Install xroar with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• xroar

Project history

The public source history identifies XRoar as a long-running emulator project by Ciaran Anscomb, with copyright beginning in 2003 in mirrored README metadata and current official documentation for version 1.11. The project started around Dragon and CoCo 1/2 compatibility and grew into a broader emulator for close relatives built around Motorola 6809-era hardware.

By the 1.x series, the official manual describes emulation of Dragon 32, Dragon 64, Dragon 200-E, Tandy CoCo 1/2/3, Tandy MC-10, Matra and Hachette Alice 4K, prototype machines, disk-controller cartridges, sound cartridges, memory expansions, cassette formats, joysticks, printers, and video modes.

Adoption history

XRoar's adoption is concentrated in retrocomputing and preservation communities rather than mainstream software development. Its official site links Debian snapshot builds, an Ubuntu PPA, Mac OS X binaries, Windows archives and installers, an online version, and archives where users may find firmware dumps if they cannot extract ROMs from physical machines.

The addition of CoCo 3 and MC-10 support made the package more than a Dragon emulator: it became a cross-platform way to run, test, and preserve software across a family of machines with overlapping but distinct hardware behavior.

How it is used

Users install XRoar, provide firmware ROMs in platform-specific directories such as `~/.xroar/roms`, `~/Library/XRoar/roms`, or `%LOCALAPPDATA%\XRoar\roms`, then select a machine and load cassette, disk, ROM cartridge, BASIC, HEX, or S-record media.

The command line and configuration file are central to package use. Options can select machines, cartridges, video output, keyboard layout, disk behavior, joysticks, and tracing; the same options can be stored in `xroar.conf` for repeatable emulation setups.

Why package nerds care

XRoar is a good package-nerd case because the package is only the emulator core. The useful system is assembled from executable, ROM search paths, media images, configuration, and sometimes platform-specific GUI integration.

It also shows why old-computer emulators stay valuable in package managers: they preserve runnable environments for software that no longer has current hardware, and they make regression testing and historical exploration scriptable from modern Unix shells.

Timeline

• 2003: Public copyright metadata in source mirrors places the project at the start of a long-running XRoar codebase.
• 2010s: XRoar packages and ports spread across Unix-like systems, Windows, Mac OS X, and older contributed mobile/Amiga-style ports.
• 2021: Community discussion notes newer support for Tandy CoCo 3 and MC-10 alongside Dragon and CoCo 1/2 emulation.
• 2026-05-12: The official site lists source version 1.11.
• 2026: The manual for version 1.11 documents Dragon, CoCo, MC-10, Alice, cartridge, disk, cassette, and video emulation.

Related projects

• Dragon 32/64 and Tandy Color Computer software archives provide programs and firmware images used with XRoar.
• XRoar Online is a browser-facing version linked from the official site.
• asm6809, also linked from the 6809.org.uk site, is a related 6809 assembler for Dragon-targeted code.
• MAME overlaps in preservation goals but covers a much broader machine set.

Sources

• https://github.com/jedie/XRoar
• https://www.6809.org.uk/git/xroar.git
• https://www.6809.org.uk/xroar/
• https://www.6809.org.uk/xroar/doc/README
• https://www.6809.org.uk/xroar/doc/xroar.shtml