Pandory500 v3.1

Turbo-Charge THEA500 Mini.

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About

Pandory500 is a soft-mod for The A500 Mini console, allowing you to run many more emulators and programs. Ever wanted every mini-console that exists in one small pretty machine? If so, Pandory may be for you!

Starts from USB-Stick

Pandory can be started from your USB stick and lets you run Retroarch emulators, which display your games in a nice organised manner, or additional standalone-emulators, apps and more, directly from THEA500 menu.

The Retroarch menu contains many pre-defined playlists to display any games/roms you add to the system.

Safe and removable

The soft-mod itself works completely from USB-stick. It does not modify your system in any way. If you take out your USB stick, your console is back to normal.

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Supported Systems

Sega Megadrive / Genesis

Pandory can play Sega Megadrive and Genesis roms directly from the Retroarch menu and includes a few free homebrew-games to get you started. Other games can be added to your USB stick.

Sega CD / Mega-CD

CD-based Sega games are also supported, including CD-Audio.

Advanced users: Pandory includes support for compressed CHD roms to save space on your USB-stick. Additionally, some SegaCD games may require that you add a bios file to the usb stick.

Sega 32X

The 32X library is also supported and runs most games at 60 frames-per-second.

Arcade

Play all your old-school arcade and neo-geo favorites!

Advanced users: Pandory works best with MAME2003 or FinalBurn full-non-merged roms.

PC-Engine / Turbo-Grafx 16

Missed the Turbo-Grafx Mini? Pandory will play almost the complete collection.

PC-Engine CD / TruboGrafx CD

Advanced users: Pandory includes support for compressed CHD roms to save space on your USB-stick.

Atari ST

Emulate games from the classic micro-pc! Keyboard and mouse recommended!

Amiga

The Pandory Retroarch menu includes the PUAE emulator, which has support for two-player mouse devices (a feature not provided by the standard Amiga Emulator of THEA500).

Amstrad CPC

CPC Lives!

ZX-Spectrum

Old speccy games also can be launched directly from Pandory.

PICO-8

PICO-8 is an imaginary console that was never made. It has a wild online community who create a wide range of games which can be run on PICO-8 emulators. We've included one inside Pandory and a pack of freeware PICO-8 games to get you started.

Nintendo Entertainment System

Had your eye on the Nintendo classic? Pandory supports almost the complete NES library.

Pictured here is Famidash by Kandowontu et al. Visit their project on Github.

Super Nintendo Entertainment System

SNES is supported too and runs using an optimised Snes9x retroarch core/emulator. We also include the homebrew game "Classic Kong" to get you started. Save-States are available and working too!

Nintendo 64

Pandory includes a Nintendo 64 emulator so you can play your favorites.

Advanced users: N64 is a difficult system to emulate. Not every game will run at full speed and you may need to change some settings or use a controller with more buttons for the best experience.

Nintendo GameBoy, Color and Advance

Like the classic Nintendo handhelds? Pandory can emulate all three types of old-school GameBoys.

Sony Playstation 1 / PS1

Play classic Playstation games directly from THEA500.

Advanced users: Some PS1 games may require that you add a bios file to the usb stick.

Sega Dreamcast / Sega Naomi / Atomiswave

Using the Flycast-Emulator, THEA500 is quite capable of playing many games from the more demanding Sega Dreamcast and arcade variants.

Advanced users: Some Dreamcast/Arcade games may require that you add additional bios files to the usb stick.

Upgraded Amiberry Amiga-Emulator

The emulator embedded inside THEA500 is Amiberry 3.3. Pandory includes a standalone upgraded version of Amiberry 5.6, providing two-years of bug-fixes, features and accuracy improvements compared to the standard firmware.

Internet Support via USB-LAN!

Go online with your THEA500 by connecting a supported LAN adapter!

With some help of some very clever people from the thec64community-Forums, we have packaged Pandory with some extra drivers for USB-LAN adapters, meaning you can now connect the mini to the Internet!

The soft-mods "Aminimiga" and "AGS2" include browser-software, which let you surf the web directly from Workbench!

Compatible chipsets/devices: 3Com 3C19250, ADS USB-10BT, ATEN USB Ethernet, ASANTE USB To Ethernet Adapter, AOX Endpoints USB Ethernet, Correga K.K., D-Link DSB-650C and DU-E10, Entrega / Portgear E45, I-O DATA USB-ET/T, Jaton USB Ethernet Device Adapter, Kingston Technology USB Ethernet Adapter, Linksys USB10T, Mobility USB-Ethernet Adapter, NetGear EA-101, Peracom Enet and Enet2, Portsmith Express Ethernet Adapter, Shark Pocket Adapter, SMC 2202USB, Sony Vaio port extender, Aten UC210T, ASIX AX88172, Billionton Systems, USB2AR, Billionton Systems, GUSB2AM-1G-B, Buffalo LUA-U2-KTX, Corega FEther USB2-TX, D-Link DUB-E100, Hawking UF200, Linksys USB200M, Netgear FA120, Sitecom LN-029 Sitecom LN-028, Intellinet USB 2.0 Ethernet, ST Lab USB 2.0 Ethernet, TrendNet TU2-ET100, Phy Ethernet Devices, MII Devices, USB Pegasus/Pegasus-II based ethernet device support, Realtek RTL8152 & RTL8153, Most CDC-Ethernet devices.

Standalone / Native Emulators

Is the GUI too slick and modern? Or are you just longing for the nostalgia of your old micro-pc? Sometimes it is nicer to start a game from outside of the Pandory Retroarch menu to get the full retro experience.

Pandory includes "standalone" versions of some apps / emulators to make this possible. These can be started directly and give you many flexible configuration options and usually better performance too.

VICE: Commodore 64

Vice is a full-screen C64 emulator which will make your THEA500 work like a fully-featured C64. Press F12 and you can start games directly from your USB stick or configure your new "C64 Mini" however you like.

Advanced users: Vice requires an addional extra file on the USB stick in order to start. A link to this package is provided in the download.

VICE: Additional emulators

Vice does not only play Commodore 64, but also PET, C128, PLUS4, CBM II B and CBM II P. Pandory includes separate launchers to start Vice with these different configurations.

VICE: SID Player

The Commodore 64 was famous for the demo-scene and SID-Chip "chip-tune" music. Vice also comes with a standalone SID-Player. Pandory includes a small freeware collection of 60000 SID files to get you started.

OpenBOR: Beat-em-ups

There is a massive community of people who build their own fan-made beat-em-up games. OpenBOR is a dedicated emulator to play some of these hidden-gems. We have included a few community-games for you to get started.

SCUMMVM: Point-and-click Adventure Games

SCUMM is an engine the Lucasfilm/LucasArts team used to create their point and click games. SCUMMVM is an emulator which can load such classic games as Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle, but also many other non-scumm adventure games.

Vanilla Conquer: Command and Conquer

Pandory includes a custom built version of the Vanilla Conquer engine, which can play the classic freeware Command and Conquer: Tiberian Dawn and Command and Conquer: Red Alert games at full-speed and high resolution. If you played the Windows 95 versions of the games years ago you will feel right at home with Vanilla Conquer!

Advanced users: The freeware Command and Conquer files are quite large and are not included in the main Pandory package. Links to these files are provided in the download.

With a USB-LAN adapter, you can play C&C on your home network with another A500-Mini running Pandory.

CrispyDoom: DOOM, Heretic, Hexen

The original DOOM is nice, but DOOM in HD, with modern comforts and controls is much nicer. Pandory includes a native-port of CrispyDoom, which is launchable from the Pandory menu and can play DOOM, Heretic and Hexen. The shareware versions of these games are included within Pandory.

With a USB-LAN adapter, you can play DOOM online with friends.

PPSSPP - Playstation Portable

The standalone PPSSPP emulator is a full screen emulator for PSP. It has a nice menu and we have included sane performance defaults for many games.

Advanced users: Some games are demanding to emulate. If you have trouble, play with the Buffered Graphics and Frameskip settings.

Pictured here is a photo from our community-member XxDUSTYxX, who has preconfigured his PPSSPP menu with over 90 games! Crazy!

DOSBox Staging - IBM PC / MS-DOS Emulator

Almost everyone knows DOSBox, the DOS emulator which can run many old games. DOSBox Staging is a modern fork, which has taken the stagnating old DOSBox software into the 21st century, giving it many new features, quality-of-life tweaks and performance-fixes. Starting DOSBox Staging will turn THEA500 in to a fully-fledged retro DOS-PC, a "PC MINI", with performance comparable to an Intel IBM PC 486. your USB stick gets mapped to drive C: and we have some included some shareware to get you started.

DarkPlaces: QUAKE

DOS wouldn't be complete without QUAKE, but the DOS version of QUAKE was low resolution and quite slow without a pentium processor.

Instead of providing the DOS version of Quake, Pandory includes a custom-built version of the "DarkPlaces" engine, enabling you to run QUAKE in HD720p at 60fps, with improved graphics and controls.

With a USB-LAN adapter, you can play QUAKE online via our Dedicated Deathmatch Server or on other servers using the DarkPlaces search menu.

eDuke32: Duke Nukem 3D

You can't have QUAKE without DUKE3D. eDuke32 is a native port of Duke Nukem 3D which runs it in HD720p on THE500 at 60fps.

HATARI - Atari ST

If the Retroarch-Emulator isn't pushing your nostalgia buttons, we have included a standalone version of the HATARI emulator which can boot in to TOS/EMUTOS, as all Amiga-Users love to do.

The Pandory-version of HATARI has been extended to support FluidSynth-Libraries, giving you high-quality WaveTable simulated MIDI-OUT, directly usable by TOS-Applications.

OpenCubic: MOD Player

In the mood for some retro-chiptunes? Start OpenCubic and get your boogie on! We have included some media from XxDUSTYxX, D4XX and ArcadeAttack to get you started.

MilkyTracker: Create your own MOD files

Amiga was famous for Tracker-Software to make MOD-Music. Pandory includes a modern build of MilkyTracker with all the modern conveniences!

Advanced users: The Pandory-version of MilkyTracker includes BodgeMouse technology, especially written for THEA500.

MagiTerm: Connect to Retro BBS Terminals

Did you grow up with dial-up-internet and get to experience the anticipation and fun of connecting to bulletin-board-systems? BBS is still alive and well today, but works over the internet via the Telnet protocoll.

Pandory includes the MagiTerm-software and a pre-prepared address-book of thousands of Telnet-Based-BBS systems around the world for you to connect to (USB LAN Adapter required).

Zesarux: ZX-Spectrum Emulator

Zesarux is an impressive, full-featured standalone Specturm emulator, which runs especially well on THEA500. It has a retro-feel and many configuration options. A keyboard is required.

It can emulate: ZX Spectrum, MK14, ZX80, ZX81, QL, Z88, Microdigital TK80, TK82, TK82C, TK83, TK85, TK90X, TK95, Timex Sinclair 1000, 1500, 2068, Timex Computer 2048, 2068, Inves Spectrum +, Sam Coupe, Pentagon, Chloe 140 SE, 280 SE, Chrome, Prism, ZX-Uno, ZX-Evolution BaseConf (beta), ZX-Evolution TS-Conf, ZX Spectrum Next, Jupiter Ace, Amstrad CPC 464, CPC 4128, CPC 664, CPC 6128, Amstrad PCW 8256, PCW 8512, MSX1, Spectravideo 318/328, Colecovision, Sega SG1000, Sega Master System.

Plays well with friends

Do you have Aminimiga or AGS already on your USB stick? Pandory can be installed and work next to them side-by-side. In fact, both of these distributions include a cut-down version of the Pandory folder, used to enable internet access in workbench. This folder can be replaced/upgraded to the one in the Pandory download package.

Overlay, scanline and shader support

Like the look of an old-school monitor with those lovely meaty scanlines? Pandory includes many configuration options and a curated list of overlays/scanline/shader settings.

Optional Thumbnail Pack

Included in the download is an optional thumbnail pack which adds box-art to your Pandory menus/playlists.

Advanced users: Name your roms in the same way as the NOINTRO-Project recommends and the box-art may magically appear inside Pandory.

Inbuilt Video-Player and Tutorials

If you get stuck, scroll over to the Movies menu and you will find several video tutorials to help you out with common problems, such as adding roms/bios files or getting games to appear in the correct places.

The Movies menu can also play your own HD MKV/MP4 files from USB-Stick.

License

Pandory contains software licensed with different libre licenses. Almost everything is covered by GPL3/GPL2 or MIT licenses, with the exception of the host-rum binary, which is closed source and covered by the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ license.

All source-code and modified libraries are available to compile free-of-charge on GitLab.

Pre-compiled builds of the latest version are available here on Itch and any proceeds support further development of our software. Older pre-compiled builds are available without cost on our website, but may not include all the latest features you see on this page.

Reviewed by TOP YouTubers!

Pandory has recieved good reviews from several well-known YouTubers from the retro-scene, including AmigaBill, TheGebs24, CrazyBurger and KRG!

Videos

Pandory500 v3 Release Video

[THEGEBS24] How to turn your Amiga 500 Mini in to a POWERHOUSE with Pandory V2!

Pandory500 v2 Release Video

Pandory500 v1 Release Video

Legal Notice

Pandory contains no copyrighted roms, bios files or amiga kickstart files. All games contained within Pandory are either shareware, freeware, open-source or homebrew. To add your own games, you will need to add your legally-obtained rom files to the appropriate folders on the USB stick.

Discord

Got stuck or have questions? Come and talk to @dajoho or @emuchicken on our Discord server and we will try to help as much as we can. No question is a stupid question.