RaspBSD is a free and open-source image of FreeBSD 11 that has been preconfigured in 2 images for Raspberry Pi computers. If you didn’t know, FreeBSD isn’t Linux, but it works in pretty much the same way as it is a descendant of the research by the Berkeley Software Distribution and it is among the world’s most broadly used Operating Systems today with its code existing in. It provides the Raspberry Pi OS desktop, as well as most of the recommended software that comes with Raspberry Pi OS, for any PC or Apple Mac computer. If you have an old computer that is no longer powerful enough to run a modern commercial operating system, try Debian with Raspberry Pi Desktop: it can often make the computer usable once more.
Want to be able to run classic Mac OS applications compiled for the Motorola 68000 series of processors on your ever-so-modern Mac OS X machine? Or maybe you'd rather run them on a Raspberry Pi, or an Android device for that matter? There's an emulation project that's trying to achieve just that: Advanced Mac Substitute (AMS).
Emulators of older computer platforms and game consoles are popular with vintage game enthusiasts. But emulators also could be attractive to others with some emotional (or economic) attachment to old binaries—like those with a sudden desire to resurrect aged Aldus PageMaker files.
Advanced Mac Substitute is an effort by long-time Mac hacker Josh Juran to make it possible to run old Mac OS software (up to Mac OS 6) without a need for an Apple ROM or system software. Other emulators out there for 68000 Mac applications such as Basilisk II require a copy of MacOS installation media—such as install CDs from Mac OS 7.5 or Mac OS 8. But AMS uses a set of software libraries that allow old Mac applications to launch right within the operating environment of the host device, without needing to have a full virtual hardware and operating system instance behind them. And it's all open source.
AdvertisementI got a demo of AMS from Juran at Shmoocon in Washington, DC, this past weekend. He showed me an early attempt at getting the game Load Runner to work with the emulator—it's not yet interactive. A version of the project, downloadable from Github, includes a 'Welcome' screen application (a sort of Mac OS 'hello world'), Mac Tic-Tac-Toe, and an animation of NyanCat.
Advanced Mac Substitute https://t.co/mCyiI6lU8M emulated greatness via @joshuajuranpic.twitter.com/SMeI241yGd
— xraytext (@xraytext) January 21, 2019
Applications are launched from the command line for now and are executed by the emulation software, which interprets the system and firmware calls. A small graphical front-end displays video and accepts user input.
Unfortunately, there's still a lot of work to be done. While AMS works on Mac OS X up to version 10.12—both on Intel and PowerPC versions of the operating system—the code for the graphics front end currently won't compile on MacOS Mojave. (Juran is looking for someone with some expertise in Coco to help fix that.) And the Linux implementation of AMS does not yet support keyboard input. I was unable to get the front end to execute at all on Debian 9 on Intel.
But there's hope that these hurdles can be cleared. Juran said that he's considering a crowdfunding program to support further development of AMS and is looking for others willing to contribute to the project. With luck, I'll be laying out the neighborhood newsletter on Aldus PageMaker 4 for Mac and hunting down binaries for Balance of Power.
Welcome to RetroPie. RetroPie allows you to turn your Raspberry Pi, ODroid C1/C2, or PC into a retro-gaming machine. It builds upon Raspbian, EmulationStation, RetroArch and many other projects to enable you to play your favourite Arcade, home-console, and classic PC games with the minimum set-up. For power users it also provides a large variety of configuration tools to customise the system as you want.
RetroPie sits on top of a full OS, you can install it on an existing Raspbian, or start with the RetroPie image and add additional software later. It's up to you.
While the RetroPie Project originated at petRockBlock.com this is now the home of RetroPie.
Please note: No copyrighted games are included with RetroPie
Features
EmulationStation
RetroArch
Kodi
Arcade Machine Emulator Raspberry Pi
Themes
Raspberry Pi Emulator Mac Virtualbox
Modular
Over 50 Systems
RetroPie 4.7.1 images are now available from the Download Page. Unfortunately a couple of bugs crept into the EmulationStation front-end for the 4.7 release. A performance issue causing EmulationStation to have a poor frame rate and an bug affecting its built in scrapers. The performance issue affected Raspberry Pi 0/1/2/3…
