Best emulator for Mac?

[chrisrimple]

I've got an 800 that I purchased in early 1980. I have many games on 5.25" disks, some of which I still enjoy playing occasionally. After all, MULE with four players is the BEST. GAME. EVER.

 

Apart from the Atari, my house is all Apple. I do run Windows 7 via Parallels (VM) on a Mac, and would be willing to dual-boot a Mac to Windows if necessary to get a good 800 emulation experience. I've seen the recent forum posts about emulators, but I have a question that I haven't seen addressed...

 

I don't have a 5.25" drive connected to any Mac. How can I load/play the games that I have on 5.25" disks? Do I need to connect an external drive, and will that work with any of the best emulators?

 

Thanks for any help.

 

Chris

[+skr]

After all, MULE with four players is the BEST. GAME. EVER.

 

100% agreed.

 

Apart from the Atari, my house is all Apple.

Mine does run some Windows 3.1 and 95 installls, but nothing new.

 

I don't have a 5.25" drive connected to any Mac. How can I load/play the games that I have on 5.25" disks? Do I need to connect an external drive, and will that work with any of the best emulators?

 

First: For me the best Atari-Emulator by far is Atari800MacX, get it there: http://atarimac.com/

You can use it for free, but I like it so much that I donated some money twice.

 

I guess that you still have your Atari-Disk drive? For me the way to go would be to create a SIO2USB, connect your Diskdrive with your A800 and the A800 with your Mac. Then you can copy any disk to the Mac using SIO2OSX (get it where you get Atari800MacX).

 

My preferred SIO2USB interface is described there:

 

http://www.abbuc.de/community/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=6102&p=46252&hilit=sio2usb+mini#p46221

 

Best regards,

Sascha

[Mathy]

Hallo Sascha

 

You're talking about a SIO2PCviaUSB interface, not the SIO2USb interface.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

[Marius]

Hi Chris!

 

Welcome at the forum!

 

I think Atari800Mac is a very nice emulator indeed. The only thing that it lacks is a nice 'real' television-tube-raster emulation. That would be awesome. But for the rest: incredible emulator.

 

Most games btw. are available already on internet for download. So you could investigate how needed is that you convert your games to atr images (to use on the emulator in stead of disks).

 

 

Greetz

M

[+skr]

Hallo Sascha

 

You're talking about a SIO2PCviaUSB interface, not the SIO2USb interface.

 

Hi Mathy,

 

we could discuss about name conventions, but if you look at my interface, it is a connector between the Atari SIO-Port and a MiniUSB-Port, this is why I call it "SIO2USB" or in this case more correctly "SIO2USBmini".

 

I never liked the term "SIO2PC" very much, for two reasons:

1. It does not give you any clue about how the connection is made (sub d or usb)

2. You now I am a Mac user, and "PC" for me always means Windows PCs. That´s misleading as it works with PC, Mac and Linux.

 

So I would not call it "SIO2PCviaUSB". Maybe "SIO2PC/MAC/LINUXviaUSB", but that´s a monster.

[Mathy]

Hello Sascha

 

SIO2USB is a different device.

 

By if you don't like "SIO2PC" and think "SIO2PC/Mac/Linuxvia USB" (BTW "Linux" is software only, the hardware used would still be either PC or Mac), let's call it SIO2PML.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

PS for those speaking Dutch or German: it really was meant serious, until I realised how SIO2PML sounds.

[+skr]

PS for those speaking Dutch or German: it really was meant serious, until I realised how SIO2PML sounds.

 

[Marius]

@skr

 

But let's face it:

 

Sio2USB for your device is definitely not a right name, since that device does NOT provide a working USB port for atari 8bit.

 

When that device would give us a working USB port, only that feature would truly justify the name 'sio2usb'

 

The ABBUC-RAF sio2usb is almost doing that, although it is still only for storage purpose (not even speaking about the incompatibility with certain usb sticks); so even the device ABBUC_Raf release, should not carry the name sio2usb.

 

Greetz

M.

[+skr]

@skr

 

But let's face it:

 

Sio2USB for your device is definitely not a right name, since that device does NOT provide a working USB port for atari 8bit.

 

When that device would give us a working USB port, only that feature would truly justify the name 'sio2usb'

 

The ABBUC-RAF sio2usb is almost doing that, although it is still only for storage purpose (not even speaking about the incompatibility with certain usb sticks); so even the device ABBUC_Raf release, should not carry the name sio2usb.

 

Greetz

M.

 

I should have written: "We can discuss for years without a result that satisfies everybody..."

 

I do not agree: If a device provides a working port, it should be called like "Atari USB port".

But what we are talking about is a device that acts like a bridge from SIO TO USB, so I call it SIO2USB. And in my eyes that´s more correct than "SIO2PC", as that implicates, that the device is only for connecting SIO to a PC, and that is not true. It provides a connection to ANYTHING that uses USB. So "SIO2USB" is correct.

I know that there is a device called "SIO2USB", but only that the developers calls it like that, it does not mean that this is the one and only correct name for it. I would call it "SIO2USB-Stick" as its only purpose is to connect a USB-Stick. Also this is not 100% correct too, but right now I am too drunk to explain it in a language, that´s not my mother tongue.

 

But we are A VERY LITTLE BIT off topic now...

[kogden]

I use Atari800MacX w/ my Hackintosh. My video card has s-video out so I can hook up a CRT if I want. I prefer to just use real hardware and an SIO2PC to transfer files though. The "feel" of the machine is part of the fun for me.

[chrisrimple]

Thanks for all the responses.

 

In addition to the 800 with 64k RAM, I have an 800xl, a Trak AT drive, an Indus GT drive, an 850 interface, and a 300bps modem. I don't have the time or abilities for building my own parts, so I need options that I can purchase. It sounds like an SIO2USB interface would allow me to connect my drives to my A800, then connect the A800 to my Mac via USB, and to access the drives remotely using SIO2OSX software? I would then copy programs from the disks into *.ATR files (or similar), which I can access via Atari800MacX and other emulators? If I'm understanding correctly, that sounds like a great solution; I love the idea of keeping my original hardware and finding a way to use it with the Mac.

 

I've just read through the newbies topic and see that there are a number of sources for SIO2USB interfaces. I'm in the USA and want one to use with a Mac. Opinions on the best option?

Edited June 8, 2013 by chrisrimple