EMU7800 vs Holani

EMU7800 is a free emulator for the Atari 7800 ProSystem and the backward-compatible Atari 2600 Video Computer System. It runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS and supports saved game states. The maker says it runs on Windows 11, and its Windows installer does not need administrator permission. Windows users can connect Stelladaptor, 2600-daptor, 2600-daptor II, and Xbox 360 controllers. Saved game state is kept in the user profile at %USERPROFILE%\.emu7800savedgames. The project lists Linux ARM and ARM64 targets using SDL3; Linux systems may need SDL3, SDL3 image, and SDL3 TTF installed. Its macOS x64 and ARM64 targets are described as experimental and untested. Building from source requires the .NET 10.0 SDK and Git. The project was originally completed in 2003 as a .NET programming exercise, is licensed under GPL-2.0, and is maintained as a non-commercial endeavor. The current release listed is v5.7.0.0, released December 31, 2025.

Holani is a free, open-source Atari Lynx emulator for Linux and Windows, released under GPL-3.0. Its cycle-stepped 65C02S emulation began from the design idea of chips’ 6502. The project can also operate as a library for other frontends and links to a libretro core for official games and homebrews. Holani-retro works with libretro frontends such as RetroArch, providing save and load states plus RetroArch cheats. Holani-gtk is a GTK4 frontend for loading cartridges and overriding ROMs. Holani-min provides a command-line interface with button mapping, display filtering, mute, and Comlynx options; multiple instances can connect through Comlynx. The project also lists holani-debug, an Atari Lynx debugger. Holani embeds the Free Lynx Boot ROM and BLL uLoader blobs, so no BIOS is required. GTK builds require Rust, Cargo, and GTK4; Windows libretro use requires the Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable.