Running MAME emulation of the Minitel 2 #VintageComputing #RetroComputing
If you download MAME, the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, you’ll find the Minitel 2 included as a standard machine.
The Minitel was a videotex online service accessible through telephone lines, and was the world’s most successful online service prior to the World Wide Web. It ran from 1982 to 2012.
…you’ll need some ROMs. The Minitel 2 emulator in MAME knows about three ROMs: minitel2_bv4.bin (which is the BV4 version of the original firmware), bv9.1402 (the BV9 original firmware; that’s the one my actual Minitel 2 had burnt into the CPU) and demo_minitel.bin (which is the demo ROM I used in the previous post). You also need charset.rom which contains the character set for the Minitel.
You need to find these. I got them by searching for “bv9.1402 minitel” and found them here.
This post goes through the steps to get the emulation running on a mac.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.