MAME-z26

z26 is an Atari VCS (Atari 2600 for you young guys) emulator. The author, John Saeger, very graciously releases his source code as well as the binary for the emulator.

When making my gaming cabinet (the Frinkiac 7) I decided to use John’s emulator for Atari games. But the default key mappings are hard-coded into z26. So I took the source code and remapped the keys so that they match those of MAME a lot better.

For those of you wanting to run Atari games in a MAME cabinet, this version of z26 should work a lot better.

Here are the main key mappings that MAME-Z26 uses:

P1 Joystick (just like MAME):

  • LEFT = LEFT
  • RIGHT = RIGHT
  • UP = UP
  • DOWN = DOWN
  • FIRE1 = LCTRL
  • FIRE2 = LALT
  • FIRE3 = SPACE
  • PADDLE1 BUTTON = LCTRL

P2 Joystick (just like MAME):

  • LEFT = D
  • RIGHT = G
  • UP = R
  • DOWN = F
  • FIRE1 = A
  • FIRE2 = S
  • FIRE3 = Q
  • PADDLE2 BUTTON = A

The pause control has been changed to be like MAME as well (‘P’ acts as a toggle control).

The current version of MAME-z26 is based on the z26 2.13 source code.

Here’s a download link: MAME-z26 version 2.13