Setting up Atari 400/800

[richard373]

Hopefully a simple one, but i’ve been unable to find a fix. I have my pi set up and working with two SNES controllers on the NES, SNES and Sega emulators with very few problems.

I’m trying to set up the Atari 400 or 800 emulator, i’ve copied the rom files into the location same as I did for all the other consoles but nothing appears to give me the option to play atari on the home screen, it acts like no games are present.

Are there any additional steps I need to go through to get these working?

[proxycell]

i don’t believe there are atari 400/800 emulators on the system actually
you could try running them inside of them atari 2600 or Atari ST emulators instead

[richard373]

Thanks for replying,

Ahh that could be a problem, the guide I read for setting up the Retropie did list Atari 400/800 as one of the systems included, but as it was from another website it could of course have been mistaken.

There is an atari 400 or 800 folder in the roms directory which is where I put the roms, but I have just checked and you are right I don’t see a corresponding folder in the emulators directory.

I will try tonight moving the roms to the other atari folders and see if this makes any difference.

Thanks again!

[proxycell]

no problem, please post your results!

[David]

The issue is that the Atari800 emulator is looking for roms having the extension of XEX. I have been able to run 5200 games using the Atari800 fine.

Edit the file /etc/emulationstation/es_system.cfg

Find Atari 800 and add the BIN extension as shown below.

<extension>.xex .XEX .bin .BIN</extension>

While in here, I added addition switches to the command line:

atari800 -5200 -bpp 8 -fs-width 800 -fs-height 600 -ntsc -fullscreen -cart-type 4 -cart %ROM%

On my Raspberry B+, I found 800×600 to give the best performance. I also start the emulator in 5200 mode.

You should now see the Atari800 emulator in Emulation Station.

Run a game. It will not work but it will create the file .atari800.cfg in /home/pi

Edit this file and tell it where you put the system roms. (example: ROM_5200=/usr/local/share/atari800/atari5200.bin)

[richard373]

David,

Thank you for that response! Sounds like exactly what I need.

I got caught up with work this past week and had to put this on the back burner, but I will be on it again tomorrow night when I am home and will try what you have suggested.

Thanks again for the responses, I’d have never found all that myself.

Cheers,

Richard

[David]

Download the Raspian version from:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=78&t=30889

It performs BEAUTIFULLY in full screen! Maybe you can try it after you getting the version with Retropie working.

[richard373]

Hi David,

I’ve just checked but the ROM files I have for the atari 800 are .atr files. I’ve just tried what proxycell suggested and it didn’t work so I will try your suggestion anyway but add the .atr extension to see if it will be picked up.

Will post back shortly!

Richard

[richard373]

Ok, so..

Doing what you suggested but adding .atr/.ATR as well as the others did mean the atari option now shows up on my main screen, and lists all my roms. It didn’t unfortunately create the atari800.cfg anywhere on the Pi, I’ve ran a full search of all of it and it’s just not there. Not sure if this is again something to do with the extensions or another issue.

I’ve had a look at what you posted for the Rasbian version, it does look quite tidy but i’m trying to integrate this in to Emulation Station as it’s for someone very untechnical and i’m not sure if I can do that. I’ll have a read around though and see if/how that can be done.

Feels like i’m very close now to getting the built in version working on my retropie but I must still be missing something :(

Thanks for your help. I’ll post back if I am able to find any other way to get this going.

[David]

The .atari800.cfg file is located at /home/pi

Just to confirm, the raspbian version of atari800 should get copied to:
/opt/retropie/emulators/atari800-3.0.0/installdir/bin

Make sure the ownership of atari800 is 7777.

I am not familiar with ATR extensions. Are those Atari 800 system files? I am using it to run 5200 games.

[electromaster64]

I used WINSCP and found the file /etc/emulationstation/es_system.cfg but it would not allow me to save it. So then I tried sudo nano /etc/emulationstation/es_system.cfg and it acted like the file didnt exist. How do I access it to add the .atr .ATR extensions?

[David]

Edit the file on the Raspberry directly by right clicking on it and selecting edit. Do not copy it to your local machine.

[electromaster64]

So using WINSCP I right click hit edit and then what once I am done? If I hit save it won’t let me save to the Pi.

[David]

Your sd card is corrupt, you have an issue with the file system, you logged in with a user that does not have access to the file, I do not know. Sorry, I can not help you here.

[Floob]

[quote=83484]I used WINSCP and found the file /etc/emulationstation/es_system.cfg but it would not allow me to save it. So then I tried sudo nano /etc/emulationstation/es_system.cfg and it acted like the file didnt exist. How do I access it to add the .atr .ATR extensions?[/quote]

Its es_systems.cfg not es_system.cfg

[richard373]

I’ve got some Atari 2600 files which are mostly .bin and they work fine in that emulator, however I am still struggling with the Atari 400/800.

I’ve got it to the point where the games will display by adding the ATR file extension. I’ve sourced a few games online which are .rom or .bin but it still won’t load. The screen just turns black and nothing happens, sometimes it quits back to the list of games, other times it just stays black.

I’ve tried downloading and importing the raspbian version in the link above, but copying the files over fails on most of them saying permission denied, even though I can edit files on every other folder.

Can’t find any way forward on this one, has been bugging me for weeks now! For me I am happy with the NES and SNES etc but i’m building one of these for my fathers birthday as he is nuts about old school atari games, so i’ll keep working on it and try to learn a bit more about how to add new emulators into the retropie system.

Any and all ideas are appreciated, thanks to all you guys who have helped so far!

[electromaster64]

[quote=83860]The screen just turns black and nothing happens[/quote]

I get the games to load but then it usually displays an error and says “this game requires an actual Atari operating system” then I have to reboot as my escape key will not work.

[richard373]

After rebuilding my pi in the end I Was getting to that same screen, I was unable to get this to work with the Atari 400/800 cartridges, however thanks fully to the help of David I was able to get the 5200 cartridges working, and they do seem to have most of the classic games I was after such as pacman, space invaders, digdug, etc.

The process was quite in depth, I’m not even sure I fully remember it though I was taking notes! If it’s something you’re interested in i’ll try and post back when I have a bit more time to go through it with the instructions David provided.

It’s not perfect, as you will need a keyboard to press the F4 key to initiate the game, and some of them in the 5200 collection I have such as Frogger and Pitfall don’t work, but most of the others seem fine and for me it’s doing what I need.

Richard

[darkdeveloper]

I’m looking to get 5200 games to work on my RetroPie build. Is the Atari800 the only emulator on RetroPie that will run 5200 games? I’ve gotten to the point where it sees the ROMs but when I launch one I get the error “Sorry this program needs a real Atari/OS.” I would be interested in some instruction either getting games to run on Atari800 or some other emulator.

[David]

Do you have the system ROM? You need to put this on your PI and point to it. Reference the posting:

Setting up Atari 400/800

[darkdeveloper]

I have a 5200 BIOS ROM. I think the extension might be .rom instead of .bin like your reference. Unless there is another ROM I should be using I will keep tinkering.

[labelwhore]

Have you got this solved? I haven’t been able to get 5200 roms to work either (or atari 800 for that matter).

[kaitain]

[quote=83157]While in here, I added addition switches to the command line:

atari800 -5200 -bpp 8 -fs-width 800 -fs-height 600 -ntsc -fullscreen -cart-type 4 -cart %ROM%
[/quote]

Umm, by this do you mean adding the above blurb to the end of this line?

<command>/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 “/opt/retropie/emulators/atari800/bin/atari800 %ROM%” “atari800″</command>

(Inside the final quotes?)

[drvenkman]

[quote=87285]Have you got this solved? I haven’t been able to get 5200 roms to work either (or atari 800 for that matter).[/quote]

I haven’t seen this thread before now, but I’ve had no trouble at all getting Atari800 to work – I can play an 400/800/XL/XE games just fine, either as cartridge roms or disk images (.atr files). I only have a handful of 5200 roms but they play fine as well.

I installed the 3.0 Beta 1 SD image on my Pi 2, and simply added the system rom files and game roms and disk images to the appropriate directories. The key is having actual Atari OS roms. Press F1 the first time you load Atari800 and navigate the menus to set the file paths for system roms,cartridge roms and system OS roms; set system configuration options (OS version, memory settings, etc), and screen display options, controller configuration, etc.

PM me if you have specific questions (except where to get roms).

[meat]

drvenkman,

Could you please post more detailed steps please with paths and file names.
I was going to PM you but I thought it would be more useful to the community if it was posted here.

I have the following os files:

5200.rom
ATARIOSB.ROM
ATARIXL.ROM

Plus a handful of various games in different formats:

.xex – ??
.BAS – ??
.CAS – Tape?
.atr – Disk image?

is this all that would be required?

thanks in advance!

[drvenkman]

Okay, the .xex files are 8-bit Atari binary load files. That’s the kind of file RetroPie and EmulationStation THINK the Atari800 emulator program needs; put at least one .xex file into the appropriate file folder and “Atari 800” will appear as an option. Fortunately, once you launch the emulator, you can press F1 and navigate through the options and configuration screens and set things up however you like.

I’m running the RetroPie 3.0 Beta but the file paths are probably the same. Put at least one .xex file into /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/atari800 and you should be good to go.

.atr files are Atari disk images. If the .atr file is a self-booting disk (such as most disk-based software) you’ll be able to boot straight into it when you launch the emulator, assuming you’ve got your config files setup to allow it. If not, you can navigate through the Atari800 configuration menu (F1) to insert the virtual disk image into a drive and then reboot the emulated Atari to run whatever is on the disk.

.BAS files are BASIC program files. Again, if you’ve got your Atari800 emulator configured right in the options menu, you can boot the system to a BASIC prompt and load those files, but there are complications. First, you’ll need an Atari BASIC cartridge ROM (ataribas.rom) – once you point your emulator configuration (that F1 menu) to the right BASIC ROM image, you can set your Atari system to an XL or XE machine and it can boot directly to BASIC. If you have the system set to a 400/800 type machine (atariosa.rom or atariosb.rom), you will need to tell the emulator to insert a virtual BASIC cartridge. Most Atari carts out there loose in the wild are in .bin format but you might also find .car files or something else. The Atari800 version in RetroPie works fine with .bin files. So you’ll need a verson of Atari BASIC (Rev A, Rev B or Rev C) in .bin format. Stick that wherever convenient in your file structure. You can point the emulator to the appropriate file directory through the configuration menus.

So insert your virtual BASIC cart through the Atari800 menu screens and reboot your virtual Atari. You’ll get a READY screen and you can type and run BASIC programs. To save files you’ll probably need a virtual disk image, an .atr file. This gets into a HOWTO for Atari DOS, but to run an Atari from a floppy disk (real or virtual) you’ll need an Atari DOS (or something comparable like SpartaDOS, MyDOS, DOS XL …) They’ve all got their pluses and minuses but they’re all available out on the net in .atr format. For our purposes Atari DOS 2.5 is probably your best bet – it’s ubiquitous, compatible and works with most stuff most of the time.

So find a DOS 2.5 .atr file and “insert” it through the menus into your system and then boot – once you get to the READY prompt, you should have DOS loaded and be able to access files on an .atr disk image. If you’ve got an .atr virtual disk that contains the BASIC program you want, use the Atari800 emulator menu screens to “insert” that disk into Drive 2. Then at the READY prompt, you can type LOAD D2:xxxxx.BAS, where xxxx.BAS is the name of the BASIC program you want to load. Atari BASIC actually doesn’t care what you name your files, and neither does Atari DOS, with just a couple of exceptions (DOS.SYS, DUP.SYS, and one or two others). When your BASIC program is loaded, you can type LIST to list it out or RUN to run it.

.cas files are cassette images. I haven’t actually used them with Atari800 on the Pi. On other Windows or OS X emulators you can boot them or save files to them from BASIC and I presume you can do the same here but I just haven’t tried.

Anyway, I hope the above helps a bit. If you have more specific questions once you get into the emulator config screens, let me know.

[kaitain]

I got the Atari 800 up and running (I did it purely for Ballblazer, which is an AMAZING game, and the Atari version is by far the best version). However, there are a few quirks I’m trying to address:

I can’t get the system to recognize inputs from the second of my two 9-pin joysticks. I’ve got both up and running correctly with the C64, but on the Atari 800 only one seems to work.

The sound is glitchy when NTSC mode is selected: it works, but with occasional stutters (and it seems to be be ONLY the sound that stutters). In PAL mode I don’t get the stutters but everything runs 15% too slow.

Anyone have any thoughts on what I can try? I’ve tinkered around with lots of emulator settings but with no joy so far.

[David]

That is funny. I wanted to use the 5200 for Ballblazer also! It works fine for me but I found that the emulator one works for one joystick. I have since been using the 7800 Pro System emulator. Performance is good and both joysticks work. The 5200 has music that plays in the background which I miss though.

[Author]

Posts