== HISTORY == This package supersedes the xmess-* packages, as the unix sdl port of mess has been integrated in official mess since 0.136. == QUICK START == 1. Create a folder "mess" and a subfolder "mess/roms" in your home directory. 2. For each emulated system, Mess needs a bios/romset to be put in this directory, plus some software to run (an exception is the famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System where everything happens inside the cartridge) 3. Check the sanity of your roms. Mess is very picky about that. {{{ mess -verifyroms | grep ^romset romset famicom [nes] is best available romset fami_key [nes] is best available romset famitwin [nes] is best available romset stbook [ste] is best available romset ti99_224 is best available romset ti99_232 [ti99_224] is best available romset tmc1800 is best available romset tmc2000e is best available romset osc1000b [tmc1800] is best available }}} 4. Get a ROM image of LJ65, a Tetris clone for NES distributed as free software {{{ wget http://www.pineight.com/nes/lj65.zip }}} {{{ unzip lj65.zip }}} 5. Now start mess with {{{ mess nes -cart lj65.nes }}} 6. Basic keyboard commands include * Tab key to access the mess internal menu * 5 to select * 1 to start 7. If mess is way too slow on your computer and you have 3D hardware acceleration available, change the "video" parameter from "soft" to "opengl" in the mess configuration file. == DEFAULT FILES == * mess binary: {{{/usr/games/mess}}} * Configuration file: {{{$HOME/mess/mess.ini}}} or {{{/etc/mess/mess.ini}}} * Output folders: {{{$HOME/mess}}} (memory cards, snapshots, ...) * Core folders: {{{/usr/share/games/mess}}} (roms, cheats, ...) == ROMS AND CONFIGURATION == A default configuration file is provided with the package and installed in {{{/etc/mess/mess.ini}}} If you need to change the location of the roms folder or tweak something like video or cheats you can either: * make your own copy of {{{/etc/mess/mess.ini}}} in your home at {{{$HOME/mess/mess.ini}}} and edit that file (recommended) * edit directly {{{/etc/mess/mess.ini}}} You can verify that mess have read the correct options with "{{{mess -showconfig}}}" and even create a fresh mess.ini file with "{{{mess -createconfig}}}". == TOOLS == mess utilities like chdman, jedutil, ldresample or ldverify are available in a separate extra package called DebianPkg:mame-tools. == PATCH == This package uses quilt to manage all modifications to the upstream source. Changes are stored in the source package as diffs in debian/patches and applied during the build. See {{{/usr/share/doc/quilt/README.source}}} for a detailed explanation.