The Age of Emulation

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;

1. A copy of TOS (The Operating System) as a ROM image.
2. 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.

Please read the disclaimer below

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.
 

Glossary of terms

• ROM image
  A single file containing the data originally stored on a ROM chip (Read Only). ROM chips are commonly used by computer manufacturers to store operating systems and games on.
• TOS
  The Operating System or TOS is the Atari's equivalent of Windows on a PC, only smaller and less buggy!

Useful contacts

• LGD (Little Green Desktop)
  This site contains links to downloadable ROM images as well as the latest versions of most Atari emulators including WinSTon, Echo, STeem and PaCifiST.
  URL: www.atarist.com
• Emulators Inc.
  URL: www.emulators.com
• WhichTOS
  Find out which version of TOS your ST or Falcon030 uses with this helpful utility, WHICHTOS.PRG.

MyAtari magazine - Feature #3, November 2000