AtariAge Forums: AtariAge Forums -> Christos' Blog

Well isn't this a surprise. The readers of this blog suddenly increased, very fast. It got 3000+ views in a few days. I wonder why...

Anyway, this isn't why I am writing this. Most of my faithful readers must have missed me so here I am. Well, good news, my CT63 is working perfectly, so is my ethernec and so I am online from the falcon. Bad news, after being cursed by either the jaguar "vocal" community or Candy Candy fangirls (don't ask, I won't tell :P) I lost my PC and laptop PC so my only online access is the falcon and when I get a pc available (like this one). That means that I can't login here since login uses ssl and highwire doesn't support that unless I use a web proxy, but the encryption there slows things down quite a bit..

So, you'll read what it's like to have an Atari (even a highly accelerated one) as your main machine in 2009 in the next issue of lowres ;).

Why don't I buy a new pc, or at least get some pentium 3 or something for free? Well I don't want another old piece of junk and also truth be told, can't really afford a new new pc at the moment (400-500) euros depending on what I'll keep from the old) and I am kind of enjoying it. Using my falcon like that :). And I don't need anything more anyway (but youtube...is nice :P).

What happens when two Germans and a Greek meet in Dusseldorf (where the Germans pick up the Greek to get him to Outline in the Netherlands)? Well the idea of a new web 2.0 magazine is born. The Low Res Magazine, hosted on wordpress and visited over 1000 times since its publication 3 days ago.

It was a warm sunny day, the last one of a summer that had caused so much pain but somehow managed to fill our hearts with hope. In that spirit the team had joined IRC. We had the articles, we had the interviews and we had the desire to release them. So it was done, sequenced and announced. (Yeah I could become a great writer of cheap romantic novells, flare for the melodramatic checked)

So what was issue 1 all about? 12 well written and informative articles, posted using the blog format. This has it's drawbacks though, people may get confused and it doesn't remind them a magazine that much. Still it's a new format, unlike other electronic publications that are just a pdf, a paper magazine on your screen, this format has a dynamic potential that we haven't tapped into.. yet.

Well, I am loosing consistency, but to everyone that pointed out our mistakes and our "haste", be reassured, issue 2 will be great!

It's been a day since Outline 09 ended and I already miss it. The organisers did a great job there and I'd like to thank all of them for the great time we had there. It was great! I've attached some pictures I took in this blog so take a sneak peek at how great it was to be there!

For those who wonder about my pixel painting skillz!

Thorn, Simonsunnyboy and I, decided to start a small gamedev compo for the fun of it. The game doesn't have to be from a coder, a text adventure written in a text adventure creator would be great.
Seeing that many people have some game idea they started working on in the past we thought of offering a chance to fame and glory if you decide to complete it. Like I said it doesn't have to be fancy or anything. Just fun for you!

Anyway, here's the link:

http://forum.dbug-au...num=1241873485/

Hi, finally found an idea to update my blog. I guess that's fun.

Though I don't think I am as much a gamer as I was last year (or active in the atari scene for that matter), I am still here. Still browsing the web, still getting new ideas, still helping out with STOT, though I've taken quite a backseat there with Thorn doing most of the work. So what is the state of things in 16/32 gaming this year?

For a starters, a few sites have gone active and a few more continue. Atarimania started an ST section, the Guardians of the past went online after 2 years in the making and Atari Legend woke up from the dead. More or less all these sites have the goal to showcase, and in the case of Atarimania and GOTP to preserve ST software. However if the past is any indication, I'd put my money on Atarimania. While GOTP has a nice and modern interface I find the fact that they don't recognise the work done by the ULS consortium (D-Bug and Klapauzius) and ppera (ok I don't think his "adaptations" work as they should and I don't trust him with my FAT, but I can't deny the fact that he is actually doing something and some people find it useful) a bad idea. If they are going in the HOL direction they should have included it. If they are taking the purist direction, well I don't agree with that. With a lot more atari users having hard disks, Satan or Ultrasatan, they are missing on a chance of becoming a very useful atari resource. Anyway, it was nice to see the site up and I hope they don't take this criticism badly.

Speaking of D-bug, well they are a bit to a lot demotivated. You see in a small world like our community, feedback is the most important thing. When you use something and enjoy it, taking the 2-3 minutes to let the person responsible know that is common courtesy. I am not speaking specifically about D-Bug here but taking the opportunity I'd like to remind you all to keep in contact with the software authors, thus ensuring updates and new software. I'd also like to remind myself the same thing . Klapauzius otoh, was caught up by RL. We'll see him soon.

In other news 2 old games were resurrected, a quite unfinished version of jaguar xj220 that oberze found in his hard drive was released by GOTP and Jamie (the author of Nitro) through D-Bug released his sidescrolling shooter Sideways. Both of this games got the D-Bug treatment. Also, the falcon got a new release by Puzzledize.. er I meant Paradize. It's surprisingly, a puzzle game called Jewelz.

Like I said at the beginning, STOT is still going strong, we organise tournaments in various parties Thorn goes to and of course a big tournament will be held at Outline 09. We are still trying to figure out the game, but we'll be there. Apart from that, Stickhead is still going on with reviews and gaming stuff and the latest issue of RGCD had quite a bit of ST stuff in it. A great job by Heavy Stylus.

Well, that's about it. Thanks for reading.

After about a month, I finally got a free ATX PSU, in about 15 minutes I installed the CT63, booted the machine and started enjoying it. The speed difference is impressive. The demos more so.
First think I did was run the DHS demo Derealization. I had seen the video countless times, but a video can't convey the feeling of the real machine, doing things its designers never thought possible. This accelerator really makes for a different machine. Can't wait to explore it more.
And I never thought a little card like this could produce such strong emotions. Many thanks to ggn for his help in acquiring the CT63.

Here's what I got

So, it was recently pointed out to me that I haven't updated this for quite sometime. So I started Winjam, put on some tunes from the sndh archive and here I am.
This has been a strange time for me, lots of obligations, lots of things to do, lots of things to think.. The worse is passed. But some of it will go on. Maybe from September I'll be more relaxed? We'll see.
So what have I been doing (Atari related)? Talking in #Atariscne in IRCnet, writting in forums, testing apps for the upcoming update to the software pack and playing the D-Bug and Klapauzius patches for HD and Falcon. I've stayed back in the atari coding part, I did make some 2d vector stuff but I probably shouldn't have . There are lots of stuff to learn but hopefully I'll have something ready for Outline 09.
Oh! The biggest news for the Atariscene so far this year is that OL09 is probably hapenning. More news on that in the coming week! I for one start looking for flights. I had a wonderful time last year and looking forward to meet again with all those who attended OL last year and also with some who didn't . So donate a thought to Outline (for those who don't get it stop by pouet).
Also expect a new youtube video by me this week. My first attempt at a video review. Let's see if I can make it without using my voice and how the result will be. Stay tuned.

You might have read the announcement and you might have not. But with the help and kind offer for hosting from D-Bug, I released (and I use the I in a relatively loose sense) a small preconfigured software collection. You can find it at http://morethangames...tomation.co.uk/ .
What's the deal with it? As I write in the web site, nowadays most active people in the community or people that want to get into it, get an atari ST with a hard disk. But setting that hard disk up, a complete atari computing system, can be and in many cases it is, a tedius task. There is an awful lot of software one can put in. Most of it will work on anything. Others are not MiNT or Magic compatible or need a lot of RAM, or need TOS extensions. What I did was to try to minimise that searching time, include the software that I felt would work best on any atari system but won't limit the user from finding the proper tool for his job or customise it on their own. In that sense it's much like a Linux distro. Only difference is that you get a bare hard drive, unzip the packs contents on it and you are ready to go.
Are there things missing? You bet. That's why your input is needed. Point me to things you'd like included. Only rule, don't point me to commercial or limited stuff. To the best of my knowledge everything in there is free to distribute and unhindered. Some are open source. Some are just freeware.
You'll ask, why not abandoned stuff? Well, I just prefer free stuff. And in about 90% of the cases these are newer and better than what there was on the ST's peak. Why not use the free stuff, why not give feedback to people still active who are really interested in making most out of the Atari 16/32? Why go back to the same old thing?
In any case this is an ongoing project. Updates are planned, they will be released with both a full package and an update one. The second will be for the people who've already installed the previous one. The first for those who haven't downloaded it yet.
That's about it. Have a happy 2009 everyone.

Many thanks to D-bug for all their help.