Raspberry Pi View topic - ATARI++ - A "Beginners Guide" to Compiling and Using

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ATARI++ - A "Beginners Guide" to Compiling and Using

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by welshy Wed Dec 05, 2012 12:57 pm

Atari 8 Bit Computer Line manufactured from 1979 to 1992 Posts: 1637
Starting with the release of the Atari 800 and Atari 400 Home computers, these really were THE Gaming computer of the
late70s/early 80s. Ataris custom chipset was designed by the legendary Jay Miner (Atari VCS-TIA, Amiga Chipset Joined: Mon Oct 29, 2012 2:07 pm
etc).These custom hardware features enabled the computers to perform many functions directly in hardware, such as
smooth background scrolling, player/missile graphics (Sprites) which would need to be done in software in most other
computers of the time (The C64 was released 3 YEARS LATER!). These computers arguably had no peer as a gaming
machine until the release of the Famicom (NES) in Japan in 1983. Renowned Dropzone programmer Archer MacLean
stated The Atari, being the Porsche of home computers, is capable of running Dropzone 2.5 times faster than the 64
and can handle any amount of blobs on screen, even when you release a Strata Bomb. It is visually, sonically etc.,
identical and about 12K shorter. However, the 64 is still a respectable BMW316

Atari++v1.60 - Compiled using 2012-09-18-wheezy-raspbian, RPi is 256MEG and over clocked to 900MHz
Source Code - atari++_1.60.tar.gz*
Dependencies - sdl1.2-dev, libgtk2.0-dev (Optional)
Additional Files Required - Game ROMS (.bin, .rom) and/or Disc Images (.atr)

*Download Here - http://www.xl-project.com/download/atari++_1.60.tar.gz

1. Download the Source code from the Link

2. Extract the source code
3. CD into the extracted folder and Type -
make
make install (Optional, It WILL NOT run straight from console ONLY under X, but negates the need for CDing into the
folder when you want to use it!)
4. Now make a New Folder, e.g. Atari 8Bit and put your downloaded image files in here (NB They MUST be extracted,
it WILL NOT play compressed files (zip, rar etc))
5. Run the Program Type -
./atari++
Press F1 to open the Menu
6. Select Machine and change the sound to SDL

Running Games -
For ROMS (Cartridges) - Select Cartridge, open your rom/bin image, Select Cart Type (Tick a box e.g. 16k), Then Click
Preferences - Exit Menu and Continue
For Disc Images - Select Disc Drive, open your atr image, Then Click Preferences - Cold Start, Exit Menu and Continue

Some of the Classic games to try emulating are -

#Ballblazer (Lucasfilm Games second release, a Futuristic Sports Game)

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Defender (The BEST early 8bit home version of the 1980s classic)
Donkey Kong (the only ocial 8bit version with all 4 levels)
#Dropzone (Archer MacLean's Defender Clone/Homage)
#Encounter (Paul Woakes First Person 3-D Shooter)
#Mercenary - Escape From Targ (Paul Woakess Seminal 3-D Space Adventure Game)
Missile Command (Another excellent version of a 1980s classic)
Missile Command+ (Improved Homebrew Hack)
#Rescue on Fractalus (Lucasfilm Games first release*, a Space Rescue/Shooter)
Star Raiders (programmed by one of the System designers (Doug Neubauer) to test the Chipset, the First '3-D' Space
Combat Game, a 'AAA' System seller!)

# These titles were released on the Atari Computers FIRST, then later ported other systems e.g. C64

*Trivia - The fractal landscape code was written by Loren Carpenter, who also programmed the "Genesis Eect" CGI
sequence from Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan
Last edited by welshy on Sat Feb 21, 2015 4:52 pm, edited 3 times in total.
"The list of things I have heard now contains everything!"
by exobuzz Wed Dec 05, 2012 1:12 pm
How does this compare to the atari800 emulator in terms of features / compatibility / speed ? I was considering looking Posts: 135
at getting an atari 8 bit emulator running.
Joined: Mon Nov 26, 2012 6:58 pm

by welshy Wed Dec 05, 2012 1:52 pm

exobuzz Posts: 1637
I have compiled/experimented with BOTH programs. Feature and Performance wise there is little to distinguish them,
however, Atari++ has a better GUI/MUCH greater compatibility with ROMS/Disc Images than Atari800 (Which has the Joined: Mon Oct 29, 2012 2:07 pm
added inconvenience of needing a BIOS Image for EACH hardware revision emulated). I WOULD have preferred using
ALTIRRA (In my opinion THE BEST Atari 8Bit Emulator!), but there ISNT a Linux version (That I have yet discovered) and
AdvMESS, although GOOD is realistically TOO SLOW on framerate (Its those Pesky ANTIC/ CTIA-GTIA/ POKEY
Custom Chip drivers (Or lack of) that I assume are the problem!)
"The list of things I have heard now contains everything!"
by exobuzz Wed Dec 05, 2012 2:22 pm
thanks for the info. I'm just looking at atari800 now, as it's one I have used before. BTW if atari++ is sdl it should run Posts: 135
under console, with perhaps some tweaks, or it does and I misunderstood ? if it doesn't id be happy to look at it and
have a fiddle (but not wanting to step on your toes here etc). Joined: Mon Nov 26, 2012 6:58 pm

by welshy Wed Dec 05, 2012 2:56 pm

exobuzz Posts: 1637
No problem! Feel free! (Though it may be like other emulators I have tinkered with (e.g SNES9X-SDL-v1.39 i.e. NO
increase in RESOLUTION/AND OR Performance so some of the advantages are negated (I MAY have done this when Joined: Mon Oct 29, 2012 2:07 pm
compiling Atari++ on my VirtualBox Testbed)). One of the things I have tried to do with ALL my Guides is to make
EASE of USE/Set Up a primary factor (Including Compiling) as to not Alienate any users not conversant with
Linux/Terminal Command Line (Im still learning a GREAT DEAL myself#, my programming background/history is in 6502
Assembler/MSDOS (I did mention to a friend the other day my email correspondence now contain / instead of \!!!)) so
they can learn/enjoy the process of compiling programs themselves and obtain a sense of achievement (Something
Binaries dont really do (Apologies and no disrespect intended, I KNOW you have posted a xpectrum Binary!)), and
after all, isnt that the Primary Object of the RPi?*

2
*I AM TRYING not to sound too Pretentious here!

# The next thing I am attempting to learn, when time allows, is Cross Compiling for ARM, which if successful, I WILL be
posting the Binaries! (I would like to port Daphne the Laserdisc EMU to RPi!)
"The list of things I have heard now contains everything!"
by exobuzz Wed Dec 05, 2012 3:04 pm
I agree, and it's more useful to give compile instructions and encourages people to also get involved. I did also post Posts: 135
source/build instructions as well as the binary. Just thought I'd do the binary for those that really don't want to get
involved. Joined: Mon Nov 26, 2012 6:58 pm

You are probably right on the performance, but not having to load X saves some ram at least.

Appreciate your eorts. Nice to see some 6502 coders here

by welshy Thu Dec 06, 2012 12:59 pm
exobuzz Posts: 1637
Yeah, but it kind of Gives Away my age! lol. I was the classic bedroom coder from way back, programming (Amongst
others) VIC-20, Atari 400, Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL (Can you see a pattern developing here?), C64 then onto coding Joined: Mon Oct 29, 2012 2:07 pm
production equipment (6502 Controlled) during College studies for my HND. As you can probably tell, Im WAY BEHIND
the objectives of the RPi Foundation! One of my friends did his HND only 2 YEARS later, his Computer Application
module revolved around using applications, Word, Excel, Power Point etc, NO ACTUAL CODING! It seems to me, on the
whole, computer education has REALLY taken a step BACKWARDS in recent years, my friends/sisters children can ALL
use computers but have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how they actually work, even in Simplistic terms (I DONT blame
them, the Education System is at fault!). Personally, I think its kind of sad, modern computer systems have access to the
kind of things I DREAMED of as a kid (Which early computer pioneers envisaged e.g You will have a computer that fits
in a suitcase, it will be connected to every other device in the world and have to access ANY librarys recources.
Harrison Ellenshaw, Visual Eects Supervisor on TRON recounted this anecdote on the 21st Anniversary DVD told to him
by a TECH working for one of the companies producing the CGI (He recalls sarcastically replying Yes, Yes, of
COURSE! Thinking he had smoked a few too many Herbal cigarettes!)). But all they seem to want to do with all this
amazing technology at their disposal is use Facebook/Twitter and watch a Hilarious Skateboarding Cat on UTube!!!
(Oh dear, I sound like a Grumpy Old Man there!). I recently returned to 6502 Assembler (After 20 odd YEARS!) after
reading the excellent book Racing the Beam - The Atari Video Computer System (Yes, I know its a 6507, but its
essentially the same processor, just a smaller package). Now THERES a dicult machine to program (But VERY
rewarding!), it makes you appreciate the real Genius of coders like David Crane, Rob Fulop, Warren Robinett etc, what
they achieved with such a minimalist system and its MASSIVE 128 BYTES of RAM!!!

One last Thing, many thanks for the Appreciation of my posts/guides, its nice to get some positive feedback!#
(Especially when I see how many people have viewed them without even so much as a Thank You comment!)

#Special Thanks to everybody else reading this thread who has posted similarly for other Guides. It is VERY MUCH
appreciated!
"The list of things I have heard now contains everything!"
by welshy Wed Jan 09, 2013 10:51 am
Update Posts: 1637
After some recent Tinkering when making a NEW SD Card Image, I have found Atari++ will indeed run Fullscreen in
Terminal. All that is needed is to add the SDL Frontend switch at execution i.e - Joined: Mon Oct 29, 2012 2:07 pm

atari++ -frontend sdl

As yet, I havent tried this with v1.60 (But I think it SHOULD work, from what I recall there was an SDL Front End Option),

3
but it DEFINATELY works with v1.70 which can be downloaded Here -

http://www.xl-project.com/download/atari++_1.70.tar.gz
"The list of things I have heard now contains everything!"
by SantaMatt Sun Jul 27, 2014 5:52 pm
I can not run the make command. I get an error either as me or as sudo. Posts: 1

./configure Joined: Sun Jul 27, 2014 5:33 pm

make: execvp: ./configure: Permission denied
make: *** [types.h] Error 127

Being quite the noob to Linux, Debian/Raspian and the pi, I am probably doing something wrong. Is there a dependency
I need to load or something?

I am somewhat computer literate as I develop windows software professionally but the whole pi world is new to me. I am
right now building a portable utility pi. In the case I will have dual wifi cards for network analysis, a digital radio with a
directional antenna I'm going to build and various robotic environmental sensors connected through a pic controller. All I
will need to do is reconfigure what is on the hub and then launch the appropriate apps. It will be setup with a 3.5 inch lcd
monitor, plug into a TV or rdp from my Android tablet. I'm still waiting for some hardware to arrive and thought I would
tackle the emulation part while I waited. I have installed RetroPie on top of Raspian with mixed results. I have the ssh
and rdp stu working already. And now that I have told you way more than you probably care about I'll send this.

Santa Matt
by welshy Mon Jul 28, 2014 5:57 am
SantaMatt Posts: 1637
Welcome to the Forum! Well, this is a 'Blast from the Past'! I posted this in the early days of the RPi when Emulators
were limited to available Code from various sources. Since then many excellent RPi optimised Binaries have appeared, if Joined: Mon Oct 29, 2012 2:07 pm
your looking for a great Atari8Bit emulator I would suggest Andreys Atari800 port, its currently by far the best available.

Download Link - http://sourceforge.net/projects/atari80 ... p/download

Additional: I just compiled Atari++v1.70 again on a newer version of Raspbian, seems to work fine!? The only
dependency required is libsdl1.2-dev (you don't need GTK) then just ./configure & make. It runs without issue in X, to run
in Console just add the -frontend sdl switch.

Edit: v1.72 also compiles and runs fine, however, I did run into issues with v1.73
Last edited by welshy on Wed Jul 30, 2014 9:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
"The list of things I have heard now contains everything!"
by Richard-TX Mon Jul 28, 2014 7:37 am
Atari was the only computer company to publish the source code to their OS. The Atari OS was a true OS, unlike the
C64 which was just a collection of subroutines you called by loading a register and then executed a JSR (some addr) to
print to the screen for example. On the Atari you told the OS where the string was and then it took care of it from there.
That is also why the Atari was capable of auto-booting and the C64 was not. For more info see the Document "De Re
Atari".
Posts: 1545
All of the Atari emulators that I tried failed my tests. Duplicating the custom graphics and sound chip in software is a bit
dicult. Joined: Tue May 28, 2013 3:24 pm
Richard
Doing Unix since 1985. Location: North Texas

4
The 9-25-2013 image of Wheezy can be found at:
http://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspbian/images/raspbian-2013-09-27/2013-09-25-wheezy-raspbian.zip
by welshy Mon Jul 28, 2014 8:35 am
Posts: 1637
Richard-TX wrote:All of the Atari emulators that I tried failed my tests.
Duplicating the custom graphics and sound chip in software is a bit dicult. Joined: Mon Oct 29, 2012 2:07 pm

What 'Tests'?
"The list of things I have heard now contains everything!"
by IntvDave Fri Feb 20, 2015 11:21 pm
Posts: 5
welshy wrote:I just compiled Atari++v1.70 again on a newer version of
Raspbian, seems to work fine!? The only dependency Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2015 11:17 pm

Is there any chance you would share your binary? I am using Retropie and attempted to compile 1.72 and 1.73 and all I
got were errors.

Thanks!
by welshy Sat Feb 21, 2015 5:36 am
IntvDave Posts: 1637
Welcome to the Forum! This is a very old Thread! If you read the posts above I dont think v1.73 compiled correctly, v1.72
did however. Additionally, I believe Atari800 is now included in the RetroPie Package and integrating Atari++ into Joined: Mon Oct 29, 2012 2:07 pm
Emulation Station (the Front End) might be somewhat complicated. You could alternatively grab Andreys excellent
'Optimized' version of Atari800 Binary, see the Emulation on the Raspberry Pi Thread for details.

Link - viewtopic.php?f=78&t=54357
"The list of things I have heard now contains everything!"
by IntvDave Sat Feb 21, 2015 5:47 am
Posts: 5
welshy wrote:IntvDave
Welcome to the Forum! This is a very old Thread! If you read the posts Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2015 11:17 pm
above I dont think v1.73 compiled correctly, v1.72 did however. Additionally,
I believe Atari800 is now included in the RetroPie Package and integrating
Atari++ into Emulation Station (the Front End) might be somewhat
complicated.

Thanks! I just got into the Raspberry about 2 months ago. My favorite system is the Intellivision but I have become
obsessed with setting up other emulators that have games that I love. For the 5200, my favorite game is Ball Blazer and
Star Raiders.

I have the Atari800 emulator working with the 5200 but it lacks full support for joysticks. It seems that the Atari++
emulator has support for joysticks hence why I want to try it out. Setting it up in the front-end is easy. I just want to be
able to use my Intellivision controllers with Star Raiders.

5
Here is a link to my website showing what I are promoting.
http://www.intellivision.us/raspberry/raspberry.php

I promise not to ask for any support if you will share your binary with me

Thanks!
by welshy Sat Feb 21, 2015 6:08 am
Agreed, Atari++ has many great Options that are not available in Atari800. As you may have read in the Emulation Posts: 1637
Thread, I do have a soft spot for System (along with many pro programmers such as Archer Maclean) as I learnt
Assembler on an Atari400. Nice to see another Atari 8 Bit fan here! If you check the initial Post, I listed some of my Joined: Mon Oct 29, 2012 2:07 pm
favorite Titles, well worth trying them! Leave it with me, hopefully later today (after some more Pi2 testing!) I'll upload the
Binary for you, although if you follow the instructions exactly, v1.72 should compile without issues.

Update: Luckily the Pi1 was hooked up on my Test Bed! Uploaded v1.72 Binary for you! Dont forget to change
permissions! (Type - sudo chmod +x atari++)

Download Link - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B51Q7d ... sp=sharing

"The list of things I have heard now contains everything!"
by IntvDave Sat Feb 21, 2015 4:34 pm
Sweet! Thanks! Posts: 5

I was able to compile 1.60, 1.72 and 1.73. I must have had an issue with extracting the files. I ended up using WinRar Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2015 11:17 pm
instead of WinZip. When I ran your binary of 1.72, it gave me an error saying a folder was missing (/dev/snd if I recall
correctly). This means that anyone that wants to run this emulator will need to compile it on their own machine.

When I extracted the 1.73 contents, it said there was a file already there asking if I wanted to overwrite it. It wanted to
replace it with a zero byte file so I answered no.

I was able to successfully run all 3 binaries (1.60, 1.72, and 1.73) in X but the performance is not good. Is it possible to
run this from terminal? I get message saying "failed to setup the SDL display". If you can run it from terminal, would you
share your .atari++.conf?

Thanks for your patience and help!

by welshy Sat Feb 21, 2015 4:38 pm
IntvDave Posts: 1637
Nice! Atari++ runs by Default using a GTK Front End, to run in Console use the SDL switch in Command Line -
Joined: Mon Oct 29, 2012 2:07 pm
./atari++ -frontend sdl
"The list of things I have heard now contains everything!"
by IntvDave Sun Feb 22, 2015 10:59 pm
The issue with running the emulator in terminal mode has to be in Retropie 2.6. I tried it in 2.5 and it runs fine. Posts: 5

Performance is still not that good but better than running it in X. Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2015 11:17 pm

Thanks again for all your help!

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