STe bad DMA - Atariscne.Org testing a software fix
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- evldhs
Back in the late 80's and early 90's the first versions of the Atari STe machines carried the same DMA-chip as the previous ST...
The French GemTos ATARI based convention has now become something of a regular meeting after what, maybe 3 or even 4 succesful editions? Anyway here come some info about the 2026 edition to be held somewhere in May (no date announced yet). However it gives you some time to prepare a contribution for another friendly ATARI convention.
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In previous years, some of the Polish Last Party compo releases turned out to reveal as hidden gems. As I remembered some great Atari XL/XE pictures from last year (have a look - they are awesome!), I was already curious how the compo would turn out this time. And in this year's editon we also got a number of creative and quite nostalgic artwork again, many of them including references to the world of Atari 8-Bit.
Let's have a look:
"Cicho, bo się nie wgramy" by Piesiu (1st place)
Ninja - check, Boulder dash - check, Bruce Lee - check, Frogger - check, little clown on the left - no idea! ;-)
I took the effort and tried to get a translation for this: "Be calm, or we won't get in". Any interpretation of the motive aside, this is obviously another masterpiece by Piesiu presenting a combination of motive, graphical skill and color richness way above the level of graphics that were common during the classic Atari XL/XE era. I would have been blown away back then by the "photo realism".
After having read parts of mOdmate's Graph2Font guide, I suppose the color change of the area around Bruce Lee's chin downwards may be for technical reasons allowing to use the more violet and later green palette from there? Wild guessing, but anyway, amazing!
"Last Museum" by Rocky (2nd place)
A trip to this museum, puts us Atarisceners into perspective. What a hilarious and - somewhat - realistic idea and what masterful execution. Much work went into this picture obviously, with those detailed characters using so few pixels, the lightning and many little details to spot. The image has a great graphic adventure vibe, too (but more like a 256 color VGA one!).
So, dear reader, who do you prefer to be? I think being an industrial human just sucks! ;-)
Anyway, as long as creative pictures like those are delivered in Atari compos, the scene's heartbeat feels just right to me!
Spy vs. Spy by Rocky (3rd place)
What an extremely colorful picture reminding us to this odd couple of agents. Honestly, I always loved the original Spy vs. Spy game due to it's great comic like graphics and adventure like feeling but just as honestly, never understood what I was doing gameplay wise! ;)
Anyway, about the many colors, I can only guess: On first view, this looks like straight from an Atari Falcon demo (Absence's Joint Venture comes to mind)! But right, we are about 24 bit away from this platform. I suppose that "interlaced" mode helps to manage to put all the colours on screen? Or maybe it's just an artistic tool, who knows.
New Year Disc by Kaz (4th place)
Very nice picture, supposedly done for PPS's new years disk. Can you spot the NYD letters? Original idea and the dithering of the parts looks really nice. Kaz has also published working steps from paper sketching to the full picture on youtube.
Frozen Creatures Surprised by the Arrival of Hot FLOP #69 Discmag by Kaz (5th place)
The title says it all. Now there is no excuse to not release issue #69 of the Czech Atari XL/XE FLOP diskmag. And with some smart mirroring, the picture can then be re-used to motivate the FLOP team for issue #96, too!
Imaginacja by marduk-pl (6th place)
Rightfully stated, "Lastparty, not least". Watching this, a lot of memories are crawling back from my foggy long-term memory: Bruce Lee, Alley Cat, Zorro, Pacman, HERO, possibly Pirates of the Barbary Coast and who knows, there are surely more things to discover? A nice homage to the golden past!
Well, the hidden-gem-theory worked out again. And as usual, Last Party brought some releases in other categories as well, such as small size intros, games, musics and more. Feel free to check investigate further via Demozoo.
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For those who are lucky to own the rare STBook, there’s exciting news: AndresPlaza developed a WiFi module for it. The board fits into the space that was originally intented to host a modem but it was never used for anything until now!
The hardware design and the software drivers are open source with more information available on GitHub.
Photo by Andres Plaza
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- Written by: Charon
Forewords: I have known Thadoss from fame as a Dune member for 3 decades. He has brought us several nice games and demos among others but more recently he has also amazed us all with Taedium Vitae, in my opinion already a classic Falcon demo that was released at the latest Sillyventure winter edition. This is the reason why I wanted to learn more about him in this first part.
As you may have guessed you can expect a second part that will be dedicated to this great demo. I thought it would be cool to invite both Jade (gfx) and Virgill (msx) to join him in this second part to share their thoughts about the making of the demo.
Before I forget, part one of the interview was carried in French and then manually translated by me, no AI implied here so that I will take full responsibility for my poor English. :) Now let's get started!
STS: Hello Thadoss, first question, an easy one to start with: can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Thadoss: Hi everyone. My name is Laurent Sallafranque, I am a 51 French man who lives by the seaside near Brest in Bretagne (west coast). I work as a risk manager in a bank company but I have also worked in various IT departments over the last 2 decades first as a coder then later as a project manager.
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It’s yet another release for the ‘Dead’ Atari ST scene this week.
This time, it’s a conversion of an old MS-DOS game from 1993, carried out by Baky, who has popped up in previous productions for 8-Bit and 16-Bit Atari. The game itself can be best described as a ‘Worms game, but needing careful forethought.’ There is a soundtrack from Tao, which dates back to 2005.
The basic mechanism is the same as worms, but the ‘worm’ is a train, with ever-adding carriages, as you pick up objects in the play field. The objective is to clear the screen and safely exit the screen. You can imagine this gets somewhat complicated with the later, more involved levels. The usual causes of death, from crashing into walls, turning into yourself, still apply.
This game has already been finished and released, with no changes, unless any really horrific bugs are found, according to Mikro, who has been promoting the release.
There is a link to http://www.atariportal.cz/news_detail.php?itmid=2001368 to download the game.
Also there is a video link from Saberman RetroNews to watch it in action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRceE8UgtTE
CiH - For Atariscne.org - Jan 2026.
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- Written by: CiH
Some time since he released his STE-fantastic racer, ‘Faster’, Chicane is now working on a new game for the Atari STE.
This is *not* a racing game, astoundingly, but features elements of ‘Thrust’ and ‘Crazy Taxi’. This is the provisionally named ‘Cavey Taxi’.
The player has to pick up and drop off passengers, threading their way through a mean and rugged looking cave system, battling time limits and fuel consumption. It remains to be seen if the basic premise is expanded upon, but the players rotating and manouvering skills will be heavily tested.
There is heavy usage of STE hardware, as hardware scrolling is there, along with a neat particle system for the engine thrust. The playing area looks fullscreen. There is currently no sound, but STE DMA effects would be expected.
The target system will be a 1MB STE. The game should be available for free download sometime in February or March 2026. We will bring more news as the story develops.
Link to Youtube to see it in (silent) action.
CiH For Atariscne.org - Jan 2026.
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- Written by: CiH
Back in July 2024 at the Sommarhack party, Cream released a massive music demo for ST; playing lots and lots of classic C64 music files on the YM-chip using their very impressive music driver that simulates almost everything the SID-chip can do (apart from filters). The demo then had several parts and even a complete version of the C64 basic ported to 68000 (yes, not emulated).
Fast forward one and half year, and the music from the demo have been transformed into SNDH-files that can easily be played stand alone on your ST: STay4Evr::SNDH Files
As a bonus, Cream have also thrown in all music files without their advanced music driver, playing them on the YM without timer interrupts. It's fun to compare the non-timer versions with the ones made in the 80's. Even with the same level of limitations there's a big improvement.
As if that wasn't enough, there's a second bonus; a demo to present the SNDH-pack! Featuring effects from the mythical Heftig demo that was seen already back at Error In Line 1999, still looking spendid!
💾 STay4Evr::SNDH Files at Demozoo
💾 STay4Evr::SNDH Files at Pouet.net
📺 STay4Evr::SNDH Files at Youtube
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- Written by: evldhs
We’re barely into the new year and we have some new gaming goodies from a Spanish enthusiast, Carles Orial.
This is an adventure game ‘Babaliba’, made for the ZX Spectrum by the Spanish software house, Dinamic and released in 1984. It has elements of Spectrum Classics, ‘Mazogs’ and ‘Sabre-Wulf’.
The author recalls that this was one of the first games he owned, first playing it on a black and white television and being astounded when he finally got to see it in colour.
He was so enamoured by this game, he set to work to convert it to his equally beloved Atari ST. First attempting this in Assembly language but switching to C coding.
The Author adds “I hope you enjoy my conversion. It was made with lots of love, lots of flowers , and INCREDIBLY BIG NOSES."
Here’s a link to the Github page:
CiH - Atariscne.org - Jan 2026.
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- Written by: CiH
An Atari STE sample demo made in STOS.
This one has appeared without any pre-announcement. Just one guy getting on with stuff and releasing it, I guess.
The functionally named ‘M.Lynn’, who made an STE Outrun music disc a while ago, has created this very ‘UK- Sceners of a certain age group specific’ release.
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It’s CiH here, with another short(ish) article for your enjoyment.
This text is about another of those long-hidden legacy sites, that still somehow exists and can still be used today, in this case for picture enhancement enjoyment.
I’m writing about the one-stop, multi-formatting image conversion shop which is atari.anides.de. This was created by ‘Anima’, aka Percy of Light, who was also responsible for several arcade to Atari conversions. The most memorable to me personally being Galaga 88 and Cho Ren Sha, but there were several other experimental projects at varying stages. (Will the Sharp 68000 PacMania conversion ever be finished?)
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Drygol, of retrohax fame, recently posted on atari.area forum that he is producing and selling 15x14cm plexiglass laser engraved plates that are lit up by a led lights base.
drygol mentions that he could not capture the real vibrance of the colours, so expect even better results up close.
If you're interested,use your favorite translation service on https://www.atari.org.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=323978 and read up on instructions on how to order.
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Puckman, as the same suggests, is a Pacman-like game. In fact, it's more or less identical to the arcade version of Pacman, graphics, sound and all.
Coded by JC-DUSSE it incorporates some demo-techniques such as top/lower border removal and multiple STe PCM-channel sound.
The game was just recently updated to support Mega STe, previously it failed to detect the machine.
Puckman video by JC-DUSSE
🔗 Download the game at Itch.io
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- Written by: evldhs
Zerkmans Atari ST re-implementation for cheap development FPGA boards was just updated with exiting new features.
- GEMDOS harddrive; similar to virtual harddrives in emulators, you can use a folder in the underlying Linux OS as a harddrive for the ST.
- Mega ST realtime clock
- More drivers for WiFi and and ethernet networking
- Better compatibility with USB and Bluetooth mouse/joysticks
- Bug fixes in the extended fullscreen graphics modes
🔗 Check out the zeST project page
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The annual SNDH release schedule is on point and the 2026 archive is ready for download. 222 new or fixed files.
The 2026 release also brings the SNDH specification up to v2.2 with a couple of improvements;
- The TIME tag is replaced with FRMS. TIME was always a bit inaccurate, while FRMS measure exactly how many calls to do before loop/end. Almost all files have the FRMS tag, while only a small subset had the TIME tag.
- The FLAG tag is finally official which detail what hardware the track in question is using (MFP timers, STe PCM sound and so forth)
Furthermore many SNDH headers have been cleaned up with more uniform names.
As a bonus, here are some Atariscne.Org picks from 2025!
🎼 Get the archive and read about format upgrade at the SNDH site
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- Written by: evldhs
At midnight today Lotek Style released his mixtape called HERZ VOLLER PIXEL on Youtube, and during the day a Falcon version of the same mixtape was released as well (coded by Insane).
Lotek Style writes in the readme:
"The main idea was not to create a best-of-mOdmate mixtape... you can have all that when listening to his final musicdisk. I was more thinking about what would he have loved to listen to on his journey. So I haved decided to put up mix full of 100% Atariscene-chiptunes with positive vibes.
Torsten... you had the heart full ofpixels and this is how we remember you. Here's something to listen to on your epic odyssey through the universe.
Farewell mOdmate. Have a good journey."
HERZ VOLLER PIXEL Falcon version
🔗 Original Youtube mixtape by Lotek Style
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- Written by: evldhs
The classic replacement desktop Thing was quite recently resurrected into Thing Neo with a lot of fixes and updates.
Today we are treated with a new version of said desktop with a few further updates:
- Fix of potential slow window redraw after parameter window is closed when starting .gtp/.ttp programs
- Improved speed for icon spacing calculation
- Icon spacing added for all icons, even with short names
Thing Neo screenshot by Olivier LANDEMARRE
💾 Download the latest Thing Neo
🔗 Visit the Thing Neo website (in french)
🔗 Thing Neo Sourceforge repository
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- Written by: evldhs
Just 4 months after initial project announcement, the first prototype PCBs of Falcon 030 replica haven just arrived.
Partially assembled in factory overseas with whooping over 500 surface mount components installed, these boards will undergo final assembly at local US factory where remaining components including custom Atari chips and through hole get installed.
The new board brings long waited improvements including new clock distribution network, addressed obsolescence of Yamaha audio chip and support for faster and more readily available DSP processor (including 80MHz 56k version).
Photo by Steve Suavek
Update; video of Suavek fitting the new board to a Falcon case
The author - Suavek shares work progress via dedicated website, see link below.
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There is probably no better way to end a year than by having a lot of snowflakes - the people at VCCC (add one or more "C"s to your liking) thought so too and asked people to painstakingly handcraft them for our enjoyment.
🔗 Atari 8 Bit entries at demozoo
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- Written by: tIn
Rmac, a cross platform assembler that supports almost every Atari machine (6502, 68000-68060, 68881/2, 56001, Jaguar GPU, DSP etc) is out in a new version.
The Atariscne.org editor GGN maintains the program and writes in his update log what is new in version 2.4.12:
- Fixed case where
-swill not produce an opcode during aMOVEQwarning - Lines prefixed with
!are exempted from potential optimisation messages - Enforced word size for
ror,rol,roxr,roxlwhen accessing memory - Made a check more strict to avoid erroneous fixup markings to the linker
- Display better error for
move #xxx,Mnin 56001 mode - Fix for symbol
_RMAC_not defined - Enhanced
.aligndirective with 16 bit fill value - Hardened
movepparing in 56001 mode - Documented
dsmdirective in 56001 mode - Files reorganisation
- Reduced runtime memory requirements for ST target
🔗 Check out the Rmac website for download and the original release statement
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François Le Coat, Author of Eureka 2.12 (2D Graph Describer, 3D Modeller)
writes:
ATARI bookmarks page
The ATARI bookmarks page was updated. The goal consists in valid links, even if it corresponds to sometimes dated information. Part of these bookmarks persist since the creation of the WEB site, back to the year 1996.
The interest with those numerous bookmarks, there's about 600, is to constitute an ATARI uptodate and dedicated search engine of the on-line scene. It is a service provided by Google Co-op. The base of this engine is a collection composed from time to time. It's now quite consistent.
This is a WEB 2.0 experience, because even if I'm responsible for its creation, the ATARI Search Engine can possibly be integrated by ATARI web-masters adding its HTML code.
Have a good ATARI WEB Surfing =)
🔗 ATARI Bookmarks page and ATARI Search Engine
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- Written by: François Le Coat
