It's funny the things you find when surfing on the waves of the interweb. Today, I somehow ended up finding TOS Legends by Sébastien Claret. From the moment I booted it up, I was gobsmacked because it's absolutely fantastic and something every Atari ST guy will surely adore? Mac/PC downloads are available or you can play inside a web browser.
Check out these screenshots below and then grab the download from Sébastien's website.
This is what happens when Turrican invades Rick's world!
But that damn boulder still chases lol
Hang on, everything changed! Where have I seen her before? Hmm...
Aranym is a piece of software by Petr Stehlik to create a virtual Atari computer capable of running GEM software at lightning speeds. However, most find Aranym rather awkward to set up from scratch so a fella called Philippe Noble has developed something called EasyAraMint. This is a "ready-to-go" installation using EasyMint 1.18 which provides an incredible multitasking environment using the power of the host, be that a Mac or PC.
As you can see in my "expertly recorded" video, I'm using an old Mac Mini that was donated to me (thanks Mum!). My video shows me using unix 'scp', viewing images/PDF, listen to tunes, and playing Doom before ending with web browsing. Yes, this is as geeky as it gets. Love it!! :-)
EasyAraMint can be installed in minutes. It also comes pre-installed with many Atari programs. Philippe has done an outstanding job with this ready-to-go multitasking OS. I cannot recommend it highly enough!
Aranym and EasyAraMiNT can be downloaded and tinkered with so let me know what you create!
I accessed another Mac via FTP and chatted online with a friend. What a geek I am!!
The command line might not look much fun so I jazzed up this screenshot with PixArt...
Not all websites display perfectly but what do you expect for free? Good enough, I say :o)
After browsing the web, why not read a PDF document and listen to some background tunes too!
Backing up your files can be a pain in the .. neck .. but you would be gutted if you lost any precious data! So here is a simple method to duplicate your Ultrasatan's SD card which is not only effective but takes very little effort. The requirements are a Mac with an SD slot and a basic knowledge of the Terminal program.
- IDENTIFICATION -
Firstly, eject your SD card from the Ultrasatan and slide its "lock" switch to write-protect it. Insert it into your Mac (if a warning appears then click on the "ignore" button). Load up Terminal.app (within Utilities folder) and type in this command:
diskutil list
This will display information to help identify the SD card - look for the capacity of your card. Mine is 8GB as you can see in the clipping, below. Thus my card is "/dev/disk1"
/dev/disk1 (internal, physical): #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: * 8.0 GB disk1
If you would like to verify this information, type in this command :
diskutil info /dev/disk1
Within the output, you will see a line confirming that this is indeed our SD Card :
Device / Media Name: SD Card Reader
- BACK IT UP -
Type this command to backup the SD card (enter your password when prompted)
sudo dd if=/dev/disk1 of=~/Desktop/st-backup.img
Leave it to complete and after a few minutes you should have a file on your desktop called "st-backup". Now eject the card from the Apple Mac and reinsert it into your Ultrasatan - not forgetting to slide off the lock switch! I recommend zipping your newly created backup file and then storing it somewhere safe, like iCloud or Dropbox.
- RESTORES -
Perhaps you have a spare SD card idly doing nothing? So long as it's the same capacity as the first, we can easily restore our backup file onto this using the command :
sudo dd if=~/Desktop/st-backup.img of=/dev/disk1
- AND FINALLY -
Of course, there are numerous different methods to secure your data and here is just one. It's the backup method I personally prefer because the dd command is simple and powerful. I hope this is of some use to Mac & Linux users, sorry but I wouldn't know about Windows. Any questions then just gimme a shout and I'll be happy to help.
PARCP running on my Mac (the Mac is shown on the left side and the Atari ST on the right)
Get your Atari ST talking!!
After all these years, owning an Atari ST is still such an amazing joy - plus I feel like a teenager again!! However, this now means I have the problem of how to get games and other programs running on my ST. After all, it's not like I can pop to the shops or swap disks with friends like we did back in the day. If only I had a time machine...
Anyhow, the internet is stuffed with ST disks but we're still left with the problem of getting these from my Mac (or PC) over onto the ST (whether it's using floppies or a hard drive). Heck, it might be the most awesome 16-bit computer on the planet but it sadly has no ethernet, USB, or WiFi. Argh, how can we get files over to use on my ST?
Well, there are a few options but one of the best is ParCp-USB by Petr Stehlik. This little device plugs into the ST's parallel port and features a Mini USB socket so we can connect any Atari computer to either a Mac or PC with little effort and hassle. The only decision to make is which of your computers you want to act as either a master or slave (I run my ST as the master whilst the Mac acts as the slave). Just watch the video recording I've made for a better idea of how this works...
ParCP-USB is a fantastic product that makes the job of transferring files a doddle and is highly recommended.
Atari computers with only a floppy drive will be too slow. You need a hard drive or something like the Ultrasatan. However, you can easily use a Ram Disk if you have upgraded.
