persistent floppy disk and HD paths

[WayneCa]

I have searched high and low, but there is nothing I can find that answers my questions.

I want to be able to set a specific floppy disk image and a specific hard disk image so that they are available when I start the emulation. I don't like having to re-establish them in the file manager every time I start the emulation.

Is there a way to do this with the machine ini file?
Is it generic (meaning that, with few exceptions, it's the same way no matter the machine), or is it machine specific?

If it depends entirely on the machine, I am emulating the Tandy Color Computer (predominantly the coco2 and coco3). I can find nothing on how to setup the emulation for that platform. How do I contact the devs who are working on that system's emulation in MAME?

I am also interested in helping to write the documentation for that platform, but need the assistance of the devs working on it for information.

Thanks in advance for any assitance given.

[mizapf]

Can't you set the floppy image in the command line, like "-flop <imagefile>"? So when you have a particular configuration, I'd suggest you write a script file (batch file) which launches MAME and the CoCo emulation with those command line parameters.

[WayneCa]

I'm sorry. I found an answer on the Discord forum for the Color Computer. I forgot to post that here. I was able to set things up so I can launch MAME by double-clicking the application icon and it has the floppies and HD images already set. MAME has also been updated since to correct a few issues with the Color Computer and Dragon computer emulations.

To set the Color Computer 3 emulation to use the MPI interface and set floppy images for /d0 and /d1, and HD images for /h0 and /h1, make the following changes to the coco3h.ini file:

This allows me to use the UI menu since my laptop does not have a scroll lock key:
#
# OSD KEYBOARD MAPPING OPTIONS
#
uimodekey DEL


This sets up the MPI, floppy and HD images:
#
# FLOPPY AND HD
#
ext multi
ext:multi:slot1
ext:multi:slot2
ext:multi:slot3
ext:multi:slot4 fdc
ext:multi:slot4:fdc:wd17xx:0 525qd
ext:multi:slot4:fdc:wd17xx:1 525qd
ext:multi:slot4:fdc:wd17xx:2 525qd
ext:multi:slot4:fdc:wd17xx:3 525qd
flop1 path to OS-9m Boot floppy (/D0)
flop2 path to second floppy image (/D1)
hard1 path to OS-9 default drive (/DD)
hard2 path to second HD image (/H0)

I hope this helps someone else who needs this information.