Multiple Retro Computer Emulator Recs Pls!

[Jagosaurus]

Hi all,

 

I am big into console hardware & console emu, but recently opened Pandora's Box with DOSbox and have been enjoying retro PC games from my childhood. With kiddos, I just don't have the extra room in the house to get into retro PC hardware collecting. Time to go off the deep end into more retro computer fun with emu.

 

I am running a Windows 7 PC as a dedicated emulation box and am hunting emulator recommendations for those listed below . I have access to a XP machine & Windows 8 laptop if necessary. My Windows 10 laptops are for work so I keep games off them.

 

My focus is games versus applications. Also, sure I am missing some notable computer platforms or perhaps some obscure ones with good games?

 

Atari ST/TT

Atari Falcon

Atari 400/800/XE/XL

Amiga Commodore

Other Amiga models?

Apple II

MSX

ZX Spectrum

Other Sinclairs?

FM Towns

Amstrad

Texas Instruments 99

Windows 98 (any way to do this besides on XP machine in compatibility mode?)

 

Others? I'm not a retro PC expert by any means.

 

Do any of these support joypads or joysticks of the original OS did?

 

Thanks all. Here goes hours of my life

Edited May 4, 2017 by Jagosaurus

[toddtmw]

Altirra is the best emulator for Atari 8-bit. Device support is incredible.

[Trebor]

Apple II = AppleWin

MSX(2) = blueMSX

Commodore 64/128 (& VIC-20) = WinVICE

Commodore Amiga = WinUAE

[Keatah]

Ti-99/4A = Classic99

http://www.harmlesslion.com/cgi-bin/showprog.cgi?search=Classic99

 

Windows98

You may want to investigate Virtual Machine hosts.

There's also Microsoft Virtual PC, but it is rather dated and the featureset is rather minimal.

[Jagosaurus]

Thanks for the recs & links so far!!! On my list to try a few this weekend.

 

@Keatah, got it. Will look into VMWare for Windows 98.

[mr_me]

These things usually emulate Windows system game controllers as joysticks or analog paddles and the system mouse as a trackball. So to use an original joystick or trackball/mouse you would get a hardware adapter that converts that controller to a USB system device. There's adapters to convert old PC 15pin gameport controllers to USB for example.

 

Is there any reason you wouldn't use modern USB game controllers?

Edited May 6, 2017 by mr_me

[Keatah]

Not really, other than for the style or a specific model.

[Jagosaurus]

Yeah sorry, I was referring to a modern USB controller on these emus.

 

I believe is DOSbox you have to use the older controllers with adapters unless USB support for recent controllers has been patched. Pretty awesome if other retro PC emus recognize these USB controllers as the older parallel or 15 pin joypads.

Edited May 6, 2017 by Jagosaurus

[mr_me]

Dosbox should convert Windows USB system controllers to gameport joysticks in dosbox. You can even use them for dos games that didn't support joysticks by mapping game controller functions to keyboard keys.

 

The only old controller you might want to use is an old Atari paddle controller with Altirra. Can't think of a modern replacement.

Edited May 6, 2017 by mr_me

[Flojomojo]

I've toyed with the idea of a jog dial for video scrubbing and Atari paddle emulation -- it would feel andblikely work better than the real thing.

 

The Surface Dial seems like it would be a fun toy to play with. http://m.windowscentral.com/surface-dial-review