In the spotlight: The Tat/Avena Blog
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When looking at the Avena listings on Pouet or Demozoo one could be forgiven for thinking the crew is more or less inactive...
Yesterday Zerkman released a new version of the zeST Atari ST FPGA replica machine.
Brief list of zeST 2026-05-18 improvements:
- Blitter chip support, with help from Thadoss / Dune. One step closer to STe chipset compatibility!
- Optimized DMA-chip, the new DMA uses far less FPGA resources
- Audio out, you can now get analogue audio out with the help of a I2S-based audio DAC
- And various Linux-host improvements, such as bugfixed GEMDOS harddrive (fixes some programs that didn't work previously), new kernel (6.12), improved keyboard management, more drivers for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices.
🔗 Check out the complete zeST release notice
💾 Get the latest zeST at the Download directory
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- Written by: evldhs
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This year’s Buxon Bytes ran from the 8th to the 11th of May, once again from the idyllic surroundings of Thirkelow, a lovely farmhouse tucked away in the hills just outside Buxton, surrounded by fields, sheep, more sheep, and the kind of quintessential English countryside that makes you briefly forget the rest of the world exists, and the trials and tribulations of everyday life.
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- Written by: Tronic
Read more: Buxton Bytes 2026, "Buxton Bytes Back", Party Report
Leonard/Oxygene elaborates on his experiences in emulating the YM2149 chip on Amiga, ending up with using zero CPU, in a fresh blog article. Oxygene's AmigAtari demo was showcasing first results at Revision party in 2020.
Thanks to Charon for the hint!
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- Written by: 505
A quick look at a number of things happening close together in a very short time.
Spring and summer seem to be the most intense period for demo parties and the releases that come with them. Plus there are a few stories which we could well miss, if we’re not careful.
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- Written by: CiH
The Outline timetable says: "12:00 GTFO or Help cleaning", so while Havoc and friends are swinging the broom, we can sip a cup of coffee and enjoy some party impressions and results.
A quick Outline overview, photos by Jade
Atari activity has been spotted!
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- Written by: 505
This sympathic Atari Jaguar development contest is taking place again in 2026. Contributions can be handed in until end of October.
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- Written by: 505
Our esteemed Dutch Atari party is taking place this weekend. A few Atarians have signed up, let's see if they share some impressions from the party later on. Alternatively, the live stream for Outline party is available here:
🔗 https://www.twitch.tv/outlinedemoparty
🔗 Outline website with time table
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- Written by: 505
← Fixing Post-Increment Addressing
DBRA and the Cost Model Balancing Act
When you write assembly for the m68k, dbra is just there. Put your count in a data register, end your loop with dbra dN,.label. Four bytes, twelve cycles per iteration on 68000, no flag dance, no comparison. Your loops naturally form around the instruction.
C/C++ does not work that way. The natural loop in C is for (i = 0; i < N; i++) or while (cond). Neither says "count down and exit when you wrap", well, while can. But a counted-up loop with an unsigned comparison is what the language naturally models, and that is what GIMPLE mostly produces. Turning that into a dbra is a backend job, and requires carefully written code. And GCC, for reasons we will get to, mostly stopped doing it for m68k.
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- Written by: PeyloW
Read more: GCC for asm Experts (and C/C++ Intermediates) - Part 6
Looks like major fun. Thanks to Manu for the hint via email!
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- Written by: 505
Insane writes:
Chipo Django 3 is now available in its final version.
There were reports of a buggy replay, so I took apart the Lance replayer once again and (hopefully) fixed every known issue. This new version now runs the latest version of the ProTracker Replay 2.3f by 8bitbubsy using the Lance Paula emulation. (Both the Acorn and Amiga side also had some different bugs fixed)
The replayer source code is available here.
And special Thanks to evil for recording both the party and final version for youtube!
🔗 Chip Django 3 on Demozoo
🔗 Chip Django 3 on Pouet
🔗 Fixed Protracker 2.3f replayer on Github
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- Written by: Insane
The second big game release over these past days. This one has been pending for absolutely ages. Return to Blacktooth, aka Head Over Heels 2 has been released by Thalamus Digital Publishing.
I remember writing something about this, over a decade ago. Colin Porch, the programmer, started this when he was still at Ocean Software, but this was not taken up by them. He was showing it around at various computer shows. The new game having over 300 rooms to explore and brand new puzzles in the classic old school isometric format.
Many years later, this has found its way to Thalamus Digital Publishing, with a digital release on the 4th May 2026 and a physical release to follow later.
You can find out more by following this link - https://thalamusdigital.itch.io/return-to-blacktooth-atarist - A purchasable download to enjoy this game should be available from the 4th May 2026.
CiH - Atariscne.org - May 2026.
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- Written by: CiH
Some *big* game news for the Atari ST this weekend, as Miracle Boy in Dragon Land has finally dropped after four years of work.
(From the website) - "Miracle Boy in Dragon Land offers a magical adventure across 25 levels, combining exploration, puzzles, mini-games, and equipment upgrades. The player takes on the role of Paolo, tasked with freeing the kingdom from the clutches of the evil Count Drago in a universe inspired by the classic Wonder Boy in Monster World."
We have Samuel Blanchard and DMA-SC to thank for this marvel.
It is very ambitious in scope, stretching the ST’s boundaries hard. A 1MB ST is your ticket to ride!
You can find out more here - You can purchase a digital copy and there are a decreasing amount of physical copies available.
CiH - Atariscne - 2.5.26
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- Written by: CiH
Gemtos releases are coming in, one of them being a nice new multipart 16kb intro by No Extra.
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- Written by: 505
Atarionline.pl reporters are on fire, with a first video summary of Atariada, taking place right now in Olomouc, Czech Republic.
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- Written by: 505
SV 2016
It’s another Sillyventure past times report. Another one that remained hidden in the archives until now. This one was mostly made, as it happened.
It was a pretty faithful diary of my alcohol consumption and state of intestinal health during that period. Oh, and quite a few party happenings as well.
I liked my writing from that period, seemed to be livelier back then and less, tired, than more recent efforts.
CiH - April 2025
#This bit is not in realtime!#
Good morning, evening, or dead of night, whenever you are reading this new Maggie issue. This is the official CiH authored realtime party report, with non-realtime later on additions, for the eagerly anticipated Sillyventure 2016 party. (Not to be confused with the realtime article, which is an entirely separate document created by a lot of people, sometimes in co-ordination with their fingers and brains, but often not!)
So is this going to be another party of our dreams, or a never-ending silicon nightmare? Well read on and discover.
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- Written by: CiH
Read more: Past Glories - A lost and re-found Sillyventure Report from 2016
exxos has released version 3.03 of nrvpack, a free online executable compression service for Atari ST PRG/APP/TOS/TTP files. Upload a file and get five compressed variants to choose from, each with different size/speed tradeoffs.
The packer and all 68000 decompression stubs were written from the ground up using AI. Months of development went into the compression engine — including optimal parsing with dynamic programming, lit-cost sweeps, context-width tuning, and extensive testing of preprocessing transforms and encoding strategies to squeeze every last byte out of typical 68k executables.
On large real-world programs the best format achieves around 2.75:1 compression ratio. A fast-depack option is also available that decompresses in under a second on a stock 8MHz 68000. All formats support colour-cycling raster bars during decompression and run on any ST/STE/TT/Falcon.
The service is free and requires an exxos forum login.
🔗 https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/nrvpack/
🔗 https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8312
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- Written by: Exxos
Felice writes:
Just to let you know, there's now a new website for the Cyber Legends events held in Toddington, England.
The url is https://www.cyberlegends.co.uk
The next event will be on Saturday October 10th and we'd love to see you there. Tickets should be on sale soon.
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- Written by: Felice
Last week Grawitacja 2026, an "8-bit gamejam" took place in Krakow, Poland. The event featured a 36 hours game development competition. Our friends over at Atarionline.pl have recorded and published a video from the live presentation of the entries. About 8 Atari games were shown. Results and photos are available on the event website.
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- Written by: 505
kallebl0mquist published a ChatGPT Client for the Atari ST, so also modern and hip work environments can be migrated to the Atari platform.
Dumbing down with class, using this seductive keyboard
(Picture by kallebl0mquist)
From Github:
I have been building a GEM-based LLM chat client for the Atari ST in GFA BASIC 3.5E. What if an Atari ST could talk to a modern LLM? Not a fake retro skin in a browser, no emulator (though I love Hatari!), but my actual old Atari Mega STE. GFA BASIC was developed by Frank Ostrowski in 1986 and was hugely popular among ST users at the time. So I chose it in the hope that there might be still some resources out there. Did I learn GFA Basic properly for this project? No, but i dug out all the old docs and books and forced codex to learn it. Ha,ha. Poor thing.
The setup :
- Atari Mega STE in high-res monochrome
- GFA BASIC 3.5E on the Atari side
- Raspberry Pi and python 3.12 on the other side
- Nullmodem serial cable (StarTech 30cm USB Nullmodem Seriell Adapterkabel, USB-A auf RS232 DB9)
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- Written by: 505
Zeme just finished editing and fixing the subtitles of the Fried Bits 3 recording of a videotape found in his storage. Great insights into one of the most famous Atari parties of the era and possibly the pinnacle of the Atari Falcon demoscene. Thanks for sharing this, Zeme!
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- Written by: 505
