Beyond Brown

Nutcracker: Saving...

For this installment, let’s make a 180° turn and discuss how to extract data from the disk. 


Hardware Register Listing v9.0

[ ]

Nutcracker: Loading...

One thing worth mentioning is that in order to be effective, one has to learn the system as well as possible. In order to write demo effects (for example) it is usually sufficient to learn some parts of the hardware (Shifter/Videl, YM2149, MFP, etc). But other software are usually more complex and use other parts of the system, which includes I/O and the operating system itself. 
 Probably one…

Nutcracker: Getting started

Let’s start by covering the absolute basics. 
 (Note that this won’t be a take-people-by-the-hand-and-show-them-everything series, it will mostly focus on specialised topics that people will stumble on. Things like setting up and using emulators etc are taken for granted) 


68k inside from the inside (a party report shall we say)

Hidden in plain sight: How Dave Staugas got away with hiding a text message inside TOS?

People who worked on TOS are very clever. 
 (Originally published in Atariscne news )

RAM handling on the Atari ST


 Probably one of the more boring and contrived subjects to discuss, especially in old platforms like this, is how to handle memory in applications, from demos to games or even a normal GEM application. However, since people are still confused about this on anything than the trivial cases, it’s probably a good idea to review some concepts and offer some food for thought.

Buxton Bytes

AKA “What happens when a small group of ST demo people just want to have some fun together?” 
 
 Originally published at its own minisite, together with all the releases and then in printed form in issue #161 of Abbuc magazine

Anatomy of a Compofylla

or: “new” tricks on old machines 


The Other TOS System Font

The early days were wild.

Migrating from Devpac to rmac

Introduction 
 So, you have come to the conclusion that it is time to leave Devpac/GenST behind and use rmac instead. Congratulations!

Going In Circles

Taking a closer look at the radar effect shown in SNDH v4.8 update demo 


Your Retina, Atari and You, Part I


 or: How to connect my Atari ST to a modern Monitor and other fun activities 
 We all know that situation: your new(ish), shiny(ish) Atari ST just arrived - but apparently there‘s no way to get this thing to display a picture anywhere. No HDMI port, no DVI port, no VGA - heck, what where those Atari guys even thinking ?

Porting Ilmenit's Mona to the Atari ST


 Ever since I saw Ilmenit’s fantiastic, highly artistic intro Mona I have been entertaining the thought of making an Atari ST port. Here’s how it came into existence.

Atari ST (and compatibles) IKBD ROM disassembly

Disassembly provided courtesy of The Paranoid/Paradox. Thank you and take it away!

Bugziacs (or how I learned to ignore Z80 and do some fun stuff instead)

Sometimes you know you’re into a world of hurt, but you dive in head first anyway. 


MC6850 ACIA


 This is the official manual transcribed from PDF. Enjoy!

Data structures using offsets

Or “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Tools”

Yamaha YM2149 Manual


 This is the official manual. Enjoy!

Bugaboo usage

Intelligent Keyboard (IKBD) Protocol

This is the full manual. Enjoy!

Blaster sprites, Advanced


 Update on emulator issue, Oct 31st, 2018 
 Atari legend Nicolas Pomarède points out that it doesn’t really
make sense to combine the NFSR and FXSR bits the way I do. And
he’s right! 
 My mistake was relying on emulators while writing this, and using
the NFSR and FXSR bits this way was the only way I could make it
work. So… 
 Wanted! 
…

The twist: making of

How does one make a demo with someone that has almost the opposite tastes as yourself? 


MK68901 MFP (Multi-Function Peripheral)

This is the full official manual. Enjoy! 


Bello Basic: from zero to Falcon in 8 days

It all began with Bexagon. 


gcc 7.1 for Ataris - return of the brown

Eventually it just had to be done. 
 But we didn’t expect it’d be done so soon or be so easy! 


GCC, C loops and dbra...

For those of you working on GCC projects with an eye on code generation, you’ve probably wondered why GCC doesn’t always emit DBRA instructions for C loops.
In fact, it rarely emits them - the stars need to be aligned just right. And sometimes you’ll be faced with something so ugly and inexplicable for a loop that it might put you off using the compiler at…

gcc 6.2 for Ataris brown edition - merry Christmas!

It’s the time of the season for love, caring and, most importantly, presents! 


Blitter FAQ

Yacht (Yet Another Cycle Hunting Table) v1.2

This is the updated version. Have fun!

68000 clock cycle counts (Equinox, English)

Presented verbatim from the original text.

Hardware Register Listing

Presented verbatim from the original text.

Atari Blitter manual


 This is the official manual for the Atar ST/E/Falcon Blitter. Have fun!

WD1770/1772 5 1/4"Floppy Disk Controller/Formatter


 This is the full manual. Enjoy!

rmac manual




 For all your Atari assembler needs

Basic Blaster Usage


 v1.01 
 v1.02, Oct 23rd 2018 - Minor edits 
 A tiny guide by Excellence in Art, written to remind himself how all this stuff fits together in the context of demo/game development.

MFP 68901 Interrupts Timer B


 v1.01 
 A tiny guide by Excellence in Art, written to remind himself how all this stuff fits together in the context of demo/game development.

STEem Debug - The Boiler Room

STEem Debug - The Boiler Room 
 v1.05 
 A tiny guide by Excellence in Art, written to (hopefully) help people who are confounded by STEem’s eeeeeeexcellent debugger. 


Following Sweetness - making of

Hello and welcome to this modest feature where I recap some events that happened during the creation of my recent demo, “Sweetness Follows” ( Pouet and Demozoo respectively). It targets the Atari STe with 2Mb of RAM and hard drive.

The Atari ST, Part 2

Since the original blog by Landon Dyer is gone now, we’ve republised the pair of iconic articles off a copy from web.archive.org.

The Atari ST (Part 1)

Since the original blog by Landon Dyer is gone now, we’ve republised the pair of iconic articles off a copy from web.archive.org.