Top News im Dezember 2019

More News im Dezember 2019

Hex-a-Hop (18.12.2019 - 21:46 Uhr)

New food for game fans with powerful hardware: Atari-Forum.com member "jury" has compiled Hex-a-Hop for TOS. Hex-a-Hop is a small logic game, in which all green hexagonal fields must be destroyed without blocking the way. You can undo as many steps as you want, there is no time limit. If a level is completed, the next one is selected on a map.
Hex-a-Hop was programmed by Tom Beaumont and Ari Mustonen, who released the source code on SourceForge. You can control it with mouse or keyboard, the escape key calls up a menu in which you can switch between window and full screen display. The game requires a resolution with at least 16 bit color depth (65536 color tones). Jury tested the game on a CT60 Falcon with SuperVidel, the screenshot is from MacAranym. Under MacAranym the mouse button has to be pressed longer in window mode to make the character jump to another field.

https://bit.ly/2TRY95f

(mj)

maxYMiser High (17.12.2019 - 21:45 Uhr)

After a six-year break, the maxYMiser chip tune tracker is back with a new version. MaxYMiser tries to get as much out of the ST's YM/AY sound chip as possible, using all the modern techniques developed by chip tune artists in recent years, including SID waveforms. In addition to the three channels of the sound chip, the DMA sound of the Atari STE is also supported. The tracker also communicates with the MIDI world and should be compatible with every CPU from 68000 to 68060. Developer gwEm is a chiptune musician himself and has programmed, besides maxYMiser, a VST plug-in for PC-DAWs and the DJ software STj.
maxYMiser has the suffix "High" in the version number. This does not refer to the MIDI latency adjustments, but to the support for the high resolution of the Ataris. In 640x400, however, maxYMiser is not a different program - neither the pixels are used for a particularly sharp display, nor is there more to see on the SM124. It is rather a concession to the musicians, who usually run the ST with a monochrome monitor and now do not need to connect a color monitor for the chip tune tracker. On higher color resolutions - for example the VGA resolution of the Falcon - maxYMiser switches to the low resolution.

http://preromanbritain.com/maxymiser/

(mj)

CD Write Suite 4 is freeware (16.12.2019 - 21:44 Uhr)

When it was finally possible to not only read but also burn CD-ROMs on the Atari, this was big news. In the meantime, memory cards and the Internet have made the CD almost superfluous, but if you still want to burn CDs on the Atari, you can do so with the recently released CD Writer Suite 4 from Anodyne Software, which is available as freeware. The suite consists of the three programs CDwriter (audio CDs), CDbackup (backups to data CDs and DVDs) and CD InScriptOr (burning standard ISO9660 CDs and DVDs). On 68030 systems, media is burned at quadruple speed, on 68000 systems at double speed. If the hardware supports it, the burning process can be simulated beforehand. CD Writer Suite supports many SCSI3/MMC CD and DVD recorders, there is a list of compatible devices on the website. To run it, you will also need ExtenDOS 4, which was released as freeware last year and also offers an audio CD player. The release of the source code is planned at a later date.

http://www.anodynesoftware.com/cdws4/main.html

(mj)

USB driver for graphics tablets in development (15.12.2019 - 21:42 Uhr)

A graphics tablet is a useful acquisition for almost every screen artist, pixel painters excluded. Atari itself offered the Maltafel for the 8-bit computers and for the ST there were later various graphics tablets from third party manufacturers, some of them especially for technical drawings. With PixArt, which supported Wacom tablets, the graphics tablets experienced a small renaissance. But what about more modern tablets, those with USB connection? For these Perdrix24 has announced a driver on YouTube and Atari-Forum.com. The tablet simulates the mouse: The tip of the pen acts as the left mouse button, the buttons on the pen as the right mouse button. The mouse pointer is moved by slightly lifting the pen. Four function keys can be programmed to corresponding Atari keys. Graphics programs can query the pressure strength - a possible candidate for implementation would be the graphics program Vision, which is being further developed.

http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=37128

(mj)

KWEST-PD library archived (14.12.2019 - 21:42 Uhr)

AtariAge user rcamp48 has archived a PD collection that has not yet been backed up. The collection consists of 37 of the 38 floppy disks of the KWEST Library from 1989 to 1993 and contains a lot of well-known stuff, for example the utilities of Double Click Software, which are also known from German PD series, but also unusual stuff like the Mozzie Repeller II, which is said to drive away mosquitoes with high frequency sounds. KWEST was a user club for 8- and 16/32-bit computers, the club also maintained a PD series for Atari's 8-bit computers. Archiving the KWEST library does not end the search for PD disks: especially PD series that were never collected on PD/Shareware CDs are only incompletely preserved. This includes many dealer-owned series such as Karstadt or PSG. Often such disks are found sporadically in disk boxes, random finds that are lost in the mass of S-, J- and V-PD disks. Whether there are programs on these disks that are not found in any other series is another question.

https://bit.ly/2k0NDrF

(mj)

Melody PSG for Atari 8-Bit (13.12.2019 - 21:41 Uhr)

Finally a dual PSG/AY card - but for the wrong computer. Lotharek is working on the Melody cartridge, a module that equips Atari 8-bit computers with two sound chips of type AY 3-8910 or 3-8912. These chips were used with different clock frequencies in the Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, Oric Atmos, MSX and ZX Spectrum 128/+2/+3. The frequency can be switched by software, a first program for the module, which is still under development, plays YM/MYM sounds. The price is not yet fixed.

(mj)

Songbird is shopping (12.12.2019 - 21:39 Uhr)

Lynx and Jaguar owners already know Songbird as a company that bought and eventually released games that were developed but never released. The company also offers newly developed games for the two cats of prey. But now the company enters new territory: It has acquired some rights to well-known Lynx and Jaguar games, as Songbird announced on AtariAge.
This includes all games from HandMade Software with the exception of Kasumi Ninja. HandMade had developed several games for Atari, including Awesome Golf, Battlezone 2000, Dracula The Undead and Malibu Bikini Volleyball. Songbird now also owns Gordo 106 (Tenth Planet Software), Super Skweek (Loriciel) and Othello (Harry Dodgson). With Battlemorph from Attention to Detail, Songbird has also acquired a high-quality Jaguar brand.
Othello and Loopz (HandMade Software) were already distributed by Songbird. Short term plans for the remaining games do not exist, Songbird also does not own the source code for the games. Battlezone (rights are now held by Rebellion) and Skweek (Loriciel) are licensed for older Atari systems, respectively the Lynx version.

(mj)

HypView/hcp updated (11.12.2019 - 21:37 Uhr)

Thorsten Otto has updated his own version of the ST-Guide alternative HypView and the hypertext compiler. HypView is compatible with the HYP files of ST-Guide, a popular format (not only) for the help function of various programs. Otto's version is based on the HypView of the FreeMint project, but offers some interesting additions. For example, both programs are also available for other platforms like Windows 32/64 bit and Linux - so these operating systems again have an up-to-date HYP viewer and compiler.
On the Atari side HypView should now also work under Single-TOS - a short test with TOS 1.62 failed, however, while starting under EmuTOS it worked but the icons were not displayed correctly. With a program size of 678 KB HypView is more suitable for multitasking systems anyway, which usually have more RAM available (ST-Guide: 44 KB). The package includes useful tools like Refcheck. For macOS there are currently only command line apps available, the viewer is still in development.

http://tho-otto.de/downloads.html

(mj)