Welcome to Atari800MacX , the Atari 800/XL/XE/5200 emulator
for Macintosh OSX. This quick guide is intended to help those
who are new to Atari Emulation get started quickly. Experience
emulator users should also give this section a quick read to help you
get familiar with some of the special features of the Mac version.
Donationware
The emulator is released under the GPL license, however many
months/years of work have gone into it. If you use and appreciate
the emulator, please donate to it's development. You can do this
by clicking on the menu item Donation... under the Atari800MacX menu, or by using this link.
OS ROMS
The emulator requires that you have ROM images for the Atari operating
system and the BASIC language ROM. These files are not
provided with the emulator for legal reasons, but they are widely
available on the internet. The default names for the ROMS
are atariosa.rom, atariosb.rom,
atarixl.rom,
ataribas.rom, and a5200.rom. By default, the emulator expects
the ROM files to be found in the OSRoms folder in the
Atari800MacX
folder. You can select files with different names or in different locations by using the Roms Tab of the Preferences window.
Starting the Emulator
Once the emulator is started, with the ROM files properly installed,
you should see a Blue Screen with white letters in the emulator with
the Atari BASIC ready prompt.
The first thing you will probably want to do is adjust the display to
your liking. There are many options for the Display
characteristics some of which can be accessed from the Display Menu, and others which are available from the Display Tab of the Preferences window. While we are on the topic, please take time to read through all of the documentation on the Preferences window.
You can open the Preferences window from the Preferences menu
item in the Atari800MacX menu, or by pressing the command and comma
keys. There are many, many options available in this emulator,
and almost everything you can think of can be customized.
OK, now you have the emulator up and running, you probably would like
to do something besides seeing the BASIC READY prompt, correct?
The emulator is capable of supporting Atari programs on
cartridge, disk, and cassette image files. To use these files,
you can open them by the menu items in the Media Menu, or through the controls in the Media Status
Window. You can also drag and drop the files onto the main
emulator window, although if it is a disk image, it will always be put
in drive 1. For a full list of the file types and extensions
supported by the emulator, please see File Types.
Finally, I suspect that you would like to simulate the controllers you
used to play those great Atari games. The emulator allows you to
use the keyboard, mouse, and USB gamepads/joysticks to do this.
To find out all of the details, please see the Controllers and Gamepads Tabs in the Preferences window.
What happens if the Emulated Atari crashes?
If the emulated Atari crashes, due to an illegal instruction, etc., the
emulator will display an Unrecoverable Error dialog. This
normally happens because of a corrupt disk or cartridge image, or one
that is used incorrectly. (It could happen if your OS ROM images
are bad also). Instead of locking up, the way a real Atari would,
the emulator gives you a choice or removing the media, performing a
warm or cold reset, entering the debug monitor, or simply quiting the
emulator. The Unrecoverable Error Dialog is show below, in both
the Windowed and Fullscreen versions.
What's New in 3.0?
Features Added/Changed:
Added OpenGL rendering for improved performance and improved compatibility with OSX 10.4 and above.
Added Printing to a choice of 3 simulated legacy printers, with output to PDF files.
Epson FX-80 - Text and Graphics dot matrix printer supported by most later Atari software.
Atari 1020 - Color printer/plotter.
Atari 825 - Early Atari dot matrix printer included for use with early Atari software.
Added Function Key window to allow user to press Atari Start, Select, and Option keys from floating palette.
Added enhancements to the built-in debug monitor.
Ability to run in Fullscreen.
Command history
Read/Write emulator memory from/to Macintosh files.
Read/Write emulator memory from/to Atari disk image sectors.
Memory Move
Bank Switching (XE)
Complex Breakpoints
Instruction Tracing to Files
Improvements to the History command
Added the ability to create blank Cassette images.
Added the following features from Core Emulator version 1.3.6+
Loading of BASIC files from Loading executable file menu item