Atari800 5200 Emulation Question


blurpee

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Dec 8, 2010
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Hello all.

First off - just got my new 1 GHz and overall am quite happy with it.

I'm trying to get atari 5200 emulation working, and was looking for some assistance.  I tried panmess, but the compatiblity did not seem to be there and I could never get player 1 button 2 to function.  Now i'm trying Atari800.  I have my 5200.rom working and can load the cartridge (alhough it seems hit or miss which type of cartridge one selects).  I'm up to the point where I can setup controller configuration - define 1 layout of keyboard joystick 1.  The only options are up, down, left, right, and trigger.  Is there some configuration step I'm missing to get button 2, start, pause, end, etc?

Any help would be appreciated - I'm sure I'll be asking more in the future.  Thanks.
 
Start for start, select for pause, left nub for joystick, hold x for other keys.

edit: press A for fire 1, shift for fire 2.
 
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Should also add that the keyboard itself is mapped to Atari 800 keys, some of which may confuse the 5200! Really I should fix that to make the 5200 more useful. What is a good game that uses all keys to test with?
 
OK, I'm confused.  After installing, I just pick that I want to use NTSC, and Atari 5200.  I then point to my 5200 bios on my SD card, then pick the cart, then guess at what type of cart it is (usually single or double 5200).  This seems to work and I see the atari logo and the game starts.  I then press select to get back to the menu and try and configure the joystick - but as I stated earlier, only one trigger option is there.  As I'm a bit new to this, perhaps a more detailed configuration is required on my end - especially if I could save all the options mentioned earlier - it seems to forget every time I run the emulator.  Any thoughts welcome.
 
I mean using the other Atari 800 emulator (Atari800 2.0.1 GP 1.5 on repo) it works to some degree for 5200. Once you have working settings you can use a save state. The control settings are in a text file(pandora/appdata/menu/default.men), I can help set that up better when you have some games running. I suggest starting with Asteroids or Tempest since I`ve tried them. I may need to release a new version for the ideal 5200 setup, since I never owned one (and only really use XL/XE software) so did not test it much. e.g. I was not even aware of the 2nd fire button until now! + the Pandora keyboard itself can not be remapped yet, only the special keys such as a,b,x,y,start,r trigger etc...
 
I put a newer version of this emulator on the repo (Atari800 2.0.1. GP 1.7 on the repo). Just a few minor fixes to sort out 5200 support. It maps the B button to the second fire button. Let me know how you get on.


In the next few days I plan to sort out the mapping of the rest of the 5200 keys in a more sensible form. For now they're available via pressing 'X' and selecting from the menu - fiddly I know - this came from the GP32 where there was no physical keyboard!
 
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I put a newer version on the repo again to improve 5200 controls (Atari800 2.0.1 GP 1.8 is now on the repo).

i) Can use 0-9, hash and asterisk on keyboard in 5200 mode

ii) Nubs are scaled to make them more usable

iii) Nub max range can be set with shift 1-9 (slow-fast - default is 3)

iv) 5200 keypad is also available on QWE (123) + ASD (456) + ZXC (789) + RTY (*0#)

v) dpad works (digital!)

I've checked these controls look good with 'Moon Patrol', 'Tempest', 'Space Dungeon', 'Missile Command' and 'Asteroids'.

I'm not sure you're reading this thread any more, but hopefully you'll spot this since I think it makes this system playable...
 
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