Altirra 1.9 released

[Mclaneinc]

Fox, see my earlier post...

 

Just in case?

[phaeron]

a common mistake people make with Altirra is leaving disks mounted as read only,

 

I'm very sure these are not write protected.

 

----------------------------------------------

Example 1

...

 

I checked these out, and they're all related to the missing Write PERCOM Block support, as I noted earlier. It's a bit disturbing that some of the DOSes ignored the NAK from that command. I'm taking a look at implementing this.

[Faicuai]

(...)

With all the talks about Altirra I finally gave it a try and (...)

 

 

...And you are checking Altirra out for the first time, NOW?... Boy, you are really late to this party!

 

There are some key areas where Altirra simply creams the old-and-venerable Atari800Win 4.0 (and all its pluses).

 

Enjoy,

 

F.

[Fox-1 / mnx]

I set Disk drive under System to have the SIO patch off then ticked the Burst Standard, Top Dos booted at warp speed

 

I then created a ED disk in D2: from the New spinner.

 

Don't worry. I read your post :-)

 

Ordinary single and enhanced density (90/130KB) will work. In fast, it'll always do this, which is exactly the problem. I needed 360KB formats in this case.

[Fox-1 / mnx]

...And you are checking Altirra out for the first time, NOW?... Boy, you are really late to this party!

 

No, I'm not. I use the REAL hardware. No need for an emulator for every day use. It's only used to sort out the stuff and transfer it to the real thing.

 

There are some key areas where Altirra simply creams the old-and-venerable Atari800Win 4.0 (and all its pluses).

 

My main usage is I/O. Atari800Win does this o.k, Altirra does not. Now tell me how the "key areas" help me.

 

Don't get me wrong. Altirra's interface and looks are much better compared to A800Win but it's of no use for me if I can't format a "disk" and/or write data onto it.

[Mclaneinc]

As Fox says, he uses the real hardware which for all the best reasons is how it should be, Altirra offers an extended debugging ability that direct use of the hardware does not easily offer.

 

Real hardware must be the benchmark by which Altira or any emulator must aspire to, Altirra offers an open access to how things are ticking in an extremely reliable way but if software fails or works on real hardware then Altirra if it offers a same hardware scenario match must also match the working or failing the way the hardware does.

 

As seen with a lot of the Dev's here they use Altirra for its excellent functionality and compatibility, gamers use it because it offers those without hardware a total recreation of the old gear without the need to own it, it also gives them the ability to virtually use other hardware and add ons that they never had all with a few clicks of a mouse.

 

Altirra's other big plus is that well reported bugs get fixed faster than any other emulator I've seen, obviously this is great for the user but others must remember there's life and work beyond Altirra so this may not always be the case (another words, we are spoilt rotten)

[Keatah]

Altirra's other big plus is that well reported bugs get fixed faster than any other emulator I've seen, obviously this is great for the user but others must remember there's life and work beyond Altirra so this may not always be the case (another words, we are spoilt rotten)

 

 

Hat's off to that, while this isn't the thread, I'd hope to see the Stella emulator get going again.

[atx4us]

OK - as far as I can tell:

 

Shift+Ctrl+up/down arrow produces: shift+up/down arrow

Shift+up/down arrow produces: shift+ctrl+up/down arrow

up/down arrow produces: ctrl+up/down arrow

ctrl+up/down arrow produces: up/down arrow

 

My fingers are now in knots. Can this stuff please be made configurable somehow? I realize I'm probably the only person for whom this is causing issues, and I'm sorry I didn't flag it up earlier...

 

Atari800WinPlus:

 

Shift+Ctrl+up/down arrow produces: shift+ctrl+up/down arrow

Shift+up/down arrow produces: shift+up/down arrow

Ctrl+up/down arrow produces: ctrl+up/down arrow

Up/down arrow produces: math symbols, or ctrl+up/down arrow, depending on configuration

 

Same goes for left/right arrow, although of course without Shift+Ctrl combinations.

 

Of course, the PC also has - / = on different keys. With the exception of the user-selectable cursor function (i.e. deciding whether the arrow keys work with or without ctrl), these two keys - sensibly, I think - work in exactly the same way as up/down arrow (since on the Atari, they are on the same keys). The situation does not apply to the + and * keys on the PC.

 

Another issue related to the keyboard that I experience with Altirra (all versions) on my setups (Win XP-32 & Win 7-64) is that the keyboard response when I'm typing (MAC/65 or Action!) seems to be much more sluggish on Altirra compared to A800Win. I don't know if this an issue with my setup or other people have noticed this as well.

 

Hayden

[flashjazzcat]

Another issue related to the keyboard that I experience with Altirra (all versions) on my setups (Win XP-32 & Win 7-64) is that the keyboard response when I'm typing (MAC/65 or Action!) seems to be much more sluggish on Altirra compared to A800Win. I don't know if this an issue with my setup or other people have noticed this as well.

I noticed this, but I put it down to the emulator being somewhat more demanding than Atari800Win. It perhaps must be remembered that the older emulator was written with somewhat less powerful host systems in mind.

[Mclaneinc]

Slightly related but something I've always wished someone would do who has brains, unlike myself.

 

A tutorial / Doc for the debugging side of Altirra, something giving novices the idea of what the uses of a watch window are, how to jump and run a program from a location, a tutorial of breakpoints, what the actual debug commands actually do and their uses..

 

Something like that..

 

I know my way around Omnimon but commands I take for granted ala the J command etc don't exist in a literal sense yet are doable another way in Altirra...

[Mclaneinc]

Re the keyboard delay,

 

I've found times when the delay seems quite profound but normally its pretty spot on, I tend to turn off all the defence plus type programs monitoring the PC & keyboard, despite making them safe applications it still seems to be peeking from behind their back and affecting response times.

 

I use Commodo IS and its fine as a freebie, perhaps not the most wonderfully cpu intensive item (especially when the agent kicks in in the background) but it keeps my PC pretty safe from attacks and viruses so far but the Defence setting on that is a bit of an ass at times.

 

Btw, any views of a better free security suite? (OT know, PM me if you feel like like you are cluttering the thread)

[Mclaneinc]

Just spotted the Breakpoints help in the .chm file, maybe just some more indepth examples of what the command line commands do in a real world example etc..

[Keatah]

I've found altirra the most "interrupt sensitive" and cpu-demanding of the all the atari 800 emulators. With that in mind, you might want to look at a very undemanding program called Microsoft Security Essentials. This is pretty unobtrusive even during the scans. Microsoft finally got something right!

[fibrewire]

I'd say for the average user - Microsoft Security Essentials - nobody knows their own software better than Microsoft. Take your other AV software and flush it.

If you're a "power" user (read - paranoid), install something like Avira and maybe run Untangle in a VM - easiest solution for the tech faint-of-heart.

If you need even more security, but your poor, use some variant of Linux like Fedora 15 or Ubuntu 11.04 - there are LiveCDs available, just boot the CD and go, reboot and you're back in windows.

 

I'd say the most important aspect of what a virus can do is the potential frustration a user can experience, and then have a desire to wipe out years of work with a reinstall. Finding a good backup solution is the best prevention a user can do to avoid disastrous consequences.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm gonna get started on installing Altirra, I haven't used an emulator for an OS since Fusion PC

[Keatah]

It's been a while since I played with Altirra. And from the earlier versions to now, It has finally advanced enough for me to include on my classic computing TimeCapsule disk as the main Emulator for running Atari 400/800 software! And I'm using Atari Emulator 2.1.0 as the secondary emulator recommended to run in case Altirra has a hiccup someplace. Standard practice on this disk. Like I'm using AppleWin for Apple II series software, with the M.A.M.E. emulator as backup or to catch the odd thing AppleWin messes up on.

 

This milk-crate is a series of USB hard disks, that contains Gigs upon Gigs of everything related to classic computing and early gaming. It features the following systems. Apple II, II+, //e, //c, //gs, Early Mac stuff, Vectrex, Odyssey^2, Ti-99/4A, TRS-80 Model I,II,III,IV,16, TRS-80 Pocket Computer 1 and 2, Ti-59 Calculator, Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, 400/800, 130XE, 600XL, 800XL, 1200XL, 520/1040ST, Intellivision I, II, Master component, TRS-80 Color Computer, Timex/Sinclair 1000, C-64, Vic-20, Balley Astrocade, Odyssey^2, Channel-F, Telstar units, dedicated units, Amgia 500/1000, plenty of PC documentation - but select stuff - this is the biggest part of the collection totalling terabytes in and of itself.

 

It contains original hardware and software manual scans, magazine scans, schematics, rom dumps, source listings for everything when possible, pictures, pcb layouts, overlays, tech notes, engineering notes, 3rd party expansion card and peripheral docs, newsletter scans, source code listings, disk-tape-cartridge images, advertisements, and other pertinent documentation.

 

A safekeeping for the future and guard against the in-progress jellyfish invasion currently underway.

Edited May 23, 2011 by Keatah

[Kylev]

Mcleaninc,

 

Thanks for the kind reply. I have really enjoyed watching the progress on Altirra and I am mostly moved off of Atari800win+ by this point. The only thing I find a need to use A8win+ for is formatting double density disks. Once phaeron gets around to implementing those last PERCOM commands, I don't think I will have sny more standing need for the old emulator.

 

Don't worry about needing a solid hobby to keep the old brain active. Live it up. I would count you lucky to not be responsible for a job had I not read your explanations about why you have so much time on your hands.

 

Russ

[rost]

I have some problems with ATR (altirra 1.9) too.

I try to write on a DD-Disk-Img (xdos 2.4) and get Error 140 "Serial Bus-reading error"

After the error the file ist created in TOC with Secsize 0.

If i try it again, there ist an addional entry with the same filename

Works find with AtariWinPL-Emu

[atx4us]

Re the keyboard delay,

 

I've found times when the delay seems quite profound but normally its pretty spot on, I tend to turn off all the defence plus type programs monitoring the PC & keyboard, despite making them safe applications it still seems to be peeking from behind their back and affecting response times.

 

I use Commodo IS and its fine as a freebie, perhaps not the most wonderfully cpu intensive item (especially when the agent kicks in in the background) but it keeps my PC pretty safe from attacks and viruses so far but the Defence setting on that is a bit of an ass at times.

 

Btw, any views of a better free security suite? (OT know, PM me if you feel like like you are cluttering the thread)

 

I don't think it's any of the background tasks that are slowing my computers down. % CPU Usage (Win Task Manager) displays around 0% to 1%.

 

Hayden

Edited May 25, 2011 by atx4us

[Keatah]

Without getting off-topic too much, There is no substitute for safe web browsing and computing practices. And an even lesser-than-none substitute for a good tested and working backup.

 

Most virus and mal-ware problems today are simply a hassle in that they slow down and muck-up the operating system, rarely damaging the user's data files. Keep a good backup of your system in a working state, and be aware of all your user data. Keep that in a separate backup as well.

 

Say a catastrophe happens, and you get a virus going. Well, all you do is restore your system, takes about 30 minutes (2 minutes your time to get it rolling), and put your working data set back in place. That 2nd part takes about 20 minutes of your time.

 

OR the other choice is to spend hours troubleshooting your system. And still, you might not be successful.

[Mclaneinc]

Thanks guys,

 

I'm looking at all the free packages purely on a cash strapped basis, I could easily go to the dark side and get a naughty version but to be honest in my old(er) age I don't need the associated hassles and I like to own as much as possible the products I use the most unless there's a wonderful free alternative as there is in the file folder renaming field with Renamaster (utter gold).

 

I'm not expecting to find the worlds finest virus firewall out there, just one that's updated on a good basis and one where at least a virus can't go in and easily turn the service OFF as I saw on Kaspersky once. I use Spybot search and destroy for regular sweeps ontop of the IS suite.

 

Basically it was just me in test mode, I love playing around with new products.

 

Keatah, I hear what you are saying re backups, its really weird, as I trained in IT and did courses, one of the first is Data Protection so I have no excuse for not doing regular back ups and keeping my data safe but like an old driving instructor I cut corners here and there which makes me a grade one plonker

Edited May 25, 2011 by Mclaneinc

[flashjazzcat]

Been playing around with the video recorder and screengrab facilities: aspect ratio is still wrong when VBXE is active.

[emkay]

What concernes me most with Altirra is the sound emulation. As it seems, the speed changes have gone, but as it also seems , "every" interrupt is interfering the playback, as Camstudio working in the background during recording the video.

 

A nice feature is the monitoring of the real pitch.....

 

I also wonder about the played pitch. It seems to be "more correct" than in the RMT emulation... somehow.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8WzH9e624o

[flashjazzcat]

You raise an interesting point. I notice that - quite apart from sound issues - the emulator does not seem to operate at a steady speed. Something as simple as the keyboard autorepeat speeds up very slightly every few repeats on my system. Changing the Altirra process' priority to "High" in task manager - as I have just done - goes some way to alleviating the problem. Much as I love Altirra, it seems somewhat heavy-footed (on my 2.2GHz dual core system, at least), and that's been the case ever since the earliest versions. Perhaps this is the price we pay for an emulator bristling with advanced features. I don't know.

 

And here's something else: I just compared the stock XL OS autorepeat rate in Atari800Win and Altirra. Altirra's is significantly slower (and Atari800Win's auto-repeat is the same speed as a real machine).

 

Hmmm... curiouser and curiouser. If I switch to NTSC mode, the key repeat rate seems right (same as real PAL hardware, and Atari800Win).

Edited May 26, 2011 by flashjazzcat

[Keatah]

I would like to see a consolidation of menu items. There's quite a few options and less granularity would remove much tediousness in switching between configurations and option.

 

We could combine H)ardware M)emory size F)irmware C)PU options all into one screen or pulldown menu.

Next could be all A)udio and V)ideo functions put into one page, including, all the V)view options.

And how about all the C)assette D)isk drive H)ard disk related things into another screen.

And perhaps the peripherals, like P)rinter, PCLINK, R)time-8, and S)serial ports either with the above items.

 

This is just a possible example to remove a lot of redundant menu accessing.

Let's make a good emu even better!

[Faicuai]

You raise an interesting point. I notice that - quite apart from sound issues - the emulator does not seem to operate at a steady speed. Something as simple as the keyboard autorepeat speeds up very slightly every few repeats on my system. Changing the Altirra process' priority to "High" in task manager - as I have just done - goes some way to alleviating the problem.

 

Never noticed timing-issues with sound (during normal operation, including Games), except the occasional hiccups during auto-repeat key-inputs (that was in v1.9, and I never really cared about them). I do notice, however, that firing-up Choplifter Cart dump (US Version, the more colorful and similar to the Arcade version) in Altirra_v2.0-T3, I am hearing very short-lived "sound-chops", thus giving the impression of slightly fragmented output. While looking at actual FPS shown in real time, I cannot immediately correlate the sound-chopping in time, with respect the floating FPS rate shown (which has really never been rock-solid at a NTSC's fixed rate), for instance. I am testing on a dubious laptop, and will continue to test on a more fit machine later. I know that ANTIC sub-system is being worked (or reworked) to some-extent, and I am not sure if this also correlates with the jittery behavior.

 

 

Much as I love Altirra, it seems somewhat heavy-footed (on my 2.2GHz dual core system, at least), and that's been the case ever since the earliest versions. Perhaps this is the price we pay for an emulator bristling with advanced features. I don't know.

 

It pulls about 18%-20% of avg. CPU usage on my dual-core HDMI (Nvidia) Dell Studio and by loading one core about 50% more than the other. All this with Artifacting TURNED OFF. This laptop runs Win7-64, in dual-screen virtual desktop (quasi 720p on its screen, and 1080p on the primary screen) and it is certainly tuned for emulator-usage (it eventually ends with a 42-process list, 18%-19% of memory usage (530MB of overall ram usage), and a 0% CPU (or fractionals below 1%) usage after fully booting, running all of Windows service/maintenance stuff, and unloading all possible Win-bloatware from RAM, except antivirus which STAYS ON permanently. As an example, MAME-UI64 (which I use extensively) chews-up 12% to 25% in most Z80-emulations, all pretty evenly distributed across both cores.

 

I will give v2.0-T3 a better check, later on, and compare to v1.9-Release.

 

F.