Stella

Atari 2600 emulator for Macs

If you ever owned the Atari 2600 Video Computer System (VCS) and yearn for a trip down memory lane, then Stella is your answer.

The Atari 2600 was introduced in 1977 and according to the developers, was the most popular home video game system of the early 1980’s. Most have now been consigned to the dustbin or a museum but that doesn’t mean you still can’t relive the good old days.

Stella is free to use and even supports joysticks if you have any connected. To play a game, you’ll need a ROM file which you load into Stella. Unfortunately, no ROMs come preinstalled with Stella and the developer doesn’t offer any but some Googling should help you find a few sites that host emulator ROMS (such as Atariage.com). However, note that it is illegal to use ROM images of games that you do not actually own since they are still copyrighted, even 30 years on.

Loading a ROM can be a bit intimidating however if you’ve never used an emulator. The most important thing to load them is the ROM launcher which you’ll find in “Options” and then “Config Files”. For this, you’ll undoubtedly need to refer to the user guide which is extensive and explains clearly what you need to do to launch a game.

Stella will have all Mac owning Atari nostalgics rolling back the years. Just make sure you’ve got plenty of ROMs to load as you’ll soon get bored!

No release notes available.