MetalDragon
I trying to play some Atari ST games again. The last time I did that I used NoSTalgia which isn't updated since 2004 so it's PPC only. So I'm trying Hatari now. Bad thing is, there is no binary of the latest 1.4.0 version so I have to use 1.3.1 for now. The changes aren't important to me so it really doesn't matter.
Bad thing is you have to know where it loads the config from because the standard save path is wrong (correct is ~/.hatari.cfg )
and when changing the Monitor in the Screen tab of the preferences it asks to reset the emulator and crashes.
So you have to save the changes you made and then let it crash and start Hatari again.
Another thing is, the discs have to be in an image format mine are just zip files with the actual files in it. So I have to create image files out of that somehow. Does anyone know a way on how to do this on OS X? I googled around already but found nothing. :(
mossy_11
According to
this, the Atari ST disk format is FAT12/FAT16. So maybe create an image in that format and change the extension?
MetalDragon
first I have to correct myself, seems like the standard save path is the correct one, I'm confused now...
@mossy_11 I just tried that with FAT32 using the disc utility from OS X, that one let hatari crash.
How would I create a FAT12 or FAT16 image?
M.I.K.e
Mossy's right, TOS used FAT12 for floppy disks and FAT16 for hard drives. I believe Atari stopped building the computers before Microsoft released FAT32 with Windows 95, so that won't be supported.
(In reality TOS is capable of formats you won't be able to read with DOS or Windows, but that's not so important here. I could go into it though, if you are interested...)
I just checked one of my ST-Disk-Images, and it looks just like a typical DOS floppy (even starts with the tell-tale Jump instruction in the beginning: 0xEB3E90). DiskUtility wasn't cooperative when it still had the ".ST" extension. But as soon as I renamed it to ".img" I could open it and add files.
So you could either try to create your own blank image (I'm not sure if it's possible to do that with one of the virtual machines or not) or download an image file (e.g. searching for FreeDOS boot disk), deleting all the contents and replacing it with your files.
I haven't tried it yet, but in theory it should work...
BTW, I think despite its age (and as long as PowerPC code is emulated) NoSTalgia is still the most compatible ST emulator for the Mac (at least it's the only one emulating Rainbow TOS correctly; just use TOS 1.04 and open the info dialog and you'll know what I mean). Depending on your games it might still be the best choice.
MetalDragon
using newfs_msdos I was able to format a disc image to fat12 but when I try to use that in Hatari it crashes when I try to access the floppy drive. :(
edit: using a working .st file doesn't work either, os x tells me it contains no mountable file system
@MIKE I wonder why Atari used FAT at all, do you have any information about that?
vitaflo
I have a universal binary of Hatari 1.4. PM me if you want a copy.
M.I.K.e
I have no real information *why* Atari chose FAT, especially since the big-endian 68K had to convert all the little-endian numbers before they made sense.
Maybe it was just convenience, because most 3.5" floppies came pre-formatted for FAT12. According to some information GEMDOS (one of the other parts of TOS, besides BIOS and XBIOS) also had functions that were very similar to MS-DOS, but I don't have enough knowledge of DOS programming to confirm that.
As for the working ST file not being mountable on OSX: Did you rename it to ".img"?
If it still doesn't work then, OSX probably does the same lame "trick" that WinDOS does:
Just read *one* specific byte of the bootsector and according to that decide what kind of geometry the disk has. TOS instead used the information on number of tracks and sectors per track, which are also available in the bootsector. This is why you can format a floppy disk with 82 tracks and 10 (DD) or 20 (HD) sectory per track in the Atari, which simply isn't readable on WinDOS, despite the fact that the floppy controller is able of decoding it just fine.
I have no idea how Hatari handles disk images, so I'm not sure what might cause the crashes. But I guess "nomen est omen": Hatari means "caution" in Swahili ;-)
MetalDragon
thanks vitaflo! 1.4 doesn't seem to be more stable though :( But it has some more options.
aaaand I'm officially stupid! In the Hatari menu is an option to creaty a blank floppy image, I renamed that to .img and was able to mount it in osx and copy my files on it. Works just fine now. :)
Thanks guys!
M.I.K.e
Nope, you're not stupid. More appropriate terms could be semi-blind or optically challenged; I should know, it's my normal mode of operation.
It's still somewhat strange what difference there might be between the images generated by Hatari and other ST floppy images.
But it's good to see that you've sorted it out.