Atari800MacX Help
Getting Started


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, and new features of this release, 4.0.

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 4.0?

    Features Added/Changed:
    Bugs Fixed