FOSSPicks
Atari ST emulator
Hatari
When it comes to emulation, the Atari ST is often overlooked in favor of the Commodore Amiga. This could be because Commodore's story is the more romantic: an underdog with superior hardware under the custodianship of an owner incapable of building on its advantage. The Atari ST was also hugely successful in the 80s, to such an extent that it became the bane of every Amiga owner as they suffered substandard game ports from its rival, the lowest common denominator. But it's still a huge chunk of many childhoods, and as a result, great fun to play with via an emulator like Hatari. What's also great about Hatari is that it has very few dependencies, it's cross-platform, and you can easily build it yourself. All you need to get rolling is a legal copy of Atari's ROM or a copy of the free EmuTOS ROM.
If the emulator locates your ROM, it will launch and present you with the old GEM desktop in all its wonderful green and gray glory. Hatari's UI is equally austere, looking like something built in the Unix/X windows/Motif era, but also totally fitting with the late 1980s. As with the Amiga emulator, UAE, you press F12 to bring up the options overlay. From here, you can insert floppy disk images, hard disks, joysticks, and upgrade the memory and CPU with a click of a checkbox, although this may break compatibility. And compatibility is brilliant. We raced through lots of old games, from Captain Blood to Midwinter, and everything seems to work faultlessly. The emulator also handles MIDI for controlling keyboards and synthesizers. This means that Hatari could be used for more than nostalgia as there's a growing trend for modern musicians to go back to old software for its simplicity and durability.
Project Website

Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Direct Download
Read full article as PDF:
Price $2.95
News
-
GNOME 40 Beta has been Released
Anyone looking to test the beta for the upcoming GNOME 40 release can now do so.
-
OpenMandriva Lx 4.2 has Arrived
The latest stable version of OpenMandriva has been released and offers the newest KDE desktop and ARM support.
-
Thunderbird 78 is being ported to Ubuntu 20.04
The Ubuntu developers have made the decision to port the latest release of Thunderbird to the LTS version of the platform.
-
Elementary OS is Bringing Multi-Touch Gestures to the OS
User-friendly Linux distribution, elementary OS, is working to make using the fan-favorite platform even better for laptops.
-
Decade-Old Sudo Flaw Discovered
A vulnerability has been discovered in the Linux sudo command that’s been hiding in plain sight.
-
Another New Linux Laptop has Arrived
Slimbook has released a monster of a Linux gaming laptop.
-
Mozilla VPN Now Available for Linux
The promised subscription-based VPN service from Mozilla is now available for the Linux platform.
-
Wayland and New App Menu Coming to KDE
The 2021 roadmap for the KDE desktop environment includes some exciting features and improvements.
-
Deepin 20.1 has Arrived
Debian-based Deepin 20.1 has been released with some interesting new features.
-
CloudLinux Commits Over 1 Million Dollars to CentOS Replacement
An open source, drop-in replacement for CentOS is on its way.