Acorn Atom Emulator v1.33


Introduction

The Acorn Atom... A small, but very flexible British home computer, released in 1979. With only 12 kB ROM and 12 kB RAM as a standard, programs could be made pretty easily, as long as they were not too complicated. However, thanks to quite a number of (EP)ROMs and the Atom's flexible structure, the Atom could be extended with a wide variety of possibilities.
With the Acorn Atom emulator, it is now possible to run almost all the Atom programs on your PC.

The Emulator

The emulator pack is a ZIP compressed archive, containing the following files:
Atom.Exe - The emulator,
AtomCom.Exe - A utility to transfer data from and to tape or an original Atom,
AtomTape.Exe - A utility to retrieve files from tape or an original Atom,
TapeCat.Exe - A utility to index original Atom tapes,
TapeDir.Exe - A utility that shows the contents of a .Tap file,
ReadMe.1st - A text file containing the latest information,
ExtROM.Tap - A tape image containing a number of extension toolboxes,
Example.Tap - A tape image with a few programs that make use of the new toolboxes,
*.Doc - Documentation.

Pictures

Here are two action shots taken from the emulator. It supports sound through the PC-speaker and through a SoundBlaster or compatible soundcard. The emulator is 100% assembler, and therefore a 486 DX 40 MHz is already enough to run emulation at original speed, with full screen updates. The picture on the left was taken from Plane & Tank Battle (programmed 20th - 22nd march 1998 as an excuse for not having to learn about spalling forces on steel fibre reinforced concrete). The picture on the right shows a snapshot from the game 'Snapper'.


Version history

Upgrade v1.0 --> v1.1:
On first sight nothing is new from version 1.0. However, emulator v1.1 runs in VGA mode 12h in stead of 13h, because on some graphic adapters a stable screen could not be achieved. I hope this solves the problem.

Upgrade v1.1 --> v1.2:
The following changes have been made:

Upgrade v1.2 --> v1.21:

Upgrade v1.21 --> v1.22:

Upgrade v1.22 --> v1.30:

Upgrade v1.30 --> v1.31:

Upgrade v1.31 --> v1.32:

Upgrade v1.32 --> v1.33:

Downloading

The Acorn Atom Emulator is freeware. I have written it mainly for nostalgia reasons and secondly because I think the Acorn Atom just is a great product!


File: Contents:
Atom.Zip
(14 aug 99)
Atom.Exe v1.33
AtomCom.Exe v1.10
AtomTape.Exe v1.1
TapeCat.Exe v1.00
Tapedir.Exe
Atom.Doc
AtomCom.Doc
TapeCat.Doc
ReadMe.1st
ExtROM.Tap (AXR1, P-Charme, Gags v2.3, WE-ROM, A&F Utility Kit, ComBox, Salfaa v2.6, Mouse-Dos Box v1.01, Atomic Windows v1.0)
Example.Tap
Gags.Doc
WE-ROM.Doc
ComBox.Doc
Salfaa.Doc
P-Charme.Doc
AtomicW.Doc
MD-Box.Doc
Tape1.Zip
(29 jan 98)
Applic1.Tap (AXR1 Demo, Atom Music, Eliza, Shape Edit, Basic Compiler, Atom Lisp, Towers of Hanoi, Eight Queens, Kl. Beest, Fourier)
Games1.Tap (Attack, Babies, Backgammon, Chess, Dodgems, Dogfight, Fighter, Four Row, Frogger, Galaxians, Invaders, Martians, Mastermind, Minotaur, Missile Base, Rat Trap, Robots, Snake, Snapper, Stargate, Star Trek, Zombie)
Games2.Tap (Break Out, Co-Ord, Invade, Galgje, Ski-Run, Amazing, Bone Hunt, Asteroid Belt, E.T. Invaders, Solitaire, Pontoon, Beetle, Yahtzee)
Games1.Doc
Graham.Zip
(13 dec 97)
Graham.Tap (Reversi, Super Othello, Dominoes, Snooker, Invaders, Acorn Chess)
Adventur.Zip
(28 mar 98)
Adventur.Tap (Dungeon, House, Intergalactic, Atomia Akorny, Sphinx)
Adventur.Doc
Atomia.Doc
Atomia.Sol
Magnus.Zip
(19 feb 98)
Magnus1.Tap (Super Zombie, Masken, Star Trek +, MegaLife, Condot, Eliza, Ghost Maze, Hammurabi, Hunt the Wampus, Katakomb, Kong, MadLib, Scramble)
Magnus2.Tap (Backgammon, Checkmate, DFC700, Diamonds, Dragon A, Dragon B, Dragon C, Lunar Lander)
Magnus1.Doc
Magnus2.Doc
Steve.Zip
(29 jan 98)
Steve.Tap (747, Asteroids, Break Out, Chess, Fruit Machine, Invader Force, Labyrinth, Nudger, Pinball)
Steve.Doc
Leendert.Zip
(29 jan 98)
Leendert.Tap (3d-Asteroids, 3d-Four in a Row, 3d-Maze, Astrobirds, Atomica, Awari, Ballistics, Bandit, Blitz, Break Out, Centipede, Cupball, Cylon Attack, Dammen, Drive, Early Warning, Fractal, Hexpawn, Hyperdrive, Lunar Lander, Maze Game, Minefield, Omega Mission, Piet Hein, Piramide, Planetarium, Protect, Puckman, Rally, Reversi, Schiphol, Simon 2, Skiing, Space Battle, Space War, Swarm, Torpedo Run, Trap, Warlords, Wiggle, Zeeslag)
Leendert.Doc
Friso.Zip
(1 mar 98)
Friso.Tap (Business Game, Constellation, Demon Dungeon, Pilot, Pinball, AtomCalc, BreakOut, Lemon)
Roland.Zip
(6 mar 98)
Gokkast.Tap
Menno.Zip
(14 may 98)
Fruitma.Tap
Menno1.Tap (Amoeba, Badin, Bell Hop, Brains, City Bomber, Cluedo, Dobbel, Golf, Gomoku, Moon Patrol, Pengo, P&T-Battle, Q-Bert, Shoot Out, Simon, Stock Car, Stowaway, Subhunt)
Wordpack.Tap (Ed64)
Poker.Dsk
Erik.Zip
(16 jan 01)
Erik.Tap
Erik.Txt
DemoDisk.Zip
(14 may 98)
DemoDisk.Dsk (Intro, Atomic Windows Demo, IconMaker, Minesweeper, Panic, Polecat, Space Zap, Rubik's cube, Painter, Boeing 747, Aman, Pattern, Contour, Surface, Rotation)
Source.Zip
(14 aug 99)
Atom.Pas
FDC8271.Pas
AtomTape.Pas
AtomCom.Pas
TapeCat.Pas
TapeDir.Pas
TapeDir.C
RomDisas.Zip
(20 jan 01)
C000.Txt
D000.Txt
F000.Txt


Credits

The software collection on this page and the state that the emulator is in at this moment could not have been possible without the following people:

Links

Website for Atom-in-PC by Roland Leurs at http://skyscraper.fortunecity.com/module/208
The anally retentives retro games home at http://www.arrgh.demon.co.uk/
Keith Howell's homepage at http://www.howell1964.freeserve.co.uk/Acorn/Atom/Atom.htm

Future

About a year ago, I started working on a Windows version of the emulator (looking exactly the same as the DOS based one). The main reason was that it would be much easier to do the correct timing (Let DirectX do it all for you). The DOS one works perfectly on my (ancient) Pentium 233 MHz. However, on many other computers, with different graphic cards, the timing appeared to be not very good.
This project has stranded somewhere in june, but maybe someday I will pick it up. The largest problem is that I can't find the time anymore. The second largest problem is the sound emulation. If anybody can give me some hints, please mail me.

This page has been created on tuesday 11th november 1997,
Last update made on saturday 20th january 2001 by Wouter Ras.