Altirra 1.9 Test 16

Altirra 1.9 Test 16 is released. Altirra is an Atari 8 bit Emulator on the Windows/DOS platform. Altirra emulates several models of the 8-bit Atari computers. This includes the the 800, 800XL, and 130XE versions. It has a lot of options, and compatibility is decent especially given the emulator's early stages. It also supports some copy protected games properly in emulation.

- Not much new besides serial stuff, but it does now support two cartridges, and I put in some bug fixes for writing to SpartaDOS X disks in the Disk Explorer. I still don't recommend writing to anything but throwaway disk images, but it's handy to get stuff into SDX (which doesn't support H:). - The M.U.L.E. image is a bit sketchy. The reason that it has problems has to do with the way that that game boots, which is that it invokes a warm start. Unfortunately, the cartridge is badly made in that it disables itself if it sees OPTION held down, but you also need that key held down in order to disable the built-in BASIC. The result is that the timing for pressing the Option key is tight: you need it held down right when the computer resets, but it has to be released before the RAM test and ROM checksum completes and the cartridge boots. If you hold it too long, the cartridge is bypassed too and you land in the self-test. You can see this behavior in Atari800WinPLus if you uncheck the Disable BASIC flag. The reason this doesn't work in Altirra is that it disables the auto-Option-to-disable-BASIC code when AtariMax cartridges are used, due to the Option key conflict. As a result, you have to disable BASIC manually and the timing for it is really tight. You pretty much need Fast Boot off to pull it off.

Download: Altirra 1.9 Test 16
Source: Here