Atari800MacX Help
Preferences Window
Controllers Tab



The Controllers Tab allows the selection of Joystick types for the up to 4 joysticks that may be used with the Atari.  The Atari 400/800/5200 models support the use of 4 joysticks, while the XL/XE models allowed 2.  (4 are allowed on the XL/XE with the Multijoy4 modification).



Joysticks

For each joystick port, you can choose between 6 types of joystick emulation:
Other than Mouse Emulation, the same device can be set on more than one port.  This way, if you only have one gamepad, it can be passed around to the four players, if you are playing a game that doesn't require simultaneous use.

When using the HID Controllers, analog joysticks on the controllers will provide port analog input as well, allowing the joystick to be used as a paddle for such games as Super Breakout.  In this case, the x-axis will be paddle 1, and the y-axis paddle 2, if the Use X-Axis for both paddles is not checked.  If it is, the x-axis will be both paddle 1 and paddle 2.

Also for HID controllers, if the gamepad has multiple Analog joysticks, you may chose to use each of them for a different Atari joystick.  This is done by selecting the Multi Stick option for that gamepad on the Gamepads Tab and then selection multiple joysticks here to use the same HID controller.

For each joystick port, you can also set autofire mode.  When autofire is on, it can be on only when the joystick button is pressed, or can be on continuously.

Enable Multijoy4 Joysticks for XL/XE Machines

This checkbox enables the emulation of the Multijoy hardware which allowed up to 4 joysticks to be used with custom designed games on the XL/XE series of machines.  Normally, XL/XE machines only have 2 joystick ports.

Mouse Emulation

Finally, if one of the joystick ports is set to Mouse Emulation, the Emulated Device pulldown will become active in the Mouse Emulation section.  Then, you can choose one of the following Atari devices to emulate with the Mouse: There are extra parameters available to adjust the function of some of the emulated devices.  They are:

Speed of Emulated Device
If the controller moves too slow or too fast, use the Speed of emulated device option.  Also, in Full Screen mode, libSDL on the Macintosh does not allow the Mouse to be grabbed.  This may cause the emulated device to not be able to reach the full limits of the Atari Screen.  To fix this, increase this value.  On my system, using Kensington Mouse Works with a fair amount of acceleration, a value of 15 in this field works nicely for full screen.
Minimum and Maximum Values
For Paddles, the Atari touch tablet and the Koala Pad you can specify the range of controller values.
Horizontal and Vertical Offset
You can calibrate the Light pen and the Light gun using Horz/Vert offsets. You should change these values if the program you're using indicates the pen/gun is in different location than the mouse pointer (right-click to toggle displaying of mouse pointer).
Intertia of Emulated Joystick
The Inertia of emulated joystick option is available only for the emulated Joystick. It indicates how far the pointer can move on a single mouse movement. This is because the joystick is a digital device (moved in a certain direction or not), while the mouse is analog and can move in a direction faster or slower.  This will set how far you have to move the device to get a digital indication of movement in that direction.
Use X-Axis of Joystick/Mouse Emulation for Both Paddles in a Paddle Set
Checking this box allows X-Axis motion on an analog joystick or the mouse emulation to be used for both Paddle 1 and Paddle 2.  This overcomes the unusual motion required for the second player to move the joystick or mouse vertically to control a horizontal paddle in games such as Super Breakout.  In the unchecked mode, Horizontal (x-axis) motion is tied to paddle 1, and Vertical (y-axis) motion is tied to paddle 2.
CX85 Keypad
This  area includes a selection to enable or disable the emulation of the CX85 keypad.  The CX85 may also be enabled/disabled from the Control Menu.  The joystick port the CX85 is plugged into may also be selected here.  When enabled, the keys are as follows:

  Mac Keys                     CX85 Keys
  ---------                          ----------
  keypad 0123456789-.   0123456789-.
  keypad /                        NO
  keypad Ctrl+/                ESCAPE
  keypad *                       DELETE
  keypad +                       YES
  keypad Enter                +ENTER