====== Welcome to the MESS Wiki! ====== Welcome to the official wiki for MESS (**M**ulti **E**mulator **S**uper **S**ystem), the sister project of [[http://mamedev.org/|MAME]]((MAME is a registered trademark of Nicola Salmoria.)). MESS is a source-available project which documents the hardware for a wide variety of (mostly vintage) computers, video game consoles, and calculators through software emulation, as MAME does for arcade games. As a nice side effect to this documentation, MESS allows software and games for these hardware platforms to be run on modern PCs. The goal of this wiki is to document how to use MESS, the technical architecture of MESS, and the systems emulated by MESS. If you want to help, register a user name and look at the pages already in the Wiki to get an idea how things are currently laid out here. As of version [[downloads|0.144u7]], MESS supports 628 unique systems with 1,651 total system variations and is growing all the time (you can find a complete list of the supported systems [[supported_systems|here]]). However, not all of the systems in MESS are functional: check the specific [[:mess:drivers|driver pages]] to know the emulation status of your favorite machine in MESS. If you have any questions or would like to contribute to MESS or the Wiki, feel free to join us in the IRC-Channel ''#messdev'' on [[http://www.efnet.org/|EFnet]]. Or at the [[http://forums.bannister.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=1&page=1|MESS forum]]. ===== Downloads ===== == Emulator == Current source code and binaries for MESS can be found on the [[downloads]] page. Previous versions are available as well. == Extra files == Artwork files for use with MESS can be downloaded at the [[artwork|MESS Artwork Project]]. Collections of cheat files for use with some systems emulated by MESS can be downloaded at [[http://cheat.retrogames.com/mess_downloads.htm|Pugsy's cheat page]] (cheats for ColecoVision, Genesis and Game Boy Advance currently available). For completeness of information, you can also use [[http://www.progettosnaps.net/messinfo|MESS-Info.dat]], which lists, for all systems and drivers, any changes present in "whatsnew" and SVN. ===== Random screenshots ===== {{gallery>mess:drivers:?*&200x150&crop&3&=9&random&nocache}} ===== Documentation ===== Below, you can find some documents about MESS and its usage. == Usage Docs == * [[mess:howto|MESS User's Manual]]. * [[faq|MESS FAQs]]. * [[sysinfo|sysinfo.dat]], i.e. miscellaneous info about systems emulated by MESS. * [[compiling_mess|Compiling MESS]]. * [[mess:usage|Output of -showusage command]]. * [[mess:mess.ini|Contents of mess.ini]] with comments and descriptions. * [[debugger]] -help output (debugger commands and their usage). * [[mess:swlist_format|Software list format]], i.e. a brief guide to the xml format of MESS "new" feature. * How To's * [[howto:sdlmame_sdlmess_framebuffer|SDLMAME/SDLMESS on a framebuffer device]]. * [[http://guru.mameworld.info/tutorials/dumping_cds_&_hdds/index.html#cd|creating CHD from a CD for use in MESS drivers]], courtesy of The Guru. * Macintosh driver setup * [[howto:install_mac_system_6|Install Mac System 6]] * [[howto:install_mac_os_7|Install Mac OS 7]] * [[howto:create_large_mac_hds|Create large Mac HDs]] * [[http://www.ninerpedia.org/index.php/MESS|Unofficial MESS TI-99 emulation pages]] at ninerpedia == Programming Docs == * How To's * [[howto:setup eclipse for mess|Setup Eclipse for MESS]]. * [[howto:add_a_mess_skeleton_driver|Adding a skeleton driver to MESS]]. * [[howto:mess driver lifecycle|The MESS driver lifecycle]]. * [[howto:artwork|Artwork explained]]. * [[reference:MAME and MESS source layout|Description of MAME and MESS source layout]] * MAME Reference {{topic>reference +mame&list&nodate&nouser¬ags}} * MESS Reference {{topic>reference +mess -tools -imgtool&list&nodate&nouser¬ags}} * [[http://mamedev.org/devwiki/index.php/How_MAME_Works|How MAME Works]] at the MAME DevWiki == Wiki Docs == * How To's * [[howto:upload screenshots|Upload screenshots to the Wiki]]. ===== Driver infos ===== * [[mess:drivers|MESS drivers]] - with systems, open bugs, BIOS & device info, emulation status and much more! * [[sysinfo|sysinfo.dat]], i.e. miscellaneous info about systems emulated by MESS. * [[supported_systems|Emulated systems]] (//in progress//) * [[datasheets|Datasheets]] - collection of datasheets for components used by systems emulated by MESS. ===== Development ===== MESS maintains a [[Subversion]] repository at ''%%svn://messdev.no-ip.org/mess%%'' where you can follow the development. If you want to contribute and help with coding, there is a general [[mess:todo|ToDo list]] on the Wiki. The tools needed to [[compiling_mess|compile MESS]] can be downloaded from the [[build tools]] page. There is also an automatically updated page which lists [[mess:compile_failure|current compile issues]]. ===== Tools ===== == MESS tools == * [[tools:chdman]] * [[tools:castool]] * [[reference:imgtool|imgtool]] == Related tools == * [[tools:mame_regtest|mame_regtest]] * [[tools:mame_regtest:testing|testing]] * [[tools:mame_regtest:config|config]] * [[tools:mame_regtest:results|results]] == Driver-specific tools == * ti99_4x, geneve * [[http://www.mizapf.de/ti99/tiimagetool.zip|TIImageTool]], Java-based tool for working with TI disk images, also containing the serial bridge connector (requires RXTX library) ===== Dumping project ===== The goal of this project is to identify, acquire and dump the systems needed for emulation. The project strives to preserve all game consoles, handheld and computers (basically anything not found in an arcade). The MESS Dumping project parallels the work of the MAME Dumping Project. The project has a couple of different sub-pages: * [[dumping:info|Dumping Project Overview]] * [[dumping:wanted|Systems]] that need to be acquired and dumped. * [[dumping:have|Systems and games]] that have been acquired and need to be dumped. * [[mess:drivers_needed|Systems]] that need drivers and ROMs are known to be available for. * [[dumping:badmissing|Systems]] that are in MESS that have no, bad or partial dumps. * [[dumping:games_needed|Games]] that need to be acquired and dumped. ===== Personal pages ===== Some MESS contributors have set up personal user pages on this Wiki, where you can find info about their activities, their collections, WIPs and other stuff. * [[people:christopher_stone|Christopher Stone]] * [[people:curt_coder|Curt Coder]] * [[people:duke|Duke]] * [[people:incog|incog]] * [[people:mahlemiut|mahlemiut]] * [[people:mizapf|Michael Zapf]] * [[people:wilbert_pol|Wilbert Pol]] ===== Project blogs ===== * [[http://mamedev.emulab.it/etabeta/|etabeta's playground]] * [[http://micko-wip.blogspot.com/|Micko's WIP]] * [[http://moogle-tech.com/blog/?tag=mess|MooglyGuy's N64 Blog]] * [[http://messui.the-chronicles.org|Robbbert's site]]