Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons

Used2BeRX

Well...

You're going to need headerless roms at some point, one way or another. The headerless ones are garbage and would require you to re-configure every game, every time you launched them. Sadly, as far as I know, this is the state of Atari 5200 emulation. The system never got much love.

I had to put headers on every rom using an emulator on my PC. It took a few hours. Like I said, you might be able to find these somewhere, but short of that, you're going to have to pay the piper one day if you ever want Atari 5200 emulation. I'd give them to you myself, but that's against the rules here.

I'm using a Pi Zero. No issues on the hardware you're using I'm sure. You're going to want to upgrade to 4.4, or at least 4.3 if you want Atari 5200 emulation on it (unless @future-child says the Kat5200 is easy to setup and doesn't require them). The reason being that this is the system I will be configuring games on going forward, and this will be useless to you or anybody using 4.2 or before. The emulators.cfg I had for 4.1/4.2 would have been useless to you as well unless you had the exact roms I had, as well as had them in the exact folders.

Again, you can do this yourself without upgrading to 4.3 or 4.4, but unless you want to re-setup every single game every time you launch them, you would need my configurations. And even then, you wouldn't have the controller configurations, so you probably still wouldn't be able to play the games properly without a lot more work on your end.

You'd have to rename your own roms. I will not be renaming back to a no-intro format as their filenames are garbage. My names are the exact titles without any ugly characters in them, so they display properly on the XBox, the Pi, and PC emulators, with or without any XML renaming. They also match all extra artwork/video/other media I have for them. A datfile wouldn't help you anyhow though, since any of the roms you have wouldn't match if they don't have the proper headers.

It's really not that big a deal here since there is a very small library of 5200 games. If you can't handle this part of the equation, which is by far the easiest, then I'm sorry to say that you might not ever be able to play those Atari 5200 games you love.

I'm busy doing many other things, but I happen to be focusing on Atari 5200 at the moment. Once I'm done though, I'll be moving on to other things and chances are I won't be coming back to it for a very long time. I tend to forget about how to setup all of this stuff when I'm away from it a while. Even with my very detailed spreadsheet, it took me a while to dive back into it. I'm only offering this right now because it wouldn't be extra work for me if somebody were interested at this point in time.

I'd be saving you seriously about 100 hours of work if you do those things.

Up to you man.

hansolo77

It's no biggie. I plan on tackling it some day. For the moment, I'm not feeling rushed to do so. I know the 5200 library is pretty small. It's actually the 800 computer I'm more interested in. I wan't aware, from an emulation standpoint how much work would actually involved. From my point of view, it was a matter of plugging in a cartridge, or a 5.25 floppy. I didn't really know how it all worked, being just a kid. I just figured if you could get the 800 emulated, a cartridge game should just work on the fly automatically.

I don't mind going through the process of rebuilding my romset with headers. It's all of love of passion. Only people who are willing to take extra steps deserve to have it working. My only concern with any of this was realization that a working process hasn't been fully matured yet, and I've been leery of devoting time to setting it up.

The new Atari VCS might solve all this anyway. I've already made my $360 "Day One All In" contribution to the project. I doubt they'll have EVERY game, especially 800 games that required a keyboard (Infocoms, etc).

mediamogul

@hansolo77 said in Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons:

The new Atari VCS might solve all this anyway. I've already made my $360 "Day One All In" contribution to the project.

I've been interested in hearing more about the new VCS. As a contributer, do you know anything about the hardware specs or the games that will be included?

hansolo77

I don't know anything more than what they have on their webpage. Indiegogo has some updated content that lists the specs:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/atari-vcs-game-stream-connect-like-never-before-computers-pc#/

mediamogul

@hansolo77

Looks like it could be pretty versatile. It's arguably a bit pricey for the specs on paper, but I imagine the true value will depend on how nice the user experience is. Also, a unique, eye-catching design like that is rarely brought to market inexpensively. All in all, it kind of reminds me of something Apple would put together. I didn't see much in the way of games outside of 'Tempest 4000', but as it's running Ubuntu, I guess you could install just about any emulator or Linux-based game that the specs allow. Very interesting.

hansolo77

Yeah I'll probably put RetroPie on it lol.

mediamogul

@hansolo77

Done in one! I like it.

youxia

So far the VCS looks like trainwreck. Already overpriced but underpowered, with no system-selling software, vague promises and nothing real shown (instead lying about Tempest running on VCS). Above all, Atari SA is a company with an abysmal track record and no connection to the old Atari whatsoever.

Anybody who believes in it probably should avoid this thread: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/266480-new-atari-console-that-ataribox/page-391

mediamogul

@youxia

That seems to be the growing consensus and I'm inclined to agree, but history has shown time and time again that if a product delivers a user experience that people are happy with, it can be successful despite almost any shortcomings. Apple computers have been consistent proof of that since the original iMac. I figure at worst it'll have a similar life to the OUYA, which was much more palatable once the price point dropped.

youxia

@mediamogul It certainly is an interesting quirk of human nature...problem here however is that these guys are nowhere near Apple level . It's just a few post-bankrupt people who live off licensing the few remaining assets, with no expertise in launching a hardware product whatsoever and whose recent history makes for a grim reading.

To be fair I don't think it's a total scam like the Coleco thing, perhaps they will actually release it one day. But I also don't think that OUYA fate is something that people who bought in - for 3 times the price - want to hear about ;)
Though, probably fair chunk of them are just "collectors" speculating on future value.

Overall, for me it's all pretty sad, an example of yet another videogame nostalgia cash-in. If they wanted to do it right they could've gone the ZX Spectrum Next route, but that would require doing some actual work. Something Atari SA is not fond of.

mediamogul

@youxia said in Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons:

But I also don't think that OUYA fate is something that people who bought in - for 3 times the price - want to hear about ;)

For the sake of early adopters, let's hope the VCS fares better. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing this go the way of the OUYA. After the smoke cleared and the price was reduced, it turned out to be a pretty capable emulation machine that people had a lot of fun with. For the right price, I'd love to have the VCS sitting in my living room to mess around with. Heck, for an even better price, I'd buy it just for the shell. If the quality of the pre-renders are any indication, it'll at least be a head turner.

Used2BeRX

I grew up with Atari. I'd love to see them become a viable competitor in the market again. I just don't see it happening, at least with this device.

For me, the price point is the biggest issue. I haven't watched any love/hate videos about it at all because the price puts an end to all interest I have in it. Right now, I'm rocking a PS3 and an XBox 360, both of them with all of their games are hand-me-downs from my brothers. I never even bought anything from the previous generation, let alone the current one.

I'm an old school gamer, and for the most part, that's virtually free these days. Everything I've done so far in the last 14 months on the RetroPie was done on a caseless Pi Zero that my brother picked up for $5 bucks. Kudos to anyone making enough money to pay $300 for virtually the same experience that a Pi 3 can give you if the presentation is slick. This just isn't going to be the thing that makes Atari a household name again.

Used2BeRX

@ anybody who has an idea. :)

I just went back to trying to set up the Atari800 again yesterday, and I've run into a very strange bug that wasn't there the first few days I was tackling it.

Whenever I load up any game now, the 2nd player controller will automatically exit the game and go back to the romlist just by pressing the Dpad or the left joystick in any direction.

I've reloaded emulation station. I've rebooted the device. I've unplugged it and plugged it back in. I've also taken out the controllers and put them back in as well. Nothing seems to fix this.

Any ideas what configuration files I might take a look at to figure out what's going on here?

It can't be any of my configs in /opt/retropie/configs/atari5200/, unless somehow this magically changed all of them overnight. While most of the games use either my atari5200.cfg or my alternate.cfg, even the one-off games that use a config made specifically for it all exhibit this behavior now.

All I can say is that this definitely wasn't happening before. I've been playing every 2 player game with both controllers up to this point to verify both players work. Now just by touching a simple direction it kicks back to the romlist.

Oh... and I just loaded up a few NES games and this problem doesn't happen there.

EDIT: This is getting really weird now.

I just loaded up Super Breakout. The game launched, I was changing to two players and going through the different boards to start on and then it froze. All of the sudden it went back to the launch screen that says Launching Super Breakout (SuperBreakout)... Press a button to configure Errors are logged to /dev/shm/runcommand.log Then you can't do anything but unplug the device.

Interestingly, when I pulled the plug and put it back in, I FTPd to that directory and it's empty, so there is no current runcommand.log after that failure.

EDIT 2: I then ran 1942 on the NES, shut it down, and refreshed /dev/shm/ and now I have runcommand.log, runcommand.info and retroarch.cfg inside of it.

EDIT 3: Annnnnnnnnnnd.... now it's fixed??? Now I can load games on Atari800 again without any problems with the 2nd joystick booting you back to the romlist. This is after 2 days of not being able to do so.

I hate it when things start working for no reason when you never knew why they were broke in the first place. Doesn't really give me the warm and fuzzies. Hope it doesn't just break again when I give it to my bro.

mitu

@used2berx said in Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons:

Interestingly, when I pulled the plug and put it back in, I FTPd to that directory and it's empty, so there is no current runcommand.log after that failure.
[...]

The /dev/shm folder exists only in RAM, once you reboot the device the contents are lost.

mediamogul

@used2berx said in Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons:

Hope it doesn't just break again when I give it to my bro.

One thing I've had to make peace with from making a wide range of devices for family and friends is that anything even reasonably complex is bound to eventually stop working in an unpredictable environment. You can never fully consider how other people or their relations will use a device and the more complicated it is, the more there is to go wrong. You're doing right by your brother in trying to give him a hassle-free experience, but I wouldn't worry too deeply about these types of issues, as they're almost inevitable. RetroPie isn't really a "set and forget" system, which is why we get so many support requests from people who bought a premade setup on E-Bay and have no idea how to maintain it. Fortunately, for your brother, he has you to walk him through any problems that might arise.

I grew up with Atari. I'd love to see them become a viable competitor in the market again.
This just isn't going to be the thing that makes Atari a household name again.

This actually isn't the Atari that any of us grew up with, which is where many valid concerns over this system come from. Atari SA is really just holding company who bought the rights to the brand. Since that time they've licensed out the Atari name for quite a few questionable endeavors. The strangest probably being a series of breakfast plates/mobile games to promote Denny's. This being the case, there's unfortunately a lot of evidence to believe that the VCS isn't really an attempt to make the Atari brand a household name again, but rather to simply take advantage of the current popularity of retro video game nostalgia.

Used2BeRX

@mitu said in Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons:

@used2berx said in Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons:

Interestingly, when I pulled the plug and put it back in, I FTPd to that directory and it's empty, so there is no current runcommand.log after that failure.
[...]

The /dev/shm folder exists only in RAM, once you reboot the device the contents are lost.

Oh. I didn't know that. Thanks for clearing it up. :)

@mediamogul said in Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons:

@used2berx said in Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons:

Hope it doesn't just break again when I give it to my bro.

One thing I've had to make peace with from making a wide range of devices for family and friends is that anything even reasonably complex is bound to eventually stop working in an unpredictable environment. You can never fully consider how other people or their relations will use a device and the more complicated it is, the more there is to go wrong. You're doing right by your brother in trying to give him a hassle-free experience, but I wouldn't worry too deeply about these types of issues, as they're almost inevitable. RetroPie isn't really a "set and forget" system, which is why we get so many support requests from people who bought a premade setup on E-Bay and have no idea how to maintain it. Fortunately, for your brother, he has you to walk him through any problems that might arise.

Yeah. The same thing pops up constantly when I hear people paying over 100 bucks for a firestick with KODI on it. Anybody who would pay that obviously has no clue how to do it in the first place and since they really need to be updating it every few months they bought something severely overpriced that the won't be able to use soon after they buy it. Really burns me when people take advantage of other's ignorance like that.

RetroPie is still relatively in its infancy compared to XBox emulation. I do hope to see great things regarding this in the future like we've managed on the XBox. We've developed great things in regards to protecting settings for novice users while also not making it very hard for people who know what they're doing to make changes, or downright crippling the ability to make changes period.

One of the suggestions I came up with and was pushing hard for many years ago was a "lockdown mode" that would limit various aspects of the platform, up to locking out users from doing anything besides launching games as well as the ability to password protect these protections. I'd been gone from the scene for a very long time and when I returned I was thrilled to see that this had actually been accomplished. No more having to drop by with a laptop and fix things that were broken because people were poking into things that they shouldn't have been messing with. :)

I grew up with Atari. I'd love to see them become a viable competitor in the market again.
This just isn't going to be the thing that makes Atari a household name again.

This actually isn't the Atari that any of us grew up with, which is where many valid concerns over this system come from. Atari SA is really just holding company who bought the rights to the brand. Since that time they've licensed out the Atari name for quite a few questionable endeavors. The strangest probably being a series of breakfast plates/mobile games to promote Denny's. This being the case, there's unfortunately a lot of evidence to believe that the VCS isn't really an attempt to make the Atari brand a household name again, but rather to simply take advantage of the current popularity of retro video game nostalgia.

Yeah... these certainly are strange times we're living in.

I'm kind of surprised there are still enough people with that kind of spare change lying around to buy the VCS when there are so many cheaper and likely more versatile alternatives out there. Time will tell what comes of this. I can't see myself even ever having an opinion on it though since I doubt it would ever be in my budget if it were any good.

Used2BeRX

@future-child

Well.... there's some issues with kat5200 that kind of bum me out here.

The first is that without extra work external from the emulator, the controller profiles aren't of much use if you want to be able to use the emulator with just a controller and not have a keyboard and mouse always plugged in at the same time. Being able to save profiles is nice, but it doesn't recognize which game you load and match that to a specific profile, so it will always load the default profile, forcing you to have to press ESC on a keyboard and select the correct configuration for the game every time you load one that isn't going to use the default. The way that I've made use of the "general" RetroPie emulators.cfg file along with the /opt/retropie/configs/atari5200/emulators.cfg file and the various controller configs I have made for that folder, all you have to do is launch the game and it will use the correct profile and run without any need for a keyboard and a mouse.

The second one is rather strange. Specifically, I was trying to set up the controller for the 800-to-5200 conversion cart of "Up'n Down".

When starting the game it says Press E for Easy, Press M for Medium, Press H for Hard, Press K for Keyboard, Press J for Joystick. The default selections on load are Easy and Joystick.

Using the default Atari800 config that I have, where Left Bumper is #1, Right Bumper is #2, Left Trigger is #3 and Right Trigger is #4, I can select Easy with (LB), Medium with (RB), Hard with (LT), and Keyboard with (RT). Unfortunately, since #5 isn't mapped on my default if you press #4 and make the keyboard the controller then you have to exit the game and go back into it (so I need to make a new Atari800 config specifically for Up'n Down that doesn't have the #4 mapped).

Before I did that, I thought I'd use this game as the first one that I tried kat5200 on. Strangely enough, when mapping the Triggers and Bumpers to the number pad in the exact same way as they were for Atari800, they don't actually do anything, so you're stuck with the default Easy difficulty.

I can see that there are some benefits to kat5200 over atari800, but at the same time there are also quite a few drawbacks as well.

I was going to look into how to launch a different controller profile in kat5200 for any games that wouldn't use the default profile, but because I can't even seem to make the controller inputs work correctly I think I'm going to abandon that plan for now and just delete any problem games from the system I'm giving to my brother for now and hope that whenever I get back to Atari 5200 emulation that there is a better system in place.

I'm sure he won't miss them. All the games we had growing up work fine. :)

mediamogul

@used2berx said in Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons:

All the games we had growing up work fine.

The 5200 was a great system. It still amazes me that 'Berzerk' had the speech, albeit sampled. What games did you and your brother play mostly?

future.child

@used2berx
The first one can be solved by saving settings for each rom-crc explained here.
The second one, ~~i wouldn't know as that is not a cart i have (you did mean the Kenfuzed sega coversion cart ?), i'll see if i can find one to test with.~~

I am a bit confused as this games uses the virtual keys E, M, H, J, K to select input and difficulty but the 5200 did not have a keyboard.
In atari800 (5200 mode) actions for virtual keys E, M and H also respond to numpad 1, 2 and 3, while in kat5200 they do not.
Atari800 maps the numpad to a cx85 numpad device (this device is not emulated in kat5200), but this doesn't explain why the virtual joystick numberkey's in kat5200 do not respond in kat5200, while they do in Atari800.

I'll see if i can find some time to burn this rom to an eprom and see how a physical 5200 responds and also compare kat5200/atari800 input handling.

Used2BeRX

@mediamogul said in Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons:

@used2berx said in Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons:

All the games we had growing up work fine.

The 5200 was a great system. It still amazes me that 'Berzerk' had the speech, albeit sampled. What games did you and your brother play mostly?

Well... they didn't rent out Atari games at video stores back in those days, and we were the only people we ever knew growing up that had the 5200, so we only got to play the games that my dad bought. Here's the list of games we had:

Centipede
Frogger
Galaxian
Miner 2049er
Moon Patrol
Popeye
Pac-Man
Space Invaders
Super Breakout

Pretty short list, I know. I never even knew all the games in the 5200 library until some time in my mid 20's when I was putting the roms on the XBox system I was building. Some really good ones in there that we didn't have.

It might be my own bias speaking, but to this day I don't believe I've ever seen a version of Space Invaders that I prefer on any other system that was ever made. :)

Interestingly, my mom picked up a grey cartridge 5200 game at a local gas station one day. We never got to play it though. When we got back home, that was the day we discovered that our final 5200 controller no longer worked, so all we could do was see the title screen with a marquee of robots moving around in a square pattern around the title name. Unfortunately, me and my bros don't remember what the name of the game was. Up until late last summer I was still holding out hope that the box with Atari 5200 games would pop up, but I helped my parents move down south and we went through everything and it wasn't there. :(

I was thinking it might be a prototype or something that nobody had ever seen before, but maybe it was a conversion somebody pirated. Although, I would only have been about 7 years old and that was the mid-80's so I find it hard to believe that anybody had the tech or the knowledge to be making 800 to 5200 conversion carts or anything like that back then.

I've been trying to find out what that game was for nearly 15 years, but nothing that anybody has ever posted screenshots of matches what we had in our hands. Maybe it's lost to time?