Set Up, Play Atari 2600 Games on Your Computer Using an Emulator

The Atari 2600 was the first gaming console for many users, and it opened the doors to the world of at-home gaming. The Atari was leased in many different versions over the years, and it went from a basic pong-gaming system to a more advanced color system that was astounding for its time.

If you wen to college in the 1980s, there's a good chance you spent more than a few nights putting off homework to finish the next level of Frogger. If you want to relive those nostalgic feelings for a bit, then read on.

Thanks to emulators, you don't have to search eBay for a working console, and then hunt through garage sales and flea markets to get some games. An emulator is basically a virtual console that you install on your computer. They play ROMs, which are digital versions of the Atari games. The system runs just as well as the console did because the systems were not powerful when compared to today's technology - playing Atari games on a computer doesn't require much power, and even older machines can handle it.

If you'd like to play Atari 2600 video games on your computer, read on to find out how.

Items Needed:

Atari 2600 emulator

Computer

ROMs

Joystick

Step 1: You'll need a computer that can handle playing the games - any modern computer should be powerful enough. For an Atari generator, you will need a minimum of 500MHz processor and 512MB of RAM. Ideally, you'd have 1GHZ CPU or higher and 1GB or higher of RAM.

You will also need a joystick. A good USB computer joystick can usually be purchased for about $20 from an electronics store.

Step 2: Download and install an Atari 2600 emulator to your computer. The best Atari 2600 emulator is called Stella, and it can be run on Windows, Mac OS X, Unix, Amiga, DOS, and FreeBSD.

Simply navigate to http://stella.sourceforge.net/ and download the latest stable release. Installation is simple and takes virtually no hard drive space at all.

Step 3: Download ROMs by running an Internet search. Be sure to download legal ones only.

Step 4: Plug your USB joystick into your computer and then start the emulator. Once started, choose the OPTIONS button and configure your joystick. This is done simply by choosing the on-screen button you would like to map and then pressing the button on your joystick that you would like to have work with it.

Step 5: Once your joystick is mapped, open a ROM that you have saved to your computer. It will automatically load. For the best visual appearance, keep the screen smaller - Atari games were never meant for the high resolution monitors of today. However, you can make it fullscreen.

Play the game to make sure your joystick is mapped correctly.