Emulators for atari 8 bits comps. Completely confused!

[nora]

Hi there

 

Just getting into the atari 8 bit computer scene, or more accurately 8 bit gaming. There are 3 things I would really like to know, sorry if I sound like a noob but I have never owned, operated or even emulated these systems.

1) What is the best 8 bit atari computer emulator for the PC?

2) There seems to be a lot of models of 8 bit atari computers, will the emulator cover them all?

3) What is the difference between XEX and ATR games?

 

Thanks

Nora

Edited August 26, 2007 by nora

[SeaGtGruff]

1) What is the best 8 bit atari computer emulator for the PC?

There seem to be quite a few out there. Try as many as you want, and go with the one that seems to work best on your system, or that has the features you like best. I'm using Atari800Win PLus, and I have at least two versions installed-- 2.8 and 4.0.

 

2) There seems to be a lot of models of 8 bit atari computers, will the emulator cover them all?

Yes, a good Atari 800 emulator should let you emulate all of the different models-- including switching between NTSC and PAL, switching between different OS versions, or even emulating an Atari 5200.

 

3) What is the difference between XEX and ATR games?

An ATR file is an image of an entire disk. An XEX is an executable program file, and is not necessarily part of a disk image. You can load and run an XEX file in an emulator without having to load a disk image first.

 

Michael