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Atari 5200 (Experimental)

Warning

The Atari 5200 application is currently designated as an experimental application.

This designation has been applied due to the following:

  • Single player only (core does not support second fire or keypad for player 2)
  • Does not support newer homebrew (unsupported mappings in core)
  • Analog quirks (holding analog stick in a direction prior to level starting causes odd behavior: Centipede, Missile Command, probably others)

By default, Experimental applications are not displayed in the webЯcade player or feed editor.

To enable the Atari 5200 application, refer to the advanced settings sections of the player (player advanced settings) or editor (editor advanced settings).

Overview

The Atari 5200 application is an emulator for the Atari 5200 game console.

Adventure II by The Square Trio Team

BIOS File (Optional)

In addition to Atari 5200 ROM files, an optional Atari 5200 BIOS (typically named 5200.rom) can be specified globally within the feed (See the Feed Properties Dialog and Atari 5200 Feed Properties sections).

File Hash (MD5)
5200.rom 281f20ea4320404ec820fb7ec0693b38

Controls

The emulator supports one controller. The keyboard and gamepad mappings are listed in the tables below.

Standard Controls

Keyboard

Keyboard controls are listed below.

Name
Keys
Comments
Move
Bottom Fire
Top Fire
Show Keypad Display See Keypad section for more details.
Show Pause Screen

Gamepad

Gamepad mappings are listed below.

Name
Gamepad
Comments
Move
Move Analog input when analog mode is enabled.
Move (Player 2) When twin stick mode is enabled.
Bottom Fire
Top Fire
Toggle Keypad Display Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate)

Press the Menu (Start) Button.

See Keypad section for more details.
Toggle Keypad Display
(Alternate)
 and  Hold down the Right Trigger and click (press down) on the Right Thumbstick.
Show Pause Screen  and  Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate 3 or 4)

Hold down the Left Trigger and press the Menu (Start) Button.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate)
 and  Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate 3 or 4)

Hold down the Left Trigger and press the View (Back) Button.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate 2)
 and  Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate 3 or 4)

Hold down the X Button and press the View (Back) Button.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate 3)
 and  Hold down the Left Trigger and click (press down) on the Left Thumbstick.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate 4)
 and  Hold down the Left Trigger and click (press down) on the Right Thumbstick.

Keypad

The following section describes how to interact with the Atari 5200 controller's keypad buttons.

Virtual keypads and direct keyboard mappings are supported.

On-screen Keypad Display

Gamepad (Virtual keypad)

Name
Gamepad
Comments
Toggle Keypad Display Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate)

Press the Menu (Start) Button.
Toggle Keypad Display
(Alternate)
 and  Hold down the Right Trigger and click (press down) on the Right Thumbstick.
Choose Key  or 
Press Key The key button will continue to be pressed until the button is released. This is important as some games require long presses for the key to be recognized.

Keyboard (Virtual keypad)

Name
Keys
Comments
Show Keypad
Close Keypad
Choose Key
Press Key When keypad is visible.

The key button will continue to be pressed until the keyboard key is released. This is important as some games require long presses for the key to be recognized.

Keyboard (Direct mappings)

The key button will continue to be pressed until the keyboard key is released. This is important as some games require long presses for the key to be recognized.

Name
Keys
Comments
Press key (0-9) -
Press key (Asterick)
Press key (Pound)

Feed

This section details how Atari 5200 application instances can be added to feeds.

Type

The type name for the Atari 5200 application is retro-5200.

Note

The alias 5200 also currently maps to this application. In the future, the 5200 alias may be mapped to another Atari 5200 application (different emulator implementation) if it is determined to be a more appropriate default.

Feed Properties

The table below contains global Atari 5200 feed properties. These properties must be specified in the props object of the feed's Feed Object.

Property Type Required Details
atari5200_rom URL No (optional) URL to an Atari 5200 BIOS file or a zip file containing the BIOS file.

Item Properties

The table below contains the properties that are specific to the Atari 5200 application. These properties are specified in the props object of a feed item.

Property Type Required Details
rom URL Yes URL to an Atari 5200 ROM file or a zip file containing a ROM file.
swap Boolean No Whether to swap the controller ports. This is typically enabled when games default to using port 2 (versus port 1).
analog Boolean No Whether to enable analog mode on the controllers.
twinStick Boolean No Whether to enable twin stick style controls (player 1 uses player 2's joystick for firing).
mappings Map of Strings (key-value pairs) No Game-specific mappings from the Atari 5200 keys and buttons to the gamepad.

The key in the map must be one of the following:
  • a: A button
  • b: B button
  • x: X button
  • y: Y button
  • lb: Left bumper
  • rb: Right bumper
  • lt: Left trigger
  • rt: Right trigger
The value in the map must be one of the following:
  • Keypad button: 0-9, #, *, start, reset, pause
  • Controller button: topfire (Top Fire), bottomfire (Bottom Fire)
descriptions Map of Strings (key-value pairs) No Provides game-specific descriptions for the Atari 5200 controller keys and buttons. Shown when the keypad or game-specific controls are displayed.

The key in the map must be one of the following:
  • Keypad button: 0-9, #, *, start, reset, pause
  • Controller button: topfire (Top Fire), bottomfire (Bottom Fire)
The value in the map will be the description for the key (keypad or controller button).
zoomLevel Numeric No A numeric value indicating how much the display image should be zoomed in (0-40).

This property is typically used to hide the black borders that are present on some Atari 5200 games.

Example

The following is an example of a complete feed that consists of a single Atari 5200 application instance (type value of 5200). The rom property value is a URL that points to a Dropbox location that contains the excellent homebrew game Adventure II by The Square Trio Team.

It is also worth noting that the Atari 5200 BIOS location (atari5200_rom) is specified globally within the Feed Object's props object.

{
  "title": "Atari 5200",
  "props": {
    "atari5200_rom": "https://<host>/5200.rom"
  },
  "categories": [
    {
      "title": "Atari 5200 Games",
      "items": [
        {
          "title": "Adventure II",
          "type": "5200",
          "props": {
            "rom": "https://www.dropbox.com/s/ks2wbcizcoe9fqw/adv2a.bin?dl=0"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

References

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