Hatari index
Hatari for:
- N800/N810
- N770
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Game and demo Debian packages for Hatari
All of these packages:
- Work with the free GPL licenced EmuTOS "ROMs" for Hatari (there are many games and demos which work only with original TOS ROMs)
- To best of my knowledge, contain only software that is freely distributable (e.g. according to their accompanying documentation) as long as no fee is taken from the distribution (a common requirement over ten years ago)
As a default rule I don't have here commercial or shareware games. Almost all programs here are freeware, currently there's one shareware game and demos of two commercial games. I might later add/package some others if requested and they are documented to be freely distributable.
If you know that something here is not freely distributable (GPL, public domain, freeware...), please mail me (eerot at berlios) and I'll take it away.
Contents:
Game and demo packages
Most of the packages contain documentations with more information about the game and its author. Docs are installed under /usr/share/atarist-files/gamename/ directory. If you want to extract files in a .deb package on PC without installing it, you can use the extract-deb.sh script.
Demos
Here are some small Atari ST demos. Unfortunately the music (sound emulation) stutters quite a bit on 770/N800/N810, so you probably want to turn it off ('+' button) and most of the real demos don't work with EmuTOS either (although with real TOS Hatari won't have problems with them), so I've left them out. Anyway, enjoy the show!
If you want to know more about the demos, please see the list of classic old demos and the pouet.net demo scene site Atari ST section.
| Package: | Size: | Author: | Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
 20 Years |
1473KB | Atari Scene Collective | 20 years Atari ST megademo (only half of screens work with EmuTOS, but see MjjProd one) |
 4getful |
8KB | gwEm | 4KB demo with gfx synched to the tune |
 4kker |
8KB | Checkpoint | 4KB intro by Checkpoint for Outline 2006 |
 Frenchies |
88KB | Frechies | 96KB intro for Outline 2004 demo party |
 Dither |
20KB | No/Escape | Wierd dithering screen |
 Final |
12KB | ?? | Traditional scroller demo |
 Dancing fishes |
12KB | .tscc | 20KB demo of dancing fishes with texture mapped skin |
 Flashback |
196KB | CareBears | 4 old CareBears demos in one screen with nice 3D intro |
 Invi2006 |
76KB | Lineout | Invitation to Outline 2006 multiplatform demo party |
 Pacemaker |
192KB | Paradox | STe-only demo utilizing Blitter to maximum |
 Paradise |
136KB | Dune Design | French demo |
 Posh |
645KB | Checkpoint | New school demo |
 Two in One |
194KB | DHS | New+old school demo |
Playable commercial game demos
These are playable demos of commercial games which to my knowledge are are freely distributable (not exclusive to some disk magazines).| Package: | Size: | Author: | Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
 Oids |
96KB | FTL | Playable level of Oids (game FTL did before Dungeon Master) |
 Turrican II |
104KB | Rainbow Arts | Playable level of Turrican II |
Shareware games
These are shareware games. Their documentation contains instructions how the shareware fee can be payed. If you know that the addresses have changed, please mail me (eerot at berlios).| Package: | Size: | Author: | Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
 STarball |
340KB | Volume 11 | The best ST shareware pinball (better than most commercial ones) |
Note: STarball loading screen colors are wrong with EmuTOS, but the game doesn't have any problems, you just need to wait. Do not press "Back" button to pass EmuTOS bootup countdown, it will skip game loading (use "Select" for skipping).
Arcade games
These are the games that don't fit into any of the other categories.
| Package: | Size: | Author: | Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
 Alien Blockade |
72KB | David Scantlebury | Clone of Qix game |
 Battletris+ |
196KB | New Core | Greets/postcardware single/multiplayer STe Tetris |
 Bombs Away |
40KB | Terry King | Somewhat similar to single-player Dynablasters |
 Grav |
64KB | Martin Brownlow | Cave-flier |
 Hacman II |
240KB | David Baggett | A pacman clone |
 Haywire |
12KB | John Hodskinson | Save hamsters, looks like Defender |
 Nibe 2 |
35KB | Marc Bourlon | Guide snake to eat applets, avoid walls and your tail |
 SuperFly |
384KB | Reservoid Gods | Save your girlfried (and the world) with one button! (disable music, otherwise too slow) |
 Teserae |
44KB | The Albanian Sausage Corporation |
Tetris in "demo" style (disable music, otherwise too slow) |
Platform games
Platform games were probably the most common games on the 80's end home computers.
| Package: | Size: | Author: | Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
 Entombed |
48KB | Nick Concannon | Platform game set in Egypt |
 Hang About |
8KB | John Hodskinson | 4KB mountain climbing |
 Hector |
172KB | Pete J. Whitby | Hector vs. the Mutant Vampire Tomatoes from Hell |
 Punt II |
108KB | ?? | Kick the animals into cages |
 Robert in the Fire Factory |
152KB | Von Harald Siegmund | a clone of Mr. Robot and his Robot Factory, works both in color and monochrome |
Puzzle games
IMHO the most suitable category of games for 770/N800/N810 along with the strategy games.
| Package: | Size: | Author: | Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
 Flip'em |
4KB | ?? | Turn all stones to given pattern in 4KB |
 Rockfall |
24KB | Jason Brasier | Boulderdash-like puzzle game |
Shoot'em ups
Just kill the bloody bastards...
| Package: | Size: | Author: | Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
 Bellum |
16KB | M Goss-Custard | Shoot'em up with just the essentials |
 Yak |
8KB | Jeff Minter | Gridrunner in 4KB |
Two-player games
These aren't really playable on the 770/N800/N810 because only one player can play at the time, but at least you can test them. You can use the device Decrease (-) key to switch between joystick 1, 0 and no joystick. You can play them on PC too with two (USB) joysticks or using cursor keys joystick emulation for the other joystick.
| Package: | Size: | Author: | Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
 Archon |
8KB | Delta Force | Two-player Archon game in 4KB |
 Snowball Fight |
196KB | DC Software | Two-player snowball fight |
 Spacewar |
60KB | Howard Jones | Two-player space war game |
 Tanx |
24KB | Martin Brownlow | Two-player tank (artillery) game |
Troubleshooting
Problems with the device SDL library
When you switch to Desktop and back to Hatari, Hatari screen is and remains black. Just switch again to Desktop and back to Hatari and it starts working. This happens also in some other SDL programs so I think the problem is specific to the 770 SDL library. It doesn't happen on newer devices (with newer SDL library).
Sometimes the Hatari screen loses focus even in fullscreen mode and keys don't seem to work. Just tap the screen and keys work again. I think this a maemo platform (SDL library?) specific problem.
The music sound skipping happens probably because rest of the emulation takes 100% of the device CPU (i.e. device is a bit too slow).
Possible problems with the (above) game/demo packages
All of the games should be playable with Hatari keys, but sometimes you need to switch the joystick emulation to the other joystick (in two player games) or off for a while to input Return key etc.
Many demos are on a disk image instead of in a directory (some games require also to be run from a disk image). If the demo/game doesn't start at all, go to the Hatari Disk options and "eject" the (previously used) harddisk and disable booting from HD.
Note: Most of the above games are not on disk image, just files in a directory which Hatari can mount as a harddisk. That saves a bit of memory because then Hatari doesn't need to store the (uncompressed) disk image into RAM. Also, that way it's easier for you to read the documentation coming with the games.
HOWTO for doing the game packages
It's really quite simple to do these packages once you've tested that the game works with Hatari and EmuTOS. Just:
- Get the example files and extract them
- Create an empty directory, put my Makefile there, change the EXAMPLEDIR to point to where you extracted the example files and run "NAME=gamename make stubs"
- Modify the copied example Debian control file suitably for the game (Name and Description)
- Put the binaries under usr/share/atarist-files/gamename directory that the Makefile generated
- Either:
- Put the game binary (with .prg extension) into an auto -folder under the gamename dir so that it is started automatically, or
- If the (rare) game requires the GEM UI services, copy into the
gamename directory the example *.inf file(s). They tell
the ROM to start the game after GEM Desktop has finished loading:
- Example emudesk.inf file for EmuTOS
- Example desktop.inf file for original TOS
- Modify the created usr/share/applications/hildon/example.desktop (Hildon desktop .desktop file) suitably for the game
After all this you should have a directory hierarchy similar to this:
tmp/
- control
- Makefile
- usr/
- share/
- applications/
- hildon/
- gamename.desktop
- atarist-files/
- gamename/
- auto/
- game.prg
- game.txt
Or:
...
- gamename/
- game.prg
- game.txt
- desktop.inf
- emudesk.inf
Then you can do just "make" and a Debian package is created from the contents of usr/ according to the control file. From the above you would get now:
- atarist-gamename_1.0_all.deb - md5sums
Keys not present on Nokia 770/N800/N810
Some of the games might require pressing some key that isn't available on the device (like Space, F1 or 1) before the game starts. For those you can use a keyboard mapping file to map for example the Back/Escape or 5-rocker Select/Return button to the required key(s).
With the examples comes keys.map example keyboard mapping which you can modify to your needs and then in the game's .desktop file tell Hatari to use that keymap with the -k /path/keys.map option (the mapping file can also be selected from the Hatari keyboard options dialog).
Other games and EmuTOS
Most of the games for Atari ST and even STE work just fine with Hatari when using original (non-free) TOS ROMs. So, if you still own an Atari ST, I recommend using its ROMs.
However, there are also quite a few commercial games which work with the GPL EmuTOS too. For example of the ones that came with my Atari ST's "Powerpack" sales package, these (classics) work just fine with EmuTOS:
- Bombjack
- Bombuzal
- Nebulus
- Xenon I
You might still be able to buy them somewhere and the disk formats (at least of the Powerpack disks) were such that they could be copied also with PC floppy drives (e.g. with Linux Mtools). For Nebulus there's an excellent SDL remake Toppler.
There were also some excellent playable game demos coming with the ST Format magazine which work with EmuTOS, but unfortunately they are either marked to be exclusively for ST Format or don't contain information whether they could be distributed. Additionally the disk formats were such that you need an Atari floppy drive to copy the files elsewhere. IMHO some of the nicer demos were:
- Conquer (3D arcade tank simulation)
- Interphase (3D, runs only from a floppy disk image)
- The Killing Game Show (platformer with unique fast forward from start to where you died with possibility to continue from any place in between)
- Magic Pockets (Bitmap Brothers platformer)
- Tower of Babel (3D puzzle)
Note: ST Format wasn't the only magazine having disks with games and demos, at some point there were also at least (in English) the One / Zero / ST action / STart magazines. In the beginning some of them even catered both for Atari ST and Amiga users. For people who were more interested e.g. about hardware hacking and programming in general, the German magazines were better. I'm not sure what that tells about the English-speaking people...
For more information on Atari games etc., see the Little Green Desktop.