Hacker News

Hatari – Online Atari ST/STE/TT/Falcon Emulator

85 points by gregsadetsky ago | 17 comments

Aldipower |next [-]

Still using my real Atari for MIDI sequencing. It is one of the tightest and jitter free setups you can get even today. As far as I know the midi ports are directly bound to the CIA which itself is directly connected to the CPU. If you compare this to MIDI over USB, then there are worlds between it. This also also one of the limitation of the Hatari emulator. You cannot use it for midi stuff as you do not get the advantages.

gregsadetsky |root |parent |next [-]

Could you talk about your setup? I'd love to learn more. Are you using Cubase or something else? Are input/output/backups complicated / do you commit to a floppy disk process?

Do you recommend finding a working Atari? Are they still reliable in your experience?

Thanks!

Aldipower |root |parent [-]

Yes, the Ataris are extremely reliable. Sure, you could check the caps of the power supply, just to be safe, the PSU is relatively simple, so it can be done by quite some folks. But in general the PSU does not need service.

I am using Steinberg Cubase 3.1 as a sequencer. Working with it is extremely convenient and user oriented. No kidding. It needs a Steinberg Midex interface otherwise it will crash somewhere in the middle - this is the copy protection. If you do not have a Midex, shoot me a message. There are solutions. You find my contact at the bottom of https://tonleiter.net/reihenhaus/

The Atari triggers all my hardware instruments via MIDI.

As my Atari Mega STe has a hard drive, saving isn't a problem at all. But regardless I do regular backups of my songs on to floppy disk. Works like a charm too. The Atari TOS can read MS-DOS disks. You can easily transfer them from/to a modern computer with USB floppy.

I absolutely can recommend to use and find a real Atari for music production. They are reliable. I made over 30 songs with it without getting tired of it!

pipes |root |parent |previous [-]

I believe norman cook aka Fatboy slim still uses one?

Aldipower |root |parent [-]

Yes, according to an interview this is correct.

lproven |next |previous [-]

As I understand it, Hatari is mainly aimed at running classic ST games. I think its emulation core was the basis of the Amiga PiStorm and similar projects.

There's another all-software ST emulator out there called Aranym:

https://aranym.github.io/

It has its own all-FOSS ST-compatible OS distro, AFROS:

https://aranym.github.io/afros.html

Aranym is aimed at running ST GEM as well as possible on modern machines, for productivity apps and so on -- so it sacrifices absolute hardware compatibility in favour of performance and features like high screen resolutions.

I would love to see a bare-metal Raspberry Pi version of Aranym, to turn a spare Pi into the fastest maxed-out Atari TT030 ever. :-)

pjmlp |next |previous [-]

Kind of unusable on my HDPI monitor, get a tiny rectangle on the page, and the mouse locations don't map correctly.

Still kind of cool I guess.

Glandalf |next |previous [-]

H Atari isn’t an online emulator, this is just an online build of it.

AtlasBarfed |previous [-]

Hatari has existed as an emulator for like a decade....

I get this may be transpiled to the web, but...

musha68k |root |parent |next [-]

More people have been flocking to "retro computing" for a while now.

My hunch is that it's partially driven by mourning over increasing loss of deterministic "von Neumann computing"; so not pure nostalgia.

It doesn't matter the platform or if "only" in software / web or whatever it's just a great hobby to dabble with in general, especially when kids are getting into it.

The ZX Spectrum Next, Commodore 64 Ultimate and the likes, same as their OG versions are still great "bicycles for the mind" and a great intro to microcontrollers etc.

I'd personally be ready for an FPGA based "Mega Atari 800" or some such!

kabdib |root |parent [-]

After a day of single combat with multimillion-SLOC tangleware, it's fun to work with a system that you can fit in your head

Personally, I don't do much nostalgia. I've built the PDP-11 clones and run v6 Unix again and (o dear lord) compiled world.c with BDS-C on CP/M and realized that the 70s and 80s kinda sucked, and that I really like modern computing

musha68k |root |parent [-]

"RTFM" if available and factual to me is very satisfying.

So without much nostalgia / betting on actual hardware the (partially ST community derived) MiSTer project is just great for this kind of stuff - I guess you know it - if you will a micro PDP-11 surrogate.

I haven't tried this core myself yet but I will eventually:

https://github.com/MiSTer-Enhanced/PDP2011_MiSTer

j45 |root |parent |next |previous [-]

Nothing wrong with it re-introducing.

vardump |root |parent |next |previous [-]

Try quarter of a century.

Time flies.

krige |root |parent |previous [-]

Having used it a few months back, it certainly feels like it was made decades ago. UX is horrid all around.

ragnar76 |root |parent [-]

Feel free to participate. We have a handfull of good coders but no UI/UX designer.