Handy/SDL Readme and Manual

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This HTML document is the README and MANUAL of the free Atari Lynx emulator Handy/SDL. Handy/SDL is a free/legal/portable emulator for the Atari Lynx handheld by Atari. This emulator does not contain any copyrighted materials and was developed entirely from scratch by Keith Wilkins. Handy/SDL is the UN*X/BeOS port using the OpenSource and portable SDL library and is written by Niels Wagenaar and Caz.


Here are some of the features of Handy/SDL

- Insync with the Handy 0.82 WIN32 emulation-core;
- Complete (and with the help of Relnev) sound support;(Relnev/Caz/Niels)
- In-emu autoskip feature (very handy on slow machines);(Caz)
- Savestate support;(Niels)
- ZIP/GZIP support;(Niels)
- Joystick support;(Caz)
- Screenshot implementation (10 per game);(Niels)
- Fast 16-bit graphical output;(Niels/Caz)
- Scaling/Scanline implementation;(Niels/Caz)



What is Handy

Handy/SDL allows you to play free/public domain demo's and games as well as commercial games which are available for the Atari Lynx handheld. It's not our intentions to promote the piracy of commercial ROM's so in short you MUST own the game itself for playing this on Handy/SDL. The use of commercial roms of games which you don't own is illegal and it hurts the companies which make these games. If you like the game, buy it! Also, e-mailing use with the question : "“Where can I find roms”?" will definately not be answered!

While most public domain demo's and games work, commercial games could or work (partially). The writing of the emulation-engine is a on going process which results in new and better cores. If a game doesn't work, don't contact us about it! Compatibility will grow on future releases so please be patient!



Standard disclaimer:

We can't be held responsible for damage done by this software. The use of this software is at your own risks. It will definitely have some bugs in it so it could be that some games and/or demo's won't work at all! The use of illegal obtained ROM images (aka leech-from-the-internet-while-I-don't-own-the-game) is a act of piracy and is the use of illegal games with copyrights and can result in legal actions (not only to you, but also to us).

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System Requirements:

The minimum requirements for Handy/SDL are :

Intel Pentium II at 266Mhz or equivalent.
64MB RAM
1MB of free HDD space as well as free space for the rom's
Redhat Linux 6.x/7.x (or any other distro compatible with RH)
BeOS R5
FreeBSD 4.x
Solaris 2.8
For all OS Handy/SDL needs a display in 16BPP mode!

I use the following system for development and should be considered as the optimal system requirements :

AMD Athlon 650
128MB RAM
1MB of free HDD space
Redhat Linux 6.x/7.x (or any other distro compatible with RH)
BeOS R5
FreeBSD 4.x
Solaris 2.8
For all OS stands that the display must be in 16BPP mode!

For the use of this emulator the Simple Direct Media library (or SDL for short) must be used which can be downloaded from the official SDL website. We would recommend to use and/or download the latest version available of SDL (we used version 1.2.2 for development). What's also needed is the libz compression library. Linux users will find this already installed on their system. Other users must retrieve it from Tucows (the best place) and BeOS users should look at BeBits (While with the GNU development package it's allready supplied!).

The

emulator must be started from a X-Term (UN*X clones), or Terminal (BeOS) session. The use of the emulator is very straight forward but is also has some switches to play with :

The switches are straight forward and really doesn't need any explanation. how to use it. Joystick/Joypad users beware, Handy/SDL expects that the joystick is set on port 0. Also a four button joystick is the minimum to use! The romfile can be in ZIP or GZIP format where the ROM file must be a valid Atari Lynx ROM! YOU MUST HAVE A COPY of the Atari Lynx boot image (rename the file to lynxboot.img) to successfully use the emulator (get a copy from the Internet for this).

For controlling the following keyboard-layout hthe following must be used to play games/demos/etc  :

Lynx Key A

Z or button 1 on joypad and/or joystick

Lynx Key B

X or button 2 on joypad and/or joystick

Lynx Key Option 1

1 or button 3 on joypad and/or joystick

Lynx Option Key 2

2 or button 4 on joypad and/or joystick

Lynx Pause Key

ENTER

Lynx Key Reset

F10

Lynx Rotate Left Key

F11

Lynx Rotate Right Key

F12

Lynx Rotate Normal

HOME

Lynx Key UP

UP or button-up on joypad and/or joystick

Lynx Key DOWN

DOWN or button-down on joypad and/or joystick

Lynx Key LEFT

LEFT or button-left on joypad and/or joystick

Lynx Key RIGHT

RIGHT or button-right on joypad and/or joystick

Savestate saving F3
Savestate loading F4

Screenshot taking

F9

GBA Reset

F10

Quit

ESCAPE

This layout has been defined and isn't changeble atm. In future releases there will be an option to define your own keyboard layout.

Links and contact information:

The official Handy Website, Keith Wilkins's homepage
The official NeoPocott/SDL website where my files are being hosted.
The official Simple Directmedia Layer website, the best multimedia library available.

If you want to contact me, than this is best done using the forum on the NeoPocott/SDL website. Otherwise contact us by e-mail : 

Niels Wagenaar <niels.wagenaar@wolmail.nl>.
Caz < turok2@currantbun.com>

Credits :

Linux beta testing :

Zakk, Joshua, John Mora

BeOS beta testing :

Robin T. Kimzy, Jeffro, Caz, and Claus Windeler

Copyright and Thanks :

I would like to thank the following people because without them this release wouldn't be possible :

Keith Wilkins, the creator of Handy.
#SDL on irc.openprojects.net, for some pointers with SDL.
Zakk, for giving me webspace for the NeoPocott/SDL website.

And of course all the people we forgot!!

BeOS is copyrighted by Be Inc. (http://www.be.com)
Linux is copyrighted by Linus Torvalds. (http://www.linux.org)
Redhat Linux is copyrighted by Redhat Inc. (http://www.redhat.com)
FreeBSD is copyrighted by FreeBSD dev group. (http://www.freebsd.org)
Atari, Lynx are copyrighted by Atari. (http://atari.com)
Sun and Sun Solaris are copyrighted by Sun. (http://www.sun.com)

All brands, names and products are copyrighted by there owners.