How to Play an Atari 2600 on a PC

Atari's Website

• 1

  Log in to the Atari.com website. Although Atari no longer makes home video game consoles, they are still a valid contender in making video games for other consoles. Log in to Atari, and you will see that they have a variety of games still being produced for all of the current generation games.

• 2

  Click on the "Arcade" icon, at the top of the screen and towards the middle.

• 3

  Select a game and click on the "Play" icon. The arcade screen that pops up has access to a few of their "classic" games, from the Atari 2600 era. Each has an icon located next to them labeled "Play." Clicking on this will automatically load the game.

• 4

  Click on the "Start" or "P1/P2 Start" icon. After the game is loaded in the inner box, there will be a few flashing icons located within the same box, directly above the game screen. Depending on if it is a one-player or two-player game, it will have either a "Start", "P1 Start" or "P2 Start" icon flashing. Select whichever one suits you.

Emulator

• 5

  Download an Atari 2600 Emulator. An emulator essentially mimics another machine (in this case, an Atari 2600) on your computer, so it can play the games designed for it. There are several to choose from, which can be found on sites like Emulator Zone and Atari Age. Here you will find some of the best emulators such as Stella, PC Atari and z26.

• 6

  Install the emulator. Once it is downloaded from the Internet, your computer should walk you through the steps to install the emulator. When asked if you would like to save to a disc, choose a location on your computer that you will remember, or use the computer default, which normally stores the file in a "download" folder.

• 7

  Download the ROM's, which are essentially the games. On the same sites, there will be a link which you can click on to download them.

• 8

  Install the ROM's. After downloading the ROM's, you will notice that they come in "Zip" or compressed files. Opening the Zip file will unload all of the contents. Choose the same location on your computer as the actual emulator to save the ROM's, or use the computer default.

• 9

  Open the emulator program. Doing so will likely give you a prompt to "Load a Game?", in which case, select "Yes" and the "Open File" screen will come up. Go to where you saved the ROM's and select the one you would like. If you do not get an automatic prompt, simply go to the top of the screen in the tool bar and click on the "File" icon. Then select the "Open" option, which will bring up the same "Open File" screen, where you can select the ROM you would like.