AppleWin on Linux

This is a linux port of AppleWin, that shares 100% of the code of the core emulator and video generation. Audio, UI, scheduling and other peripherals are reimplemented.

Number one goal is to stay source compatible with AppleWin, to make git merge a trivial operation. Shared files are modified as a last resort.

Structure

There are 4 projects

• libapple: the core emulator files
• applen: a frontend based on ncurses
• qapple: Qt frontend
• sa2: SDL2 frontend
• a libretro core

What works

Almost everything works, except the serial port, SNES-MAX and FourPlay.

The UI has been rewritten in Qt or ImGui. The rest works very well.

Network is supported via libslirp.

If this is not available, it uses libpcap, but it requires elevated capabilities:

sudo setcap cap_net_raw=ep ./sa2

Unfortunately, this must be reapplied after every build.

Most of the debugger now works (in the ImGui version).

New features

Audio files can be read via the cassette interface (SDL Version). Just drop a wav file into the emulator. Tested with all the formats from asciiexpress.

MSYS2 support msys2 and mxe.

Executables

sa2

This is your best choice, in particular the ImGui version.

TL;DR: just run sa2

See sa2 for more details.

applen

Frontend based on ncurses, with a ASCII art graphic mode.

Keyboard shortcuts

• F2: reset the machine
• Shift-F2: ctrl reset
• F3: pause
• Shift-F3: exit (F4 as well to avoid key code issues)
• F5: swap disks
• F11, F12: Load, Save Snapshot
• Shift-RIGHT: wider hi res graphis
• Shift-LEFT: narrower hi res graphics
• Shift-UP: vertical hi res (smaller)
• Shift-DOWN: vertical hi res (bigger)

In order to properly appreciate the wider hi res graphics, open a big terminal window and choose a small font size.

The joystick uses evdev (--device-name /dev/input/by-id/id_of_device).

qapple

This is based on Qt.

• can use either Qt5 or Qt6 (default). If both are present, use -DQAPPLE_USE_QT5=ON to force Qt5.
• keyboard shortcuts are listed in the menu entries.
• joystick: it uses QtGamepad (not available with Qt6).
• emulator runs in the main UI thread.
• Qt timers are very coarse: the emulator needs to dynamically adapt the cycles to execute.
• the app runs at 60FPS with correction for uneven timer deltas.
• full speed when disk spins execute up to 5 ms real wall clock of emulator code (then returns to Qt).
• audio is supported and there are a few configuration options to tune the latency (default very conservative 200ms). This is currently not working with Qt6.
• Open Apple and Solid Apple can be emulated using AltGr and Menu (unfortunately, Alt does not work well).
• yaml files can be dropped to restore a saved state.

ra2

A libretro core.

See ra2 for more details.

Build

The project can be built using cmake from the top level directory.

qapple can be managed from Qt Creator as well and the 2 have coexisted so far, but YMMV.

Checkout

Don't forget the submodules!!

git clone https://github.com/audetto/AppleWin.git --recursive

Fedora

On Fedora 35, from a fresh installation, install all packages from fedora.list.txt.

Raspberry Pi OS, Ubuntu and other Debian distributions

Install all packages from raspbian.list.txt.

You can use sudo apt-get -y install $(cat AppleWin/source/linux/raspbian.list.txt) for an automated installation.

See Travis CI too.

Building

cd AppleWin
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RELEASE ..
make

Frontend selection

There are 4 cmake variables to selectively enable frontends: BUILD_APPLEN, BUILD_QAPPLE, BUILD_SA2 and BUILD_LIBRETRO.

Usage:

cmake -DBUILD_SA2=ON -DBUILD_LIBRETRO=ON ..

or use cmake-gui (if none is selected, they are all built).

Packaging

It is possible to create .deb and .rpm packages using cpack. Use cpack -G DEB or cpack -G RPM from the build folder. It is best to build packages for the running system.

Speed

Fedora

Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4460 CPU @ 3.20GHz

Full update = 582 MHz

Video Stype	Video update
RGB Monitor	39
NTSC Monitor	27
Color TV	25
B&W TV	27
Amber Monitor	31

Raspbian

Pi 3B+

Full update = 54 MHz

Video Stype	Video update
RGB Monitor	5.3
NTSC Monitor	3.6
Color TV	2.6
B&W TV	2.9
Amber Monitor	4.5