Atari800 Installer for Linux

Use Atari800 Installer to download and build the latest source for Atari800, or to update Atari800 to its latest release version.

Atari800 is a cross-platform emulator with out-of-the-box emulation of the Atari 400, 800, 1200XL, 600XL, 800XL, 65XE, 130XE, 800XE, XE Game System, 5200 SuperSystem. Emulates Atari 1400XL and 1450XLD when their BIOS-es are installed.

Many Linux distros ship out-of-date Atari800 packages in their software repos. To get the most up-to-date and feature rich version of Atari800 we have to download and compile the source code. The new Atari800 Installer for Linux, released especially for lazy people like us, takes care of the download, configure, make, make install stuff for us.

Atari800 Installer downloads the most up-to-date stable version of Atari800 then compiles the code and installs an application icon.

The installer is menu driven. It is free. It is hosted here on Github. There is a nice screenshot below of the installer in action.

Atari800 4.x

Version 4 of Atari800 ships with AltirraOS which means there is no longer a need to download the Atari BIOS-es packaged in X25 unless a specific Atari program refuses to run on AltirraOS, which is very unlikely. Our own tests suggest Atari800 with AltirraOS loads games perfectly well. We have not yet needed to revert to any other OS.

Features

• Configurable 400/800 RAM size, between 8 and 48 KB
• Optional 4K RAM between 0xc000 and 0xcfff in 400/800 mode.
• Axlon and Mosaic memory expansions for the 400/800.
• 600XL memory expansions t32 or 48 KB.
• 130XE compatible memory expansions: 192K, 320K, 576K, 1088K.
• MapRAM memory enhancement for the XL/XE.
• Cycle-exact 6502 emulation, all unofficial instructions.
• Cycle-exact NMI interrupts, scanline-based POKEY interrupts.
• Cycle-exact ANTIC and GTIA emulation, all display modes.
• Player/Missile Graphics, exact priority control and collision detection.
• Exact POKEY shift registers (sound and random number generator).
• ATR, XFD, DCM, ATR.GZ, XFD.GZ and .PRO disk images.
• Direct loading of Atari executable files and Atari BASIC programs.
• Stere(twPOKEYs) emulation.
• Joystick controller using numeric keypad.
• Redefinable keyboard joystick keys.
• Supports real joystick, paddles, Atari touch tablet, Koala pad, light pen, light gun, ST/Amiga mouse, Atari trak-ball, joystick and Atari 5200 analog controller emulated using mouse.

The user guide can be read here.

Atari800 Installer

Atari800 installer is a Linux BASH script that installs and updates the Atari800 package. Version 4 of Atari800 will use the BIOS-es defined in any previous installation’s configuration file. Any existing BIOS-es need to be unset if you want to use AltirraOS. The Installer includes an option to delete any existing Atari800 user configuration file to force Atari800 to run cleanly with AltirraOS.

How to Use Atari800 Installer

1. Download the installer from Github. You only need file atari800.sh.
2. Make sure the script is executable:
   1. Right-click > properties > Executable
   2. O, in a terminal, type chmod u+x Atari800.sh
3. Launch Atari800 Installer by clicking the script file or by typing bash atari800.sh in a terminal.

Atari800 are compiled in $HOME/src/atari800/src. Files that exist in $HOME/src/atari800 will be overwritten or updated by the installer.

Atari800 Games

You will need games to use with Atari800. Read our MAME downloads guide to find a few games or use our Atari 8-bit game disk downloader to grab a full games collection.

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