Atari800MacX and Sio2OSX Updates
New versions of Atari800MacX and Sio2OSX have been released. Atari800MacX is a native Mac OS X port of the popular Atari800 emulator, which forms the basis for many 8-bit emulators on various platforms. Sio2OSX is a peripheral emulator for the Atari 8-bit computers that allows the Atari computer to use an OSX based Macintosh as a disk drive, a cassette drive, and a printer. Atari800MacX 4.0.1 now supports VAPI and PRO images, Copy and Paste from the emulator, Configuration files, a new Hard Disk emulation scheme, as well as other enhancements and bug fixes. Sio2OSX version 2.1.1 adds preliminary VAPI and PRO image support.
Link: http://www.atarimac.com/atari800macx.php
Link: http://www.atarimac.com/sio2osx.php
From: http://www.atariage.com/
Atari 2600 Mod with Built in Screen on Console
Ever wished you could take your old Atari 2600 with you when you travel? Well you can if you mod it out so there’s a 5? LCD screen and a joystick controls right on the console itself. Dubbed the “Stella-Tubby v1.0?, this modsterpiece (damn I though I made that word up but apparently the term’s been used 3 other times in the history of the internets- still not bad) can actually be yours as it’s up for sale on Ebay. It even runs on a pair 9V batteries so it is truly portable- yeah you’ll need a giant backpack or something but you could in theory take it to go.
From: http://craziestgadgets.com/2009/08/13/atari-2600-mod-with-built-in-...
Donkey Kong Jaguar At JagFest UK 2009
Luton, England will host JagFest 2009 this September 18 - 20, a festival devoted to the Atari Jaguar "64-bit" console.
Highlights planned for the three-day event include an "exclusive first showing" of Donkey Kong for the Jaguar, a demo for the latest build of a Jaguar game titled Atari Owls, and a prototype Playstation controller to Jaguar interface.
JagFest will also have private gaming sessions, tournaments (including a Worms tournament), and hardware and software for sale and trade. Retro Gamer adds that attendees will get to try out "the world’s only working VR headset".
You can purchase tickets and find more information on JagFest 2009 at SgM Electrosoft's site. Keep in mind that this is a ticket-only event, and tickets must be purchased before September 1st.
Link: http://www.sgmelectrosoft.co.uk/JFUK_2009/
From: http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2009/08/donkey_kong_jaguar_at_jagfest.php
New game for an old console: Zaku coming to the Atari Lynx
In case you've never heard of Super Fighter Team, it's a Califonia-based company that specializes in releasing "new" games on retro consoles. I have to put "new" in quotes because their two most recent releases, 2006's Beggar Prince and The Legend of Wukong two years later, were actually old games released in Taiwan in the 90's that Super Fighter Team localized. This, of course, doesn't make releasing new games on the Sega Genesis in 2008 any less badass.
Their latest offering is called Zaku, a horizontal shooter being developed by PenguiNet for (get this!) the Atari Lynx, an obscure (and largely unsuccessful) competitor to the Game Boy. Zaku is about an eponymous hero "who dons her rocket shoes and power gloves and sets off on a journey to retrieve stolen development tools being used to flood the market with bad games!" according to Game Developer. Eat your heart out, Bayonetta.
The game looks gorgeous, probably because it's being made from the ground up with an official Lynx dev kit, which requires an Amiga computer. It's currently in development, but when Zaku is finished, it will ship on a hefty 4-megabit Lynx cartridge and a full-color manual. Other features include parallax scrolling, multiple difficulties, and "enemies and bosses that adapt to your playing style and fight back accordingly," all running at a silky smooth 60 fps. It's too bad that I don't know anybody who has a Lynx.
Link: http://www.zaku-lynx.com/screens.htm
From: http://www.destructoid.com/new-game-for-an-old-console-zaku-coming-...
Breakout Out of the Recession by Saving Your Pennies (While Playing Breakout)
Introduced in 1976 Atari Breakout was a breakthrough game — it’s interesting to note to that future Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak worked on the prototype (who was hired by Steve Jobs). This Japanese piggy bank celebrates this legendary arcade game — and what’s cool about it is that you can actually play a function version of the game on it. I also rather like the fact that all the decals on the piggy bank are in Japanese.
Another nice touch is that bank makes a nostalgic sound effect every time you deposit a coin…
Link: http://www.geekstuff4u.com/gadgets/atari-breakout-arcade-gaming-pig...
From: http://www.fanboy.com/2009/08/atari-breakout-piggy-bank.html
Woot Shirts “Sore Thumbs” Tee
Woot Shirts “Sore Thumbs” Tee. All Controls From Old To New. What A Control Freak.
Woot Shirts have rereleased their shirt “Sore Thumbs” for $20. What a catch! This shirt gets all the old to new game console controllers from the following: Atari 2600, GCE Vectrex, NES, NES Max, Magnavox Odyssey, Colecovision, Atari 7800, NES Advantage, Mattel Intelivision, Atari 5200, Sega Master System, NEC Turbografx-16, Nintendo Super Family, Panasonic 3D0, Sony Playstation, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis, Sega Genesis 6 Button, Nintendo Virtual Boy, Sony Playstation Dual Analog, Super NES, Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn, Sega Saturn 3D, XBOX Controller S, Wavebird, Wii, Sega Dreamcast, XBOX “Duke,” XBOX 360, Wii Classic, and Gamecube. You can get it here.
Link: http://shirt.woot.com/Classics.aspx?k=9511
From: http://loyalkng.com/2009/08/17/woot-shirts-sore-thumbs-tee-controle...
Retro Pac-Man Video Game Controller Console
Here is something fun for all the Pac-Man fans out there, the Retro Pac-Man Video Game Controller Console.
This fun Retro Pac-Man Video Game Controller Console comes with 12 classic arcade games, including Pac-Man, Galaga, Pole Position, New Rally-X, DigDug, Pac & Pal, Super Pac-Man, Mappy, Galaxian, Xevious, Bosconian, and Pac-Man Plus all in one tiny console.
Just hook it up to your TV and you will be able to play some of your favourite old school video games.
If you want one, the Retro Pac-Man Video Game Controller Console is available for $40 from Fred Flare, and for Atari fans there is also an Atari version which comes with 10 games.
Link: http://fredflare.com/customer/product.php?productid=37&cat=103
From: http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/retro-pac-man-video-game-controller-co...
10 Horrible Paintings from Atari 2600 Game Box Art
In the days of the 2600, games were simple and didn't look very good. Therefore, the outside of the game box tried to compensate with elaborate paintings of an incredibly loose interpretation of what the game what supposed to be about. These could work out pretty well, but many times -- many, many times, actually -- the paintings sucked, either because the game gave no inspiration to the struggling artists the game companies hired, or because the companies just hired crappy artists (and sometimes, both). Here are ten of the worst pieces of box artwork, obtained from scans from the fine people at AtariAge.com.
From: http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/08/the_10_most_horrible_pieces_of_...
Hatari version 1.3.0 has been released
Version 1.3.0 of the Atari ST/STE/TT/Falcon emulator Hatari has been released. This version brings you a basically working DSP 56k emulation which is required for many Falcon games and demos. Beside the DSP improvements, there are many other changes, some of the most important are:
- Major rewrite of the ST shifter emulation (better overscan & sync-scrolling)
- More precise Blitter timings
- Multiple partitions support for GEMDOS hard disk emulation
- Bug fixes for GEMDOS HD emulation Fopen and Fseek calls
- The built-in debugger has been greatly extended.
- Reworked the main dialog of the GUI and split the disk dialog into two separate dialogs, one for floppy setup and one for hard disk setup
- New atari-hd-image.sh script for creating HD image files
- Added Python GUI and CLI interfaces for Hatari to the main repository
Link: http://hatari.berlios.de/
From: http://www.atari.org/
An OpenType typeface looking like the ST system font
Sporniket-Studio.com (me) has just released an OpenType type face entitled "SporniketNostalgieSans" that looks like the system font of the Atari ST.
This typeface were carefully crafted to look nice on high resolution devices and at big size, with rounded edge and other eyes candies.
However "looks likes" does not mean "absolutely faithful" and some glyphes are different for the sake of consistancy : serif (e.g. for "i" or "l") has been removed as allmost all glyphes have no serif. "&" is a stylised "Et". Diacritics are not stretched to accomodate a 16 pixels height grid, but the pixel grid has been extended to 25 pixels height so that glyphes have enough vertical space.
The best rendering on screen, that give the ST-ish look is for a 25 pixels height grid (25 pt on a 72 dpi screen, 15pt on a 120 dpi screen).
There are two variant : one monospaced variant, for console and text editing, and a variable width variant, for other uses.
Link: http://www.sporniket-studio.com/page/200908022220
From: http://www.atari.org/
