If you're interested in playing with an Atari ST but don't want to install anything, there's an in-browser emulator on my website here: <a href="https://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/atari-st/" rel="nofollow">https://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/atari-st/</a>
That's so cool. There's a few old programs I'd love to see but since it's been over 30 years I can't recall their names.<p>- A music composer that took advantage of the MIDI ports. Connecting the software to synths etc would allow the Atari ST to not only control the synth, but also to record the music in note form as it was played.<p>- A BASIC interpreting environment. Noteworthy for no reason other than this was the place where I wrote my first program ever.<p>- A desktop publishing application with similar functions to the early Pagemaker.
I remember going through lengths to make my old Atari ST look like a Mac. I installed the Monaco font and wrote a program, in assembly, to draw rounded corners on the screen like the Mac had. Now I sit on a MacBook Pro and I am trying to run Atari ST on it. Full circle.
Nice, had an Atari 800XL, then a 512STfm, and then I was one of the 3 people who purchased a Falcon 030.<p>Learned Atari basic from a 2 page leaflet that came with my 800XL when I was 8, then progressed through True Basic and GFA Basic.
This is awesome! I wish I had kept my old ST disks haha.<p>Apps I remember:<p>Revenge of the Mutant Camels remains one of the best games ever.<p>Calamus was also a great piece of software that predated Pagemaker for many years.<p>Heroes quest, police quest series of games.<p>There was an animation/tweenijg app for animation that blew me away.<p>These machines were great substitutes for amigas of the day.
Note that you can have a fully open-source retro experience by using EmuTOS (a free operating system for Atari computers) with Hatari: <a href="https://github.com/emutos/emutos" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/emutos/emutos</a>
I have a box of about 200 disks for this, and I've been keeping that old Atari ST alive and in use. Looks like it's time to convert once and for all. Just added a floppy disk drive to my Amazon list, here we go.
Hatari was also the starting point for "Previous", the NeXT Computer emulator, and some code has been submitted and included from that project for 68030/040 MMU functionality.
I remember running Ultima 6 and installing - using the hard disk option - to a RAM disk. My friend had a 4MB RAM expansion. I was basically having a 2MB hard disk in RAM!<p>I'd load the whole of U6 from 4 floppy disks, then fire it up and play, and when done, I'd save my position and copy it all back to the 4 floppy disks!<p>What helped were 2 things:<p><pre><code> *Utility to format disks to high capacity
*Fast shareware disk copy utility</code></pre>
Wow, brings back memories. All the software I wrote for the ST, the voicemail system I wrote for the Falcon, working on MiNT / MultiTOS. Fun times.<p>I'd really love to boot up Spectrum Holobyte's Falcon again, but with the CPU clock goosed up so it could get higher framerates...
I wish the Amiga had a similar development community.<p>Unlike EmuTOS, AmigaOS is still closed, proprietary code.<p>Unlike Hatari, we've got winuae (windows-only) and a bunch of feature-cut, special purpose and/or abandoned ports to other platforms.
Wouldn't it make more sense to add support for this machine family to QEMU? 68k cpu emulation is already included in QEMU, all it needs is general support for the platform itself.
Nice!<p>I never had an Atari ST (stayed with Commodore to the bitter end, plus Tandy happened soon after) but I am glad someone out there is dedicated to keeping these 16/32-bit computers alive.