Best emulator for a n00b?

[+dhe]

So, when I'm learning a new platform, I also like to bring up an emulator, that way I'll know if it's hardware or me.

 

What's my best bet for an emulator - I would prefer ease of setup vs more technical options, but harder to setup (MAME comes to mind).

 

Thanks in Advance!

[TGB1718]

I use STEEMSSE mainly because it's easier to get a screen size I like, also easy to emulate hard drives and any of the ST range

others use Hatari, but I've never managed

to get it working in anything other than a tiny square which is useless, whenever I try to change anything it seems

to cause the emulator to lock up in full screen and then itt needs a full reset.

[Cyprian]

Steem https://sourceforge.net/projects/steemsse/ and Hatari https://hatari.tuxfamily.org/

Edited November 16, 2022 by Cyprian

[zzip]

As others mentioned,  Hatari and Steem are the most full-featured and accurate.

 

For either, you will need a TOS rom image.

and the ST software,  this can be in the form of floppy disk images,  you may be able to use a real floppy drive if you still have one on your PC.

You can also set up a folder as a hard drive and store software in there.

[darwinmac]

Do you run Windows or some other OS on your modern computer? If you run Windows, I would recommend Steem SSE. If you run Linux or macOS, then I think Hatari is the best option. I haven't had the screen problem (very small window) that @TGB1718 has had with Hatari. However, if he is running the Windows version, that could be the problem. None of the Hatari developers run Windows and the Windows port is not as nice as the macOS or Linux ports.

 

Bob C

[zzip]

15 minutes ago, darwinmac said:

Do you run Windows or some other OS on your modern computer? If you run Windows, I would recommend Steem SSE. If you run Linux or macOS, then I think Hatari is the best option. I haven't had the screen problem (very small window) that @TGB1718 has had with Hatari. However, if he is running the Windows version, that could be the problem. None of the Hatari developers run Windows and the Windows port is not as nice as the macOS or Linux ports.

 

Bob C

Yeah OS might be the wildcard here.   Hatari runs perfectly for me on Linux, but recent builds of Linux SteemSSE's  have given me nothing but trouble.  but sounds like it runs well on Windows.

[MasterMotorola]

7 hours ago, TGB1718 said:

I use STEEMSSE mainly because it's easier to get a screen size I like, also easy to emulate hard drives and any of the ST range

others use Hatari, but I've never managed

to get it working in anything other than a tiny square which is useless, whenever I try to change anything it seems

to cause the emulator to lock up in full screen and then itt needs a full reset.

Press F11 to toggle full-screen mode.  You can also press F12 and under the "Hatari screen options" tab, make sure that "Keep desktop resolution in fullscreen" is checked so it will remember this configuration.  Hatari works great on my Linux laptop but I found Steem awkward to set up especially with MIDI.

 

 

 

[TGB1718]

22 minutes ago, MasterMotorola said:

Press F11 to toggle full-screen mode.

Thanks, but I don't want full screen, what I try to set is a nice size window, but whatever I try it's just not big enough,

in fact it doesn't seem to matter what settings you make to both Atari Screen or Hatari Screen it just ignores

the settings and you get the small box as usual.

 

I did save the config after each change and reloaded Hatari

[TGB1718]

2 hours ago, darwinmac said:

Do you run Windows or some other OS on your modern computer? I

Yes, it is Windows, so I use STeemSSE, much better on Windows

[darwinmac]

1 hour ago, TGB1718 said:

Yes, it is Windows, so I use STeemSSE, much better on Windows

While I greatly prefer Hatari, I am running macOS. On the Mac, I can resize my Hatari window like you want to do. If I wanted to save that size, I could use a window management utility to do that. 
 

On Windows, you are stuck with the generic SDL interface. I know that is because there are no Hatari developers that use Windows. For the Windows user, it does not matter why it is the case.

 

Bob C

[zzip]

The option highlighted below allows you to stretch the window to any size you like.    But it requires SDL2,  Does Windows only support SDL1?  

 

[MrMaddog]

20 minutes ago, zzip said:

The option highlighted below allows you to stretch the window to any size you like.    But it requires SDL2,  Does Windows only support SDL1?  

 

 

You can get the latest SDL2.dll for Windows.

[+dhe]

Hi,

 I downloaded steemsse - it took me a total of five minutes to install, pull a set of ROM's and boot diskette.

 There is a very impressive amount of documentation in the doc folder, and going through the setup option gives a n00b a lot of information about the various hardware and software configuration available in the original platforms.

 

 Thanks for all the suggestions and tips.

 

 My main goal is to put together a system I can "Hello, World" upon.

[TGB1718]

10 hours ago, dhe said:

My main goal is to put together a system I can "Hello, World" upon.

Once you get it going, you can do anything, the main thing I've found is some of the older applications/languages

were written for floppy disk, but with a bit of "persuading", you can usually get them to run off hard disks