I vaguely recall that people used to get their atari floppies and format in a MSDOS machine as it would yield a slightly bigger capacity - something to do with default format on DOS using more tracks. That was until alternative floppy formatting tools came about on the Atari scene and there was one that was also great for copying discs - going to bug me to recall it's name, but was one of those utils that had a cult rep in its day in atari land.<p>[EDIT ADD] Ok had a dig around and the tool most used was Fastcopypro - <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/stessential/disks-tools" rel="nofollow">https://sites.google.com/site/stessential/disks-tools</a>, was useful to do fancy formats for extra capacity if you had good quality discs as well as copying/backing up discs
There are so many things the ST does badly - weak sound chip, screen memory laid out like a Venetian blind (to quote Jeff Minter I think), and a mouse that was designed in a universe where ergonomics did not exist.<p>But I still love it. Without the ST I wouldn't have discovered programming and all the highs (and lows) that it brings. Looking back now, I'm surprised people were able to get as much out of it as they did.
I had a similar experience when going through the (MRI) Ruby source code which contained conditional directives for Atari ST compilation. Support was dropped only as recently as Ruby 2.4! <a href="https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/c5eb24349a4535948514fe765c3ddb0628d81004/doc/ChangeLog-2.4.0#L4155" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/c5eb24349a4535948514fe765c...</a>
The one thing I like the most about the ST (when compared to, say, the Amiga) is its simplicity. It's vastly less capable, of course, but, in the end, the simplicity pays back by allowing easier expansion. The Amiga was a hard machine to evolve, something that cost Commodore a lot.
Is this a good time to post this video of the Union Demo Copy Program tool[1] for the Atari ST? When it came to serious copy jobs I used Fast Copy[2], though. But I'd heard rumours about formatting disks on DOS.<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf19uSe2UIA" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf19uSe2UIA</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Libl3S9AaT8" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Libl3S9AaT8</a>
So the theory is that MSDOS tried to detect if a bootsector contained executable 68k code, because if it did, the BPB was valid and could be used to locate the FAT(s) and the master directory?<p>That's triply dumb, because of the typo noted in the article, and also because executable Atari ST bootsectors had a checksum that should be computed instead of silly heuristics, but most importantly because most Atari ST disks had no executable bootsector, but the entries concerning disk layout were still valid.<p>It sounds exactly like the fractal of incompetence Microsoft would implement, and it would explain why we Atarians had to use disks formatted on a PC for data transfer, even though the formats were nominally the same. Funny to read about that, because back in the day, I thought the ST somehow formatted disks "wrong".
Every time we talk of hardware from this era I'm reminded that I was absolutely set on getting a Commodore 64 or even better, a ColecoVision Adam computer, and my dad 'made me' get a Tandy instead. Ugly tan box. Yuck.<p>My dad and I don't have what you might call compatible decision making processes, so there were many times I was disappointed by his decisions growing up. But that machine taught me DOS, the next one got me onto Windows (answering the question, "How could I possible fill up a 43 Megabyte hard drive?") and those got me my foot in the door at one of the best jobs I ever had.<p>I'm still a little jealous of all of the Atari and Commodore fans out there, that I didn't get to participate. But if I'd had my way I would probably be worse off <i>and</i> still not be able to participate because I don't think anyone but me has ever mentioned the Adam unless I fished for it. Kids are dumb.
Question to the Atari brain trust: which ST emulator is the most accurate one? I have an old ST app I wrote, which prompts a weird message about ‘getting original roms’ or some such before it quits when run on Hatari. I found a printout of the source a couple of years ago in some forgotten basement, and there is a check for Xbios(2/3) or similar before this prompt. No clue what this was about, after 35 years of writing it. If anyone has some pointers, that would be great.
> Me supposes that, like with the ‘CALL 5’ mystery, we’ll learn the truth
eventually.<p>This "CALL 5 mystery" sounds interesting, but I couldn't find anything about it. Perhaps somebody who knows what it's about would have more luck?
> (ST refers to Sixteen/Thirty-two, referring to the 68k CPU’s external and internal data width)<p>I thought ST referred to Sam Tramiel - Jack Tramiel's son.