MiSTer Batch control

This is a simple command line utility to control the MiSTer fpga. Its main purpose is to load ROM files since this features is not supported by the MiSTer out of the box.

Installation

A simple script to install this utility, among with others, is in MiSTer_Misc repository. Alternatively you can find pre-compiled binaries in the release page.

If you make some changes to the code, you can use the build.sh script to download the gcc/musl crosscompile toolchain, and to compile a static version of the application. However, also a simple command like:

arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc -std=c99 -static -D_XOPEN_SOURCE=700 -o mbc mbc.c

should be able to compile the utility, since it does not have any dependency (except standard C library and linux interface).

Support

Some functionalities need specific support for each system. To handle not-supported or non-standard cases, the CUSTOM system is provided. It let you, for example, to freely set the game directory, the symulated key sequence, etc. It is configured with the environment variables specified in the list_core command section. If you make a system work in this way, please open a github issue specifying the value of the variables, so its support can be easly added.

Please note that these informations could change from one release of the MiSTer to another, so please, make sure you are referring to the last release. If the utility stops to work after an update for some specific core, you can open an issue with the same information: probably I just did not update them yet.

If you want to make the change by yourself (e.g. to support an old release of the MiSTer), a single line of code for each core must be added/changed in the definition of the system_list variable. It just contains the same informations described in list_core.

Usage

Running the mbc without arguments will give minimal help. To actually perform some action on the MiSTer, mbc must be run like:

mbc COMMAND [ARG1 [ARG2 [...]]]

The main commands are raw_seq and load_rom, but other usefull ones are provided too. Please refer to the documentation of the single commands in this Readme.

Some commands need specific support for each cores. A special system CUSTOM is provided to try to launch unsupported core. See documentation of the list_core for more details.

Command raw_seq

mbc raw_seq KEY_SEQUENCE

This command will emulate the key press and release as described in the KEY_SEQUENCE. It is a sequence of the following codes with the following meanings:

U - press and release up arrow
D - press and release down arrow
L - press and release left arrow
R - press and release right arrow
O - press and release enter (Open)
E - press and release esc
H - press and release home
F - press and release end (Finish)
M - press and release F12 (Menu)
Lowercase letters (a-z) or digits (0-9) - press and release of the corresponding key
:XX - press and release of the key with the hex code XX
{XX - press of the key with the hex code XX
}XX - release of the key with the hex code XX
!s - wait for 1 second
!m - wait that some mount point changes (the first time it is called, it does not wait since the initial detected mount table is empty; so it must be called multiple time in the sequence, e.g. EEMDD!mO!m)

The XX value is the hex representition of the coded in the uapi/input-event-code kernel header.

For example, the commands

mbc raw_seq EEMDDO
mbc raw_seq :01:01:58:6C:6C:1C

do the same thing: they send Esc, Esc, F12, down, dowm, enter, so they select the third item of the menu.

The timing can be configured by means of the following environment variables:

MBC_CORE_WAIT sets the number of milliseconds to wait for the core to be loaded; the default is 3000.
MBC_KEY_WAIT sets the number of milliseconds to wait between each key-press; the default is 40.
MBC_SEQUENCE_WAIT sets the number of milliseconds to wait before and after a key sequence; the default is 1000.

Command load_rom

mbc load_rom SYSTEM /PATH/TO/ROM

This will load the default core associated to the SYSTEM, then it will load the rom passed as argument. The supported systems can be retrieved with the list_core command.

The games can be loaded from any directory, but the default one MUST exist (e.g. /media/fat/games/NES). It can be empty.

Command list_core

mbc list_core

The list_core command lists the systems. The list will contain the SYSTEM id and the path of the default core. The special system CUSTOM can be by mean of the following environment variables:

MBC_CUSTOM_SEQUENCE is the sequence of keys needed to open the rom selection menu; it must be specified in the same format of the raw_seq command. e.g. MBC_CUSTOM_SEQUENCE=EEMO
MBC_CUSTOM_CORE is the fixed suffix of the path of the core file, e.g. MBC_CUSTOM_CORE=/media/fat/_Console/NES_
MBC_CUSTOM_FOLDER is the name of the folders that are related to the system, e.g. MBC_CUSTOM_ROM_PATH=NES
MBC_CUSTOM_ROM_EXT is the extension of the rom files, e.g. MBC_CUSTOM_ROM_EXT=nes
MBC_CUSTOM_LINK is the position of the temporary rom link; if it is present the MBC_CUSTOM_SEQUENCE must be the sequence to select the exact item, not just to open the menu, e.g. MBC_CUSTOM_LINK="/media/fat/games/NES/ !MBC/~~~/nes" and MBC_CUSTOM_SEQUENCE=EEMO

Command list_content

mbc list_content

It will list all the games in the default directory. Each game is preceded by the system name and a space. The system name is upper case and has no spaces.

Please note that the directory is not recursivelly searched; linux has better tools for such purpose. This command is meant just to give a quick feedback of the mbc functionalities.

Command load_all_as

mbc load_all_as SYSTEM /PATH/TO/CORE /PATH/TO/ROM

This is similar to load_rom but it will use the core provaided as argument instead of the default one.

Command load_all

mbc load_all /PATH/TO/CORE /PATH/TO/ROM

This is similar to the load_all_as command, but it tries to match the system from the core file name.

Command catch_input

mbc catch_input TIMEOUT_MS

Each time a button is pressed a event catched will be printed, plus an event counter. If no event was found within a certain time, timeout will be printed. The timeout time is specified in milliseconds and if it is negative, no timeout is set and timeout will be never printed.

Please note that the MiSTer main app opens all the inputs in exclusive mode. This means that while it is running, mbc will not see any event. To use this command the MiSTer main app must be stopped (and then restarted after the exit of mbc). An example is in the example/demomode.sh script.

Command wait_input

mbc wait_input TIMEOUT_MS

This is similar to catch_input command, but it exits after the first event or timeout. Same attention of catch_input command should be paid when operating with the MiSTer app.

Command stream

mbc stream

It will open the standard input, and will execute each line as a single command.

Xalior / MiSTer_Batch_Control