Microbee

A popular Australian-made early computer. This page serves as notes on how to play some of the software available for it via MAME (formerly MESS).

Files

• Download MAME for your preferred platform. This quick guide will use MAME via the command line, with syntax identical for Windows, Mac and Linux
  • http://mamedev.org/
• Grab the Microbee required files bundle, here: microbee_files.zip

How to run the games

• The the "microbee_files.zip". Inside will be one file named "mbee.zip". Leave this as is, but copy it to your MAME ROMs folder (for Windows, it'll be in a folder named "roms" within the location MAME was extracted to).
• There will be a number of other files with a "dsk" extension. These are disk images. Note the names, as you'll need to load them.
• Run MAME from the command line as such
  • remember you can use tab-completion in your OS to complete the name of a file you're typing - just type the first few letters and hit the tab key
  • You'll need to execute this from the directory containing the dsk file. Alternatively, put in the full path to the dsk file. Alternatively again in Windows or Mac, drag and drop the file into your command shell to have it place the full path in for you

mame mbee128 -floppydisk1 "Adventure Games 1 (19xx)(-)[ds84].dsk"

• MAME will launch the Microbee 128 emulated computer, and auto-load the disk.
• Within MAME, press the Tab key for more customisation options
• Within MAME, press the Esc key to exit (although this may change if you switch your "Keyboard Mode" from "Emulated" to "Natural" within the Tab-options screens