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Atari 7800 Emulator Now Available

Finally, after much awaiting and disbelief that it could ever be accomplished, an Atari 7800 emulator is now available! It was written by Dan Boris for the multi-system emulator, MESS, and will be included in the next version. Until the next version of MESS is released, Boris has released a standalone version for MS-DOS. It runs slow, but at least it runs. The 7800 emulator is available at Dan Boris's Atari 7800 Tech Info Page.
It was previously believed that an emulator for the 7800 would be impossible, due to a lack of information about the system's encryption. According to Boris however, this was only a myth. Atari 7800 games were not encrypted. The 7800 was designed to be backward compatible with Atari 2600 cartridges. As a result, the 7800 was designed with a validation key to recognize whether the game cartridge inserted is a 2600 cart or a 7800 cart. This validation key became confused as an encryption key and led to the previously believed myth about the system.
If anyone has any info or would like to express their opinion, please e-mail me at routte_s@denison.edu or simply post a message on the Atari Files Rumor Board.

-Sean