Hatari emulator for N770

Contents:

Hatari package
Keybindings
Some notes about making Hatari run faster
Building the Hatari (v0.90) package from source

Hatari package

Download the Hatari package and install it using the "Tools -> Application Manager -> Package -> Install from file..." functionality in your N770:

hatari_0.90_armel.deb

NOTE! If you had earlier Hatari v0.80 package, you need to download and reinstall new versions of the game/demo packages (I changed the hatari StarupWMClass).

Hatari package contains the GPL licensed EmuTOS ROMs i.e. this is one of the rare emulators where all the components are free (both in the "free as in free speech" and "free as in free beer" sense). I have also a utility for changing (selecting) the EmuTOS language.

NOTE! Never enable both "Zoom ST-low res." and "Use borders" Screen options at the same time. If you have both of them set, you cannot disable them (because screen config dialog OK button doesn't fit into screen) and SDL doesn't allow Hatari neither to start in fullscreen anymore nor to switch into it when its window is larger than screen. Only way to recover from this is to edit the ~/.hatari.cfg by hand.

(Later on I might do some rescue package which you can install, run the "Rescue Hatari" item and it saves a working ~/.hatari.cfg config file)

Keybindings

These are the functionalities I've bound to the N770 keys:

Fullscreen: Switches the emulator between fullscreen and windowed mode
Decrease (-): Toggles sound output on/off
Increase (+): Toggles between joystick modes (disabled, cursor emulation, real/USB joystick) for joystick in port 1
5-way rocker: In cursor mode outputs cursor keys and Return key to the emulator, in joystick mode works like joystick
Back/Escape: ESC key in emulator. Use this to skip the EmuTOS boot delay
Menu: Opens the Hatari options dialog
Desk

Notes

If Hatari was in fullscreen mode, you need to switch back to Hatari, go to Desktop again and when you then get back to Hatari it wakes up. I think this is a bug in the device SDL library.

Before switching away from Hatari, I would recommend opening e.g. the Hatari options dialog so that the emulation is stopped while you don't use the emulation. This should save battery.

For more information on normal Hatari features, see: the Hatari manual.

Some notes about making Hatari run faster

These are things you might want to try to make Hatari emulation faster:

In the Screen options:
- Enable frameskip
- Don't zoom low-rez
- If you do zoom low-rez, use interlace
Disable more compatible CPU option, if the programs you run work without it
Disable sound output
If games have background music, that skips so annoyingly, that you should either disable any background music, or if that's not possible, disabling the sound emulation completely (toggled with the "Decrease" HW key). Sound effects work quite OK in many games and in sound effects minor glitches are not so irritating.

(Besides performance, another annoyance is the N770 "5-way rocker", it's not even close replacement for a joystick, diagonal movements are very hard with it)

Building the Hatari (v0.90) package from source

If you want to build it yourself:

Get the SDK IT2006 edition and install it
Start Scratchbox and get the latest Hatari sources from CVS into Scratchbox
Extract the Hatari N770 changes tar-file to the Hatari source directory and apply the patch for GCC options (workaround for SDK ARMEL GCC v3.4.4 bug):
patch -p0 < hatari-N770-IT2006.diff
Make sure that you got the latest EmuTOS binary release and put the extracted EmuTOS image also to the Hatari source directory with name emutos.img
Run make-maemo.sh (inside Scratchbox). It will build Hatari, install it to a temporary directory, add the emutos.img + configuration files + icon suitable for N770 there too and then package all of these into a Debian package.