General Usage (kat5200 Emulator)

General Usage

kat5200 can be run from the command line or from a windowed environment. It will start with the last rom image run or with the GUI if no rom image found, no BIOS found, or if specified from the GUI.

Basic Usage (Command Line):

kat5200 [ -options value] rom_file_name | sql_file_name

The setup and control of the program is performed via the kat5200.db3 sqlite database file. On a Windows system, this file is located in the User’s application data directory. This is something like C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data in XP. On *nix systems it will be searched for in the user’s home directory first (as .kat5200/kat5200.db3), then in /etc/kat5200. In General, configuration settings are edited through the GUI menus but can be overridden through command line options (see the options below). Also note that SQL files are accepted and are run against the database.

Command Line Options

The following options are allowed. They can be in any order but must come before the rom_file_name.

‘-debug’: Start the program in debug mode.
‘-width’: Width to use in windowed mode or desired fullscreen width
‘-height’: Height to use in windowed mode or desired fullscreen height
‘-fullscreen value’: FullScreen: 1 for Yes, 0 for No. Video mode is independant of this setting.
‘-widescreen value’: Widescreen: 1 for Yes, 0 for No. Shows extra pixels on left and right.
‘-zoom value’: Zoom can be 1-3 and the video screen will be scaled by the value.
‘-mouse_speed value’: Mouse Speed can be 1-5 with 3 as the default.
‘-sound value’: Sound: 1 for On, 0 for Off.
‘-throttle value’: Speed throttling in percent (0 for full speed).
‘-start_with_gui value’: Start the emulator with the GUI: 1 for Yes, 0 for No.
‘-start_gui_with_launcher value’: Start the GUI with Launcher: 1 for Yes, 0 for No.
‘-system_type value’: This is PAL or NTSC.
‘-basic_enable value’: Enable BASIC in the 8-bit mode: 1 for Yes, 0 for No.
‘-sio_patch value’: Enable the SIO Patch in the 8-bit mode: 1 for Yes, 0 for No.
‘-machine_type value’: This can be 800/800XL/800XE/5200.
‘-state profile’: This loads up the entered state profile.
‘-quick_state value’: This loads up the quick state, value can be 1-9.
‘-config filename’: This loads up an alternative config db3 file
‘-reset_config’: This resets the config to the default

User Keys (settings can be overidden in the GUI):

ESC - Quit the current emulation and go to GUI
ALT-F4 - Quit the program.
F1 - Enter debugger
ALT-ENTER - Toggle Fullscreen
ALT-s - Take screenshot
ALT-1 to ALT-9 - Load state from slot 1-9
SHIFT-1 to SHIFT-9 - Save state to slot 1-9

GUI Usage

The GUI will show when the emulator is started without being able to load the current rom image file or BIOS or when the ESC key is pressed while in the emulation.

Portable Usage

It is possible to make kat5200 portable, in other words all needed files are stored with the executable. To do this create a file called portable.txt in the same directory as the kat5200 executable and write a 1 in the file. Note that the kat5200.db3 file needs to be already present in the directory.