Analogue Pocket Cores

Installation Guide

The easiest way to install cores on an Analogue Pocket is to use third party updaters. Here are some:

• Matt Pannella's Pocket updater
• Retro Driven updater
• theYpsilon's update_all script
• Reddit thread about updaters

If you get the error "Missing ROM Id [1]", it means that the core files are good but you are missing the system ROM information in the correct .rom format. The Manual Installation section explains how to create these files from a MAME .zip file.

Do not use JT cores with ROM files you are not legally entitled to.

Manual Installation

The cores for the Analogue Pocket are located in the pocket folder. In order to use them you need to:

1. Copy the contents of the pocket/raw folder to the root of your SD card
2. Copy the file dump of your arcade ROMs to the right folder

The step 2 can be tricky. Let's see what you need:

1. You need a dump from your arcade PCB that follows the MAME names and it is packed in a zip file, just like MAME's
2. Place that .zip file in a folder
3. Get the MRA tool
4. Get the MRA files for the game you want to convert
5. Now run the mra tool as mra my-mra-file. That will create a .rom file
6. Copy the .rom file to the folder Assets/corename/common in your SD card

Now you're ready to trigger the core in the Pocket. Is this complicated? Yes. Could it be done easier? Yes. I hope someday Analogue will support MRA files directly. For the time being, this is what we have.

Note that these FPGA cores are licensed to use only with software you are legally entitled to. We do not support or endorse the use of illegal software.

Using ZIP Releases

The folder pocket/zips contains each core in a separate zip file, for easy download.

Downloading from GitHub

GitHub is a social network for git repositories, not really a file server. So the normal way to download files is to clone the whole repository. That is not convenient for grabbing a single file. In that case you have to navigate to the file you want in the browser, click on it and then use the RAW button to download it:

Be careful: if you try to right click on the file name and choose save to, then you will get a HTML file saved in your disk instead of the actual file you're looking for.

Beta cores

Beta cores for the Pocket require the user to unzip the jtbeta.zip file found in Patreon in the Assets/jtpatreon/common folder.

Once the core is promoted to public, this step is no longer needed.

Using Analogizer with JT cores

Analogizer is an Analogue Pocket compatible device used to generate different types of Analog Video output, and/or to make possible the use of SNAC controllers. JT cores are compatible with the use of Analogizer, in order to set your preferred configuration you will need to:

1. Get the configuration tool.

2. Run it in a terminal using python3 jt-crtcfg.py

3. A set of video options will appear. Type the letter of your preferred option an press Intro:

4. Options for SNAC controllers will appear. Select your preferred option and press Intro:

   

5. Copy the generated .bin file to the folder Assets/jtpatreon/common in your SD card.

Now you should be ready to use Pocket Analogizer!

Automatic Controller Assignment

As expected, using Analogue Pocket with JT Cores defaults Pocket controllers to player 1. However, if you wanted to add more external controllers (USB/SNAC) it might be confusing to check which controllers is assigned to which player. To solve this, automatic controller assignment has been added.

How does it work?

When you start running a game using a JT Core and you connect several controllers to your Pocket, the first one to press the action buttons will be assigned as Player 1, the next one will be Player 2, and so on until Player 4 is selected. Therefore, you won't have to worry about where you connect your controllers!