The Manual

EasyAraMint, BeeKey, BeePi

1 - Installation

1 - 1 BeeKey

Hardware

• PC (& Mac ?)

It should work on most 64 bits PC as far as it can boot Ubuntu 16.04 from an USB Key. Laptops and especially the recent ones may not be compatible due to exotic hardware. 

Compatibility for Mac is very hardware dependent too (it won't work on M1, M2 CPU) and may vary from one generation to another. Also it has not been tested as the freeware version of MAC Linux USB Loader is no longer compatible with recent versions of Mac OS . 

• USB Key

A USB3 key above 8GB is needed ( The Sandisk Extreme USB 3 range is an excellent option). A USB2 key will boot too but will be very slow. The key must be formatted clean to FAT32 and the boot flag activated ( MBR scheme on a Mac). 

• USB mouse and keyboard

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

Installation

Default User is : root

Default Password is : beekey

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

• 1. 1. Download UNetbootin from: unetbootin.github.io

     2. Unzip

     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. Set your BIOS settings to Legacy boot / MBR boot and not EFI boot.

     10. Reboot and jump to 1stboot

Installation to boot on a Mac with 4GB persistent storage (Not tested)

Part 1

1. Download MAC LINUX USB LOADER from :

www.sevenbits.io/mlul/ for the commercial version and for the freeware version sourceforge.net/projects/mlul/

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. 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.

  • Configure the host system

    • Keyboard Layout

    • Time zone

    • Root password

    • Wifi

2nd Boot

• • • After 40 sec you'll reach The Green Desktop to complete Beekey setup :

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

    • Beekey will restart again.

1 - 2 BeePi

Hardware

• • RaspBerry Pi 3 / 4 / 400

BeePi works only  on RPi 3 / 4 / 400. 

• • 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 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 6 - Advanced Options.
A1 - Expand Filsystem.

Option 5 - Localisation Options.
L2 - Change timezone.
L3 - Change keyboard layout.
L4 - Change WiFi country

Option 1 - System Options
S1 - Wireless LAN
S3 - Change user password

4. Choose finish and the system will reboot.

2nd Boot

• • • After 40 sec you'll reach The Green Desktop to complete BeePi setup :

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

    • BeePi will restart again.

2 - Utilization

2 - 1 System Organization

• • The system uses 4 or 5 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, data and system files. On Beekey it is limited to 2GB. On BeePi you can use the full capacity of the card.

    • I  (for Beekey only), is a host directory at the root of the USB key named "Beekey". You can use the full capacity of the USB key.

    • 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. Type "exit" to restart the emulation.

• From EasyAraMint - SSH access:
  Right click on the Desktop, choose 'Start Shell' and enter :

ssh root@beekey or  respectively ssh pi@beepi

• From another computer - SSH access:

Start the shell and enter :

ssh root@beekey .local for BeeKey or ssh pi@beepi .local for BeePi

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

• The emulation is started by bash.bashrc for Beekey and  rc.local  for BeePi 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 : jit, std, hatari, hatari_temp, linux, reboot, shutdown and are generated respectively by speed_sw.prg, sys_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 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.

2 - 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 10 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. 

  • 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).

  • 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. 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 printer.

  • Mount USB Drive : Insert a USB key and open u:/M/USBx to explore it. There is no eject option : 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.

  • REBOOT : AltGr + R (warm reboot)

  • QUIT : AltGr + Q (cold reboot)

2 - 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 and setup Hatari accordingly.

  • Hatari Main Menu setup can be opened by pressing AltGr + 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 or press AltGr + D

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

  • REBOOT : AltGr + R (warm reboot)

  • QUIT : AltGr + Q (cold reboot)

  • Midi : connect your USB interface or expander, If it is class compliant, midi should be recognized after reboot of Hatari. 

  • 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 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

3 - Issues, bugs and To Do

Known bugs and issues

• • Beekey could freeze at boot from time to time during the first usage. Press AltGr + Q to restart it. This issue disapears with time.

  • On 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.

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

  • In case of a crash / Freeze: Try first Ctrl+Alt+Del, if it doesn't work try AltGr+Q, if it still doesn't work press Ctrl + Alt + F2, login and type reboot. Avoid forcing shutdown with the power switch as you could 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. 

  • Netsurf is not very compatible with modern sites, nor very stable. Mileage may vary with modern sites. From time to time, Netsurf could be blocked in "fetching / processing". Click on the red cross and reload the page.

  •  Netsurf : https pages are converted by the host proxy WebOne. If you want to open a https page, just type http:// without the s. If you type https://, Netsurf will use its internal processing and complaints the the certificate has expired : in this case click on "Proceed" to continue.

  •  Avi can't be read on Raspberry Pi due to lack of power.

  • 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.

4 - 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 !