Bolo

Brick Blast in STyle!

Tons of Atari ST games run in high resolution, and one of the best is Bolo, a Breakout clone. It takes the familiar concept and improves upon it tremendously with lots of extra features, like the ability to move the bat almost anywhere. There are also gravitational effects that are cunningly effective, different brick types, and the ability to change the physics of the ball's speed/direction. Bolo is an awesome brick-blaster. It's brilliant!!

Grab it from Atari Legend, who has many menu disks to choose from.

SysInfo

Need tech support?

SysInfo is a useful utility that can display a whole raft of details about your Atari ST (it recently helped me diagnose a problem with my Mega STe's audio!). It can diagnose everything from TOS/GEM details to the more technical aspects like the Cookie Jar, VBL, traps & other mind-boggling jargon.

Incredibly helpful and also perfect for geeks! You can download SysInfo from Atarimania.

Maggie

Can you believe it?

After FAR too long, Maggie/25th Anniversary issue was released this weekend!! Yes, a lot of time has passed since the previous issue, but the latest edition is now available to enjoy. I'm about to download myself a copy and spend the evening reliving my ST days by reading this ace diskmag - 90s style! Yes, it's been far too long, but I'm incredibly excited and hope to see more ST disk mags. My congrats to everyone involved!!

Grab the floppy disk, but you can read it online. Here are the links...

• Download Maggie #25 for your Atari computer.
• Or download an HTML version to read in a web browser.
• You can find everything on their website.
• The Maggie Team is featured on Demozoo.
• "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."

Credits

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CiH CiH [main editor, compiling]

Felice [deputy editor]

havoc [graphics]

mrpink [articles]

DBA_Slimer [articles]

ggn [articles]

dml [interview]

Video Games 1

A game for Spock!

Andrei Ellman of Wacko Software created a game made from three classic genres: Pong, Space Invaders, and Pac-Man. This release is different because all three games are playable at the same time.

Yep, you heard correctly! Check this out...

• Pong is controlled by holding the fire button and moving up/down.
• Pac Man is initially quite confusing so read the docs within the download!
• Space Invaders is easy, left/right moves and pushing up/down fires the gun.

The controls are a bit odd, and things get strange when trying to play everything simultaneously. However, my tiny brain couldn’t handle it all, and I found I could only play two games at once, not three! Visually, it works well, but if you’re struggling to see clearly, adjust each game’s appearance using the numeric pad.  There’s also an option to invert colours, which makes everything a bit ugly, but it’s much better for your eyes.

I think Andrei was one crazy, mixed-up kid who had a good laugh when coding this. Don't take it too seriously and practice with the controls because Video Games 1 is ridiculously entertaining.

This is a maddening nightmare that will drive you insane. And you will love it!!

- Downloads are right here -

Universal Item Selector

Let's patch a bland part of GEM...

The excellent Universal Item Selector by Application & Design Software was released in the UK by ST Club. The Atari ST is blessed with a small but great selection of replacement file selectors, and this is the best. Only on the weekend, I trudge through a folder containing over 100 tracker mods, deciding which ones to keep or delete. So I installed UIS, which made the job 100x easier because of its integrated tools.

Click here to download this program with its PDF manual available via Atari Document Archive.