ATARI (Altirra) mapping for laptop

[Ricky Spanish]

Hello all ! Noob here so I don't know if this is the right spot to post this (apologies if it isn't).

*Tried searching, found nothing*

I downloaded Altirra on my Aspire 3 w11 laptop (I like to bring it with me on trips) and the problem I'm running into is that 

there is no 'home' key so I can PR. "(CLEAR)". Is there a workaround for that other than 

typing PR. CHR$(xx) ? On a side note: no Function key work either, as the laptop uses 

it for other things like spit screen (F5) etc., etc. Thanks in advance for any replies !

Edited April 26, 2022 by Ricky Spanish

[Ricky Spanish]

ok, so I remapped (clear) ESC->Shift+Home to ESC-> Shift+{ so that's out of the way, but the F keys are a real pain.. any pointers would be appreciated !

[Beeblebrox]

@Ricky Spanish Re the mapped Atari function keys to laptop F keys. My laptop requires me to hold down the FN key and the respective function key when using Windows, so this doesn't affect Altirra's mapped function keys for Atari since they work on their own when you press each for Start, Select, Option, etc. I just tested Altirra on my laptop with a game which required me to hit the mapped Start key to start the game, so I just pressed F2 on my laptop keyboard and it worked no prob. Perhaps your laptop doesn't have a FN and function key combo - I thought most modern Windows laptops did.

[phaeron]

Looks like with the Aspire 3 you can toggle the function key mode, but only through a BIOS setting -- there isn't a key combination to toggle Fn-Lock on the fly. Yuck.

 

Between keyboard customization and keyboard shortcuts, you can redefine all of the Fn-shortcut keys in the emulator to use other keys. It is a lot of work, though. Altirra uses the left Alt key as the escape key for a bunch of functions and you could move a lot of functions to that; Alt+1 through Alt+0 in particular are used by the debugger and could be redefined in place of the function keys.

 

There is also the on-screen keyboard, if you only need special keys infrequently.

[Ricky Spanish]

Thanks for the information guys ! Looks like I have a lot of key mapping ahead of me ha-ha. Worth it though.

 

@phaeron love the Altirra emulator bud ! Takes me back to the 80's when I had my beloved Atari 1200XL

that sadly was 'smashed' by my brother because he thought it was 'funny'. I'm trying to get Altirra as close as

I can to my old 1200XL with the following configuration, seems to work very well !

 

Base system    NTSC 1200XL
Additional Devices    Happy 1050 disk drive (full emulation)
OS Firmware    Atari 1200XL OS rev. 11 [1A1D7B1B]
Mounted Images    Disk: DOS 2.5.atr
Cartridge: OSS BASIC XL 1.03.rom [94A05568]

 

Thanks again !

Edited April 29, 2022 by Ricky Spanish

[dmsc]

Hi!

 

Many laptops this days miss home/end and other keys. My Dell laptop has the following "hidden" keys:

- Fn+LEFT : HOME

- Fn+RIGHT : END

- Fn+B : PAUSE/BREAK

- Fn+S : scroll-lock

- Fn+R : print-screen

 

Perhaps yours also have some hidden Fn "combo" keys?

 

Have Fun!

[Ricky Spanish]

3 hours ago, dmsc said:

Hi!

 

Many laptops this days miss home/end and other keys. My Dell laptop has the following "hidden" keys:

- Fn+LEFT : HOME

- Fn+RIGHT : END

- Fn+B : PAUSE/BREAK

- Fn+S : scroll-lock

- Fn+R : print-screen

 

Perhaps yours also have some hidden Fn "combo" keys?

 

Have Fun!

None of those are functional with my laptop. I'm slowly starting to remap the F keys. But thanks for the tip !

[Ricky Spanish]

Done. START/SELECT/OPTION/RESET/HELP/HOME all re-mapped. I'm a happy camper now ! Thanks everyone !

 

 

[Jetboot Jack]

On a similar note windows 10//11 users can install the latest Powertoys and access the keyboard manager where you can remap any key to any other key or key combo - so if you lack F keys (like my lounge Logitech keyboard) you can remap them - I mapped F1 etc to Shift-1 etc and ESC to § so it works with Altirra/Atari800 nicely.

 

You can map keys across all apps or for just specific apps - so I have F1 (Shift-1) cross mapped to a different f-key for each emulator so it works as START in BOTH emulators for instance - as I launch through a frontend and never see which emulator is running which game...

 

sTeVE

Edited May 5, 2022 by Jetboot Jack