Relix

A music disk with something extra

Atari ST chiptunes are superb and proven to be timeless, unlike tracker/MOD files (much of the time). We have numerous music disks in our library and here is Relix by DHS/Paradox. This features some of the most awesome examples of what 505 (aka Nils Feske) has created. It's quite something to hear such a massive selection of quality chip music pumping out of your ST's speakers so crank up the volume!

Anyhow, this disk has a cool feature that should be standard on all musicdisks - an AUTO Play function. Yep, you can leave the music disk alone and it will automatically work through every tune. I love Relix and it's one of my favourite musicdisks ever made which is saying something for a machine like the Atari ST.

Relix download by Dead Hackers Society and Paradox [demozoo]

Credits

---

505 - Music
Dan - Graphics
Evil - Code, Graphics
Paranoid - Code
Zweckform - Graphics

double DD

Don't risk it!

Backing up your files can be a pain in the .. neck .. but you'd 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 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. Better to be safe than sorry! Insert it into your Mac (if a warning appears then click on the "ignore" button).

Load up Terminal.app (within the 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 finish 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 backup file and 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 -

There are many different methods to secure your data, this was just one. It's the backup method I personally prefer because the dd command is easy 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.

Atari STM

I've always had a longing for the sleek Atari STM computer before it became bloated with an internal PSU and floppy disk drive (STFM). I've just bought one off eBay for a meagre £14. It's in superb condition too. Needless to say, I now require an external floppy drive and PSU. I cannot wait to get this beast working :-)

UPDATE: https://ataricrypt.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/atari-stm-continued.html