10 replies to this topic

[Derek]

Various people have been offering advice to my posts trying to get the Atari800Win emulator for the 5200 to run. Are there any non-DOS versions that you can get running without massive frustration on guessing where files go and having endless unhelpful error messages to deal with? If it was something that I could hold in my hand the Atari800Win would have made the trip to the basement to meet Mr. Hammer as some cartridges have: Intellivision's Commando, Miner 2049er with its ultra picky tendancy to plunge to your death, and the 7800 game Tower Toppler. That got crushed good. Whoever thought that having your man coast after you let up on the joystick, and delayed reaction to button presses would be fun? They needed their head examined. God, what an annoying game! Ditto for Scrapyard Dog with its coasting, delayed reaction, and those impossible to make jumps in the sewer worlds.

Now that I've vented, thanks for any help with the initial question! Derek.

[Nukey Shay]

What is your PC's operating system and Atari800Win version number? I honestly don't know what the problem could be, since version 3.0 runs pretty much "out of the box" using Windows98. But I'll show you my settings.
After downloading the emulator and unzipping it to a folder of your choice, download and unzip the system roms (ataribas.rom, atariosb.rom, atarixl.rom, and 5200.bin) as well as the dos25 disk image. You can put these anywhere you want...since you'll need to direct the emulator to them manually. Here's an example folder list that I use...
For the emulator and system roms zipfiles, I unzipped them to the folder C:EmuAtari800. I also created subfolders there called C:EmuAtari800HD1 (for hard drive files), and C:EmuAtari800Rom (for 5200 cartridge dumps).
Anyway, the folders are set up...so I launched the emulator. Immediately, this message will pop up:
http://www.atariage....ad.php?id=11773
This is normal (since the emulator hasn't been instructed on where to find the files it needs yet...namely the system roms). Click NO and set them up. By clicking on "Atari" in the top bar, you can set up the following accordingly:

The system roms (atari->rom images)
http://www.atariage....ad.php?id=11776

The hard disk selection (atari->hard drives)
http://www.atariage....ad.php?id=11769

The disk drive selection (atari->disk drives)
http://www.atariage....ad.php?id=11768

Once these changes are made, the emulator should boot up normally when emulating the OS-B, XL, or XE machine types. If you want to play a disk image game, open the atari-disk drives menu back up, select the image you want to boot, click OK, and then press shift-F5 to "reboot" the emulator.

So how do you emulate the 5200? Simply selecting the machine type as "5200"...
http://www.atariage....ad.php?id=11774
will yield this message:
http://www.atariage....ad.php?id=11773

Right...you've still got to "insert" a cartridge in your emulator. For this example, I've chosen Cafeman's latest update to Adventure2 Download it and unzip it to that "rom" subfolder.
Open up the rom image selection (atari->rom images) and browse over to it by pressing the button marked "cartridge"...and then attach it to the system by changing that little box to the right of it from "detached" to "attached"...
http://www.atariage....ad.php?id=11771
Note that the other fields above these don't need to be changed When you click OK, this (or something similar) will be displayed:
http://www.atariage....ad.php?id=11772
This is normal...and you can pretty much ignore it and press OK. Your emu knows best

If all goes well, you should be greeted with this:
http://www.atariage....ad.php?id=11775

SUCCESS!

If you later want to go back emulating an 8-bit computer, simply select it under the "machine type" option. A 5200 cartridge should automatically detatch when you do this...but if it doesn't, you'll get that error message again...
http://www.atariage....ad.php?id=11773
...if that happens, it most likely didn't detatch the 5200 cartridge like it was supposed to. Just click NO and detatch it manually...
http://www.atariage....ad.php?id=11776

Good luck!

[Miqorz]

What about us XP users?

[Room 34]

I use Jum52 on the Mac and I find it very easy to use... but I'm not sure if there's a PC version.

[Nukey Shay]

Miqorz said:

What about us XP users?

So what about you? j/k

Heh heh...XP sucks

[Miqorz]

Yes it does but I am too cheap and lazy to put 98SE on this thing.

[Inky]

Jum works fairly well.

My problem with ALL 5200 emulators is that either the graphics aren't properly emulated OR the emu doesn't recognize both 5200 fire buttons.

[Room 34]

Yes... the fire buttons seem to be an issue with Jum52. I really can't understand it. The program recognizes the keypad buttons, why not both fire buttons?

I want to play H.E.R.O. (among other games) and I can't!

(Yes, I would just play the 2600 version of H.E.R.O. in Stella... but on my G3 iBook, Stella runs really slow in double-pixel mode, and I can't stand how tiny it is in single-pixel mode. Jum52, on the other hand, works great in double- and triple-pixel modes! So does RockNES. I know the 2600 is difficult to emulate, but I really don't understand why Stella has so much trouble doubling the pixels.)

[oesii]

On the Mac you really need to be running Atari800MacX for all of your 5200 and 8bit needs. It's a lot better in compatability than Jumbot.

http://members.cox.net/atarimac/

[Room 34]

I tried that, IIRC, but I couldn't get it to work.

I was probably just too lazy to figure out where to put the ROM files. I had the same problem getting MacMESS to play 7800 games but eventually someone (was it you, oesii?) tipped me off.

[oesii]

It's been updated a few times this year so maybe you can try the latest version. It unzips into an Atari800 folder with subdirectories for disks, 5200 carts, bios (OS roms), etc. so it might be self-explaintory now. You can get the OS roms from AtariAge.