Tips Roll-up 2023-2024

Posted on 2025-02-12 by Stephan Sokolow

Here are a few things that I posted on Mastodon because they were too short for a blog post, but which I think should be cross-posted anyway for archival:

  • KVM “not compatible with” Linux or Mac OS: If you have a DVI KVM switch that says its “double-tap scroll lock to switch inputs” feature is only compatible with Windows, what they probably mean is “we listen for the scroll lock LED to blink and Windows is the only OS that maps the Scroll Lock keycode to a modifier in this day and age”. Here’s a script I wrote to trigger the switch on X11 and then made a taskbar icon for.
  • Two-page CBZ to HTML conversion: If you’re stubborn like me and have a CBZ file containing a bunch of two-page spreads that Calibre splits and orders incorrectly when making an EPUB file, you too can work around the iOS Files app’s refusal to load subresources and turn it into a quick-and-dirty CBZ reader by embedding your pages into an HTML file using data URIs using this script I wrote… it actually performs quite well in my testing. (<2s load time for a 40MiB CBZ file)
  • Sandboxing libusb: If you’re setting up systemd sandboxing for a libusb-based daemon, you’ll need to allow AF_NETLINK sockets (eg. RestrictAddressFamilies=AF_NETLINK) if you want it to work… I’m still trying to figure out a working DeviceAllow string for my CM19A so I can go back to the DevicePolicy=closed and PrivateDevices=yes I was using with my CM17A. You can poke at the full systemd unit file at ssokolow/fan_remote on GitHub.
  • TekSavvy DSL, IPv6, and OPNSense: If you’re on TekSavvy DSL, following the “IPv6 for generic DSL dialup“ guide then restarting your router and disconnect/reconnect cycling LAN devices will WORK to get you IPv6 (you may need to toggle Firefox’s DoH to get fallback working on https://ipv6-test.com/ )… but it won’t get you ICMPv6. Follow this “How to Configure IPv6 in Your Home Network with ISP such as Comcast Xfinity” guide for that but set “any” as the destination address instead of “WAN address” or it won’t work.
  • 86Box and Flatpak: If you’re getting strange read/write errors or “sharing violation”s when running “make boot disk” tools/batch files in 86Box and you’re using the Flatpak version, create your floppy disk images inside ~/.var/app/net._86box._86Box/ or grant a manifest permission. Apparently there’s a bug or incompleteness in the Flatpak documents portal FUSE filesystem.
  • Missing CD Audio in Games: If you get an MMSYSTEM262 error from The Incredible Toon Machine and no CD music (or just no CD music from Age of Empires in general) on Windows 9x and you have more than one CD drive (eg. physical and DAEMON Tools or Alcohol 52% Retro Edition), the fix is probably to go into Control Panel → Multimedia → Devices → Media Control Devices → CD Audio Device (Media Control) → Properties → Settings … and change “Default CD-ROM drive for playing CD music”.
    I’m not sure how to do this on Windows XP since the equivalent to that last Settings button does nothing when clicked, so the workaround for newer Windows versions is just to go into the system management console and swap the drive letters of your optical drives. (Though that may make some badly-designed games require a reinstall to get them to look at the new drive letter.)
  • Flaky iPhone: If you’ve got a hand-me-down iPhone where the flashlight or rotation lock occasional toggle without being asked, the touch sensor on the back may be too sensitive. Try turning off the “tap on the back of the phone to…” feature and see if that fixes it. (For me, it had become so sensitive it was activating through the Otter Box belt clip I’m using as a lens cap and the air gap below it.)
  • YD-RP2040: The YD-RP2040 isn’t 100% compatible with name-brand Raspberry Pi Pico boards. If you need to build something that has it acting as a USB host, prepare for the slightly fiddly job of tacking a piece of resistor leg between the two legs of a BAT54C barrier diode facing the USB C connector to allow current from Vin to flow to the USB connector (I’ve contributed an annotated photo in the ps2x2pico README … also, the (VBUS) and (VSYS) silkscreens on the bottom are wrong. Vout is not VBUS. Follow this schematic.
  • Display Alignment in KDE: If snap-to-edge behaviour in KDE Display Settings is preventing you from getting the monitor alignment you want (eg. top-aligned 1280×1024,1920×1080,1280×1024), try changing (but not applying) resolutions, then snapping, then changing them back.
  • No route to host: If your client says “No route to host” on some ports but not others, double-check your server’s firewall configuration… for example, if you’re trying to use UFW and something also installed firewalld behind your back, you’re going to get very confusing symptoms that won’t be fixed by asking UFW to flush your iptables and re-create them.
  • annoyingasians.mpg: If you ever wondered what the music was from an old ebaumsworld video named annoyingasians.mpg with no other context… searching the filename on YouTube allows Content ID to find the answer. It’s called 중화반점.
  • Firefox Smooth Scrolling: If you’re getting smooth scrolling from your scroll wheel in Firefox despite the checkbox still being unchecked and you don’t like your scrolling being slow/laggy, try going into about:config and toggling the general.smoothScroll.mouseWheel pref to also be false.
  • WinSCP: If you’re using WinSCP’s synchronize command in a script but you don’t edit your script very often and your new exclusion pattern seems to be getting ignored, check if you’re trying to name a directory without including the trailing slash.
  • Occam’s Razor: Put a pin in this for future sharing → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO46CNftRDs
    “Actually, it’s not asteroid bacteria… we discovered that bacteria managed to evolve to eat the cleaning products we use to sterilize clean rooms” is one of the most intuitive examples I’ve seen for why people shouldn’t leap to assuming fantastic answers like UFOs or cryptids.
  • Python enums: Because of how Python’s enum.Enum implements nominal typing and how Python imports work, it risks seemingly mundane refactorings causing var == FooEnum.Bar comparisons to start to mysteriously fail when PyQt and Qt Designer’s “Promote…” feature are involved. If you don’t need such strict nominal typing, using enum.IntEnum to relax the equality comparison will avoid that source of footguns.

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Fixing Hotplug for the ATI Remote Wonder II on X11

Posted on 2024-01-21 by Stephan Sokolow

EDIT: It turns out hotplug wasn’t the problem. Something else is resetting the X11 keymap without it involving the device getting reset… I’m done with this nonsense. I’ll temporarily set a user cronjob to force it back to what it’s supposed to be and then, when I have a moment, replace xbindkeys with a udev rule to loosen the security on the ATi Remote Wonder’s evdev node (it’s not as if I’ll ever be entering sensitive data using it) and a custom quick-and-dirty runs-in-my-X11-session daemon to listen to the raw evdev input events and react to them. (Sort of a knock-off LIRC for something the kernel driver exposes as a keyboard and mouse.)

EDIT (The following day): Instead of going through all this mess, just bypass the nonsense. Install xremap, set a udev rule like SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0471", ATTRS{idProduct}=="0602", MODE="0664", create your mappings somewhere like ~/.config/xremap.yml, and then add an autostart entry for your desktop that says sh -c "exec xremap ~/.config/xremap.yml --watch=device --device 'ATI Remote Wonder II'". That way, you’re binding directly against the evdev symbols and you have the ability to keybind to things like “A, but only from the remote, not the keyboard”, which is a big hassle otherwise. Its support for application-specific keybinds even has support for Wayland if you’re using either GNOME Shell, KWin, or something wlroots-based as your compositor.

If you’ve got an ATi Remote Wonder II and you’re using an X11-based desktop, you might have noticed that it’s a bit of a hassle to get the mappings to stick for the buttons with keycodes outside the 0-255 range that X11 supports.

First, you need to remap them into the range the X11 core protocol supports, which isn’t that difficult if you’re familiar with writing udev rules…

# /etc/udev/rules.d/99-ati-remote-wonder-ii.rules
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0471", ATTRS{idProduct}=="0602", RUN+="/usr/bin/setkeycodes 0x005C 28 0x015C 28 0x025C 28 0x035C 28 0x045C 28 0x0020 192 0x0120 192 0x0220 192 0x0320 192 0x0420 192 0x0021 19
3 0x0121 193 0x0221 193 0x0321 193 0x0421 193"

…but the range from 0-255 makes it kind of difficult to find keys that both have a default X11 keysym mapping and don’t have some kind of predefined behaviour attached to them, such as altering the volume.

With Kubuntu Linux 20.04 LTS, the above line was enough but, when I upgraded to 22.04 LTS, something broke my mapping for a “trigger the talking clock from bed and log the time I asked” button.

KDE lacks the ability to do what I want through the GUI, custom keymaps are practically undocumented and apparently require editing stuff under /usr to boot, and I couldn’t just run xmodmap once a minute on a cronjob, since that exacerbated a reset bug that shows up with X11+my USB-PS2 adapter+my pre-2013-layout Unicomp keyboard, so that left me with only one option: Figuring out the “in an X11 session” equivalent to udev‘s RUN+= construct.

Enter inputplug. It’s included in the Ubuntu repos and it’s a daemon which will run a script every time the XInput hierarchy changes.

Here’s the little script I wrote (based on the usual boilerplate template I start all my Python scripts from), to fire off an xmodmap every time some kind of USB hiccup resets the ATi Remote Wonder II’s key mapping:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
"""Helper to apply xmodmap settings every time USB connectivity for the
ATi Remote Wonder II hiccups and resets them.
"""

__author__ = "Stephan Sokolow (deitarion/SSokolow)"
__appname__ = "inputplug command for ATi Remote Wonder II"
__version__ = "0.1"
__license__ = "MIT"

import logging, os, subprocess, time
log = logging.getLogger(__name__)


def main():
    """The main entry point, compatible with setuptools entry points."""
    from argparse import ArgumentParser, RawDescriptionHelpFormatter
    parser = ArgumentParser(formatter_class=RawDescriptionHelpFormatter,
      description=__doc__.replace('\r\n', '\n').split('\n--snip--\n')[0])
    parser.add_argument('-V', '--version', action='version',
      version="%%(prog)s v%s" % __version__)
    parser.add_argument('-v', '--verbose', action="count",
      default=2, help="Increase the verbosity. Use twice for extra effect.")
    parser.add_argument('-q', '--quiet', action="count",
      default=0, help="Decrease the verbosity. Use twice for extra effect.")
    parser.add_argument('event_type', action="store")
    parser.add_argument('device_id', action="store")
    parser.add_argument('device_type', action="store")
    parser.add_argument('device_name', action="store")

    args = parser.parse_args()

    # Set up clean logging to stderr
    log_levels = [logging.CRITICAL, logging.ERROR, logging.WARNING,
                  logging.INFO, logging.DEBUG]
    args.verbose = min(args.verbose - args.quiet, len(log_levels) - 1)
    args.verbose = max(args.verbose, 0)
    logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG,
                format='%(levelname)s: %(message)s')

    if args.device_type != 'XISlaveKeyboard':
        log.debug("Skipped event from device (type != XISlaveKeyboard): %s",
            args.device_name)
        return
    if args.device_name != 'ATI Remote Wonder II':
        log.debug("Skipped event from device (name != ATI Remote Wonder II):"
            " %s", args.device_name)
        return
    log.info("Calling xmodmap after 1-second delay")
    time.sleep(1)
    subprocess.check_call(['xmodmap', os.path.expanduser('~/.xmodmaprc')])


if __name__ == '__main__':  # pragma: nocover
    main()

# vim: set sw=4 sts=4 expandtab :

Yes, the time.sleep(1) is a hack, but I just don’t have time to be that correct about it. You run it by putting it at ~/bin/set_xmodmap_for_remote.py, chmod-ing it executable, and launching inputplug -0 -c ~/bin/set_xmodmap_for_remote.py.

(The -0 makes inputplug act as if all input devices were hot-plugged after it launched, so you don’t need to pull and plug the remote’s receiver on boot to get the initial xmodmap.)

Just run that on login through whatever approach your desktop prefers and you should be good.

I’m partial to putting this into ~/.config/autostart/inputplug.desktop rather than puttering around with the GUIs:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=inputplug
GenericName=XInput Hierarchy Change Handler
Comment=Restore xmodmap changes after ATi Remote Wonder hotplug
Exec=sh -c "exec inputplug -0 -c ~/bin/set_xmodmap_for_remote.py"
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false

(The sh -c "exec ..." hack is needed because .desktop files don’t support ~ or $HOME otherwise and I don’t want to hard-code the path to my home dir.)

I have noticed a weird thing in testing where the first input event from the remote after a hotplug isn’t subject to the changed settings, no matter how long I wait before trying, but I’m not sure how to diagnose it so we’ll just stop here for now.)

Posted in Lair Improvement | Leave a comment

Fanfiction – Taylor Varga

Posted on 2023-11-24 by Stephan Sokolow

Taylor Varga by mp3.1415player

Length: 2,058,592 words
Status: Ongoing
Crossover: Worm + Luna Varga (but with the assumption nobody but the author has seen Luna Varga)

Today’s fic is a doozy and not just for its eye-opening length. Like the stories by mp3.1415player on my review TODO list, it’s excellent on its own merits. (Among other things, it feels as if at least 95% of all memorable moments in the Worm fanfiction I’ve read come from this story.)

Being so long, it’s one of those stories where more than just the plot evolves over time… so I’ll discuss it in segments. There will be things that are technically spoilers but, because this fic is so much about the journey, I don’t think knowing the high-level details ruin anything.

When things start out, it’s Yet Another Alternative Trigger Fic (Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandom has YAHF (Yet Another Halloween Fic), so I think I can make a mild commentary on the prevalence of alternative triggers). Being a Luna Varga crossover, as you might expect, Taylor winds up stuck with a tail and body-sharing with/changing into a Godzilla knock-off.

However, that’s where things diverge. If there’s one summary that would fit the entire story, it’s “What would happen if you dropped an Outside Context Problem into the Worm setting on the side of good?” …very much so. Taylor Varga is essentially a fix-fic that doesn’t feel like a fix-fic. It’s a story that could be summed up as “destiny trolls the Worm setting”. It’s a light, character-centric story that’s a lot of fun.

Just look at what Director Piggot has to say about informing the Chief Director:

“I was really hoping to have more to tell her than ‘I don’t know what the fuck is going on but it’s scaly and snickers a lot‘ though. Never mind this entire damn Coil problem.”

Taylor Varga, Chapter 98

…and yes, them thinking that Coil is a problem is a result of Coil’s problem status being neutralized. More specifically, because Taylor is now bonded to a magic alien dinosaur demon, she doesn’t quite follow the same laws of physics anymore, which causes a ton of problems for any thinker abilities that would otherwise make it difficult to write a fix-fic which runs off the canon rails as gleefully as this one does over its couple-million-word run. In Coil’s case, he spends the first half of the fic hiding in his bunker, bothering nobody, as he desperately tries to figure ouy why timelines where he meddles keep ending in black voids.

Of course, it it were just a Luna Varga crossover, that’d be too simple. Whatever “Greater Power” decided to hijack Taylor’s trigger event also unshackled Varga’s abilities… watch out Brockton Bay, Taylor Hebert is now an infinitely variable dinosaur (her words, not mine) with a human-form tail hidden under a magical Somebody Else’s Problem Field and a permanent new best friend with a questionable sense of appropriate humor.

So, yes. Stage one in the story is Taylor Hebert or, more correctly, “Saurial” the anthropomorphic velociraptor girl, wandering around Brockton Bay and stopping crime she bumps into while she gets used to her changed situation… and then starting to experiment with other forms. Enter PHO. Playing into people’s preconceptions because it’s fun and/or helps keep a secret identity will be a recurring theme.

Combine that with yet another twist on “The locker incident leads to Taylor and Danny manoeuvring Blackwell into a corner” and Taylor winds up at Arcadia where a chance encounter (Amy Dallon trips over Taylor’s invisible tail and then Taylor unknowingly gives her a glimpse at her biology when offering her a hand up) and Taylor’s ambient Outside Context Problem-ness (which will be lampshaded later) lead to a new friendship for Taylor and Panacea finally accepting the idea that she needs some “me time”.

Throw in an incident with Taylor saving the Undersiders from Lung, and the stage is set for phase 2.

In Phase 2, Amy Dallon gets talked into actually using her abilities and, before you know it, Ianthe (Amy) and Metis (Lisa), the reptilian exo-suits made from repurposed onion biomass, are wandering around and PHO is inadvertently helping them to build a backstory about The Family, a species of reptilian aliens from deep time who H.P. Lovecraft might have taken inspiration from.

Phase 2 also involves a lot of “Let’s use fix-fic as a vehicle to troll the setting by way of varga magic” humour, including a supermaterial Varga can conjure up that he only knows as “the good stuff”.

This is also a fic where Taylor is so good at math that she arrives at Vista’s powers from another direction, and then makes a “desktop R’lyeh” as a gag gift for Danny which inspires Vista to unintentionally traumatize her classmates and teammates by discovering how to create Lovecraftian “monstrous geometry” using only a pencil and paper… and one where Taylor helps Amy realize that, if she creates a bioconstruct to do it for her, she can enhance herself, including her brain, and do so without the risk of wrecking something. (Something which, combined with Taylor bringing novelty wherever she goes, makes the shards of all Taylor’s growing circle of cape friends very happy… though Lisa isn’t particularly pleased with how much she’s inadvertently taught hers to feel smug when they start to sense their presence.)

Basically, once the story really gets going, it’s a fun character piece about three smart, wildly OP young women with offbeat senses of humour (one of whom is still clinging to the idea of being “the normal one”) slowly fixing the Worm setting with the power of trolling, confusion, unknowingly having moments of comically good luck, being genuinely good people, and being so visibly OP in their alternative identities that it completely stymies people who would plot against them.. (Gotta love stories where people are unarguably OP but it doesn’t hurt the story because “not even Superman can punch clinical depression”.)

If you’re thinking this sounds vaguely reminiscent of stories like Make A Wish by Rorschach’s Blot which rely heavily on “humour based around a gigantic misconception and that misconception slowly becoming reality by default”, you’d be right and this also inspired a slew of third-party contributions. In later chapters, look forward to omakes like “Saurial is not pleased that Odin from the Marvel Cinematic Universe is claiming her old hammer (Mjolnir) to be his own work” and spin-offs like The Long Slow Lizarding of Hermione Granger.

So, what would I rate it? Well, it gets a bit slow around the bit when they finally go in to dig out Coil, and I do think the omakes got a bit too numerous at points, but, overall, it’s still good enough that I’d probably give it a 4.9 out of 5. Definitely would recommend.

Posted in Fanfiction | 2 Comments

Vorke V1 Plus Thermal/Fan Fix for Linux

Posted on 2023-11-17 by Stephan Sokolow

If you have a Vorke V1 Plus that doesn’t want to drive its fan under Linux, or which doesn’t want to shut off the fan after the UEFI turns it on at boot, here’s what worked for me:

  1. Make sure you’ve got a kernel version that allows you to manually control the fan via one of the /sys/class/thermal/cooling_deviceX/cur_state nodes. Debian bookworm’s default 6.1.0-13 kernel had problems with that while my Ubuntu 22.04 LTS flash drive’s 6.2.0-16 didn’t, so I wound up pulling one of the 6.5.0 kernels from Debian backports.)
  2. Make sure thermald is installed. My experience is that, without it, the Vorke V1 Plus will just leave its fan on whatever the UEFI set it to, no matter how high or low the CPU temperature goes.
  3. Write this configuration into /etc/thermald/thermal-conf.xml:
    <?xml version="1.0"?>
    <ThermalConfiguration>
      <Platform>
        <Name>Prefer fan over thermal throttling</Name>
        <ProductName>*</ProductName>
        <Preference>PERFORMANCE</Preference>
      </Platform>
    </ThermalConfiguration>
    As far as I can tell, thermald on Debian bookworm defaults to <Preference>QUIET</Preference>, which means “Thermal throttle as much as you need to in order to avoid spinning up the fan”.

    (Which is a neat option for things with shrill fans like the Vorke V1 Plus if I can figure out an easy way to toggle it… maybe reassign the power button from “request a clean shutdown” to “toggle cooling between performance and quiet”.)

    There’s probably some other way you’re meant to do this, and I welcome comments from people who actually know how this is supposed to work, because I found thermald to be frustratingly under-documented.
  4. Run systemctl edit thermald.service and paste in these lines:
    [Service]
    ExecStart=
    ExecStart=/usr/sbin/thermald --no-daemon --dbus-enable --exclusive-control --config-file=/etc/thermald/thermal-conf.xml
    Without --exclusive-control, I found thermald still allowing temperatures to shoot up without enabling the fan.

As for --config-file, the manpage says /etc/thermald/thermal-conf.xml should be in the default search path, but, without specifying it explicitly, I was still getting no effect, despite neither of the higher-priority paths existing.

  1. Reboot (instead of just restarting thermald) to make sure all changes will persist as intended and stress-test the CPU with something like stress --cpu 4.

If you still have trouble, try toggling DPTF enable/disable in the UEFI settings. (hold Delete while powering on, and then go into Advanced > Thermal.)

I don’t know if playing around with DPTF is necessary with the Vorke V1 Plus, but I also have a Vorke V1 and I needed to toggle it on that one so I could memtest86 the RAM upgrade I put in without the thing slowly overheating.

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How to remove pcANYWHERE32 v8.0 from Windows XP

Posted on 2023-09-06 by Stephan Sokolow

…so you naively thought that continuing past the Windows XP compatibility warning and installing pcANYWHERE 8.0 would give you a working pcANYWHERE client but no server?

…and you now have a machine that just boots into a black 640×480 screen which ignores Ctrl+Alt+Delete but does let you move the mouse?

…even if you choose to boot into Safe Mode?

Here’s how I recovered my Windows XP retro-machine without undue pain:

  1. Pull up the “Windows Advanced Options Menu” (Hit F8 after your BIOS hands off to Windows but before the boot logo appears… I just tap it repeatedly.)
  2. Choose “Last Know Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked)”
  3. You’ll probably get a working boot with auto-login temporarily disabled. I just hit Enter with the username it pre-filled and no password.
  4. Use Add/Remove Programs to uninstall pcANYWHERE.
  5. To be sure you’ve gotten rid of it, go into System Restore (Start > Applications > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore) and roll your system configuration back to the most recent System Restore point.

That should do it.

TIP: If you can’t get F8 to work, make sure you’re using a PS/2 keyboard, not a USB one.

(If your BIOS doesn’t have working USB→PS/2 keyboard emulation, the Windows boot menu won’t see your input either because it happens before Windows’s own USB HID drivers get loaded. This confused me for a moment, before I realized I’d never needed to go into the BIOS setup or boot menu, or access the Windows boot options since I switched to a USB+VGA KVM switch to let it share the desk with my Power Mac G4.)

Posted in Retrocomputing | Leave a comment

Fanfiction – That Sounds Like Work

Posted on 2023-09-03 by Stephan Sokolow

How does a completed Worm crackfic based around Taylor Hebert triggering with superpowered laziness sound?

What about a fic with bits like this?

“You let my brother hijack your body… so you don’t have to walk?” said Cherie with an incredulous tone.

“Of course! Have you tried walking? You have to pick up your leg off the ground and everything! The worst bit is that you have to do that over and over again if you want to get anywhere. The mere fact that walking exists proves that there is no such thing as an all-loving God! Man invented the wheel thousands of years ago just so we wouldn’t have to do the devil’s work anymore!” she ranted. This girl was a nut bag. Where did Jean-Paul even find her?

If it sounds good, it’s That Sounds Like Work by Flabbyknight.

…spoiler alert: It starts with her beating Emma by being too super-apathetic (i.e. too lazy to care), driving Emma into such fits of frustration that the Winslow staff can’t help but respond.

In the spirit of the story’s premise, I won’t go on in more detail as I usually would (though I will say that the first chapter, as entertaining as it is, isn’t representative of the heights of crackfic-ness that it grows into) and I won’t take the time to figure out where above 4.5 it belongs on my rating scale.

…but I will say that I loved it and It also won second place in the Crack/Humor category in /r/WormFanfic’s Best of 2019 list.

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Quick tip for RetroArch’s DOSBox-Pure core

Posted on 2023-08-24 by Stephan Sokolow

If you’re trying to set up DOS games like Jetpack in something like RetroPie or Batocera, you might run into a problem where pressing the S key (“start new game” in Jetpack) doesn’t do anything, whether through a physical keyboard or through padtokey mappings.

This is most likely because RetroArch’s default hotkeys map S to one of the buttons on the virtual gamepad. (A decision which makes sense for consoles, where you need a gamepad and a keyboard is optional at best, but makes no sense for retro computers, where a keyboard is standard or even built-in, and a joystick is optional)

While I don’t know about RetroPie, under Batocera, the simplest solution is to add the following lines to your /userdata/system/batocera.conf to disable those mappings:

dos.retroarch.input_player1_a=nul
dos.retroarch.input_player1_b=nul
dos.retroarch.input_player1_x=nul
dos.retroarch.input_player1_y=nul

Then, if you do need mappings for DOS games, they probably go the other way (making the gamepad fake keypresses) and can be handled via padtokey mappings.

Posted in Retrocomputing | Leave a comment