The Atari 5200 Super System was the successor to Atari's enormously successful 2600. The 5200 is basically a slightly stripped down Atari 8-bit computer. Some very good games were written for the 5200 or ported from the computers, but unfortunately the system never really caught on. On this page you will find various technical information on the 5200 including programming information, source code, utilities, and schematics.
This is Keita Iida's Atari console page. Keita is the self proclaimed "Super System Diety" and his page is the best source of information on the Atari 5200.
VSS V0.75(Virtual Super System)
Earlier in the year I had planned to have a major new release of VSS out by this time but I got sidetracked by so many other projects I never got around to it. This is a small maintenance release that includes a couple things people have asked for. Hopefully I will get around to major new release sometime early next year.
VSS is an Atari 5200 Super System emulator for MSDOS. The current version runs about 85% of the ROM images I have almost flawlessly, and at a reasonable speed even on a 486DX2/66. On a Pentium system the emulator gets close to, or better then full speed on a lot of games. To use the emulator you will need a copy of the 5200's 2K BIOS ROM, and 5200 ROM cart images. Due to copyright reasons, I cannot provide these. PLEASE DO NOT E-mail me looking for ROM images. All message looking for ROM images will be promptly deleted. I will do my best to answer all other e-mails.
5200 ROM images can be found at: http://www.sponsor.net/~gchance/5200Stuff/Docs/docs.html
The following games (among others) run almost perfectly: Pac-man,Ms. Pac-man, K-razy Shoot Out, Frogger, Frogger II, Jungle Hunt Astrochase, Berzerk, Blue Print, Centipede, Defender, Gorf, Gremlins, Kaboom, Missile Command, Star Raiders, Super Breakout, Space Dungeon, Star Trek,Xevious, Bounty Bob Strikes Back.
What's new in V0.75
The current version of the emulator supports:
The current version does not support:
Click here to download version 0.75 of Virtual Super System.
If you have any problems with 0.75 you can still get the previous version:
Click here to download version 0.71 of Virtual Super System.
NOTE: VSS only works with 5200 binary images that are either 16384 or 32768 bytes long. VSS DOES NOT work with .ATR ,.DCM, or .XFD files which are Atari 8-bit computer disk images.
I would like to thank, Therion23, Keita, Conjurer, Markus Gietzen, Stumble, Lepper, and everyone else on #emulate and #rgvc for there assistance and support.
For information on the 6502 microprocessor goto by 6502 Processor page.
Atari 5200 FAQ This FAQ contains a wealth of information about the 5200 including some technical information that I wrote.
Analog Magazine 5200 article This is an article from Analog magazine that describes the differences between the Atari computers and the 5200.
Atari System Reference Manual This is the system reference manual for the Atari computers. There is a lot of hardware related information in it that is pertinent to the 5200.
5200 Hello World: This is the source code for a basic Atari 5200 "Hello World" program. It is a good starting point for Atari 5200 programming.
5200 PM Graphics: This is a simple demonstration of how to do Player/Missile graphics.
DASM.ZIP: This is a new 6502 cross assembler for MSDOS. It supports pretty much any feature you could want in an assembler including macros, and the ability to produce raw-binary files. Thanks to Bob Colbert for porting this assembler from the Amiga.
The following are schematics that I have traced out by hand. I cannot guarantee that these schematics are accurate, or that they are the same for all versions of a piece of equipment.
Theses where all draw with Orcad, exported to a DXF file, imported into Corel Photopaint, then exported as a GIF.
