EmuSlack - Game Console & Vintage Computer System emulation on Slackware Linux

Maintained by: Legendre
Hosted on: chef.nerp.net

1. Welcome

Over the course of time, many emulation softwares have emerged for the Linux operating system. Like most open-source projects, these softwares fall into one of several categories:

• Working, and maintained
• Working, but tacitly abandoned
• Limping along
• Dead & departed. Services on Sunday

It is the aim of this site to sift through the projects, and provide you with only the top of the heap - doing our best to only offer software from the first two categories.

2. Software packages you could download

• Altair 8800 (MITS) / IMSAI 8080

Ever wanted to emulate a system with a user interface that makes an abacus look advanced? Sure, we all have.

• Altair32 is a superb project, which is capable of emulating a very complete MITS Altair 8800 / IMSAI 8080 system. The BAD news is that there is no native Linux/UNIX port of this software - The GOOD news is that Altair32 seems to run well in WINE. As a bonus, the Altair32 distribution contains a wealth of system software, utilites and applications from the Simtel CP/M Archive. Get the latest code from:

http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/Altair32code.htm

Note: Altair32 is released freely under the Altair32 License, v1.0

• The SIMH Altair Z80 Simulator is another option. This software does not offer a GUI interface, but does an excellent 'simulation' of an Altair 8800 on the console, with options for either an 8080 or Z80 cpu. The project homepage provides links to a number of useful softwares for this system. The SIMH Altair Simulator is a very functional software with a generic ANSI C port, which offers the fastest route to running CP/M on the Altair platform.:
• AltairZ80-3.3-0-i586-1ml.tgz
• Atari 2600 (VCS)

For the Atari 2600, Stella is the thing to use. Nice simple console interface, and compatibility is very good. The package offered is derived from a generic Linux_x86 binary which I repackaged for Slackware. I hope this does not offend the author, as I was unable to build the sources.

• stella-1.1-i386-1ml.tgz
• Commodore Computers; PET, VIC-20, C-64, Plus4, C-128

I've found two softwares that seem to hit the mark. VICE and Frodo. VICE emulates all of the popular Commodore machines, but Frodo seems directed at the C-64 only. Right now, I only offer the VICE package for download:

• vice-1.15-i586-1ml.tgz
• NES / Nintendo Entertainment System (Famicom)

For the NES, we offer FCE Ultra. This emulator was originally written for MS-DOS, but has several other ports (including Linux/POSIX). Overall compatibility is excellent++.

• fceu-0.98.13-pre-i586-1ml.tgz
• Sega Genesis (MegaDrive)

Several emulators exist for Sega Genesis / Megadrive and 32x. They are listed here in order of my subjective impressions:

• dgen-sdl-1.23-i586-1ml.tgz - Dgen - abandoned but very good. Built for SDL
• generator-0.35-cbiere-i586-1ml.tgz - Generator (GTK) with the cbiere Linux extensions. Good.
• gens-rc3-i586-1ml.tgz - Gens, also stable and working, seems slow on development.
• SNES / Super Nintendo (Super Famicom)

Zsnes is the thing to do. Multiple ports of this one; MS-DOS, Windows, Linux/POSIX etc. Currently developed and compatibility is excellent.

• Zsnes-1.4-i586-1ml.tgz