"Songs in the Key of YM" released
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- 505 and evil
Today, the trio of mOdmate, Evil and Jade released "Songs in the Key of YM" - a very impressive Atari ST music disk. The demo...
Cas writes:
The Vintage Computer Festival Europe (VCFe) will take place in Munich on the weekend of May 3-4, 2025.
This year's main theme is: 50 Years of Cheap Computers
In 1975, 50 years ago now, a price-breaker was introduced that would shake up the fledgling microprocessor world: the 6502. As a simplified 6800 for less than 10% of the price of the 6800, the 6502 was an ideal candidate for the second generation of microcomputers and the first home computers. Names like Commodore PET, Apple II, and Atari 800 continue to have an impact today. Not to mention Atari's VCS, which dominated the console market for years.
The lectures and exhibition offer fascinating information about Atari systems (8-bit and 16-bit).
Lectures
https://www.vcfe.org/E/Vortraege.html
Exhibition
https://www.vcfe.org/E/Ausstellung.html
Getting there:
https://www.vcfe.org/E/Anreise.html
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- Written by: Cas
Even though not much has been seen nor even said so far, Songbird Productions has announced that the world famous Vroom game will be ported by Reboot to the Jaguar in 2025! At the moment everything needs be done from scratch as the original code is not available but Jaguar fans can expect a few surprises. In the meantime a short teaser has been published.
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- Written by: sts
A port of the original Defender arcade have been in the works for a while, and is released in a finished v1.0 form today by Therealsark02.
The port is for ST, STe and Falcon machines. It features more or less perfect conversion of the arcade with lower border removal, digisound and 50 Hz refresh. The port is open source and mostly made in the C language.
Williams Defender v1.0 on the Atari ST
🔗 Visit the Github source code repository
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- Written by: evldhs
While serious Atari computing ended latest in the early 2000s, we see a general revival of activities regarding old computer platforms since a few years now. This sudden re-interest is also branded as "Retro computing" and may even be a suitable midlife crisis compensation ;-)
Hallway to middle-aged men's paradise
But many factors come into play. In contrary to fast-paced modern times, there is a calming aura about those old devices with their limitations and understandable technology. On top of that we have the opportunity for new technical developments which make long lasting dreams come true: hardware extensions, modding activities, modern software development approaches or maybe just a good dose of nostalgia crawling into former old school computer users.
As an accompanying effect we see a growth of communities, helping each other and organizing projects and events. This happens mostly online in forums or chat groups, but after COVID times, it is even more exciting to see communities finding together in real life again.
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- Written by: 505
Read more: Ataris spotted in the urban wilderness - a visit at Retro Computer Dresden e.V.
Write comment (6 Comments)When an Atari legend like Markus Fritze updates his Github repository with something that starts with 'AtariST', it's bound to get interesting. Of course someone like Markus does not need any introduction (🔗he 🔗really 🔗doesn'🔗t), so let's just dive in:
this time Markus prepared a very tasty dish - a completely re-engineered source code of Midi Maze! Plus there's literally tons of documentation on the internals in there.
Where other people merely disassemble and/or use commercial/government tools to generate some higher language source from the binaries, this specific Atarian just writes his own assembly->C toolkit to do the task, like, properly. Marvelous.
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- Written by: tIn
Already about a month ago, Ultra/Cream has published his latest findings and updates on his "ultraDev" device which obviously justify the name "ultraDev+". The full details can be read in his development diary.
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This annual and also biggest Czech Atari event is taking place from 16th to 18th of May 2025 in Olomouc, a magnificient university town, located not too far away from the Slovak and Polish border.
photo by Krupkaj
On a personal note, I really hope to make it there one day! 🍺
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- Written by: 505
Rajah Lone/Renaissance has updated his tools P2SM and Hexedit.
P2SM stands for "Pixels to Sprites & Masks" and Hexedit is a Hexeditor as one may have guessed.
The tools are targeting on high end Atari platforms.
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- Written by: 505
Djamm/Eko just published an interesting video about the story of Eko.
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- Written by: 505
This is not a formal chronicle, nor an attempt at perfect historical accuracy, but rather a heartfelt recollection, stitched together from memories spanning over three decades. Like all stories told from memory, it’s coloured with nostalgia, and perhaps a few gaps and fuzzy edges.
So, with all due imperfections and sentimental asides, let me, Tronic of Effect, take you on a walk through time… and share the story of how a floppy disk, a few lines of code, and a spark of curiosity grew into something truly special.
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- Written by: Tronic
Read more: Their story: Effect, a brief history in time
Write comment (11 Comments)The traditional Outline demoparty has now put information online for the 2025 edition. A website to feel home at immediately.
The party is taking place from 29th of May till 1st of June 2025. It is said the the event is leaning a bit more towards a "back to the roots" oldschool kind of party. If you like, get your travel planning and Atari releases ready!
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- Written by: 505
Maybe you remember the French Atari demo group Passion? They were active on Atari ST as well as on Falcon with their early "Arrival" demo. Cooper/Paradize has now recorded and published a comprehensive video compilation of their Atari releases in high quality. As I understand, they feature the full length scrolltexts, so 3 hours well-spent I would say!
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Vicomte, the main organizer of the now well established Gemtos convention has just sent us some last minute news about the 2025 forthcoming edition, let's have a look at what he wrote:
"Hi to all Atari fans,
The 2025 edition of the Gemtos convention is coming closer, few tickets left as the registration deadline gradually comes to an end. On the spot we will organize a great Midimaze 2 tournament on Atari computers, places running low!
Want to take part to game compos? Play Vroom, Jupiter’s masterdrive, Flight simulator 2 or Barbarian? You only need to send me a picture showing your best score (running low on room for competitors as well).
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Read more: GEMTOS 2025: latest news!
Write comment (0 Comments)Lotek style writes:
German coder Jonas Eschenburg is working on his Voxel-Engine for quite some time. Inspired by Comanche on MS-DOS machines he asked himself if it's possible to port an effect like this to the ST in decent speed. He posted several stages of his work on Twitter and you can find a binary on his github-site.
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- Written by: lotek style
Preview videos of a new Atari Jaguar racing game called "Neutron Drive" are circulating. It looks promising and very atmospheric. Read more on Atariage forums.
🔗 More videos on the official YT channel
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- Written by: 505
Hot on the heels of 505's party report on this very site, D-Bug and Data Airlines have created a mini site with another report, plus all entries from the cracktro showcase running on a browser (powered by tIn's hatari build)
🔗Visit the D-Bug website for the announcement, plus some bonus pictures (permalink)
🔗Visit the mini site hosted by Data Airlines
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- Written by: ggn
A file converter for Signum!2 documents called "Signum! Document Toolbox" has been published.
Back in the days Signum! was a sensational word processing applications which was unmatched regarding print quality by applying own bitmap fonts and offered professional scientific formula design. So the software was widely spread, e.g. in academic circles. In fact, it seems Application Systems Heidelberg is even still selling the software among other Atari applications as download versions.
Anyway, Xiphoseer has been working on a program that converts original SDO (Signum) files to PDF and HTML as a command line tool. Not entirely sure if such news belong here, but hey, the website layout is worth a visit by itself!
🔗 Signum! Document Toolbox Website
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- Written by: 505
If you missed out on Buxton Bytes that happened last week and you're itching to attend something similar, then you can just about make it to Slaskhack happening this weekend, organised by www.sak.nu.
We don't expect that much will come out of this gathering as it's a more laid back affair, but we do wish the attendees a grand time! Cheers!
Update: Some pictures from the party (thanks to PeP)
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While the game was unveiled last year you can now buy it on a regular cartrige from AtariAge. It was coded by Terence of Dune, with nice graphics by Mic of Dune and last but not least cool OST by DmaSc. Since Jaguar owners may not be so numerous among us, what about a lengthy video showing a lot of gameplay as well as some game modes?
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An international Atari-Party in the UK, that's not scene business as usual. The last big Atari Coding Convention probably was The Great British International ST Party (TGBISTP) back in 1992. That's 33 years ago! More recently however the UK Atari "crowd" has organised some cosy gatherings, such as Tathack 2020 or Psycho Hack 2024.
Buxton Bytes is the next round of those rather private installations, but escalated quickly as more and more scene friends declared sudden interest, so that the location was fully booked rather immediately. Seems as it was about time to fill this blind spot of having an Atari party in UK.
Can it be more UK than that?
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- Written by: 505
Read more: Buxton Bytes 2025 Party Report
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