The Sinclair QL Forum

Hi all

This is a walk-through of how to run QDOS on a Nintendo Wii.
Hopefully its of interest and hopefully I haven't forgotten anything.

These are the steps:

1. Get the MAC address of the Wii
2. Install Homebrew. Note, this is not risk free.
3. Install UAE Wii and QDOS Classic

If you already have Homebrew installed, you can go straight to step 3.


Here we go:

1. How to get the MAC address of the Wii

1.1. At the Home page, select "Wii Options>Wii Settings"

1.2. On the Settings 1 page, take note of the system version.
--> The instructions here have only been tested with version 4.3E

1.3. Go to the Settings 2 page and select "Internet>Console information"
--> Take note of the MAC address


2. How to install the Homebrew channel

2.1. Go to: https://please.hackmii.com/
--> If your system menu version is not listed, you will need an alternative method.
--> Check here for alternative ways to install Homebrew https://wii.hacks.guide/wilbrand

2.2. Enter the MAC address from your Wii into the fields, then cut either wire (it doesn't matter which)
--> The Homebrew installer will download as a zip file

2.3. Copy the zip file onto an FAT formatted SD card and unzip the HackMii installer

2.4. Insert the SD into the Wii

2.5. Select "Message Board"

2.6. Navigate to "Today", "Yesterday" or "Two days ago" until you find the red message.

2.7. Click on the red message.

2.8. Click through the installer. Homebrew will be installed.
--> Once installed, you can clear the contents the SD card.


3. How to install UAE Wii and QDOS Classic

3.1. Download this zip file which contains UAE_Wii and a current version of the QDOS Classic KickROM for Amiga.


3.2. Copy the zip file to a FAT formatted SD card and unzip the contents.
--> Once the contents are unzipped, you can delete the zip file.

3.3. Put the SD card into the Wii

3.4. Select Homebrew channel>Start>UAE Wii", then click "Load"
--> QDOS will load


When in the emulator you can press the Home button on the Wii remote to get to the UAE options.
Use the up/down/left/right button to navigate the menus.

Please note, I could not get a working config for anything but a standard Amiga 500.

Out of the box, the display "ACE" routines think that the processor in a real Amiga 500 is not powerful enough to decode and display 8 colour mode, so it leaves that task for the blitter to handle.
However the blitter only handles 4 colour mode so mode 256 will look decidedly odd.
Type ACE_ON to display mode 256 correctly.

If you use UAE options to change floppy disks, disk image file names must have the extension ".adf".
The disk images bundled here have the extension ".img" and are called "QC-3955.img" and "QC-EMPTY.img".

To use these images, floppy0= and floppy1= has been manually defined in the config file "/uae/uaerc.saved".

Note that disk images need to be stored in the directory "/uae/floppies/".
The emulator expects standard QL 720K floppy images.

Finally, the Wii display resolution is 640x480 (I think) so the display is a little off.

That's it, enjoy.

Thank you Mark!

I kept my son's old Wii after he went through the usual 'upgrades' of console and had already deployed Homebrew - just waiting to be able to try QL emulation on it!

I'll let you know how I get on :+)

Hi Martyn,

I haven't tried anything involving the pointer environment, so I'm not sure how that will react.
Look forward to any feedback.

I had hoped to also show QPC1 running on top of DOSBox_Wii. However QPC exits at initialisation with the error /INT15 fehlt oder ist <1 MB! which is a shame.
A quick web search shows that early DOSBox versions had issues with INT15.

Mark

is there a mame port for Wii?

mame also has QL emulation!

Mark Swift wrote: ↑Sun Mar 24, 2024 5:40 pm I had hoped to also show QPC1 running on top of DOSBox_Wii. However QPC exits at initialisation with the error /INT15 fehlt oder ist <1 MB! which is a shame.
A quick web search shows that early DOSBox versions had issues with INT15.

I remember that QPC1 is a bit picky about the memory configuration. The README specifically states that HIMEM.SYS should be loaded with the option /INT15=4096 (or more, up to 16384) and DOS should not be loaded high.

Hi,

I have QPC1 running on Dosbox on an Android tablet, running the Extended Environment in 800x600 resolution.

The onscreen keyboard made the screen smaller, but maybe a Bluetooth keyboard is the answer.

Thanks all,

I got past the DOSBox_Wii error with QPC1 by adding this to dosbox.conf
However after a long delay SMSQ/E hangs mid-way through drawing the initial screen.

Maybe the Wii isn't as good as an Android tablet when handling double emulation, i.e. emulating a x86 emulating a 68000.