Turn a Raspberry Pi into the ultimate emulator

Raspberry Pi, the popular credit card-sized ARM GNU/Linux computer, is a real throwback to the past. It was conceived as a low-cost way of encouraging people to get back into programming, as they did in the 80s and 90s, and it’s even possible to program it using the venerable BBC basic.

RPI Chameleon, a great new project from Carles Oriol, enhances the Pi’s time machine like quality, by letting it run emulators for a whole batch of ancient hardware, including the IBM Personal Computer, Atari 2600, Apple II, ZX81, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, and Oric-1. It can even run MAME, the arcade emulator, and you can add additional emulators to its menu too.

Described by Carles as a "Raspbian remix without the X graphical environment that uses its own launcher to run emulators for old computers, arcades and consoles", the RPI Chameleon is easy to set up and use and you can download a torrent of the required image directly from the Chameleon website.

You’ll also find instructions and a little bit of information about each of the emulators and the computers they mimic.