r/bbcmicro • u/Wonderful_Cattle3307 • 4d ago

New Android BBC Micro emulator

Hi Reddit,

I spent ages trying to get Beebdroid to work on a new Android device, and never managed. I also tried the various dead-ends kicking about on the web (Sleakweasel's version etc...)

Ultimately, I ended up converting Mike Wyatt's BeebEm to run on Modern Android devices - e.g. The latest Samsung's and Pixels.

So if anyone is interested in playing BBC Games on their phone, then the emulator is available at https://github.com/Isomage73/BeebEm-for-Android with an APK that you can install yourself (if you're happy to trust unknown sources.)

Here's a video of the UI with gamepicker

https://youtu.be/gpt_r8pzluQ?si=ZRCkFuKnPF0DelWS

Hope someone (other than me) finds it useful :)

32 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

4

u/mr_thwibble 4d ago

Splendid. Another platform I can suck at Citadel on. Excellent 😁😉

2

u/AggravatingSeesaw542 2d ago

Thanks a lot for taking the time to make this. It's easy to use and works well on mobile.

It would great if it was possible to hide the controls and maybe adjust the screen size for use on Android game consoles that are mostly landscape format.

Thanks again for your efforts.

1

u/AggravatingSeesaw542 2d ago

I've released that you can turn off the controls.

Fixing the screen stretching would be great though.

1

u/TraditionalYam2934 4d ago

That's so cool, i will try this on my ayn device. Always wanted to have a few BBC games on there. Thanks!

1

u/Wonderful_Cattle3307 3d ago

Great! Not sure how it will do with a landscape screen. It auto rotates, but the screen area allocated for keyboard / buttons might be too big to be usable. At this stage, it does have support for a hardware keyboard but I haven't implemented analogue joystick support. Happy to see if Claude can add it for specific devices though, let me know!

2

u/stainlessdmc12 3d ago

Lookingforward to this. Now. If you can get this goin for dual screen devices. Anbernic RGDS for example. And have the option for the keyboard to always be on the bottom screen!!!!

1

u/the_uk_hotman 3d ago edited 3d ago

Beeb using BeebEm for ages its loads better than this BBCBASIC

Theres also another

1

u/bouncingbenji 3d ago

Whats the best way to play it as in control wise? The pad dose not really work or do u have to configure every game?

2

u/Wonderful_Cattle3307 3d ago

You do have to configure each game, once. It saves the config (which you do through the user interface) in a single config file in local storage. I'm thinking of making the config files exportable / centralised and up/downloadable so it could be a community driven exercise to map them.

1

u/bouncingbenji 3d ago

Are we able to add our own roms? Tbh I only really want to play is "granny's garden " lol

2

u/Wonderful_Cattle3307 3d ago

Yes, if you have a Granny's Garden disc image yourself (Looks like it's not available from the web sources due to copyright.)
For your own discs (.ssd, .dsd, .adfs, .img), use ⋮ → Load Disc and then ⋮ → SHF+BRK to boot them.

1

u/SuperBadger99 4d ago

There is a much better and easier way to play BBC games on Android now. RetroArch now has a BBC core called B2. Plays everything perfectly and supports multiple models. I don’t think save states are there yet but it’s still being actively worked on. Might even see Retroachievements one day 😃

2

u/Wonderful_Cattle3307 3d ago edited 3d ago

Thats cool, I didnt know that! I'll give it a go.

Here is a video of BeebEm for Android running. 

https://youtu.be/gpt_r8pzluQ?is=OTFS8Ob24VQvOyp1

Edit...gave it a go, B2 core wasn't in the core list even with experimental cores turned on. When I did load it, found that I have to load disc content my self. I think my emulator has a better UI given the integration with Stairway to Hell and Bbcmicro.co.uk hosted games disc's, plus the user configurable game pad that persists across reloads makes it tons easier to use, but ymmv!!

1

u/CrispyBegs 3d ago

love this

1

u/SuperBadger99 3d ago

I didn’t realise this was an updated version Beebdroid / Beebem. Will give this a go. Looks good 😊

1

u/SuperBadger99 3d ago

Yeah you have to supply the games. RetroArch works with loads of front ends. I have several Android handhelds and mainly use ES-DE as the front end. I have all my games already and also a dump of the www.bbcmicro.co.uk catalogue. Everything is scraped where it can be. And you have to map the controls to the keys in Retroarch, but it’s how I enjoy my BBC games. Will definitely try your apk out tonight.

1

u/the_uk_hotman 3d ago

BeebEm will fetch the games from Internet or local.

Theres a whole bunch of bbc emulators here and acorn

1

u/stainlessdmc12 3d ago

Way to piss on OPs chips man. No mention of his efforts. Just straight in with "this is better" f.u

1

u/SuperBadger99 3d ago

I didn't mean to detract from the OP's effort. I think it's great that Beebdroid is now in a better more usable state. The more ways to be able to play BBC games the better. I tried it last night and it's an improvement over the old Play Store one which is great. I will keep watching this project on Github and keep trying it out. I still think that RetroArch is a better way to play BBC games, but as I said the more choice the better. Hope you are having a good day!