Pokey..  The Atari 800/800XL/5200 emulator Version 0.62 9/10/96

Thanks for downloading Pokey!  Pokey is an emulator for MSDOS machines
that allows your computer to run the thousands of Atari 8-bit programs on
your PC.  I hope you will find Pokey useful and will enjoy being able to 
run Atari 8-bit programs on your PC.  If Pokey doesn't do all that you
want from an Atari emulator, let me know.  Also don't forget there are
other freeware emulators for the PC and UNIX systems.  The Atari 8-bit 
systems should live on forever with the wealth of 8-bit emulators out
there!

Pokey is the result of alot of study of other emulator source
code for various platforms.  Foremost I should thank David Firth.  His 
Atari800 emulator for the UNIX/Amiga platforms was used as a framework for
Pokey.  David and all who worked with him have done an amazing job with 
Atari800 and I owe them all a million thanks.  Besides the framework itself
I used some parts of Atari800 in Pokey.  

I would also like to thank Frank Barrus for his Atari emulators for
UNIX systems. I used source from both of those emulators during the
development of Pokey. I am thinking about setting up a Linux box at work
and trying those two emulators on it!  I would also like to thank
Shawn Hargreaves for his Allegro library.  It made the video aspects
of this program much easier to handle.  I would also like to thank
DJ Delorie for the awesome (AND FREE) DJGPP compiler used to build
this program.

POKEY IS FREEWARE!!!!! I want all to enjoy this and hopefully have alot of
fun with it replaying those great games of the past.  If you like Pokey and
would like to make this programmer happy please send me an email, regular
postal mail, or postcard letting me know how Pokey is working for you. If
you feel very gracious a pack of Coke classic, 5200 carts, or even money
sent to the below address would be welcome.

Installation of Pokey.

Unzip the archive into whatever directory you wish.  Create a sub
directory inside that directory called <ROMS>.  Place the good old
atariroms from the xf25.zip file in there.  I am sorry for the inconvenience
here, but I don't know if Atari still owns a copyright on the ROM's or not.
If your already running Xformer or Xlit (great DOS 8-bit Atari emulator,
get it too) you already probably have the ROM files.  Please make sure you
have these ROM files in the ROMS directory.  

  ROM filenames are....
  ATARIBAS ROM         8,192    (Atari Basic)
  ATARIOSB ROM        10,240    (Atari OS Rev B)
  ATARIXL  ROM        16,384    (Atari XL OS)
  AT_5200  ROM         2,048    (5200 OS)

Command line options for Pokey are.

 -xl run xl mode
 -5200 run 5200 console mode (need at_5200.rom file in ROM's directory)
 -ROM <filename> load 8k ROM cart file. follow this with the path\filename
 -rom8 <filename> exactly the same as above.
 -rom16 <filename> same as above for 16k cart
 -rom32 <filename> load 32K carts. (5200 game carts)
 -oss <filename> same as above for oss supercart
 -rev show program revision
 -js swap joysticks This swaps the pc joysticks so you can play the dark
                    side for example in archon with your joystick plugged
                    into Joystick A on your pc.  Great if you only have
                    one joystick.)
 -modex runs 360 X 240 screen rez for fuller display.  This is slower.
        System defaults to 320 X 200 normally.
 -modex2 runs 320 X 240 screen rez for fuller display.  This is slower.
        System defaults to 320 X 200 normally.
 -psound tell pokey to emulate Atari sound using the Pokey printer port
         card.  You should also use one of the below -lpt commands to
         set the active printer port.  Otherwise Pokey will default
         to LPT1.  See my WEB page for info on building a POKEY sound
         card.  There cool!
 -lpt1   Use lpt1 (0x378) for Pokey Sound Card.  This option is useless
         unless used with the above -psound option
 -lpt2   Use lpt2 (0x278) for Pokey Sound Card.  This option is useless
         unless used with the above -psound option
 -kjoy   Adds LIMITED support for a keyboard joystick on stick 1 only.
         The arrow keys on your number pad control your player.
         The diagonal keys work also.  The only limitation is that once
         you start moving in one direction you have to hit the 5 key on
         your number pad to center the joystick back.  

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Note there is a second version of Pokey included in the archive called
pokeyf.exe. This version uses the direct video approach used by David
Firth in his emulator.  This speeds up the graphics and I recommend
slower systems use this version.  The quality of the output is a tad
worse with the pokeyf version, but for 90% of the stuff, you don't notice
a difference.
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Keyboard Equivalents

PC KEY		Atari Key Equiv.
=============== ======================================================== 
F1		Option
F2 		Select
F3		Start
F4		Disk Menu
F5		Break
F6		Slow/Fast Toggle (system defaults to fast)
F7		Warmstart
F8              Cold Start
F9              Exit to DOS
F10             Debugger
F11-F12         Adjust screen size.  (kind of buggy right now)

ALT <J> Swaps Joysticks on the fly.  If you want to play two player games
        and don't have two joysticks you can toggle your joystick A to
        report as joystick B.  This works great with games that don't
        support two players taking turns with the same joystick.  Hitting
        this key stroke toggles back and forth between reporting modes.

All the other keys are pretty much equivalents.

Joystick Support:

PC Joysticks are fully supported. Just make sure you have your joysticks
hooked up when running Pokey and they are centered.  They will be
autocentered upon running the program.  No need to calibrate the top and
bottom corners.

The primary button on each joystick is the fire button.  The secondary
button on both joysticks sends out a space bar command.  This works great
for games like defender where you can use your secondary button as the
smart bomb.

F4 - Disk Menu

Hitting the F4 key brings up a file selector.  You can search for any XFD/ATR
files with this selector.  Once you select a file you are then presented with
a pop up menu to select disks 1 through 8 for loading the disk into.  Makes
it handy to not have to jump to DOS all the time to load new disks.  ALSO
this KEY makes a great PAUSE button.  Just hit it, your games freezes, click
cancel and your games resumes right where it left off.  

F10 - debugger

Not much here.   When in it you can look at memory, regs, etc.  Type cont to
go back to the emulator or quit to exit to DOS.

Things I am looking at adding to Pokey.

Emulated Sound Support (this will be tricky since I would like it to
sound right! Although for the ultimate experience build a pokey card!)
4 joystick support (using the printer port and REAL Atari joysticks)
Faster Emulation
Support for converting raw MSDOS files into ATR files on the command line.
Paddle Support
5200 Keyboard Support

Things that would be great from you guys.

Anybody have any detailed (or not so detailed) 5200 technical specs?  I have
the Analog article, but hope there is more detail out there.

Any comments suggestions on the overall program.

Bug reports.  Let me know what error messages pokey generated.  What you
were running (and its filename on yogis site!).  Any settings of your
system etc.

Also let me know what games really ran well for you.  My faves so far are
mule and defender. 


Mike
mhill@one.net
http://w3.one.net/~mhill

Mike Hill
7976 Strawberry Hill Lane
Maineville, OH 45039


