Their story: Effect, a brief history in time
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This is not a formal chronicle, nor an attempt at perfect historical accuracy, but rather a heartfelt recollection, stitched...
Puckman, as the same suggests, is a Pacman-like game. In fact, it's more or less identical to the arcade version of Pacman, graphics, sound and all.
Coded by JC-DUSSE it incorporates some demo-techniques such as top/lower border removal and multiple STe PCM-channel sound.
The game was just recently updated to support Mega STe, previously it failed to detect the machine.
Puckman video by JC-DUSSE
🔗 Download the game at Itch.io
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- Written by: evldhs
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Zerkmans Atari ST re-implementation for cheap development FPGA boards was just updated with exiting new features.
- GEMDOS harddrive; similar to virtual harddrives in emulators, you can use a folder in the underlying Linux OS as a harddrive for the ST.
- Mega ST realtime clock
- More drivers for WiFi and and ethernet networking
- Better compatibility with USB and Bluetooth mouse/joysticks
- Bug fixes in the extended fullscreen graphics modes
🔗 Check out the zeST project page
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- Written by: evldhs
The annual SNDH release schedule is on point and the 2026 archive is ready for download. 222 new or fixed files.
The 2026 release also brings the SNDH specification up to v2.2 with a couple of improvements;
- The TIME tag is replaced with FRMS. TIME was always a bit inaccurate, while FRMS measure exactly how many calls to do before loop/end. Almost all files have the FRMS tag, while only a small subset had the TIME tag.
- The FLAG tag is finally official which detail what hardware the track in question is using (MFP timers, STe PCM sound and so forth)
Furthermore many SNDH headers have been cleaned up with more uniform names.
As a bonus, here are some Atariscne.Org picks from 2025!
🎼 Get the archive and read about format upgrade at the SNDH site
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- Written by: evldhs
At midnight today Lotek Style released his mixtape called HERZ VOLLER PIXEL on Youtube, and during the day a Falcon version of the same mixtape was released as well (coded by Insane).
Lotek Style writes in the readme:
"The main idea was not to create a best-of-mOdmate mixtape... you can have all that when listening to his final musicdisk. I was more thinking about what would he have loved to listen to on his journey. So I haved decided to put up mix full of 100% Atariscene-chiptunes with positive vibes.
Torsten... you had the heart full ofpixels and this is how we remember you. Here's something to listen to on your epic odyssey through the universe.
Farewell mOdmate. Have a good journey."
HERZ VOLLER PIXEL Falcon version
🔗 Original Youtube mixtape by Lotek Style
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- Written by: evldhs
The classic replacement desktop Thing was quite recently resurrected into Thing Neo with a lot of fixes and updates.
Today we are treated with a new version of said desktop with a few further updates:
- Fix of potential slow window redraw after parameter window is closed when starting .gtp/.ttp programs
- Improved speed for icon spacing calculation
- Icon spacing added for all icons, even with short names
Thing Neo screenshot by Olivier LANDEMARRE
💾 Download the latest Thing Neo
🔗 Visit the Thing Neo website (in french)
🔗 Thing Neo Sourceforge repository
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- Written by: evldhs
Just 4 months after initial project announcement, the first prototype PCBs of Falcon 030 replica haven just arrived.
Partially assembled in factory overseas with whooping over 500 surface mount components installed, these boards will undergo final assembly at local US factory where remaining components including custom Atari chips and through hole get installed.
The new board brings long waited improvements including new clock distribution network, addressed obsolescence of Yamaha audio chip and support for faster and more readily available DSP processor (including 80MHz 56k version).
Photo by Steve Suavek
Update; video of Suavek fitting the new board to a Falcon case
The author - Suavek shares work progress via dedicated website, see link below.
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- Written by: Steve Suavek
There is probably no better way to end a year than by having a lot of snowflakes - the people at VCCC (add one or more "C"s to your liking) thought so too and asked people to painstakingly handcraft them for our enjoyment.
🔗 Atari 8 Bit entries at demozoo
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- Written by: tIn
Rmac, a cross platform assembler that supports almost every Atari machine (6502, 68000-68060, 68881/2, 56001, Jaguar GPU, DSP etc) is out in a new version.
The Atariscne.org editor GGN maintains the program and writes in his update log what is new in version 2.4.12:
- Fixed case where
-swill not produce an opcode during aMOVEQwarning - Lines prefixed with
!are exempted from potential optimisation messages - Enforced word size for
ror,rol,roxr,roxlwhen accessing memory - Made a check more strict to avoid erroneous fixup markings to the linker
- Display better error for
move #xxx,Mnin 56001 mode - Fix for symbol
_RMAC_not defined - Enhanced
.aligndirective with 16 bit fill value - Hardened
movepparing in 56001 mode - Documented
dsmdirective in 56001 mode - Files reorganisation
- Reduced runtime memory requirements for ST target
🔗 Check out the Rmac website for download and the original release statement
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François Le Coat, Author of Eureka 2.12 (2D Graph Describer, 3D Modeller)
writes:
ATARI bookmarks page
The ATARI bookmarks page was updated. The goal consists in valid links, even if it corresponds to sometimes dated information. Part of these bookmarks persist since the creation of the WEB site, back to the year 1996.
The interest with those numerous bookmarks, there's about 600, is to constitute an ATARI uptodate and dedicated search engine of the on-line scene. It is a service provided by Google Co-op. The base of this engine is a collection composed from time to time. It's now quite consistent.
This is a WEB 2.0 experience, because even if I'm responsible for its creation, the ATARI Search Engine can possibly be integrated by ATARI web-masters adding its HTML code.
Have a good ATARI WEB Surfing =)
🔗 ATARI Bookmarks page and ATARI Search Engine
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- Written by: François Le Coat
Ah, that time of the year. That special time where Christmas trees are lit to shed candlelight onto our Atari keyboards, eggnog helps us through the fiercest debug sessions and the clicking sound of our disk drive is oh so jingly.
And amongst all this, Hemoroids wrapped us a very special gift this year: Square!
Yes, you read right, not Square V2 (well, it is on that disk somewhere, too, if rumors are true) but Square. The one. The one. Seen only by a chosen few (well, the whole of STNICCC 2015 compo audience, actually, but let's not digress). Subject to a lot of controversy and legends and awe.
Such a nice present, go get it!
💾 Download "Turlututu Chapeau Pointu Pack #50" from Fujiology
🔗 "Turlututu Chapeau Pointu Pack #50" at Demozoo
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- Written by: tIn
At the closing of 2025, the Atariscne.org team wishes a cozy festive season and all the best for 2026! See you there!
Read a whole range of greetings cards and reflections by the Atariscne.Org editorial team in the scroller - to be enjoyed with a cup of your favorite beverage on any ATARI 520 ST and upwards :-)
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In the past few years, mOdmate had been working on a guide for Graph2Font, a tool for Atari 8-bit graphics that uses special tricks to display far more colours than would normally seem possible. Sadly, he didn't have time to finish it, but he passed the baton to Exocet a few weeks before he left us. The work has now been brought to completion and the resulting PDF is available for download.
Book title page with graphics by Ripek
The Atari 8-bit computers were very special to mOdmate, being his first contact with home computing, and he clearly poured his heart into this guide. Hopefully it will encourage more pixel artists to get involved with that fascinating platform.
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We totally missed that: YesCrew have just updated their "Whack A Virus!" game from 2020 to make it work also on 1280x960 TT resolution.
This is the screenshot from the ordinary ST high 640x400 version. Feel free to email us photos of your TT high setup showcasing the game!
Edit: An this is how it looks on the TT. Thanks for Mikro, who sent in this screenshot!
The TT high is a rare and fine setup, but for sure a good occasion to play this game which is without doubt one of the best looking Atari ST monochrome games.
💾 Download Whack A Virus TT High version
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- Written by: 505
Atari Lynx and Jaguar coder 42Bastian is working on new Atari Jaguar 3D engine and published a few work in Progress videos.
We asked 42Bastian what is his main motivation for the engine and he says:
"The motivation for this engine is multiple: In the last years since we made BJL I made different attempts for 3D code. But always just some rotating things. But ever since I played Cybermorph I wanted to have a real 3D engine.
Next is, I want to make a real engine, something w/o demo trickery someone could use to make a game out of it. And last, I wanted to show, that the 68k is not needed at all. I myself do not plan to make a game out of it, but hope to get the engine to a state where someone else can use it."
Interesting, so it's an engine using the Jaguar GPU only. If you want to have a look, the source code is available on Github.
🔗 Atari Jaguar Poly engine on Github
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- Written by: 505
T.O.Y.S. are having a preference for Damo's & Tat's TTrak YM-tracker. Now, Peylow/T.O.Y.S. released a command line tool for optimization of the file format for different use cases.
The TPMTool command line parameters
The tool can merge several TPM-files into on TPN or SNDH file, while e.g. appyling the same set of instruments on all tracks There is also the very handy feature to strip all unused instrument and pattern data, so we end up with a remakable smaller filesize (see below).
From the official readme file:
"A tool for working with TTrak Module (TPM), TTrak Multi Module (TPN), and SNDH files with embedded TPM/TPN file and player.
TTrak is a YM2149 Chip Tracker for the Atari ST family of computers, available at https://ttrak2149.com.
TPM Tool can show information about TPM, TPN, and SNDH files.
TPM Tool can merge one or more TPM, TPN, and SNDH files into a single TPN or SNDH file with shared instruments and one or more sub-songs.
Using TPM Tool to convert TPM, or SNDH with embedded TPM to TPN or SNDH with embedded TPN has size benefits even for a single song. This is because TPN strips unused instrument, pattern, and digi sound data.
File size examples for converting the TTrak 1.04 sample modules, this is also memory savings when using music composed with TTrak in your productions:
DOOMER.TPM (36Kb) -> DOOMER.TPN ( 7Kb)
LYNDON.TPM (36Kb) -> LYNDON.TPN ( 4Kb)
TOMCHI.TPM (67Kb) -> TOMCHI.TPN (17Kb)
WOBBLA.TPM (37Kb) -> WOBBLA.TPN ( 6Kb)"
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Wong CK aka Probe House Software has released PH PDF beta 7 few weeks ago:
"This is a beta GDOS printer driver that outputs PDF docs instead of to a printer. So now you can create PDF document from your favorite Atari program.
Current beta supports Atari GDOS, Speedo GDOS, NVDI & TTF-Gdos, TrueType fonts and 24-bits colour graphics which gives your PDF output nice looking fonts, VDI drawing squares, circles, ellipse as well as VDI patterns and hatchings. Lots of new VDI calls supported."
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Keith Clark has been showcasing a new and impressive Atari STE game engine on his X account. This is clearly lifting the STE into a Megadrive look&feel!
Our Polish friends from Atarionline.pl published an additional video clip on youtube. Have a look!
As Equinox once put it - high framerate or nothing!
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Slippy published YM2149-rs, a "cycle-accurate YM2149 PSG emulator with real-time audio playback and visualization. Includes a Bevy plugin for easy integration into game engines and creative projects. Supports SNDH, GIST, Arkos-Tracker 2/3 & YM2-YM6 and AY formats with drag-and-drop file loading."
As the author explains further "It's not just a sndh Web Assembly replayer [...], it's a complete YM2149 ecosystem in rust. From low-level Chip emulation up to a bevy (Rust Game-Engine) plugin with layered architecture and support for sndh, ym, ay and native arkos tracker Format (with multi-psg support).
The Website offers download for pre-built binaries for MacOS, Windows and partially Linux. To test it yourself. No need to install rust and compile..."
🔗 YM2149-rs on Github
🔗 Slippy's comprehensive article series on YM2149.rs
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- Written by: 505
Last month Norwegian Atari developer Joska released "BGEM", a next generation BubbleGEM replacement for GEM Applications supporting this post-Atari standard running under MiNT and XaAES, N.AES and probably MyAES, too.
The application comes in proper style with a HYP-hypertext help file.
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The previously announced Street Fighter II conversion of the game boy version for Atari XL/XE has been put online in version 1.10. This looks incredibly good!
The game comes as a 4 MB cartridge (.car) file. So, it won't be for everyone to boot that up, according to tests reported on AtariAge forum, the game should work with the wonderful SUBCard though.
🔗 Vega's Streetfighter II website
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- Written by: 505
