Ataris spotted in the urban wilderness - a visit at Retro Computer Dresden e.V.
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While serious Atari computing ended latest in the early 2000s, we see a general revival of activities regarding old computer...
An remake of the Atari Transputer Workstation was recently announced and sold out very quickly. This device seems to be a major inspiration for many as proven by at least two highly active forum threads in renowned Atari internet sources:
ATW800/2 owners thread on atari-forum.com (English)
ATW800/2 user thread on atari-home.de (German)
For the interested - Enjoy! :-)
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- Written by: 505
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The cross platform Atari ST, Mega ST, STe, Mega STe, TT and Falcon emulator Hatari is out in version 2.6.0.
Hatari 2.6.0 emulating a Falcon 060
Snapped from the Hatari 2.6.0 release notes:
Emulation improvements:
- 030+MMU:
- Workaround to correct prefetch data after bus errors
- DSP:
- Fix: JMP can also form a long interrupt instruction
- VME/SCU:
- TT / MegaSTE SCU registers and interrupts implemented
- Falcon Videl:
- Refresh rate of monochrome monitor is now correctly detected with 71 Hz
- MegaSTE:
- Add support for CPU Freq / Cache control at $FF8E21 when running in cycle accurate mode. This gives cycle exact memory accesses when running at 16 MHz, as well as emulation of the external 16 KB cache
- SCSI:
- Fix REQUEST SENSE for SCSI v2
- Serial Ports:
- Update values of DCD and CTS signals for the RS232 port connected to the MFP (as reported by the underlying OS)
- Add support for using TCCLK as RTxCB clock for the Atari TT's SCC
- Video:
- Improve support for 4 pixel hardscroll by stopping shifter with $FF8260=3. Also handle $FF8261.
- MFP:
- Fix counter when timer is stopped/restarted while counting from 1 to 0
Emulator improvements:
- SDL-GUI (and config options):
- Improvements to GUI font characters
- Add separate option for enabling/disabling >=030 CPU data cache
- Fix: file selector exit with keyboard
- Windows:
- Open console window for error and help output, so that Windows users can actually see them
- Keyboard / TOS localization:
- Symbolic key mapping improved for different TOS language versions
- Made it possible to use a mapping file with fallback to scancode mapping
- New "--fast-forward-key-repeat" option for key repeat
- (EmuTOS v1.4) Catalan country code support
- Memory snapshots:
- Fix: re/store all relevant YM2149 & MMU state variables
- Joysticks:
- Fix: segfault with negative joystick indexes
- GEMDOS HD:
- Fix: Fattrib() call on a directory
- Fix: Return correct attrib for volume labels in FsFirst()
- Fix: Fsnext() calls with DTAs having different attribs, when DTA is not from preceding Fsfirst() but earlier one
- Fix: Handle additional '*' chars at end of file mask
- Fix: Dfree() total/free on really large disk, free on Mac/BSD
- SCC:
- Fix: invalid channel B file close on uninit
- SCSI:
- Add CLI + config file option for (per ID) SCSI version
- Command FIFO:
- Fix crash when FIFO gets command right at Hatari start
- Debugger:
- Fix: DSP RESET instruction tracing
- Similarly to Atari program symbols override, load TOS symbols on TOS load, if autoloading is enabled and .sym file is present
- Add "find" command for searching CPU memory contents
- Add "struct" command to better show contents of program's structures
- Variable & debug symbol names can be given directly also to load, save, memwrite and register commands in addition to numeric values
- File name completion for commands having optional file name args
- Symbol name completion for "loadbin", "savebin" & "dspsymbols" commands
- Align "memdump" character representation also when line is not full
- Show also non-ASCII Atari chars in debugger memory content output
- Add 'c' (character) argument type support for "memwrite" command
- CPU disassembly shows resulting relative branch addresses
- "dspreg" command shows also stack contents
- When disassembling, translate logical addresses to physical ones if MMU is enabled
- Tracing:
- GEMDOS Dsetpath() + Frename() calls included to "os_base" traces
- PC value added to more traces
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- Written by: evldhs
GEMTOS 2025 made it possible. No more words needed.
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- Written by: 505
rmac, the assembler for all Ataris, supporting 68k, DSP 56k, 6502 and Jaguar chips has just been updated.
Changes in version 2.4.3 (copy/pasted from the release notice)
- Harden movem/fmovem parsing by checking the whole line has been parsed
- Promote “missing .endifs” warning to error
-sswitch now warns about potential optimisations when +o0 to +o9 optimisation switches are disabled- Line numbers of errors inside macros are now reported precisely
- Switched macro error reporting to save the line number during macro expansion
- Introduced a symbol named
_RMAC_that contains the version number in BCD format in order to be detectable during assembly time - Added HiSoft line number format when outputting ST .prg executables and -g is enabled
- Jaguar OP: Fix XPOS masking
- BSD stabs output code cleanup, adding custom word swap commands for ELF
- Fixed
+Oallcorrupting branch instructions - Fixed mingw build
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- Written by: evldhs
Warning! This was expected to be a long text, and so it turned out as such. If you’re trying to read this in one go, then a large mug of your favourite beverage may be recommended, along with the optimum most comfortable and least disturbed sitting position. Anyway, enjoy!
The long and winding story of CiH’s Falcon and some of the places it has been to.
Preamble:- Once upon a time, back in 1992, there were a lot of excited words poured out about a new and transformative computer coming from Atari. This was the near mythical Atari Falcon 030. Quite a lot of these words came from me, as the Maggie Diskmag editor cheerleader.
The Falcon 030 was Atari’s attempt to bring the next generation of home computing to life after the long saga of the ST series. The new buzzword, multimedia, was bandied about freely, unironically. There was a lot of excited near magical thinking about the specification of such a wunder-machine. As we all realise now, it required some serious cognitive input from the very best people to get the most from it. Also that there was the looming tsunami of beige commodity Wintel boxes, crashing down and swamping all hopes and dreams of a long happy commercial lifespan for the Falcon.
Some of the advertising from Atari was a bit off and hard to understand.
Still, this article is not for regrets and recriminations, but is the story of one long-lived bird in particular.
Mine…
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- Written by: CiH
The legendary US-based company Wizztronics is stepping forward in making an Atari Falcon rebuild.
"The entire team that Wizztronics is dedicated to getting this project done. We will release information as to the progress when it becomes available, we thank you for your patience.
Steve Cohen CEO"
Apparently the layout is progressing.
🔗 Read more on Wizztronic's Atari Falcon rebuild page
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- Written by: 505
There are some news regarding upcoming Sillyventure Sommer Edition: A little invitro was released on Atari 8-Bit created by Foster and PPS.
🔗 Download and comment the SV 2025 SE invitro by Foster and PPS on Demozoo
🔗 Download and comment the SV 2025 SE invitro by Foster and PPS on Pouet
Additionally, the compo rules have been updated taking into account the handling of AI generated content and other bits. You can read the new compo rules on the SV compo pages.
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- Written by: 505
Olivier Landemarre has published MyAES 0.99 Beta 8.
with following changes:
Bug fix:
- Snapshot under video format X1R5G5B5 wrong color fixed
- Some debug message on screen could appear during snapshot removed
- Fix appl_control(APC_TOP)
- Some edit field could be corrupted (1 char too far)
- Object with SHADOW flag was 1 pixel too large
- Fix some popup and object redraw with buggy object tree in Papyrus 5
- Fix MU_TIMER that have 20ms too much if value request was different of 0
Improvement:
- MU_TIMER enhancement at the level of other modern AES
- Remove uneed bitmap format conversion that not exist
- Better display of popup
- Add new message for application list update at request (throw appl_control) to not all the time update list for nothing (interesting for task bar like)
- Update Yopla for new feature just above.
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- Written by: 505
Not to be overlooked: P01/Ribbon strikes back on Atari ST with this "dot record" released at recent Outline, accompanied by a stomping Dubmood track. Record or not? Judge yourself!
P01 has surprised on Atari ST before at Outline parties, particularly with these amazing zoom and voxel bootsectors roughly a decade ago. Great to have him back on Atari!
🔗 Download and comment Ellipsis on Pouet
🔗 Download and comment Ellipsis on Demozoo
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- Written by: 505
This time we move our spotlight over to someone who's work is only know by far too few people in the Atari scene. He deconstructed, reengineered, documented and gathered schematics and information for a lot of hardware for our beloved 16 bit systems - so that it ultimately is preserved and can be reconstructed by people like us. The person we are talking about here is...
Olivier Gossuin.
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- Written by: tIn
Read more: In the spotlight: Réalisations Olivier - a hardware (re)engineer par excellence
Lately two projects have emerged on the web in an attempt to bring world famous Doom game onto the ST. So far we had been given a few great FPS in the likes of Substation in 1995 and above all Wolfenstein 3D in 2025. In 2021 the new challenger was called Dread and a great playable demo was even released before the game gradually vanished for some reason. The project later changed name/background and now calls itselft Grind but this time the ST version has disappeared...
In the meantime our friend AtariCrypt has written a couple of article about these new projects so let's try to sum things up:
1. First there is STDoom. Developped by Jonas Eschenburg who earlier brought us an ambitious voxel engine, this port uses the original sources. A few previews later what we have is something that looks like Doom yet requires an accelerated ST (Mega STe in the videos right below) but we can still dream of a final version running on a standard ST or STe.
2. The second project is called Doom8088 and is a port from the PC low spec version coded by a guy named Frenkel. It runs on standard STs even though much still has to be done before final version. Yet it also looks promising!
Want to read more about these two then go to AtariCrypt to learn more about STDoom and Doom8088. Now let's cross fingers and see what happens in the next few months!
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- Written by: sts
The open source TOS alternative, EmuTOS, was released in version 1.4 a few hours ago.
Major changes in EmuTOS 1.4: - General: Full support for true-color modes on the Falcon (and on other hardware and emulators that support true-color) - General: New Catalan translation - BIOS: IDE driver support for LBA48 and CHS addressing - ARAnyM ROM is now 1024 KB (see readme-aranym.txt) - Amiga: Support for NTSC machines Other changes: - BIOS: Improved serial port drivers - EmuDesk: Floppy formatting dialog supports 800K format - Many minor and/or obscure bugs have been fixed
EmTOS v1.4 running in Falcon truecolour mode
💾 Download EmuTOS at Sourceforge
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- Written by: evldhs
I’m going to explain how I rip SNDH music files from intros and demos using Steem Debug. This isn’t intended as a definitive or advanced guide, but rather a practical walkthrough that should help you get started — and give you a foundation to build on.
The SNDH Archive is always on the lookout for new rips, so if you’ve got the curiosity and a bit of patience, you can definitely contribute. I don’t consider myself an expert, but this guide is focused purely on the task of ripping SNDH files directly from memory.
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- Written by: Tronic
Read more: Back to Basics: Ripping SNDH tunes using Steem Debug
As we've slightly hinted about over the past weekend, Outline 2025 demo party took place.
Now all the ST/e-chiptunes from the music compo as well as the winning demo soundtrack is available in SNDH-format. Check them out in the player below, bear in mind that the 505 track is using many new features and even the LMC1992 chip of STe-machines which is not supported in the web player (yet).
🔗 Check out all Outline 2025 releases at Demozoo
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- Written by: evldhs
Rich Whitehouse has published the new version 1.19 of his Jaguar emulator BigPEmu.
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- Written by: 505
Robson, well-known for his amazing case modding skills, has published a collection of information on his latest finding: a tower created by German company Tetra GmbH (which still exists today). The tower was marketed as Manhatten tower in the 90s as a replacement for the ST/TT case and fitted all kinds of extensions, similar to the Lighthouse Tower, the Rocke Tower or the Digital Data Deicke (DDD) cases.
Robson's website contains detailed information, photos and screenshots as well as many other great Atari topics. It's highly recommended to have a closer look at the whole website.
🔗 Original thread on Atari-forum.com
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- Written by: 505
Sunday, 1st of June 2025 and Monday, 2nd of June 2025
Time to wrap up this year's Outline experience and conclude this reportage. The party has been covered to quite some degree the past days (part 1, part 2, part 3). Hopefully you got a picture of the event and the surrounding happenings. Feel free to add your own points, views and opinions in the comments or elsewhere. For the truly complete experience, it is of course recommended to visit the party itself.
Now as the party is over, people traveling back home, it's time to write down a few things that come to mind.
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- Written by: 505
Read more: Outline 2025 live reportage (part 4) - wrapping-up
Saturday, 31th of May 2025
08:43, Germany (Jade)
Trip to his first Outline. See you later.
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- Written by: 505
The modern classic Atari XL/XE game, Yoomp! was advertized to be released on the Atari ST during the 68k Inside party. At the party there was a competition in ST Yoomp! and now when the party is over we're treated with the public release.
The game resembles a bit of Trailblazer but taking place in a tunnel and not quite as fast but still plenty of challenges. The ST version is brought to you by the Dekadence democrew team.
The Yoomp! ST title screen and level 3 gameplay
💾 Download Yoomp! ST from Itch.io
🌎 Visit the original Atari XL/XE Yoomp! site
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- Written by: evldhs
Friday, 30th of May 2025
09:52, Netherlands (Tronic)
The Brits heading out to Steenwijk, but first a hearty breakfast.
10:40, Outline (505):
This is the right time to get up, grab a coffee and see whats going on.
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- Written by: 505
