Saturday, September 5, 2009

xtrs (TRS-80 emulator) on Slackware

My first professional work with computers was done on a Tandy / Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I. I still have that machine but have not powered it up for at least ten years, since I do not have a working monitor anymore.
But thanks to the various emulators that are available, I can still run the old programs whenever I need or want to.

Since my desktop runs Slackware Linux, the emulator I use is xtrs. It is small, fast and emulates the Model I, III, 4 and 4p. I have had all these models and still have a Model 4p in reasonable condition.

As every good Linux program, xtrs is distributed as open source, for the end-user to compile.
This has never been a problem to me, but not every TRS-80 fan might be happy about this.

So, after the newest release of xtrs in June, I put on my to-do list to make a 'Slackware-package', so that at least Slackware users can run xtrs installing a simple package without any compiling.
Since my to-do list is quite extensive, it took some time for this task to arrive at the top, but today I finally managed to get it done.

The result is available on my homepage, in two versions:


Both have been tested with Slackware 13.0 but should work fine on 12.x as well, and probably some older versions.

For those who prefer to compile their own software, I submitted a SlackBuild to SlackBuilds.org but it is pending for approval at the moment.

Here is a screenshot of xtrs emulating a Model III running NEWDOS/80:


And this is the Model I running the famous Dancing Demon:

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