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Blast from the past at Embedded World: Atari plays for Linux

Kara Bembridge avatar

Kara Bembridge
April 11, 2024

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When the name Atari is mentioned, several nostalgic classics quickly come to mind like Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Pac-Man. After decades in the industry, Atari decided to commemorate their 50th anniversary with a brand new console, the Atari VCS. With the hardware already in hand, Atari reached out to Collabora to assist with the execution of the operating system.

The Atari VCS at Collabora's booth at Embedded World.


One of the primary elements to assembling the operating system was having the Atari VCS adopt the current AMD open source graphics driver. This was one of the first products to do so and Collabora worked closely with Atari's suppliers to put these pieces in place. 

Another element was the joint effort to officially authorize the Google Chrome browser onto the Atari VCS. This would ensure that user would have a first-class web experience during game play. The software specific that was built for the new Atari VCS can be credited to the Rust development language from Collabora.

Adhering to the fundamentals of open source, the Atari VCS OS is based on Debian. The tools and methodologies of the Apertis open source infrastructure were applied during its build and the graphics rely on Weston as its Wayland compositor.

To learn more about our involvement with Atari, stay tuned for our case study that walks through how we helped out a beloved game maker bring their system into the open source ecosystem.

A modern take on creating an open GNU/Linux console, the Atari VCS is on display at Collabora's booth at Embedded World 2024 (4-404).

 

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