Atari 5200 NEVER WORKS? Well now it does!

When I was a kid, I had a few game systems. Besides a PC, my first real game console ever was Atari 5200 (yes, i'm in my 40's). Back then, the most popular game console was Atari 2600. I had one friend with a colecovision, but everyone else I knew had an Atari 2600 (because 8-bit NES had not been released yet). I also knew ONE person in my entire life that had a TurboGrafx-16 (many years later). To put all this into perspective, this was 10 years before battery-powered cellphones were owned by everyone.

I had a FEW games on my game console. The ones I owned were Astro Chase, Space Shuttle, Berzerk, Defender, Frogger, Pac-Man, Qix, and Q-bert. In the late 90's, when I was still using DOS and Windows 95, I started experimenting with emulation. Everything ran so horrible back then, I eventually gave up on emulation and bought a Professor SF II (Game Doctor 7). This was a piggyback SNES Rom Copier and Emulation unit. No special chips were supported. (DSP, FX, etc.)

Years later, I started emulating again with more success. This time around, I was actually able to run arcade games on MAME and enjoy them. I collected emulators every time I found one for a console I cared about, but never found one for 5200. I did not get 5200 to even emulate until 2017 or 2018, but could not do it right. Couldn't figure out the controls.

With Atari 2600 or 7800, you just give Retroarch the ONE bios file and use your regular controller configuration. To setup Atari 5200, you must do this:

1) Download 5 operating system files and put them in your bios folder. (Atari 5200 is another version of Atari 800, a real computer) Set Retroarch to see bios folder.

2) Run game. Set machine type from 400/800 to 5200.

3) Set controller type from Retropad to Atari Joystick. Save Core Remap.

4) Use the F1 key to navigate the Atari 800 Operating System setup. Set the OS ROM directories.

5) Use the autodetection for OS ROM files.

6) Save the configuration.

A bit more involved than setting up most game systems on Retroarch! See, Retroarch normally passes bios information to the systems. The systems pick up the info and just run the game. Since the Atari 5200 is it's own computer, you have to MANUALLY tell the built-in operating system where to find it's own bios files. Yes, its a pain in the ass, but once you get it setup finally, it runs beautiful!

Видео Atari 5200 NEVER WORKS? Well now it does! канала LinuxMint Guy