Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: RomM – An open-source, self-hosted ROM manager and player

github.com

71–80 of 99 posts

Re: Show HN: RomM – An open-source, self-hosted ROM manager and player

#71
post #14

I had an idea once but not the time nor motivation to build it: a database of game design with links to gameplay snippets. So for example an article on "2D platforming" that discusses the implementation in Super Mario, and includes a "demo" button which launches a web emulator with a save state that demonstrates a specific jumping section of the game. Legally perilous maybe, although my non-lawyer brain sees that as…

This idea was explored by Joël Franušić and Adam Smith:

"Playable Quotes for Game Boy Games" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9JYOZWLMlo

Re: Show HN: RomM – An open-source, self-hosted ROM manager and player

#72
post #14

I had an idea once but not the time nor motivation to build it: a database of game design with links to gameplay snippets. So for example an article on "2D platforming" that discusses the implementation in Super Mario, and includes a "demo" button which launches a web emulator with a save state that demonstrates a specific jumping section of the game. Legally perilous maybe, although my non-lawyer brain sees that as…

The database idea is neat, but I'm not really sure what the web emulator part adds besides bloat. Either an animated .GIF or an HTML5 object with buttons to click to demonstrate, e.g., standing horizontal jump trajectory vs running horizontal jump trajectory would not only be less overhead, but much more immediate.

Re: Show HN: RomM – An open-source, self-hosted ROM manager and player

#73
My first thought was, what does it mean for a program like this to be "hosted" in the first place?

My second thought was, for people who play a lot of ROMs, they're either doing it because they know more about those games than typical online metadata sources do; and/or a big chunk of them are modded or even completely homebrew.

Re: Show HN: RomM – An open-source, self-hosted ROM manager and player

#74
post #73

My first thought was, what does it mean for a program like this to be "hosted" in the first place? My second thought was, for people who play a lot of ROMs, they're either doing it because they know more about those games than typical online metadata sources do; and/or a big chunk of them are modded or even completely homebrew.

I assumed it meant that the emulator is written as a ROM that loads itself.

But that's probably not what it means. Kids throw words around meaning all sorts of strange things these days.

Re: Show HN: RomM – An open-source, self-hosted ROM manager and player

#75
post #73

My first thought was, what does it mean for a program like this to be "hosted" in the first place? My second thought was, for people who play a lot of ROMs, they're either doing it because they know more about those games than typical online metadata sources do; and/or a big chunk of them are modded or even completely homebrew.

Hosted as in self-hosted, as in run on a server with Docker/Proxmox/Unraid and accessible via a web browser, as opposed to running locally on a single device.

The solution isn't ideal for those who hoard entire romsets, but it's great for those of us who curate their collections down to a more manageable size. That can be anywhere from a couple hundred to a couple thousand games, and the metadata sources are fairly robust at that scale.

Re: Show HN: RomM – An open-source, self-hosted ROM manager and player

#76
post #74
post #73

My first thought was, what does it mean for a program like this to be "hosted" in the first place? My second thought was, for people who play a lot of ROMs, they're either doing it because they know more about those games than typical online metadata sources do; and/or a big chunk of them are modded or even completely homebrew.

I assumed it meant that the emulator is written as a ROM that loads itself. But that's probably not what it means. Kids throw words around meaning all sorts of strange things these days.

Not sure what you mean by this, but in this context it's hosting and managing applications on your own servers instead of consuming from cloud/SaaS providers.

Re: Show HN: RomM – An open-source, self-hosted ROM manager and player

#77
post #66
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All I'm saying is to not contribute to rendering the word meaningless by putting it in other peoples' mouths. If what you built is truly beautiful then people will call it as such without your prompting.

Respectable opinion, but not accurate from my point of view because we could say the same for powerful or any other adjectives!

Yes, they are overused as well. I would love it if people would tone it down with the adjectives.

Re: Show HN: RomM – An open-source, self-hosted ROM manager and player

#78

Any way to run the Docker version without the external DB requirement? I have a bunch of things running on my home server and so far every one is a single image with no external requirements, which is very nice. Everything that needs a DB just uses sqlite, makes it operationally very simple, and nothing I do even comes within the same universe as the kind of usage that'd cause sqlite to become a bottleneck (and this…

Sadly no. We had sqlite support long time ago but it became way too hard to maintain as our database arquitecture grown, so right now we only support mariadb and postgres

Re: Show HN: RomM – An open-source, self-hosted ROM manager and player

#80
post #78

Any way to run the Docker version without the external DB requirement? I have a bunch of things running on my home server and so far every one is a single image with no external requirements, which is very nice. Everything that needs a DB just uses sqlite, makes it operationally very simple, and nothing I do even comes within the same universe as the kind of usage that'd cause sqlite to become a bottleneck (and this…

Sadly no. We had sqlite support long time ago but it became way too hard to maintain as our database arquitecture grown, so right now we only support mariadb and postgres

Thanks so much for the response! I get it, that’s cool, just making sure. Will be giving it a try regardless.
Post reply on HN