Home Page Forums MAME MAME how to run CoCo games

Like the PC9801 games earlier, I can't get any format Tandy CoCo 3 games running, not even cartridges. Most files I found are in ".bin" format, some in ".dsk". The introduction screen just shows copyright and "OK", not a drive prompt. I don't know what to type again.

Which software (title) exactly you tried to run?

Example for a disk image (Donkey Kong/Basic mode) and the coco3 driver:

Mount the disk image
Type "DIR" to see the available files e.g. "DONKEY.BAS"
Load "DONKEY" and ENTER
RUN

Example for a disk image (Pegasus/DOS mode) and the coco3 driver:

Mount the disk image
Type "DOS" and ENTER to switch into DOS mode
The game start automatically



The mounted coco3 cartridges e.g. Shanghai.rom should run automatically.

Example for a cassette image (Crazy Mazes/Basic mode) and the coco3 driver:

Mount the cassette image e.g. crazmaze.cas
CLOAD
RUN



To create and run virtual hard disk images is a bit more difficult. If you need more help, contact me.
But Robert Gault is more the expert for the CoCo and OS9 system (NitrOS-9/6809)

Anna posted some good information and to continue on that ....

Coco emulation with MESS has no provision for running .bin files directly. They must be mounted on a disk image, the most common type being .dsk. There is one other type of file used with Basic on a Coco, .bas.
Basic files can be started from a .dsk image with
RUN"FILENAME"
Machine language files on .dsk require one of two methods depending on whether they are self-starting.
LOADM"FILENAME":EXEC
or just
LOADM"FILENAME"

There are also OS-9 programs that run under Coco emulation. These may or may not require first starting OS-9. Some will start merely after mounting the disk with an .os9 extension and entering
DOS

While this forum is the best place for learning about MESS, there are specific Coco related forums and a mail server.
Send me a message and I will supply urls.

As I said, Robert Gault is the expert.

My first problem was, I was using a bad dumped bios that wouldn't run any game. After getting a new bios dump, I can run "Tetris" and "Shanghai". I now can also DIR files and start to run .dsk images, but shortly after the title screen the games freeze with scrambled graphics onscreen. ROM images "Arkanoid" and "Malcolm Mortar" and probably many more, freeze at a black screen. I am using Windows 32 MESS UI 153.

I have discovered a really strange problem I have with CoCo emulation. Every time I insert a ROM image, the floppy drives in the media list disappear, so I can't insert .dsk files. The opposite is sort of also true, When I load a .dsk file, the cartridge slot in the list will not disappear, and the emulator will say ROMs are loaded, but it won't act like any ROMs are loaded. This happens no matter how many times I soft or hard reset, and if I remove media or not. I can only get it working again by deleting the ini and configuration files.

IIRC, the disk drive plugs into the cartridge slot on the CoCo.

IIRC, the floppy drive require a disk expansion inserted in the cart slot: such expansion might be inserted by default in MESS, so to have disks available when you launch the system with nothing mounted, but it clearly is replaced by any cart you mount manually

I don't have here the exe to check, however, so I might be wrong

-listdevices clearly shows the FDC hanging off the -ext port.

If you're getting scrambled graphics when loading a game, increase the amount of RAM the emulated system has to either 2M or 8M. Had this problem in the past but I can't remember what games though...