How to run Atari800 emulator on RetroPie without a keyboard?

[Forrest]

I can easily run 2600 games under Stella with just a SNES gamepad under RetroPie, but not having much luck running Atari 8-bit computer games using the same gamepad. I would need to map the Option (F2), Select (f3), Start (F4), Cold Reset (Shift F5) and Exit Emulator (F9) to gamepad buttons. This would allow me to run Atari 8-bit games without a keyboard. There are enough unused buttons on the gamepad for these functions. Any ideas?

[mr_me]

It's not just that, some games use other keyboard keys for second and third gameplay actions. There are even a handfull of atari 2600 cartridges that use the console switches for game actions.

 

You'd have to find a way to map game controller buttons to keyboard keys. There's a joy2key program and another called xboxdrv.

https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Universal-Controller-Calibration-&-Mapping-Using-xboxdrv

[mr_me]

Should have said that with some emulators you can map all these functions to controller buttons, e.g. Stella. If you can't do it with the emulator than mapping controller buttons to keyboard keys is a workaround.

[ToddL]

Are you using lr-atari800 or standalone Atari800?

 

If using lr-atari800, see if this helps: https://docs.libretro.com/library/atari800/

 

Option = L1

Select = Select

Start = Start

 

Reset and Exit Emulator should be the same hotkey combinations that you use with other lr emulators.

[Forrest]

I added 4 momentary push buttons to the Atari USB Joystick from Legacy Engineer, that I bought about 10 years ago. The buttons are configured in RetroPie (left to right) as A, Start, Select, B. This button assignment works well with RetroPie and I use Stella to run 2600 games. B will exit Stella. It was easy to add the buttons - just solder the button wires to the button holes on the board.

 

The Atari800 emulator still requires a keyboard in addition to the joystick because F2 is Option, F3 is Select, F4 is Start and F9 is exit emulator.

 

Here's a picture of the joystick with the added buttons.

Edited June 14, 2019 by Forrest

[Gmorker]

 

Even though it's been a while since you guys started this thread I wanted to share something that works nicely for me.

 

I purchased a 3-key USB keypad for $16 form Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08P1GY3GN/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_H610W0ZBZ6DNXZSZESYK

 

Easily programed the keys to be F2, F3 and F4 and it works like a charm on my RPi arcade.