option to remat player 2 joystick as mame does nowdays in order to cinfig robotron as it should. Anyway, im uploading the files just in case anyone whants to take a look at them and help me up in the future. ill post the link later, Thanks for reading.
Heres a picture of the compatible motherboard model.

[abispac]

would you please let me live pl1, i know i dont have to post forbiden files, fine.... o gosh, maybe this forum would get sued because one of it memebers posted a file from 2000 or older that know one cares anymore....ok i guess you are fun at partys..... 

[abispac]

Anyway, i just turned the pc on, and it had the bkst software loaded, luck for me, the pc has dos usb support built in, so i just ctrlaltdelete to get out of advmenu, and took a pic inside the c:\ directory, it does not have the instalation files anymore, so i just created a freedos usb img and pop it on the pc, hopefully the opriginal bskt dos would be able to read it, and hopefully i would be able to load the master bkst files from there, so finger crossed.

[abispac]

yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 2000 era pc boots just fine with a usb, i cant ---smurfing--- believe it, i got a freaking lenovo mini pc i5 6th gen that wont boot from usb, but this relic does that just fine.  Anyway i used northong gosth 32 to burn the mastr image into the usb drive, poped the usb drive, started the cloning process, now im up of 2 hours of waiting time to clone a 6gb drive hohoho , but so far it looks like is doing the job just fine, so if everything goes fine, ill have an ide hardrive to install the new pandora 6 like bkst soft, that has no protection and hopefully make it work  for crt , and then modify it to boot staright into robotron.... fingers crossed.

[abispac]

So installing the software was staright forward, just fire up, select the motherboard type, and thats it. Now i got a working bkst pandora 6 skin for crt working

i really dont like the way robotron looks, but ill go ahead and ask in the groovymame what modline would be best for robotron, and hopefully i can just add it to advancemame, im not worried about the overscan as i know thats part of the rgb mod on the tv, and i can fix that with the original remote.

Now in order to boot directly into robotron, i need to modify the startup bat, heres what i got :

Code: [Select]

@ECHO OFF
C:\DOS\SMARTDRV 4096
SET PATH=C:\DOS;C:\PANDORA\ROMS;C:\PANDORA;C:\MENU;C:\SNESKEY
copy /Y C:\BACKUP\4\ADVMENU.RC c:\MENU >NUL
COPY /Y  C:\BACKUP\4\NEMU.RC C:\PANDORA  >NUL
COPY /Y  C:\BACKUP\4\advmame3.RC C:\PANDORA\3d\advmame.rc  >NUL
COPY /Y  C:\BACKUP\4\advmame.RC C:\PANDORA  >NUL
COPY /Y  C:\BACKUP\4\EMUNE.RC C:\PANDORA  >NUL
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330
c:\AUD4\sndinit.exe/INIT
c:\AUD4\sndtsr.exe
cd MENU
go Im a potato in understanding batfiles, but ill do my best to modify this until it works.
 so ill go par by part:
This "C:\DOS\SMARTDRV 4096" seems to be important as it loads some dos stuff that makes dos works, , the other part sets the path for dos, roms pandora wich is the advancemame folder,menu for the advance menu folder and sneskey, wich is very important as the pc came with a pc to jamma board tha would make my life easyer to hook the controls.

Code: [Select]

@ECHO OFF
C:\DOS\SMARTDRV 4096
SET PATH=C:\DOS;C:\PANDORA\ROMS;C:\PANDORA;C:\MENU;C:\SNESKEYThen comes this part:

copy /Y C:\BACKUP\4\ADVMENU.RC c:\MENU >NUL
COPY /Y  C:\BACKUP\4\NEMU.RC C:\PANDORA  >NUL
COPY /Y  C:\BACKUP\4\advmame3.RC C:\PANDORA\3d\advmame.rc  >NUL
COPY /Y  C:\BACKUP\4\advmame.RC C:\PANDORA  >NUL
COPY /Y  C:\BACKUP\4\EMUNE.RC C:\PANDORA  >NUL

I know the purpose of this part was to ensure everything was fine at startup
then this 

Code: [Select]

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330
c:\AUD4\sndinit.exe/INIT
c:\AUD4\sndtsr.exe sets the audio
then  this

Code: [Select]

cd MENU
go
calls advance menu i guess?
so if im not mistaken, i can just remove the last part and replace it with something like :

Code: [Select]

cd c:\pandora
             advmame robotronand hopefully that fires up robotron.
Ill make my test tomorrow as its getting late, but so far so good.

[abispac]

So this turned out easyer then i thought it was going to be, after installing everything, i just modified the autoexec bat to start advmame with robotron, and now i got a working robotron setup. Now i just need to play with the tv settings to center the image , build the cab, and im done.....

wish i could add the correct modline for robotron on a moded tv  in advancemame, so feel free to help if you know how its done. thanks for your atention.

[Thenasty]

use ADVV and create video modeline.

[abispac]

use ADVV and create video modeline.

Thanks ill google on how to do that, thanks you kind.

[abispac]

I decided to use the advance menu to be able to play betwen both version of mame robotron.