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Altirra 2.60 released


phaeron

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I use WinRAR for packing and unpacking files. It has one of the most comprehensive and complete help files out there. It covers command line with syntax and conventions and examples. Impressive in this day and age, and one of the reasons I feel good using it and recommending it. I may never need all the detail it contains, now, today. But in the future who knows?

 

When I started using Altirra I was slap happy as a geezer in a bingo game, click on the icon, BAM! I now had an Atari 400 on my desktop! Just like magic!

 

Years later I wanted to do something with a custom configuration file. I was swapping registry settings as a makeshift solution. It simply did not occur to me to try Altirra out with a command-line approach. Actually, I did. But I made the mistake of reading the incomplete .chm file. It didn't mention the possibility. And that put me under the mindset of, well, there are no options, no switches. And with today's movement toward GUI-only and so much software these days doing just the minimum to get by, I didn't think to look further. And lived with the kludge registry solution for some time. I know, I'm pretty dumb and all that, especially compared to people with old-school IT and Linux support forum knowledge.

 

To exclude it on the reasoning it may only be used by a few select people is something I don't understand. Never will. Like I said, I'm pretty dumb and all that. And people like me need that extra help. With a million emulators to keep track of I don't even bother remembering the conventions and switches and options. I just refer to a folder containing reference text files, PDFs, and other forms of documentation. God knows, with zero standardization between emulators in this regard, and no reason to expect any, the more thorough and complete documentation, the better.

 

I have been known to completely stop using software once the documentation goes lax, or even worse, gets converted to on-line "Internet connection required" status. But I think it's safe to say Altirra isn't going that route.

 

In the case of Altirra, I just did like in post #646 and made a screen capture to keep in the main folder along with that excellent hardware reference manual PDF from http://www.virtualdub.org/altirra.html

..of which I also have a "page save" for referring to the change log. This way I can see if a problem had been addressed or not. I even keep a couple 5 or 10 scans of the official Atari published manuals for understanding operation of the emulated system. Those manuals I read from time to time just for nostalgia though. Read them a 1000 times back in grade school.

 

In my line of work complete documentation is everything. And believe it or not, sometimes just browsing through instructions at leisure can also inspire a new way of doing things and enlighten one to awareness of unused capabilities - something I need to do more of!

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Sorry guys, but currently I'd prefer to have this help in only one place and /? is a common convention for command-line help even for GUI applications. Patch installers, for instance, often support it. Also, the program tells you to use /? if you use an unsupported switch and there's no guarantee the help file exists. Same is true of the debugger help -- would be nice to have in help file, but waaaaay too much work right now to maintain in both,

 

 

And the console coud maybe actually output to console instead of a popup from where again you cannot copy/paste.

 

Lack of console output is due to a limitation in Windows XP, which does not allow GUI applications to attach to their parent consoles. Windows Vista and above do support this, though. Some programs work around this by using a second command-line .COM program to act as an intermediary, but that's way too much work to bother with for Altirra, and won't work in the case of single instance mode when there are already two instances of Altirra communicating (the newly launched one sending its parameters and current directories over to the existing instance).

 

Standard Windows message boxes, such as the one used for the /? help, will copy their text to the clipboard on a Ctrl+C. The dialog text is too long, though -- too lazy to work on this. Not all switches are documented, either.

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Standard Windows message boxes, such as the one used for the /? help, will copy their text to the clipboard on a Ctrl+C. The dialog text is too long, though -- too lazy to work on this. Not all switches are documented, either.

Praytell what these undocumented switches are if they can be useful to the technical layperson.

 

ADDED: I typically launch with shortcuts pointing to ini files, files which describe custom configurations or load select favorites.

Edited by Keatah
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I thought by that he meant the switches were as you saw them and there was no extra info on them, ie you worked out what it did from the switch wording.

 

I did too. Basically, the switches are documented via "altirra /?" and will remain only documented there, at least for the foreseeable future.

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No, there are a few switches that actually aren't documented. The most useful is /[no]singleinstance, which overrides whether the emulator reuses a currently running instance or not, but it needs a shorter form because I'm tired of typing it out. Others are /[no]pclink, /pal60, /ntsc50, /[no]slightsid, /artifact. There are a few special ones like /lockd3d and /fullheapdump that aren't useful unless you're debugging the emulator, and a couple of ones only meant for internal use (/showfileassocdlg, /removefileassocs). Those I don't plan on documenting.

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you seem to choose very long names for you to type out

 

Ordinarily I'm a fan of brevity and short switch names, but there are only 26 letters in the alphabet and that doesn't provide much to represent "an 800XL with 320K of memory, XL/XE rev. 2 kernel, PAL ANTIC with PAL GTIA, a disk drive attached with a write protected disk in it running at authentic speed and with SIO patch disabled, a cartridge which should use the OSS mapper, and an IDE device hanging out the back." You can mostly reconfigure the emulated machine via the command-line, but it's not the most common use case, and more importantly, it's quickly becoming untenable as more and more stuff is added. You currently can't configure devices from the command-line as it requires a block of JSON. Resolving that is probably going to require referencing configuration files that are merged to produce the final configuration.

 

I do have a few other rules for command-line sanity. Switches should be order independent when possible, arguments should follow with a space and not a colon so console completion actually works, don't follow XCOPY's example for return codes, and if you output 15 pages of help, for pete's sake don't be a jerk and send it to stderr where people have to look up the trick to redirect it. It's usually nice to also support both - and / for switches, but I didn't do it in Altirra because it takes filenames from Explorer and the -- trick for escaping filenames is not standard in Windows.

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Altirra in my case is only launched by command line or batch... See WUDSN IDE... One launch per 1000 is by double click on the icon ;) or I double click on files.

 

In terms of using the /? switch to get help, launching by batch is no different than launching by shortcut. Only when launched via an interactive command is /? really useful, unless you want to create a batch or shortcut specifically to launch Altirra with the /? (not very likely since batch and shortcuts are usually crafted to replicate often used syntax). How many times of out of a 1000 of your launches, is Altirra launched by you manually typing it out from an interactive command prompt? I'm just curious.

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Funnily, *I* usually launch it from the command line. ;)

 

I think you're kind of a weird dude, but that's totally valid. I would bet money though that most people do not launch it by typing it in at a command prompt, at least most of the time. :)

 

And to reveal a little secret... I even launch it from an interactive command prompt once in a great while, just to use the /portable switch to instantiate an .INI file. Once created, I can once again launch Altirra in a more automated way.

Edited by fujidude
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I have a request, if you ever have the time or interest phaeron. The ability to hide Players and Missiles on an individual basis -- similar to how it's implemented for audio. This would be a big help for isolating or eliminating certain P/M objects during editing, and also to help determine which P/M's are used for what objects in a game/program.

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Fantastic emulator version! It's much better than an old 1.x version, I tested several years ago. And all games I tested so far (more than 500) are running :-)

 

Some issues and questions for Altirra 2.6:

 

* Docs are not up-to-date, i.e. putting ATARIXL.ROM in the Altirra dir doesn't work. A short readme.txt (reference list) would be sufficient for me

* When stopping with F8, set focus in the console window - even if the debug windows are already shown

* When typing g (or F8) in the debugger, focus remains in the now disabled console window (focus should go to the Atari window)

* Debug.ToggleDebugger sets the focus in the disabled console window (focus should remain in Atari window)

* When changing memory config, the emulator reboots, but loses a mounted XEX in D1 ?!?

* Double klicking an ATR in Windows-Explorer loses all mounted ATR/XEX (Atari800Win preserves mounted files)

* When (accidently) double klicking on a file entry in the disk explorer (edit field is shown for rename) and then clicking on another entry, Altirra renames the first entry to Spaces (the name sholdn't change)!?!

* The disk explorer entries should have a context menu (copy, delete, rename, paste?)

* "D: patch (Disk SIO)" doesn't work always, e.g. Gemstone Warrior from Atarimania

* Fast key repeat (location $2da) doesn't work unless "Send raw key strokes" is activated (strange)

* Fast key repeat (location $2da) doesn't work with the AltirraOS versions (even with "Send raw key strokes")

* A keyboard shortcut Disk.ToggleDefaultWriteEnable should exist to toggle the default R/W-Mode between "R/O" and "R/W" when a new disk is mounted (current default is "R/O" only). This is useful when Altirra is used as a game starter (some games need write access) or when mounting (several) DOS disks to create and modify Atari files. (Or the default R/W-mode is the write-protect attribute of the mounted ATR file.)

* Altirra-BASIC: An abbreviation for "LIST aexpr,32767" (e.g. "LIST aexpr,") would be very nice, since this LIST command is very often used when programming in BASIC.

* How can I search for ATASCII/Internal strings in memory using the debugger console window?

* What is the Altirra64.exe for? (Seems to be no difference to Altirra.exe except it's a 64 bit EXE?)

* A status bar with toggle icon buttons like in Atari800Win with the most important config options would be useful for beginners: BASIC on/off, PAL/NTSC, 64K/128K/Rambo-320K, D1-Write enable/disable, SIO-Patch on/off, Warp mode on/off. And 2 normal icon importants buttons: Rotate disk up, Cycle quick input maps

 

Other nice option: Keywords in the filename of a XEX/ATR for configuration, e.g.

_#BAS in the filename means, that Altirra activates Basic when doubleklicking the EXE/ATR (otherwise BASIC is turned off)

_#64K, _#128K, _#320K sets memory (otherwise memory is unchanged, 320K=RAMBO)

_#RW enables Write for D1 (otherwise readonly)

_#PAL, _#NTSC activates PAL/NTSC (otherwise video mode unchanged)

So almost all games can be started via double klick in Windows-Explorer without further configuration :-)

Edited by StefanD
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* When stopping with F8, set focus in the console window - even if the debug windows are already shown

* When typing g (or F8) in the debugger, focus remains in the now disabled console window (focus should go to the Atari window)

* Debug.ToggleDebugger sets the focus in the disabled console window (focus should remain in Atari window)

I'll second those suggestions.

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* Docs are not up-to-date, i.e. putting ATARIXL.ROM in the Altirra dir doesn't work. A short readme.txt (reference list) would be sufficient for me

Yeah, that won't work anymore since I put in the extensible firmware manager. Need to put in a startup setup wizard like Atari800WinPLus.

 

* When stopping with F8, set focus in the console window - even if the debug windows are already shown

* When typing g (or F8) in the debugger, focus remains in the now disabled console window (focus should go to the Atari window)

* Debug.ToggleDebugger sets the focus in the disabled console window (focus should remain in Atari window)

Been meaning to get back to focus issues at some point, but there are some sticky issues with this at the UI layer.

 

* When changing memory config, the emulator reboots, but loses a mounted XEX in D1 ?!?

Executables aren't mounted as disk images in Altirra; they're mounted as special hot-load events, and go away after the next reboot.

 

* Double klicking an ATR in Windows-Explorer loses all mounted ATR/XEX (Atari800Win preserves mounted files)

Mmm... not sure about this one. Double-clicking an ATR is equivalent to the boot option, and that deliberately clears existing images to avoid mixing disks. There's always right-drag if you want finer control over mounting.

 

* When (accidently) double klicking on a file entry in the disk explorer (edit field is shown for rename) and then clicking on another entry, Altirra renames the first entry to Spaces (the name sholdn't change)!?!

Thanks, will be fixed in next test release.

 

* The disk explorer entries should have a context menu (copy, delete, rename, paste?)

Err, they already do...?

 

* "D: patch (Disk SIO)" doesn't work always, e.g. Gemstone Warrior from Atarimania

Custom SIO routine, can't patch. Enable SIO burst transfers instead.

 

* Fast key repeat (location $2da) doesn't work unless "Send raw key strokes" is activated (strange)

This is intentional. In cooked key mode, the emulator sends the key up immediately so that typing works even in warp mode. This prevents auto-repeat from working within the OS, however.

 

The default is going to be switched to raw mode in 2.70.

 

* Fast key repeat (location $2da) doesn't work with the AltirraOS versions (even with "Send raw key strokes")

This is a bug -- will fix. Originally there was only one AltirraOS ROM before I split it into OS-B and XL compatible versions, and not all XL/XE differences are implemented yet.

 

* A keyboard shortcut Disk.ToggleDefaultWriteEnable should exist to toggle the default R/W-Mode between "R/O" and "R/W" when a new disk is mounted (current default is "R/O" only). This is useful when Altirra is used as a game starter (some games need write access) or when mounting (several) DOS disks to create and modify Atari files. (Or the default R/W-mode is the write-protect attribute of the mounted ATR file.)

Not sure why this would be useful as a keyboard shortcut...?

 

I have some other ideas here -- namely adding a "VRW-safe" mode that allows virtual read/write but blocks format.

 

* Altirra-BASIC: An abbreviation for "LIST aexpr,32767" (e.g. "LIST aexpr,") would be very nice, since this LIST command is very often used when programming in BASIC.

Sorry, no ROM space....

 

* How can I search for ATASCII/Internal strings in memory using the debugger console window?

Currently you have to do it in hex via the search (s) command, but a version that takes a string directly seems reasonable.

 

* What is the Altirra64.exe for? (Seems to be no difference to Altirra.exe except it's a 64 bit EXE?)

It's just a 64-bit build -- otherwise, exactly the same.

 

* A status bar with toggle icon buttons like in Atari800Win with the most important config options would be useful for beginners: BASIC on/off, PAL/NTSC, 64K/128K/Rambo-320K, D1-Write enable/disable, SIO-Patch on/off, Warp mode on/off. And 2 normal icon importants buttons: Rotate disk up, Cycle quick input maps

Have you tried the side menu (double-click on left)?

 

Other nice option: Keywords in the filename of a XEX/ATR for configuration, e.g.

_#BAS in the filename means, that Altirra activates Basic when doubleklicking the EXE/ATR (otherwise BASIC is turned off)

_#64K, _#128K, _#320K sets memory (otherwise memory is unchanged, 320K=RAMBO)

_#RW enables Write for D1 (otherwise readonly)

_#PAL, _#NTSC activates PAL/NTSC (otherwise video mode unchanged)

So almost all games can be started via double klick in Windows-Explorer without further configuration :-)

Mmm... not sure about this. It gets nasty really quickly and there's a lot of ambiguity about how other settings should be switched, such as P:/H: enable.

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Have noticed some oddness in Raw keyboard mode (test26) and not related to acceleration (F1). Occasionally the auto-repeat runs away with itself: never experienced this with prior versions. First noticed it running under WINE on a Hackintosh, but just triggered it on Windows while coming out of the debugger during a reboot of the emulated machine. Will try to reproduce.

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* Docs are not up-to-date, i.e. putting ATARIXL.ROM in the Altirra dir doesn't work. A short readme.txt (reference list) would be sufficient for me

 

Yeah, that won't work anymore since I put in the extensible firmware manager. Need to put in a startup setup wizard like Atari800WinPLus.

No problem here - after searching in the menus I found the Firmware dialog :-)

(It was only an example, what'snot correct in the docs)

 

* Double klicking an ATR in Windows-Explorer loses all mounted ATR/XEX (Atari800Win preserves mounted files)

 

Mmm... not sure about this one. Double-clicking an ATR is equivalent to the boot option, and that deliberately clears existing images to avoid mixing disks. There's always right-drag if you want finer control over mounting.

Oops - missed that

 

* The disk explorer entries should have a context menu (copy, delete, rename, paste?)

 

Err, they already do...?

Oops - you're right. And files can be copied out of the ATR by dragging them - very useful! (Perhaps add a menu choice "Copy?")

 

* "D: patch (Disk SIO)" doesn't work always, e.g. Gemstone Warrior from Atarimania

 

Custom SIO routine, can't patch. Enable SIO burst transfers instead.

Aaah, now I know the purpose of Burst SIO :-)

 

* Fast key repeat (location $2da) doesn't work unless "Send raw key strokes" is activated (strange)

 

This is intentional. In cooked key mode, the emulator sends the key up immediately so that typing works even in warp mode. This prevents auto-repeat from working within the OS, however. The default is going to be switched to raw mode in 2.70.

Thanks! I needed a while to find how I can activate fast key repeat.

 

* A keyboard shortcut Disk.ToggleDefaultWriteEnable should exist to toggle the default R/W-Mode between "R/O" and "R/W" when a new disk is mounted (current default is "R/O" only). This is useful when Altirra is used as a game starter (some games need write access) or when mounting (several) DOS disks to create and modify Atari files. (Or the default R/W-mode is the write-protect attribute of the mounted ATR file.)

 

Not sure why this would be useful as a keyboard shortcut...? I have some other ideas here -- namely adding a "VRW-safe" mode that allows virtual read/write but blocks format.

Let me explain in detail: When I mount an ATR (via "Attach disk" or double klick in Windows-Explorer or Drag&Drop) the default write mode is always readonly. So I must always go to the Disk drives dialog, if I want write access (this is needed for some games and for ATRs with DOS files on it). It would be nice to have a possibility to change the default write mode to "R/W", i.e. if I mount thereafter any ATR, the (default) write mode for the ATR is always "R/W" instead of "R/O".

To implement this, a toggle menu choice "Enable write by default" in the "File" menu (or some submenu) and an appropriate shortcut "Disk.ToggleDefaultWriteMode" for the Keyboard shortcuts dialog would be nice to toggle between "R/W" and "R/O" defaull write mode.

 

In addition I use keyboard shortcuts to make quick config changes: I'm using Altirra mainly as a game starter and with DOS-ATRs. The most needed config changes (BASIC on/off, 64K/128K/320K, PAL/NTSC, readonly/readwrite) can be done via keyboard shortcuts except the default write mode. E.g. to start "Cannon_Duel_#BAS.atr" I simply use a configured keyboard shortcut to toggle BASIC in Altirra (instead of going through several submenus).

 

* A status bar with toggle icon buttons like in Atari800Win with the most important config options would be useful for beginners: BASIC on/off, PAL/NTSC, 64K/128K/Rambo-320K, D1-Write enable/disable, SIO-Patch on/off, Warp mode on/off. And 2 normal icon importants buttons: Rotate disk up, Cycle quick input maps

 

Have you tried the side menu (double-click on left)?

Oops - didn't see that. Nice menu for the full screen mode! And with a on-screen keyboard for my touch screen :-) Maybe the text could be a bit larger. And I can select a setting with the arrow keys but activating a setting doesn't work with the Return key (only with a single or double klick).

 

Other nice option: Keywords in the filename of a XEX/ATR for configuration, e.g.

_#BAS in the filename means, that Altirra activates Basic when doubleklicking the EXE/ATR (otherwise BASIC is turned off)

_#64K, _#128K, _#320K sets memory (otherwise memory is unchanged, 320K=RAMBO)

_#RW enables Write for D1 (otherwise readonly)

_#PAL, _#NTSC activates PAL/NTSC (otherwise video mode unchanged)

So almost all games can be started via double klick in Windows-Explorer without further configuration :-)

 

Mmm... not sure about this. It gets nasty really quickly and there's a lot of ambiguity about how other settings should be switched, such as P:/H: enable.

Not all config options, ONLY the most important to run XEX/ATR on drive 1: BASIC on/off, 64K/128K/320K-Rambo, PAL/NTSC, readonly/readwrite, see example above. These 4 settings are sufficient to run almost all programs for the XL. Maybe the parsing of config options in the filename can be switched on/off with a menu choice?!?

 

Thanks for this great emulator!

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Have noticed some oddness in Raw keyboard mode (test26) and not related to acceleration (F1). Occasionally the auto-repeat runs away with itself: never experienced this with prior versions. First noticed it running under WINE on a Hackintosh, but just triggered it on Windows while coming out of the debugger during a reboot of the emulated machine. Will try to reproduce.

 

I had it happen recently too, but do not remember the circumstances around it. I am also running test 26.

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