Help with Altirra, SIDE2 on Mac, please

[JeffJewell]

tl, ngr:

 

Immediate issue: how/where do I tell the emulated SIDE2 to use a particular file/vxd?

 

Larger issue that may fix the immediate issue: is the Help facility not working for anyone else under WINE on OS X?

 

The rest of it:

 

So, I've generally been happy with the native Atari800MacX emulator to play old games, but a few recent threads where folks have gotten Altirra 3.9 running under WINE on current versions of Mac OS have piqued my interest with tales of emulation I had ne'er dared dream. Having a decent collection of actual hardware myself, I am currently weighing various upgrades and additions as funding and my skills allow... but realizing that Altirra could actually emulate many of these newfangled doodads, and I could know that much more about them before I go soldering things to stuff, was a game-changer.

 

It wasn't difficult to set up WINE with homebrew, and pretty soon I was running an emulated XE with the Ultimate1M, SIDE2, and an MIO hanging off of it. Next step is to get something running from the emulated CF card in the SIDE2, and I think I need to point it to a .vxd file somewhere, but I don't know where/how to do this. The online manual (Hardware Reference) talks way above my head about no doubt vital information that I cannot parse into instructions for this task.

 

I do know that Altirra has Help files (I was able to find an image online of the page where it shows the keymap for Atari keys on the Mac keyboard when I couldn't figure out how to hit "HELP" to activate the U1M) and this question may be answered there, but my installation of Altirra/WINE fails trying to open the Help files. Is anyone else running under WINE seeing that issue? Are the Help files downloadable in any other format?

 

Thanks for any advice or direction you can offer.

 

[+KlasO]

WThis is how I have set up a vhd with SIDE 2. System -> Configure system and the rest is hopefully easy to determine.  

Admittedly, this is on a virtual windows box, but should not differ. 

 

You mention difficulty to hit HELP ( which is normally mapped to F6 in Altirra), and since I connect to a virtual box from my iPad (no F keys on the iPad keyboard) I have used the 'Hold keys for RESET' function under System menu. First select that, then hit F6 via soft keyboard, then select Warm Reset under the System menu. 

 

Hope this helps. 

 

Kind regards, 

Klas