PC Atari Emulator

PC Atari Emulator is a software emulator for running Atari 2600 videogame console programs in Microsoft Windows or in MS-DOS. The latest versions of PC Atari Emulator released were 2.5 (for MS-DOS) and 2.6 (for Windows). PC Atari Emulator was originally written by John Dullea in 1996.

PC Atari Emulator was written in a combination of Borland Pascal and x86 assembly language for the MS-DOS version and a combination of Delphi and x86 assembly language for the Microsoft Windows version. The emulator supports all Atari 2600 cartridge bank switching schemes (up to the year 2000) and has support for nearly all Atari 2600 titles.

Peripheral devices

The emulator emulates most Atari 2600 peripheral devices, including standard joysticks, paddle controllers, the Atari Video Touch Pad, the Atari Keyboard Controller, Atari Indy 500 Driving Controllers, the CBS Booster-Grip controller, the CommaVid RAM-cart, and the Spectravideo Compumate computer keyboard. The emulator does not have support for cassette-based titles designed to work with the Starpath Supercharger or the Coleco KidVid cassette player. If the user plays Starpath Supercharger, it will only play the first game on the tape. The user cannot advance the tape to play another title on the same tape. Also, as Starpath Supercharger ROMs have an extension of .a26, the extension must be changed to .bin for them to play at all.

Reception

Use of PC Atari was covered in the book Retro Gaming Hacks.

See also

• Stella
• z26

External links

• Official webpage (Note: This link may be out of date)
• A more recent official webpage (As of September 15, 2007, this link has the actual emulator)
• Good Deal Games - "Changing Atari VCS Graphics - The Easy Way" (PDF file)
• "Retro Gaming Hacks" by Chris Kohler - Oct. 2005 (1st ed.), p. 143 [1], [2]
• Gauntlet Web (University of Calgary publication) - "Classic video gaming for all ages"