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[ Atariscne.org - News ] NeoN 3D Grafix 1.3 released

Ready for another trip down the history lane? ;)

  Back in 2013, Uros Vidovic (I'm sure that he is going to kill me for this link ;)) alias Vido contacted me with an interesting request. He managed to acquire NeoN 3D source code from Ole Dittmann with the intention of making a FireBee port (Vido is one of the most active FireBee users/supporters these days) and asked me whether I wouldn't be able to "recompile" them for the FireBee.   Well, I agreed not to release the source code publicly (Ole's explicit request) with a vague intention to look at it one day, perhaps using AHCC (it was a Pure C project).   During the following years (2013 - 2020) I touched base with Vido every now and then, frankly just making excuses. ;) Someone else got the code, too, even managed to compile something with AHCC but it didn't work even in Hatari and shortly disappeared afterwards.   In September I finally looked at my TODO folder again and saw the poor guy sitting there, lost and forgotten by everyone. I have quickly realised that the AHCC path is a dead end: the compiler has serious bugs and unfortunately Henk is no longer with us to fix them.   So back to Pure C, that worked but made compilation much harder. So after reaching the point that I could reconstruct the executables nearly 1:1 (the versions didn't match with the released ones completely) I made a bold move, switching to m68k-atari-mintelf-gcc with -mshort and libcmini. That worked surprisingly well and from then on I could iterate quickly and automate most of the boring tasks.   In the following month I managed to fix many existing and new bugs (thanks to Vido and Swe for testing!), it even launched my short-lived path of bugfixing many FireTOS bugs on the FireBee as a byproduct.   NeoN Grafix v1.3 running on a Falcon 060 with SuperVidel (1920x1080 truecolour) in FreeMiNT with memory protection enabled     And here we are! So what's new:

• Runs in 16 and 32 bit colour and on 256-colour chunky screens, not only in 256-colour bitplanes. One binary detects the screen format at startup.
• Works on graphics cards (SuperVidel, NOVA, anything with EdDI), with correct colours whatever the pixel layout, including byte-swapped 16 bit.
• On 16 and 32 bit screens, renders are shown at the desktop's resolution. Only a Falcon in 256 colours still switches to 320x240.
• Runs under MiNT with XaAES or N.AES.
• New native FireBee version.
• No dongle and no installer.

Fixes:

• Lines no longer come out in the wrong colour on a 68040 or 68060. The original line routine rewrote its own code.
• No more noise in the object editor's views on machines with Fast RAM. The retail binaries have the TT-RAM flags set, so the second screen page could land in Fast RAM.
• On a Falcon with an external video clock, the picture is no longer shifted and miscoloured after a true colour render. The original only saved part of the Videl state.
• genlock: a pure key colour now matches, and 16 bit TGA files are read correctly.

💾 Download 68020+ version (requires FPU) 💾 Download FireBee version   When it comes to source code, it's a bit complicated. Ole has unfortunately passed away in 2018 so not only he never saw the outcome of this agreement but also can't give us his blessing to release source code. So for now it is a private Github repo to which I'm happy to give access (after consultation with Vido) to anyone seriously wishing to continue its development.   In the meantime, if you find a bug, you can let me know and maybe I'll fix it in the next 13 years (just kidding, it's much easier to debug/fix it these days).  

[ Atariscne.org - News ] Fandal giving up his website

For two decades the Fandal maintained the website generally known in the community as "Fandal's website" or "A8.fandal.cz" which was dedicated to the collection, curation, metadata provision and promotion of all kinds of demos and games for the Atari XL/XE system. Among the Atari 8-Bit scene enthusiasts this place was an institution with its over 5.000 games and around 3.800 demos available.

Unfortunately Fandal came to the conclusion to stop his activities, also due to the exuberant wave of AI generated content flooding the retro computing sphere.

"All right, that’s it. My retro hobby is being eaten alive by AI at an ever-faster pace, and I definitely don’t want to reach a point where the news section is nothing more than a list of things generated by a prompt.

For this reason, and also because site traffic has been steadily declining to minimal levels, I’ve decided to stop all updates after more than twenty years."

I remember that in the pre retro computing revival era in the 2000s the website seemed as an exceptional project "against the tide" and I always appreciated it. While it is very sad to lose this passionately hand-crafted institution of the Atari scene I have hope the archive remains online for further use. 

What is left to say? Thank you Fandal, for for all the years of support and work for the Atariscene!

🔗 Fandals website

[ SceneSat upcoming shows & events ] Flashparty 2026

31 Oct – 1 Nov 2026

Demoparty held in Buenos Aires, Argentina. With all the usual categories of competition and modern and retro platforms. With special detail in text art compos.

Event website: https://flashparty.ar/

Listen or watch on SceneSat · Full schedule

All of the latest news, links and releases from the active demoscene community. This week in particular with an overview of TRSAC, the acid, ducks, vikings, caravans and sheeps demoparty that took place in the Denmark this past weekend! https://youtu.be/2M37LOP_qzI

[Submitted by psenough]

[ Atariscne.org - News ] New IDE for Atari assembly development

PiST - A new cross-IDE (Integrated development environment) aimed at Atari assembler projects.

It includes editor, assembler, emulation with debugger, sprite editor and much more. It is available for Linux, Windows and macOS.

Further description of the software snipped from it's Github page:

• Editor with m68k Motorola-syntax highlighting, error markers and the current execution line, find/replace (Ctrl+F / Ctrl+H, F3 and Shift+F3, match highlighting as you type, match-case and whole-word options, and a hit counter that admits its cap — past 2000 it reads "N of more than 2000" rather than counting on), completion as you type (Ctrl+Space, or Tab on a word: mnemonics, directives, and the build's labels and equates), a Go to Symbol palette (Ctrl+Shift+O), a hover card for any mnemonic, TOS call or label (below), Ctrl+click to open an include or jump to a label, and a searchable 68000 instruction + TOS system-call reference dock that follows the cursor — on a trap #1/#13/#14 line (or a push feeding one) it names the GEMDOS/BIOS/XBIOS call being made and what it is being called with, and every entry carries a worked example and one line on when to reach for it