The Manual

EasyAraMint, BeeKey, BeePi and BeeBox


1 - Introduction

Disclaimer: former commercial software are part of these distributions. All these software have not been developed for the last 10 years and are no longer sold by their respective copyright owners. They can therefore be considered as abandonware. They are present in this archive for educational and historical conservation purpose only. Nevertheless, should the copyright owner wants his software removed, please contact me and it will be immediately removed.

Power without the price is back !

BeeKey, BeePi, and BeeBox goal is to offer an almost universal emulation platform for Atari ST line of computer. They are self-contained distro of Aranym + EasyAraMint and Hatari + Emutos, installed on top of a light Debian Linux. It boots straight into EasyAraMint from an USB Key or a SD card together with a persistent storage.

EasyAraMint is based on EasyMint 1.18 from Marc Anton Kehr, updated to Mint 1.19 with all the packages from Vincent Riviere. Many original boot scripts have been modified in order to automatize the setup. It includes NVDI pre-installed to work with FVDI, Internet apps, development tools, and many other softs / tools to start using it out of the box. The desktop is Teradesk, with icons from Lodovico, XaAES Askin blue theme, Taskbar integration, as a modern re-interpretation of the Little Green Desktop. EasyAraMint will run modern GEM applications in 24bits color mode, HiRes, with 16bits sound, network, printing to pdf and network printer, at the speed of a 68040@350 MHz on a RPi3/4 and a whooping 2 to 7 GHz on a x86 depending on the processor.

Hatari provides a STE hardware compatible emulation to run classical games, demos and applications.

BeeKey and BeePi can boot respectively on most PC, Mac and Raspberry Pi. Video, sound and network are setup automatically and should work out of the box with almost every hardware, except Bluetooth, touchpads and 4K or retina screens which are too specific to setup. *BeePi is setup to use Raspberry Pi3 WIFI chipset.

BeeKey and BeePi have many extra features vs EasyAraMint standard and a greater integration with the host system : native smb mount, native USB mount, native network printing, ssh server for remote maintenance, integration with Hatari to launch STE games, demos and old applications (included Midi).

If you have any suggestions or remarks, you can contact me on Atari-forum or Yaronet, or by email. If you find these distros useful, I would really appreciate to receive an email.

Cheers,

Philippe

( philippe dot noble at gmail dot com )

2 - Installation

2 - 1 BeeKey

Hardware

  • PC & Mac

It should work on most 64 bits PC and Mac as far as it can boot Ubuntu 15.10 from an USB Key. Beware that laptops and especially the recent ones may not be compatible due to exotic hardware. Compatibility for Mac is very hardware dependent too and may vary from one generation to an other. In case of doubt google 'your model boot Ubuntu 15.10 from an USB key'.

  • USB Key

4 GB USB2 key is a minimum and will be very slow to boot. Ideally an USB3 key above 8GB is recommended both for speed and capacity ( The Sandisk Extreme USB 3 range is an excellent option). The key must be formatted clean to FAT32 and the boot flag activated ( MBR scheme on a Mac). If your key is bigger than 6GB you can recuperate the extra space by partitioning the Key in 2 FAT32 partitions : the first one bootable of 6GB on which you will install BeeKey, the second one for the remaining space. The second partition will be mounted under aranym in U:/M/USB1 folder.

  • USB mouse and keyboard

Any mouse or keyboard USB wired or wireless with an USB dongle. Trackpads, bluetooth mouse and keyboard are not well supported.

  • Monitor

The biggest screen made by Atari had a resolution of 1280x960. Don't expect usable results with today's 4K or Retina displays. It's usable up to 1920x1200 (which is by the way ST high X3) but depending on the size of your screen be prepared to change your glasses and move your mouse kilometers. So for a 25 years old system try to stay close to a 25 years old resolution for a better experience. A 19" 1280x1024 screen is perfect for Mint.

  • Network

An Ethernet connection is needed. For Raspberry Pi 3, Wifi can be setup afterward.

Download the iso file for PC or MAC .

Default User is : root

Default Password is : beekey

Installation to boot on a standard PC with 4GB persistent storage

    1. Download UNetbootin from: unetbootin.github.io

    2. Unzip & install

    3. Start UNetbootin

    4. Choose Diskimage and select Beekey iso file

    5. Select the USB key to install to.

    6. Set persistent storage to 4300MB max

    7. Install

    8. Copy the supplied syslinux.cfg to the root of the key.

    9. Reboot.

Installation to boot on a Mac with 4GB persistent storage

Part 1

1. Download MAC LINUX USB LOADER from: sevenbits.github.io/Mac-Linux-USB-Loader/

2. Unzip & install into the /Applications folder as normal

3. Load it up and double click “Create Live USB”

4. Locate the ISO file in the file selector (or drag and drop the ISO onto this window) and press RETURN

5. Insert USB Key and then click the REFRESH button

6. “Include with application” is already selected. Press the NEXT button.

7. Select Ubuntu from the “Distribution Family” dropdown

8. Click and activate “This ISO lacks an EFI-enabled kernel”

9. Click and deactivate “This ISO has code older than Ubuntu 14.10”

10. Click on the “Begin installation” button

11. Wait a few minutes and close the window when completed

Part 2

1. Now press SHIFT COMMAND 1 to display the main menu again

2. Double click “Setup USB Device”

3. Click once on your USB drive which will be listed on the left of the window

4. Now click on the button called “Edit Enterprise Configuration File”, this loads up the config file in Text Editor application

5. Add after 'kernel /casper/vmlinuz' the text “persistent”.

6. Press COMMAND S to save and quit the Text Editor

7. Quit


To boot up the new Atari computer :

1. Reboot your Mac

2. Once you hear the chime of your Mac rebooting, press AND hold the ALT key

3. Wait a second or two and once a boot menu appears, release the ALT key

4. Choose the EFI option by clicking on it

5. When the boot menu appears, press 1 and then 1

6. Your Atari computer will boot up


1st boot

    • The first time you boot the key, files will be copied to the persistent drive, and it will take a very long time: more than 5 min for USB2 and at least 1 min for USB3. Check that the light of your USB key is still flashing during the boot progress to be sure that everything is going on well and wait for the boot process to complete even though the screen will remain static meanwhile. Subsequent boots will be much faster.

    • You'll finally reach The Green Desktop to complete BeeKey setup :

1 - Screen resolution

Open Aranym Emulation Setup with 'Alt + F12' , select 'VIDEO', modify 'Custom Width and Height' to your taste, Apply and Save.

2 - Keyboard

Select the right keyboard layout # and Validate. If you don't find the proper one, you can edit your own keyboard layout by right clicking on the desktop and choose Setup, KeyEdit.

3 - Time Zone

On Teradesk Desktop, open u:/etc/, 'Show Info' for 'localtime' symlink, At field 'To:' double click on the path, Go to 'u:/usr/share/zoneinfo/', select the right timezone and validate.

4- Network parameters

Beekey connects automatically to any network, but needs by default 2 free addresses : 192.168.1.50 and 192.168.1.51. Should these addresses be already in use, open Aranym Emulation Setup with 'Alt+F12', select 'Networking', change 'Host and Atari IP', Apply and Save Config file.

5 - Network printer

Tested only with HP PCL printer but should work with other printers. Enter 'Printer network address', 'Printer queue name' (generally 'lpr'), 'Printout file name' (ex: printout.pcl : HP printer ask for the .pcl extension), Validate.

6- Network drive

'Install Samba Share' : Enter 'Server network address', 'Share name', 'Mount directory name' in Aranym 'u:/home' folder, 'username' and 'password' of the share. Validate or Cancel. Be careful, the password is stored in clear in fstab.

'Remove share' : well, guess ...

7 - Reset password

Change Linux root password.

8 - Exit

The system needs to do a cold reboot to complete the setup, Validate.

2 - 2 BeePi

Hardware

    • RaspBerry Pi 3 / 4

BeePi 1.1 and above work only on RPi 3 and 4. For older RPi generation, use BeePi 1.0 instead.

    • micro SD card

Fast Class 10 micro SDHC I 16 GB or above.

    • USB mouse and keyboard

Any mouse or keyboard USB wired or wireless with an USB dongle. Trackpads, bluetooth mouse and keyboard are not well supported.

    • Monitor

Remember that the biggest screen made by Atari had a resolution of 1280x960. Don't expect good results with today's 4K or Retina displays. It's usable up to 1920x1200 but depending on the size of your screen be prepared to change your glasses and move your mouse for kilometers. So for a 25 years old system try to stay close to a 25 years old resolution for a better experience. A 19" 1280x1024 screen is perfect for Mint.

Installation

    • Installation is fairly simple but it can destroy all your data if not properly done. PLEASE TRIPLE CHECK THAT THE DESTINATION DISK (your SD card) IS CORRECT BEFORE WRITING THE IMAGE ON IT. ALL PREVIOUS DATA WILL BE ERASED !!!

    • Install the image with Raspberry Pi Imager

Default User is : Pi

Default Password is : beepi

1st Boot

      1. Insert the microSD in your RPi, switch it on. 20 sec later you'll reach linux login.

      2. Enter login and password.

      3. Configure Raspi-config.

Option 1 - Change user password.

Option 2 - Network options

N2 - Wireless LAN

Option 4 - Localisation Options.

I2 - Change timezone.

I3 - Change keyboard layout.

I4 - Change WiFi country

Option 7 - Advanced Options.

A1 - Expand Filsystem.

4. Choose finish and the system will reboot.

2nd Boot

      • After 35 sec you'll reach The Green Desktop to complete BeePi setup :

      • Follow the guided setup for keyboard, screen resolution, network printer and samba share mount.

      • BeePi will restart again.

3 - Utilization

3 - 1 System Organization

    • The system uses 4 hard drives:

    • C is the System boot disk.

    • D contains Easymint ext2 system with the Unix tools.

    • H is the host disk, linked to /home folder, and contains all your apps and data.

    • M contains the mounted USB drive.

    • All host, Aranym and Hatari config files are hidden in '/h/.system' together with the disk image for C and D and TOS images.

    • Host system can be accessed in different ways :

  • From EasyAraMint - Direct access:

Right click on the Desktop, choose '/Tools/Quit to host'. Aranym will quit and you will reach the linux bash login. You may have to press ctrl+alt+F1 to switch to the right console.

  • From EasyAraMint - SSH access:

Right click on the Desktop, choose 'Start Shell' and enter :

ssh root@beekey or respectively ssh pi@beepi

Enter your password and you will reach the linux bash login.

  • From another computer - SSH access:

Start the shell and enter :

ssh root@beekey for BeeKey or respectively ssh pi@beepi

If your computer can log on to beekey or beepi server, you can use the ip address instead (ex : ssh pi@192.168.1.31). The host ip address can be found in the folder home/Documents

Enter your password and you will reach the linux bash login.

  • The emulation is started by RC.LOCAL which will setup the internet bridge and launch DELAY.SH and STARTEMU.

    • DELAY.SH starts the printing system and mounts the smb shared drive the case being.

    • STARTEMU starts the emulation launcher, with a different setup depending if you use a RPi3 or RPi4. On RPi3 the emulation works under the Raspbian framebuffer, and on RPi4 under X11.

    • STARTEMU action is managed via flags stored in H:/.system/flags. These flags are : emutos, tos, hatari, hatari_temp, linux, reboot, shutdown and are generated respectively by etos_sw.prg, tos_sw.prg, hatari_sw.prg, hatastar.prg, sw2host.prg and Shutdown.app.

    • AUTOPRINT.SH will automatically convert the raw pcl printing file into pdf and send it to a Lpr network printer the case being.

    • AUTOSTART launches X11 and the emulation choosen.

    • BASHRC is the default setup file for host bash and manage the hardware setup.

    • BOOTED flag sets that the system has allready been booted.

    • CPU-INFO is a tool to monitor cpu frequency and temperature for overclocking.

    • PCL6 converts pcl printing file into pdf.

    • All the START_*.SH manage X11 emulator start.

    • PARTITIONS directory contains the system disk images.

    • TOS directory contains the TOS and EMUTOS images.

  • To reboot or shutdown, use the Shutdown app provided for each emulation.

  • Special keys : Help key is F11, Undo key is F12, Emulator setup key is AltGr F12.

3 - 2 Aranym

    • Aranym is a virtual machine emulator, as it has never existed in real. Imagine a Falcon less the DSP with a 68040 on steroid, 1 GB ram, a 24bits video card, Ethernet, and you will have an idea of the beast reaching the power of a 68040@ 5 Ghz on a 5 years old core i3.

    • Obviously there is a price to pay for that : the compatibility may suffer, and ST games and demos won't run. Generally all well written GEM app will run happily, and the list is long ... If you need hardware emulation, have a look at Hatari section below.

    • Aranym boots on Emutos, Mint and XaAES with all the sparemint linuxies : EasyAraMint. More documentation can be found here : http://wiki.sparemint.org/index.php/FreeMiNT

    • The desktop is very simple and efficient, and is managed by TeraDesk and Taskbar. It is organized around the Home folder icon, where are stored all your applications and documents. It's your work folder. The System Folder icon will give you access to the root system and all the different drives attached to it. Folders, applications and files can be installed onto the desktop : please refer to TeraDesk Help for more details ( Shift + F11).

    • Thanks to the integration with Taskbar, a right click on the desktop will open a popup menu with shortcuts to applications. If you right click on a selected file, it will be passed to the application and opened.

    • The menu is divided in 4 areas :

        1. Common tools on top

        2. Applications

        3. Shutdown

        4. Control panel, shell and search at the bottom

It can be edited in Setup/Menu Setup

    • System Setup is opened from the desktop with right click Setup/System Setup.

    • Aranym Setup menu key is set by default to: Alt Gr + F12. If you want to edit manually the aranym config file (at your own risk), you will find it in H:/.system folder together with system startup scripts.

    • Change wallpaper : open an image with zview, fullscreen F10, and press ctrl+alt+: to change Mint Wallpaper. You can use Smurf to scale it to the right resolution.

    • Uncompress and Zip files: To uncompress an archive double click on it. It accepts zip, lzh, rar, zoo, gz, bz2 and tar. To make a zip, select a file/folder, right click -> Zip it!

    • Shutdown: right click on the desktop, Shutdown : Warm boot will reboot the emulator only, Cold boot will reboot the host, Halt System does what it means. Never switch off directly or you may corrupt your disks.

    • Floppy disk images, are stored in /home/Applications/Floppy. To mount a floppy image, open Aranym Setup Menu Disks. To launch directly a game or demo disk with Hatari, double click on the file.

    • Printing is done to file, and stored in H:/spool. The host will first convert the printout file into a pdf and save it to printout.pdf in 'spool' folder, then, if defined in System Setup, send it to your remote printer. Only printers with lpr server can be accessed remotely.

    • Mount USB Drive : Insert a USB key and open u:/M/USBx to explore it. Wait for the led to stop blinking before removing the key.

    • Contextual Help documentation is called by pressing F11 (shift + F11 in the case of TeraDesk). Extra documentation is included in c:/guides and can be read by a double click on it.

    • UNDO is set to F12.


3 - 3 Hatari

    • Hatari emulate at hardware level the Atari range from ST to Falcon. It is very compatible with the original models and should run almost every demos, games and applications. It can also improve the original machine by overclocking processor, expanding memory, and video extended resolution.

    • Hatari is setup to boot by default on Emutos in STE mode. If you want to boot a different TOS you need to put it into H:/.system/tos folder. (all file copy, move, delete in H:/.system must be done with KKcomander or Teradesk will crash) and setup Hatari accordingly.

    • Hatari Main Menu setup can be opened by pressing Alt Gr + F12

    • You can boot straight into a vanilla STE 16 color by double clicking on floppy disk image, which are stored in H:/home/Applications/floppy

    • To load a floppy go in Hatari Main Menu/ Floppy disks.

      • Joysticks and gamepads are recognized and can be setup in Hatari Main Menu/ Joysticks.

    • Midi : connect your USB interface or expander, and excepted exotic hardware, midi should be recognized after reboot. A driver update at linux level may be necessary in specific case.

    • Printing is done to file, and stored in H:/spool. The host will first convert the printout file into a pdf and save it to printout.pdf in 'spool' folder, then, if defined in System Setup, send it to your remote printer.

    • To change of emulation go in Hatari Main Menu/ Load config and then Reset machine.

    • Hatari full documentation can be found here : The Manual


4 - Issues, bugs and To Do

Known bugs and issues

    • On Beekey and BeePi RPi3, Aranym wont scale to full screen but instead use native resolution with big black bars. To be fullscreen you can change the boot resolution of Beepi in the file /boot/config.txt.

    • You can edit with QED files in H:/.system but you can't copy / move / delete them with the Desktop or Aranym will crash. This seems to be a limitation of TeraDesk : use KKcomander or the shell instead.

    • Doom tend to corrupt the system; do a warm reboot after using it.

    • In case of a crash: Try first Ctrl+Alt+Del, if it doesn't work AltGr+F12 and Shutdown, if it still doesn't work connect with ssh and type reboot. Avoid forcing shutdown with the power switch as you may corrupt your system.

    • Works has many graphic glitches and does not understand VA Start nor drag an drop; redraw the screen with ctrl+alt+begin.

    • Specifics hardware like Bluetooth, track pads, 4K or Retina diplays don't work.

    • Videl Inside mono resolution doesn't work with Mint, only with Tos.

    • Mp3 and Avi can't be read on Raspberry Pi due to lack of power. The same applies to Doom, Hexen and Heretic.

    • If your monitor is not properly recognized (black screen, wrong boot resolution, black bars ..) you need to edit Raspberry config.txt. Mount the SD card on your PC, Mac or Linux and open the file config.txt. For Linux lover, you can Quit to Host and edit directly /boot/config.txt.

      • Try first to uncomment hdmi_ignore_edid.

      • If you have black bars, uncomment disable_overscan.

      • If the previous modification still don't work, uncomment hdmi_group and hdmi_mode to force a resolution. Search "Raspberry config.txt" for parameters explaination. For example 1080p is respectively 1 and 16, and 720p is 1 and 4.

To do

    • Port EasyAraMint to Firebee and Falcon

5 - Acknowledgements

They are many persons that I would like to thank, for their help in building this setup.

Without their assistance, passion and contributions, I would have not achieved to complete these distributions.


Marc Anton, OL, Wongck, Helmut, Joska, Playmobil, Rajah, Djordje Vukovic, Lodovico, Lonny Pursell, Patrice Mandin, Mikro, Count and many others who have manifested their interest and help, thank you !