Matthew Bacon asks "When is
a PC, not a PC?"
In recent years, many Atari users
- including myself - have for one reason or another
reluctantly purchased a PC or Apple iMac. Whilst some
users have kept their Atari machines, many others have
not been so fortunate due to lack of funds - or more
importantly - desk space.
In my experience, this action often
leads to feelings of neglect and uncontrollable guilt.
To all of you who find themselves with similar symptoms,
(wearing my Dr Atari hat) I prescribe emulation...
When I first owned a PC, the prospect
of running Atari software under emulation at first sounded
rather complicated and confusing. I am however pleased
to say that this is complete tosh! In fact, to turn
your Windows PC into an Atari is easier than you think
;-)
What do I need? To turn your PC into an Atari, you will
first need to find the following;
- A copy of TOS (The Operating
System) as a ROM image.
- Some emulation software.
A ROM image is essentially a single
file that contains the data originally stored on a ROM
chip. Atari employed the use of ROM chips on the ST
and Falcon030's to store TOS (The Operating System),
so without a copy, your emulation software is quite
useless.
Copies of TOS can be found on many
web sites including The Little Green Desktop,
however, before you begin your search please bare in
mind the following. As far as MyAtari is aware (if anyone
knows to the contrary, please get in touch ASAP), you
may only download ROM images that match the version
or versions of TOS that you already own (i.e. on ROM
chips within your Atari computer(s)). To find out which
version of TOS your ST or Falcon030 uses we suggest
you download and run the program WHICHTOS.PRG.
After you have downloaded a suitable
ROM image, the next step is to locate some emulation
software. Thanks to the hard work of some very talented
and dedicated programmers, you're literally spoilt for
choice (especially on the Windows PC platform).
Which emulator should I use? Now which emulator should you use? That
all depends on what you wish to use it for. If you simply
wish to play all your old Atari games, I recommend that
you consider the following emulators; WinSTon, Echo,
STeem or PaCifiST. However, if you intend to use your
Atari emulator for "serious" applications
such as word processing, web page or software development,
then GEMulator 2000 comes highly recommended.
GEMulator is written by the and developed
by the wonderful people at www.emulators.com.
GEMulator is free to download, so why not pop off and
download a copy?
Installing GEMulator 2000 is easy
thanks to its user friendly installation wizard. To
setup GEMulator, open the 'First Time Setup...' dialog
(figure 2) which can be found under the 'Option' menu
as shown in figure 1.
Figure 1 - GEMulator 2000
main screen
Click on the 'Path' button, and select
the directory containing your Atari TOS ROM image. Tick
the box next to 'Search Hard disk' and then select the
'Search' button. GEMulator will then find the ROM image
in that directory.
Figure 2 - First Time Setup
dialog
The final setup stage is to define
the properties of the Atari you wish GEMulator to emulate.
The 'Properties' dialog (figure 3) can be opened by
using the keyboard shortcut "[Shift]+[F11]".
From within the 'Properties' dialog, you have full control
over the type of Atari GEMulator emulates, from the
amount of memory it has to the type of monitor it uses.
Figure 3 - Properties dialog
While GEMulator is a wonderful piece
of software, it does have its limitations (as all emulators
do!). For instance, you cannot run Cubase (for a start
where would the dongle be put!?) or some ST demos because
they often call the hardware directly. However, due
to the power of most modern PC's it is often possible
to run several copies of GEMulator at once under Windows
providing the user with access to more than one ST computer
on a single PC! (which can't be bad).
Anyway, this isn't supposed to be
a review of GEMulator or emulators for that matter.
Suffice to say, emulators cannot entirely replace you
Atari but if you - like me - had now real choice in
the matter of buying a PC, emulators possibly offer
a good alternative providing you with the best of both
worlds.
Disclaimer
MyAtari does not encourage or condone the illegal downloading
and/or use of copyrighted material such as ROM images.
We recommend that before you download such files, that
you investigate the legal consequences of such actions
before
undertaking them.
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