Robotron Arcade1UP MOD & Booting into a single MAME ROM Tutorial

RetroRalph·video·8m 19s·analyzed·Sep 9, 2019

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.018

TL;DR

Tutorial: Building Robotron Arcade1UP with direct ROM boot configuration

Summary

RetroRalph demonstrates a custom Robotron Arcade1UP machine build with RetroPie and provides a detailed technical tutorial on configuring a system to boot directly into a single MAME ROM instead of the standard EmulationStation menu. The video covers disabling boot text, configuring splash screens, and modifying autostart scripts.

Key Claims

RetroRalph was beta testing a game called 'Argonist and the Gods of Stone' for Zojoy Entertainment
high confidence · Opening statement about recent activities
Gray cap covers for Arcade1UP machines are available through Escape Pod Online graphics supplier
high confidence · Direct mention of sourcing gray covers that matched the build
The Robotron machine uses a RetroPie standard setup with a coin door mechanism
high confidence · Machine specification description
Default Arcade1UP stock monitor resolution is 1280x1024
high confidence · Technical specification for splash screen sizing
Direct boot to Nintendo ROMs proved impossible to achieve with this method after extensive troubleshooting
high confidence · RetroRalph spent 20-30 minutes attempting various configurations without success

Notable Quotes

“I have that enabled on mine, as you see. It'll only show the splash screen and nothing else before the game boots.”
RetroRalph@ 1:36 — Clarifies the distinction between boot text and splash screen functionality
“The tricky part. In the description of this video is a download link to a text file that has all the steps we have covered thus far in this tutorial”
RetroRalph@ 5:25 — Directs viewers to supplementary documentation for implementation
“I spent a lot of time trying to see if I can get it to boot like a Nintendo ROM, but I must have spent 20 minutes and tried 20 or 30 different ways to try and be able to do it, and it was just impossible.”
RetroRalph@ 7:28 — Demonstrates limitations of the tutorial approach with non-MAME emulators

Entities

RetroRalphpersonZojoy EntertainmentcompanyEscape Pod OnlinecompanyPhilby95person1500pointspersonRobotrongameRetroPieproductEmulationStationproductMAME 2003productArcade1UPproduct

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.025

0:00

Hey Retrospecters! How's it been? It's been a long time. Yeah, well actually I've been busy doing a lot of different things. I've been beta testing a new game called Argonist and the Gods of Stone for Zojoy Entertainment and I've also been making an arcade machine that I think you might be interested in. As a matter of fact, I'll go ahead and show it to you right now. It's Robotron Arcade 1up machine and I have to say I really like the retro feel on this one.

0:33

It is a RetroPie standard setup but it also has a coin door which I've never done before and I got the graphics from Escape Pod Online which is a really nice set of graphics. I absolutely love working with them and I also got the gray cap covers for the the whole covers. I didn't even know they made gray. They had black and white but I was able to get a gray that almost matched perfectly for the sides. In this particular build I wanted to do something different so I actually have the arcade machine booting to the ROM of Robotron when you boot it up. How did I do it? Well I'm going to show you a tutorial that will walk you through this if you want to do that for yourself. First things first, the tutorial I followed started with the option to disable the boot loading screen and text of the RetroPie when you first turn it on. This sounded like an okay idea to me, and if it does to you, then follow these steps. If you'd rather see the information for troubleshooting purposes, I suggest you skip to the section setting up booting into the single ROM. Note, disabling the boot loading screen and text is not the same thing as the RetroPie splash screen. I have that enabled on mine, as you see. It'll only show the splash screen and nothing else before the game boots. To disable the Retropie boot loading screen and text follow these steps. Step 1, if you're an emulation station, press F4 or if you're running PuTTY, make sure you're logged in and at the command line. Once at the command line type sudo nano boot cmdline and press enter Note what you should see is one continuous line of text. This must stay as one line, so edit it in the line. Also, use the arrow keys to move the cursor. I was doing this in PuTTY and I made the mistake of clicking with the mouse, which the editor doesn't recognize. What you're looking for in the next step is the part where you see console equal TTY1. Replace it with console equal TTY3, so just change the 1 to a 3.

2:32

Next, confirm that you see log level equal 3 towards the end of the line. That needs to be there. And finally for this step, make sure to add at the end of the line logo dot no logo. To save the changes we just made, hit control X, press Y to confirm, and then enter to finish saving the file. Part 1 done. Next, back up the command line, type sudo nano boot config.txt and press enter. When the text file comes up, use the arrow keys and go all the way to the bottom of the file and press enter at the end of the text to add these lines to the file. Disable underscore splash equal one, then press enter, and then put in avoid underscore warnings equal one. Note, this will stop the raspberry temperature icon showing during boot. If overheating is an issue that you want the warning to, don't put in that last line. To save the file, we'll press control and X, and then press Y to confirm, and then enter to save the file. The RetroPie boot info is now disabled. Now what we'll want to do next is enable a splash screen, if you so choose. You can add picture files to use as a splash screen by dropping them into the splash screen folder of the pie. In File Explorer, assuming your pie is on your network, just type backslash backslash the name of your RetroPie, it's RetroPie by default I changed mine to RetroLink and press enter You see four folders of which is the splash screens folder A splash screen should be 1280x1024 which is the resolution of the default stock monitor of the Arcade 1UP It can be bigger or smaller, but it may stretch the image if not the right aspect ratio. To set the splash screen at the command line, type emulation station to get back into the menu of the RetroPie. Go to the RetroPie section and go to the line that says Splash Screen and press the button you have set for selecting an emulation station. In the menu, you'll see the options that lead you to choose a splash screen on startup. Set the one you want and click OK. Once done, back out of the screen by pressing the button you set for back or cancel. This will back you out. Once done, your Pi is set for a simple splash screen on boot up. Now to the good part. This is the part where we have the RetroPie boot to a single arcade ROM. Press F4 while in emulation station to go back to the command line, or if you still have Putty up, you should be good. command line type sudo nano forward slash opt forward slash retropie forward slash configs forward slash all forward slash autostart.sh and press enter. You'll see a text file come up with a single line of code. Your cursor should be at the beginning of that line so press enter to move that line down one and then press the up arrow to go back to the beginning of the newly created line. Here's the tricky part. In the description of this video is a link to a text file that has all the steps we have covered thus far in this tutorial, and the one we're about to add. Open that text file and go toward the bottom to the section Setup booting into a single ROM. Just under 6B, you'll see three options. One for main 2003, one for main for all, and one for Final Burn Alpha. In this tutorial, I'm just going to show you the main 2003 since that's what I'm using. If you're using PuTTY, copy the line starting with the forward slash opt for the arcade version you are running and in the text file where the cursor is at, right click and it will paste the line in. For people not using PuTTY, you'll need to type the whole line in manually. The part you need to change is the ROM name at the end of the file You need the full name of the zip file of your arcade ROM In this example I using robotron for obvious reasons If your ROMs reside in a different folder, you'll need to specify the path to that ROM just before the ROM name. Mine is default, and yours probably will be too. Once done, we'll save the file again by pressing CTRL and X, and then Y to confirm, and then Enter to save the file. Now, to see if it worked, type sudo reboot, and your machine should automatically reboot. If everything is correct, you'll get your splash screen, and then it will move directly into the arcade ROM you set.

7:00

And I forgot to mention, if you escape out of the game at any point in time using the hotkey plus start method or escaping out of the ROM itself, it will start emulation station. I want to give a shout out to Philby95 and 1500points in Arcade Controls Forum. They're the ones who got the ball rolling on this and something I wanted to create a video tutorial on. So thanks guys for pointing that out and hopefully this will do it justice. Make sure if you want to try something for main for all or Final Burn Alpha, you give those links inside the text file a try. I spent a lot of time trying to see if I can get it to boot to like a Nintendo ROM, but I must have spent 20 minutes and tried 20 or 30 different ways to try and be able to do it, and it was just impossible. I just could not figure out how to do it. I'm not a Linux guy. There may be a very easy way to actually get it to boot into something like a Nintendo ROM, but for this particular project, I thought it was fitting that it be Robotron, and the arcade one seemed to work out pretty good. So hopefully this was beneficial to you, and so if you ever want to build a machine that boots directly to a ROM, you can use this as a tutorial to do that. So with that, if you like what you've seen here give me a thumbs up subscribe to the channel and hit the bell for notifications if you want to see more retro ralph and we'll guys see you on the next ralph's retrospect see ya