A handy list for people re-joining the scene
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- tIn
When you're talking on a demoparty to people that left the scene for some time and they ask you with their big, sad, brown...
Earlier today Slippy of Vectronix announced on the Atari-Forum that he has released an updated version of his CycleSplitter tool to ease adapting code to fit in overscan.
Description of the tool from Slippy:
- Expands
REPT/ENDRblocks - Determines cycle usage per instruction and allows manual override
- Splits code into scanline-sized chunks (512 cycles each)
- Injects border removal and stabilizer code
- Pads with NOPs when necessary
- Generates cycle-accurate annotations
- Handles dynamic cycle usages (i.e. movem instructions with multiple regs)
Features
- Processes assembly files with cycle annotations in comments (e.g.,
move.l (a0)+,(a1) ; (20)) - Handles
REPT/ENDRblock expansion - Automatically injects border removal code:
- Left border removal
- Right border removal
- Stabilizer code
- Pads scanlines to exactly 512 cycles with NOPs
- Generates detailed cycle annotations
- Supports custom templates for injection code
🔗 Check it out at the Github repository
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- Written by: evldhs
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Upcoming GEMTOS 2025 features a number of contests (music, picture, photo, game) with some additional constraints. E.g. the musics were supposed to feature the vocals "Gemtos" in it.
All entries can be watched and voted for in advance to the event. As you can see, there are some interesting productions, like a complete music video by AD, a new ACE-tracker tune by DMA-Sc and even a new Doclands chiptune done with Arkos tracker.
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- Written by: 505
The demoscene was born more than 40 years ago however it was only 5 years ago when it was officially labelled digital and cultural heritage by the UNESCO, first in Finland then one year later in Germany and Poland. I am very happy to announce that France has now crossed the treshhold and joined forces with these countries. Following a 4 year common work, French demo lovers have managed to make it true; the demoscene is now recognized by UNESCO as digital and cultural heritage here too!
Many thanks to the many people involved, it was a long ride but you never gave up!
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- Written by: sts
Another hard drive solution for the Atari ST series usually isn't anything to write home about, let alone to grace it with an atariscne.org article - thankfully we seem to get swamped by SD card storage solutions for our beloved platform as of late.
But Jean-Matthieu Coulon's ACSI2STM stands out of the crowd - and this article tries to give a very quick glance why this is as close to a tangible storage revolution as we can get without someone reissuing the CosmosEx. Spoiler: you can forget about partitioning.
I can't stress this enough: you can forget about partitioning.
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- Written by: tIn
Read more: In the spotlight: ACSI2STM - the humble hard disk revolution
With the next rounds of the ST Online Tournament (STOT) on the horizon, Thomas from Anarcholab has just released a special STOT version of his isometric Minesweeper-alike game "Randominer". The game is scheduled for the STOT round in May 2025.
This version is more suitable for the tournament setting. In contrary to the full game it has only a comparable single level with a set timeframe of 15 minutes. Very nice idea. Another interesting feature: "If your wife/boss come round the corner and asks “Are you playing STOT again???” hit [space] and be safe."
Randominer 1.3a STOT works on a Atari ST with 1 MB RAM (TOS 1.02) but an STE with 2 MB RAM is recommended.
🔗 General STOT on Atari-forum.com thread
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- Written by: 505
Due to lack of own competence, let me just forward this latest article by Tat/Avena, who is dismantling HiSoft's Debugging Line Number format in his blog. I am sure it is another gourmet-read for the one or other.
🔗 Full article in Steven Tatersall's blog
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- Written by: 505
Marty aka ST Graveyard and his team from Atari-legend.com published the full version of their thorough investigation about the Atari STE and Falcon game "The Ultimate Arena". The game has been an actual homebrew wonder of the mid-90 era, when Atari STE game development was generally taken a big step forward and the Falcon game sphere was not fully explored. It was highly anticipated and exceptional, as it was a serious attempt to bring "Mortal Kombat" gameplay to the Atari, including digitized game characters and sound.
Atari-legend's documentary dives deeply into the topic with it's typical, unmatched precision and production quality. The half hour video reportage emphasizes the individual achievement as well as the motivation, production process and outcome of the game, including personal notes of the game creator. It is an amazing travel back in times, when home computers still were machines to make dreams come true. The text script for the production is provided as well. Highly recommended!
🔗 Text script of the documentary on Atari Legend
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- Written by: 505
So it seems that nothing can beat nostalgia as ATARI has launched preorders for 5 new games on the 7800. Even though I am no expert the games should run on the good old hardware as well as on their lastest breed, namely the 7800+ as can be seen below:
The 5 games announced for release this year are
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Atarinet.info - an interesting website providing Atari & Internet related content (and more), do now also offer a web-rendering-proxy service (wrp). The service allows to render complex webpages on the server and send the result as simple website suitable for Atari browsers like CAB and various resolutions and color depths.
Resulting output can be rendered as image in various formats or basic HTML for a quick browsing experience on low-end platforms. The tool itself has been developed by Tenox.
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- Written by: 505
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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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.
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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- Written by: 505
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
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
