ATARILEGACY

While in the world, in the case of the Commodore 64 or the Amiga, it can be stated with a high degree of certainty that the demoscene grew out of people involved in breaking copy protections (colloquially, crackers), in Poland the scene arose at computer markets, which from the mid-1980s were growing like mushrooms after rain in almost all large cities (and not only there). For regular market sellers, simply selling games was sometimes not enough, and they often wanted to prove that they could do something more. On the other hand, it happened that those market traders who did not have such skills ‘employed’ more talented programmers, so that the latter, in their productions, would help advertise that particular seller.

The strongest center of the Polish Atari protoscene was initially Silesia. It was there that the first group was formed — JAO WAO BCA, best known for demos signed with the name of a market regular: ‘Pink Softhard’. The most prolific programmer of that period also came from that area: Marek Górecki — EGR General Programming, also known as Górecki Productions, who wrote a dozen or so demos between 1987 and 1990, becoming a record holder in this respect.

Miracle Boy in Dragon Land is largely based on the well-known Wonder Boy series of arcade games. The Wonder Boy series is a cult saga of platformers and action-adventure games (often featuring RPG/Metroidvania elements) that began in 1986 by SEGA and was released on arcade machines. Classic entries include Wonder Boy, Wonder Boy in Monster Land, Wonder Boy in Monster World, and Monster World IV.

… During gameplay, you will have to solve numerous logic puzzles. Before you can reach and defeat the final boss — the evil count named Drago — you will have to deal with several smaller, no less dangerous bosses…

… The game features an absolutely fantastic soundtrack; on almost every level you are accompanied by different music, and if you play it on an STe computer you can hear digital sound effects which further enhance the atmosphere of the game. Fantastically implemented scrolling in the game, moreover parallax effects with 50 colors on a single screen add something truly incredible for the capabilities of the ST.

I started programming on a school computer called the EXL100 when I was a teenager. The hardware was as slow as its rubber keyboard was painful to the touch, but I have incredible memories of it. Later, I moved on to the Atari ST, where I spent my time writing programs in GFA BASIC and then in assembly language.

I wanted to write my own video game, a Wonder Boy clone with a new story, but after numerous attempts, I had to face the facts: I didn’t lack willpower, but pragmatism. Instead of hoping to develop such an ambitious game, I should have started with a fixed-screen game, much simpler to make.

The main line in the history of DTP software on Atari ST/Mega/TT is, without doubt, Calamus, still regarded as a cult item in the Atari world. Many users of Atari 16/32-bit machines call Calamus a “legendary program”. Among DTP applications, Calamus stood out thanks to its tiny size — only a few hundred kilobytes — and serious capability. Its strengths were modular construction, vector description of objects, including fonts, and high speed, which in the 1980s gave Calamus a real advantage over other programs.

The first version of this flagship application for Atari ST appeared in July 1987 under the banner of the German company Design Marketing Communication (DMC). In later years the Calamus licence went to the Canadian firm MGI, which developed the application for Windows. At the end of the 1990s, the rights to develop Calamus were taken over by a group of enthusiasts under the Invers name, led by Ulf Dunkel. To this day they create modern versions of Calamus, including for MacOS. Today, however, it is only an echo of former glory, standing in the shadow of Adobe InDesign.

The MIDI system has been available on Atari ST computers since their launch in 1985, as Atari equipped all models with built-in MIDI IN and MIDI OUT ports as standard. I would like to emphasize a very important point here, because there is a lot of misinformation circulating that Atari computers were not the first to support the MIDI system. Well, that’s not true, and I assure you I’ll set the record straight.

Unlike the competition, which required expensive and external add-on interfaces — such as the Roland MPU-401 for PCs or interfaces for the Commodore 64 — the Atari ST offered a built-in MIDI system right out of the box, which worked, so to speak, in “plug-and-play” mode for musicians. All other computers on the market did not have a built-in MIDI system, so they had to rely on external MIDI interfaces, which resulted in much slower response times. Until today MIDI in Atari computers still has the best timings after more than 40 years — I will explain it later.

Many games written in the early computer days were tuned with 8-bit game ports. Unfortunately, some developers have never gone beyond this standard. However, many companies showed that the Atari ST has potential that can be used with appropriate resources. It just happened that a large number of French programmers had these resources and knew how to transfer them into the computer game world.

Gamers appreciated its higher resolution graphics, better sound (mainly where sampled effects were used), and the expansion of the game world. These advantages made the ST series the best-selling gaming PC in Europe at this particular moment in time. It was most successful in the German and French markets. In this article, we will look at the companies from the latter area.

In the year FloB was released, Prince of Persia came out too, and in every competition I dropped to second place behind it — and that was a remake, not an original game. But rankings are not the point here. The imperative is internal: the process of creation and building a game world gives me satisfaction, as does creating tools around the production. Most of my tools are web-based, I share them for free, and from the logs I can see that people use them. Again, it is a few people, not thousands, but sometimes someone sends me five euros on PayPal with thanks. It is small money, of course, but it is always very nice. To sum it up, the motivation comes from wanting to make something original and from the fun it gives me, not from market success.

I do not regret a single minute spent with this little machine — neither sitting over code nor working on tools that will probably be used by four people in the world. That is just how our niche hobby is.