Emulation

The Chuckie Egg Professional's Resource Kit

The Chuckie Egg Professional's Resource Kit is a collection of all the known releases of Chuckie Egg. It has been specifically built to provide, through MESS, emulation of ALL of the 8-bit releases, with the sole exception of the COMMODORE CM64 release, within one installed emulator. Separate emulation instructions are provided for those few releases (COMMODORE CM64, AMIGA, ATARI ST) which do not yet work with MESS.
NOTE: The various versions of Chuckie Egg provided in the Resource Kit are copyright © (and possibly trademarks) of their respective owners, and may have individual restrictions on public distribution unknown to us at time of writing. Various unconfirmed Internet sites pronounce Nigel Alderton as the copyright owner for the SPECTRUM 48K release of Chuckie Egg, if not the whole canon. The accuracy of this information or whether any other company or persons also hold a claim is unknown. The site-authors strongly believe they are hurting noone by hosting these pieces of copyrighted material for public access as the material probably no longer has any financial potential for the people and companies, many of which have since folded, in question. If you, as a user of these pages, wish to honour the rights of the copyright owners, do not download The Chuckie Egg Professional's Resource Kit which contains the copyrighted files. In some countries it may be legal to use these resources if you own the original product that was released. In such a case, you could consider these pages as a service to those who do not have the resources or technical experience to transfer the software from your original machine to your PC, or to you whose original software media have been corrupted (bad sectors, ruined tapes, etc.). However, in many other countries - including the UK - it is still considered illegal, even if you do own the original cassette or disk. You, as a user of these pages, download and use copyrighted material at your own risk. You have hereby been warned.
For the copyright owners: If you, as the owner of the copyright to any of the material made available on this site, wish to sanction the public availability (which will make everybody happy), ban the public availability (which means it will be removed from this site), or stay neutral (which means the material will be made available, and the above notice will continue to be in effect), please get in touch from the Contact page.
 

Multi Emulator Super System (MESS)

These instructions detail how to install MESS on your computer's hard disk. For instructions on how to setup a FreeDOS Bootable CD-ROM, which requires no installation on your PC, see the Bootable CE page.
1) Download and extract the binaries from the latest MESS release for your platform. The instructions here will detail the specifics of the Windows version of MESS, as the most common, but MESS is also available for many other popular platforms which will work with The Chuckie Egg Professional's Resource Kit, with suitable modifications to these directions. For any MESS-specific problems, your best option for support is the MESS Message Board.
NOTE: MESS is an evolving emulator. Occasionally, drivers can break and stop working, even though they had previously been stable. This can happen for a number of reasons - further development of the driver or one of its clones, or sometimes updates taken from the MAME core which MESS is built on interfere with the workings of a driver. If you find the latest version of MESS does not work with the images supplied here, this should be fed back to the MESS team, NOT this site. ALL of the Chuckie Egg images in the Resource Kit (with the exception of the COMMODORE CM64 version of Chuckie Egg and the AMIGA & ATARI ST releases, for which separate emulators are detailed) whose filenames are listed on the individual release pages have been tested and confirmed to work with MESS 0.89, the latest version at time of writing.
2) MESS requires BIOSes for each system you wish to emulate. BIOSes in official MESS terminology refer to images of ROM chips from within the original computer system. They usually contain an operating system and sometimes a form of BASIC or the like.
PLEASE REMEMBER: downloading system BIOSes or images of software that you do not own is illegal. Depending on your country's legal system, it may even be illegal if you do own the original system. Some people may say that the copyrights have expired or that you can download it if you delete it after 24 hours, but they are wrong. It is entirely up to you whether or not you choose to ignore the law in order to emulate systems you do not own, as most of the games, including Chuckie Egg, are not - and are unlikely to ever be again - sold on their original platforms.
Assuming you do own the original systems, and are legally allowed to download the BIOS images, you need to find the latest BIOS images for those systems you're trying to emulate. These aren't included with MESS for the legal reasons discussed above. The BIOSes tend to change with each version of MESS but can usually be found by searching the Internet. A typical site is http://www.geocities.com/messroms/. This archive also includes links to other such sites. Before downloading the BIOS images, ensure your chosen site is up-to-date with BIOS images for the version of MESS you have downloaded. It is not uncommon for such archives to become orphaned.
Check the page on this site for the particular Chuckie Egg release you want to emulate - releases are listed in the menu on the left - to find the exact filename(s) of the BIOS images required by the specified MESS driver. Download the appropriate BIOS ZIPs and save them in the "bios" sub-directory, found inside the directory where you originally extracted MESS.
3) Install The Chuckie Egg Professional's Resource Kit (~6.44 MB)! Extract the ZIP file (with directory names) into the "software" directory within your MESS directory. This will install all of the currently known 8-bit versions of Chuckie Egg.
That's it! To load the Chuckie Egg disk/tape/ROM into your chosen system under Windows, run MESSGUI.EXE from the root of the MESS directory, select the system driver you require (as listed on the particular release page of this site) from the System List and the various Chuckie Egg images (with floppy disc icons) for that system will appear in the Picker tab. Double-click an image to start-up the emulator with it. Check the particular release page on this site for any further release-specific instructions on how to load and run the image in your chosen MESS-emulated system!
 

COMMODORE CM64 Chuckie Egg release ONLY - VICE x64

1) Download and extract the binaries from the latest VICE release for your platform. For any VICE-specific problems, your best option for support is to check the VICE knowledge base.
2) Download The Chuckie Egg Professional's Resource Kit (~6.44 MB). Extract the c64/chuckieegg.zip file from the resource kit and then extract the chuckieegg.prg file from it into the C64 directory within your VICE directory.
That's it! To load Chuckie Egg, run x64.exe from the root of the VICE directory and then select Autostart disk/tape image... from the File menu. Select the chuckieegg.prg file you installed from the resource kit and Chuckie Egg will run automatically.
 

AMIGA Chuckie Egg & Chuckie Egg 2 (Choccy Egg) releases ONLY - UAE Amiga Emulator

1) Download and install the latest UAE binary release for your platform. Binary releases for various unix systems are available from the main site, whilst the Windows port, WinUAE, is available separately. For any UAE-specific problems, your best option for support is to check the relevant sites, UAE and WinUAE. The former also includes a link to a web discussion board, if required.
2) UAE also requires a Kickstart ROM image file. There are various versions of the Amiga operating system available - Chuckie Egg and Chuckie Egg 2 (Choccy Egg) have been confirmed to work with the common Kickstart 1.3 ROM.
PLEASE REMEMBER: downloading system OSes or images of software that you do not own is illegal. Depending on your country's legal system, it may even be illegal if you do own the original system. Some people may say that the copyrights have expired or that you can download it if you delete it after 24 hours, but they are wrong. It is entirely up to you whether or not you choose to ignore the law in order to emulate systems you do not own, as most of the games, including Chuckie Egg, are not - and are unlikely to ever be again - sold on their original platforms. The Kickstart ROM is copyrighted by Amiga International and cannot be distributed by us. Officially licensed Amiga ROM and OS files are available both for download and on CD-ROM as part of Cloanto's Amiga Forever package, which includes Kickstart files up to v3.1 (the latest version).
Assuming you do own the original systems, and are legally allowed to download an image of the Amiga's operating system, you can normally find a copy online without too much trouble. Extract the KICK13.ROM file to your UAE directory.
3) Download The Chuckie Egg Professional's Resource Kit (~6.44 MB). Extract the contents of the amiga directory from the resource kit into the Amiga Programs sub-directory of your UAE directory.
That's it! To load Chuckie Egg, run winuae.exe from the root of the UAE directory and ensure the location of the Kickstart ROM file is specified in the Hardware/ROM menu and the appropriate Chuckie Egg or Chuckie Egg 2 (Choccy Egg) floppy disk image is loaded into the virtual drive, DF0, in the Hardware/Disk Drives menu. Hit start and check the particular release page on this site for any further release-specific instructions on how to load and run the image.
 

ATARI ST Chuckie Egg & Chuckie Egg 2 (Choccy Egg) releases ONLY - STE Emulating Engine

1) Download and extract the latest STEEM release for your platform. For any STEEM-specific problems, your best option for support is to check the beginners guide.
2) STEEM also requires an image of the ST's operating system (TOS). There are lots of versions of TOS, including different ones for every country the ST was released in. The recommended version - and the one Chuckie Egg has been tested with - is TOS 1.02, UK version.
PLEASE REMEMBER: downloading system OSes or images of software that you do not own is illegal. Depending on your country's legal system, it may even be illegal if you do own the original system. Some people may say that the copyrights have expired or that you can download it if you delete it after 24 hours, but they are wrong. It is entirely up to you whether or not you choose to ignore the law in order to emulate systems you do not own, as most of the games, including Chuckie Egg, are not - and are unlikely to ever be again - sold on their original platforms.
Assuming you do own the original systems, and are legally allowed to download an image of the ST's operating system, you can download it from the same page as STEEM. Extract the Tos102.img file to your STEEM directory.
3) Download The Chuckie Egg Professional's Resource Kit (~6.44 MB). Extract the contents of the 000-non-MESS-systems/atarist/ directory from the resource kit into your STEEM directory.
4) Run the executable file within the STEEM directory. Steem will present some welcome messages, which you should read, and ask you to choose a TOS file. Select TOS 1.02 from the list. Steem's main window will appear.
That's it! To load Chuckie Egg, run Steem.exe from the root of the STEEM directory and then select the Disk Manager, which is the icon on the far right of the toolbar. From the Disk Manager dialog you should see the contents of the STEEM folder including the Automation Menu Disk 033 v2.0 (19xx)(LSD - Was -Not Was-) disk image. Double-click on it to load the menu. Select option 3 to run Chuckie Egg. Similarly, you can load Chuckie Egg 2 (Choccy Egg) from the Automation Menu Disk 083 (19xx)(Automation).zip disk image. You can make the emulator full-screen by pressing the Maximize button of the window. Use Alt-Tab to switch the focus away from the emulator to return to the desktop.
 

J2ME Chuckie Egg ONLY - MicroEmulator

1) Download and extract the latest MicroEmulator release. For any MicroEmulator-specific problems, your best option for support is to check the Project Information page.
2) Copy the .jad and .jar file of your J2ME version of Chuckie Egg from Elite Systems to the apps sub-directory of your MicroEmulator installation.
3) Run the emulator with a command of the form:
java -cp microemulator.jar:lib/microemu-nokiaui.jar org.microemu.app.Main
--appclassloader delegating apps/25996296590.jad
This has been tested successfully with the Nokia 7650 version of J2ME Chuckie Egg. You may need to include other libraries for other handset ports.