WORK IN PROGRESS
You can generally assume the Super Nintendo/PlayStation gamepad layout for the menus:
LEFT/RIGHT: Switch between game systems
UP/DOWN: Switch between games
Right-hand RIGHT: Cancel, go back
Right-hand DOWN: Yes, choose this
Right-hand LEFT: Mark/unmark a game as a "favorite"
Right-hand UP: Switch to media center (Kodi)
START: Open settings
SELECT: Options for currently selected game
You can turn Chalmers off using the last option in settings. You can also safely just unplug it from power, but if you do that then it won't save your changes, for example if you mark/unmark "favorites."
The gamepad buttons for the right hand are marked A, B, X, and Y, and are assigned colors. But please ignore the markings for Chalmers!
Annoyingly, though the ABXY system was first introduced in the Super Nintendo, when Microsoft released the Xbox they flipped the positions of A/B and X/Y and scrambled the color assignments. As it turns out, the crazy Xbox layout became quite popular, which caused humanity to be split asunder, divided into two camps with opposite worldviews: 21st century vs. 20th. Almost all gamepads you can buy nowadays, including the Gamesir we're including in the Chalmers kit, use the newer markings.
The problem is that the newer layout does not work well with retro games. Firstly, because they were designed for the old layout. Certain combinations, such as run-and-jump, are very awkward to use on the newer layout. Secondly, Sega and Sony systems used entirely different schemes anyway. Finally, some of us have retained muscle memory from the old days, and we wanted to build on that.
So, seriously, just ignore the markings, focus on your finger positions, and blame Microsoft for the confusion. Refer to the layouts below per game system, and train your muscle memory by pressing them in order several times in a row.
[It would be great to have drawings of these to accompany the text]
Right-hand DOWN means A, often "yes" or "jump"
Right-hand LEFT means B, often "no" or "run/attack"
During Atari's heyday consumers identified home video games with a digital joystick that had a single "shoot" button. Nintendo broke with this cultural icon by introducing a radically new gamepad with no joystick but lots of buttons: a directional pad on the left (sometimes called a "joypad"), A/B buttons aligned horizontally on the right, and SELECT/START in the middle. (On the Game Boy A/B are aligned diagonally pointing down slightly, but otherwise have the same meanings.)
Note that A is to the right of B: the order might seem counterintuitive for Westerners who write from left to right, but consider that A is actually the first button reached by your thumb and is thus the button used the most, and you need to reach out a bit to get to B. They can be used in concert for cool action effects. In Mario you can "run-and-jump": hold B with the tip of your thumb to run while occasionally pressing A with your thumb joint to jump. In Metroid you can "jump-and-shoot": first press A with your thumb joint and than add the tip of your thumb on B.
Right-hand RIGHT means A (red), often "no"
Right-hand DOWN means B (yellow), often "yes" or "jump"
Right-hand UP means X (blue)
Right-hand LEFT means Y (green), often "run/attack"
The Super Nintendo changed the layout of the right-hand buttons from horizontal to diamond shaped, with an additional X and Y, and assigned them colors. It also introduced two shoulder buttons to be used with index fingers.
A and B here do not mean the same things as on the original Nintendo. The diamond-shaped layout means that you hold your thumb differently, coming at it more from the bottom of the gamepad rather than from the right, so on the Super Nintendo the B is easier to reach than A. Thus, B tends to mean "yes" and A "no," which is the opposite of their meanings on the original Nintendo. The "run-and-jump" combo effects with your thumb also work differently: because you thumb is coming in from the bottom, Y tends to mean "run" and B tends to mean "jump." They really messed up the markings in the transition to the Super Nintendo, but you can safely ignore them: the thumb effects end up being identical to the original Nintendo, just with a different angle.
[See also: http://ux.stackexchange.com/a/34677]
The Nintendo 64 gamepad layout is identical to that of the Super Nintendo with the addition of a single analog joystick necessary for moving around in lush 3D worlds. On Chalmers it will be the left-hand joystick.
Right-hand LEFT means 1 and START
Right-hand DOWN means 2
Realizing that the home market was different from arcades, Sega wisely made the Master System controls dead simple: the "control pad" has a digital joystick on the left and just two buttons on the right, marked 1 and 2 from left to right, guaranteeing that it would be easy for anyone to pick it up and play.
On the Master System button 1 is also marked START, so your gamepad's START button is unused. Keep that in mind: when games tell you to press START, you should press Right-hand LEFT. The Game Gear, however, has a separate START button, so you can use that. Thanks, Sega.
Right-hand LEFT means A
Right-hand DOWN means B
Right-hand RIGHT means C
Left-hand SHOULDER means X
Right-hand UP means Y
Right-hand SHOULDER means Z
The original Genesis gamepad has three right-hand buttons, labeled A, B, and C, ordered from left to right, and a START button in the middle. So, definitely simpler than that of the Super Nintendo. Later, an excellent 6-button gamepad was introduced specifically to appeal to hardcore arcade fans, adding a row of X, Y, and Z button above A, B, and C. Not many games support these.
Right-hand RIGHT means ◯ (red), often "no"
Right-hand DOWN means ✕ (blue), often "yes"
Right-hand UP means △ (green) representing a person's head; a viewpoint
Right-hand LEFT means □ (pink) representing a sheet of paper; a menu
The original PlayStation gamepad is has four buttons in a diamond-shaped layout on the right that have similar meanings to those on the Super Nintendo, though they are marked by shapes instead of letters and their color assignments are different. Just like with the Super Nintendo layout, right-hand DOWN tends to mean "yes" and right-hand RIGHT means "no." (Note that in Japan the meaning of these two buttons is reversed, though the markings are the same, and some rare PlayStation games will use the Japanese meanings. If this happens, we note it in the game description.)
Sony later introduced the DualShock gamepad, which adds two analog joysticks as well as vibration feedback.
Right-hand DOWN means I
Right-hand LEFT means II
The "TurboPad" has two right-hand buttons, I to the right of II, parallel to original Nintendo's A/B layout. It also has awkward-looking "turbo" switches for each, which simulate a repeated press (useful for shoot-'em-ups). Also note that the START button is called RUN on the Turbo, but has the same meaning. (So don't confuse it with B on Nintendo which often means "run" in gameplay.)
After you start a game, some special actions are available to you beyond what the original game system allowed. To access these, you need to press the "special button" simultaneously with another button. The "special button" means pressing your right joystick in. (Perhaps you didn't even know your joysticks could do that, but indeed they are buttons as well as sticks!) Here are the combinations you should know:
Special button + START: Exit the game and go back to the main menu of Chalmers
Saving your state: (more on this below)
Special button + Right-hand UP: load state
Special button + Right-hand LEFT: save state
Special button + UP/DOWN: change state slot
Special button + LEFT: Rewind (if enabled: see note below)
Special button + RIGHT: Speed up
Special button + Left-hand SHOULDER: Take a screenshot
If you have at least one screenshot, a new section called "Screenshots" will be added to the Chalmers main menu. When viewing any screenshot, use LEFT/RIGHT to switch between them. To delete a screenshot, select it and press SELECT -> Edit This Game’s Metadata -> Delete.
Special button + Right-hand RIGHT: Reset game
Special button + Right-hand DOWN: Emulation settings (if you get into this by mistake, just press the combination again to exit... do not fiddle with the settings unless you know what you're doing!)
Rewind: We've disabled this feature by default on Chalmers because it introduces input lag, which is annoying for action games requiring quick reflexes. Also, smart use of saving your state (more on that below) makes this feature redundant. However, if you want, you can enable it: START ➡ Games Settings ➡ Rewind. It really is pretty cool to quickly undo your terrible mistake or retry a difficult action!
Nintendo 64: "Rewind" and "reset game" features do not work. Also, though you will not see an on-screen display when loading/saving/switching states or taking a screenshot, these features do work.
PlayStation: "Rewind" feature does not work.
So-called save states are perhaps the biggest difference between playing games on Chalmers and playing them on the original consoles. In Chalmers, every game has multiple slots, numbered 0, 1, 2, etc., which are distinct from each other, and you can use as many as you need. Note that once you save over a slot your action cannot be undone, so take care to remember which slot you are using for what purpose. When you change, save, or load a slot, a message will appear on screen telling you what happened. So, if you're unsure what slot you're on at a given moment, just switch up or down in order to get the message to appear.
At its simplest, this feature allows you to take a break from playing whenever you want, so you can return to the game at the exact same place at a later time. Simply save the state before you turn Chalmers off and load it later when you want to continue playing. If that's all you're using it for, then you'll just always use slot 0 and won’t need to switch slots ever.
This feature is also useful for allowing multiple people play the same game separately at their own pace. You can use slot 0 for yourself, slot 1 for your best friend, etc.
Just make sure that players don't ruin each other's progress by writing over their slots! A good way to avoid sad accidents is to assign a specific slot number per each player across all games. So, for example, if Rachel is given slot 5 then she would always use slot 5 on all games, even if nobody is using slots 0 to 4. You can even put up a chart next to the TV with names and slot numbers.
Finally, you can also use this feature to entirely change the way you play the game, in a way that purists would reject, because it in effect lets you cheat.
Most games usually let you save your state from within the game, usually at special locations and often involving some kind of action. But these "save points" are intentionally far apart: if you die, you have to start from further back and replay your steps, and sometimes you are even punished for this failure by losing bonuses. This is a way to force you to train your skills until you finally learn how to beat that game segment, and it feels really good when you achieve it and reach the next save point! Also, it can make it so it takes a very long time to finish a game, by repeating each segment many times, which was important when these games cost a lot of money and most people did not own very many.
However, with our contemporary expectations the old "save point" system can get frustrating. Repeating the same segment over and over again is not everybody's idea of fun. And since Chalmers comes with so many games, it's really unnecessary to force you to spend so much time on every single game. This feature can make the game much easier. For example, you can save state just before a big boss fight, and keep reloading until you manage to beat him, instead of going back to an early save point. Or you can save state just before getting a random bonus, and keep reloading until you get the bonus you want. In an RPG, you can use multiple slots as you try exploring certain paths, going back to a different slot when your exploration takes you down a wrong (or difficult) path. Smart use of this feature can make it a game mechanic in its own right.
We can't tell you how to play. The feature is available for you to use or abuse as fits your style. But it's worth at least trying to play a game as it was intended, and "cheating" only if it gets too frustrating.
Chalmers is more fun with friends, and many games allow two or even more players. You can connect up to four game gamepads to Chalmers.
Note, however, that you need to plug in the extra gamepads before starting the game.
Really, that's all you need to know! It will just work.
TODO:
Switch sound output between HDMI/analog
Switch shader between retro/scanlines/none
Switch aspect ratio
Configure a different or additional gamepad
You do not need to access the network to play games with Chalmers. However, it can do cool things if you do connect it.
TODO:
Playing with friends online
Updating the firmware (perhaps not a good idea?)
Find out the IP address
Access via network share
Access via web interface
Change background music
Via a simple web interface. In your web browser type "http://" plus Chalmers's IP address.
Via the command line (full Linux root): "ssh root@" plus Chalmers's IP address. The default password is "recalboxroot".
If you have a PC running Windows with a discrete NVIDIA graphics cards, you can have Chalmers stream games from it.
It works surprisingly well, but be aware that you absolutely want both the PC and Chalmers to be connected via Ethernet cables, not Wi-Fi. Also note that unless you plug in a keyboard and mouse to Chalmers, you’ll only be able to play PC games that are designed to support gamepads.
Advanced. But is awesome.
TODO: Steam Link?
This is not meant to be a full guide to Kodi, just the basics to get you started.
Does your TV support CEC over HDMI? Then your TV remote control's media buttons (pause, play, rewind, etc.) will work.
Have a smartphone or tablet? We strongly recommend installing a remote control app for Kodi: Yatse for Android and the official app for iOS. These apps are incredibly powerful and generally a joy to use.
As with Chalmers's main menu, you can generally assume the Super Nintendo/PlayStation gamepad layout.
LEFT/RIGHT: Switch between options
DOWN/UP: Switch to and from extra options
Right-hand RIGHT: Cancel, go back
Right-hand DOWN: Yes, choose this; also opens the on-screen keyboard when prompted for text
Right-hand LEFT: Options, like a mouse right click, and very useful. Can show movie info, add to favorites, delete/rename files, etc.
SELECT: Open system menu (choose "Shutdown" to return to Recalbox)
Note: it doesn’t seem possible to change audio or subtitle language using the gamepad. You’ll need to use a keyboard or a smartphone remote control app.
Right-hand UP: Exit
Seek
START: Toggle pause
D-pad or Right-hand JOYSTICK: Rewind/fast-forward (left/right for small increments, up/down for big)
Volume
Left-hand TRIGGER: Toggle mute
Left-hand JOYSTICK: Both left/right and up/down work
Options
Left-hand SHOULDER: Toggle info overlay
Right-hand RIGHT: Open main menu (without stopping the movie: keep pressing cancel to get back to the movie)
There's a lot to explore here, but here are essentials just to get things working:
System
Video output
Resolution: change this to match the maximum resolution supported by your TV
Audio output
Audio output device: "PI: HDMI" or "PI: Analogue"