Mastodawn

Look how cute they are. The #Megafile 60 still works and there's still everything I left on it about more than 20 years ago. I used the Gemini desktop, because it made working with the ST a little better.
I really forgot how clunky the original #Atari mouse is. It feels really weird to use it.
Unfortunately I don't have a lot of time right now but the next step is to check out what is on the hard disk and what is on all my floppy disks.
#retrocomputing #atarist #megast #atarimegast

Amin Girasol May 18, 2024

@mrcool Can you tell me more about Gemini? (As someone who missed the 16-bit non-Intel era.)

Sadly DDG search is polluted with hype about the newest Google thing and millionshort.com is "at capacity".

Mr Cool May 18, 2024

@fluidlogic Gemini is an alternative to the built-in desktop. I don't remember all the details but it feels like a more modern desktop, compared to the built-in one. IIRC there was also a little shell where you could run text-based programs in a window. Normally text-based programs would occupy the whole screen.
Gemini has to be started like any other program and just offers a desktop. I think a hard disk is necessary and probably a little more RAM, but I don't know how much exactly is needed.

Mr Cool May 18, 2024

@fluidlogic IIRC it was freeware, shareware or something like that. It looks like someone made the source code available:
https://github.com/gereons/gemini
All the information I found by quickly googling is in german. I'm wondering if Gemini was available in german only.

GitHub - gereons/gemini: Gemini für den Atari ST

Gemini für den Atari ST. Contribute to gereons/gemini development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

zwangseinweisung May 18, 2024

@fluidlogic @mrcool Gemini was a desktop replacement for the Atari Computers. It had a lot of cool features at that time like colored icons or support for long filenames.

One of the authors, @icing is around here to but he's involved into http server and curl and very sadly, he said, he lost the sources years ago (no hope to open source it)

On the other hand, Gemini had a terminal, called "Mupfel" which was some posix compatible. It was the reason why i am on Unix now. So, thank you @icing 😀

zwangseinweisung May 18, 2024

@fluidlogic @mrcool @icing Update: Source is at Github but not the very last version
https://github.com/gereons/gemini

GitHub - gereons/gemini: Gemini für den Atari ST

Gemini für den Atari ST. Contribute to gereons/gemini development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

Amin Girasol May 18, 2024

@zwangseinweisung @mrcool @icing the Readme for the version of the project on Github indicates that it's unlikely these sources build to a usable binary. Do we have any idea roughly of what's involved to get it to build? Or what the original build toolset and dependencies were?

Dieses Repo enthält den vermutlich letzten erhaltenen Sourcecode-Stand aus dem Juli 1991 für Gemini für den Atari ST, wie er sich auf der einzigen überlebenden Festplatte der Autoren wiedergefunden hat. Es ist unbekannt, ob dieser Sourcecode zu einem lauffähigen Programm übersetzt werden kann oder ob aus ihm jemals eine Gemini-Distribution gebaut wurde. (Beides vermutlich nicht). Es handelt sich einfach um einen Snapshot, der auf einer wundersamerweise noch lesbaren mehr als 20 Jahre alten SCSI-Platte wiedergefunden wurde, und den wir hier aus rein softwarearchäologischem Interesse veröffentlichen.

zwangseinweisung May 18, 2024

@fluidlogic it's missing the flydials libs which was from, i believe Julian Reschke?, but Thorsten Otto did a badass move and adde it somehow

https://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?p=457716#p457716

@mrcool @icing
@gereon

Stefan Eissing May 18, 2024

@zwangseinweisung @fluidlogic @mrcool @gereon wow, very cool.

Amin Girasol May 18, 2024

@zwangseinweisung @mrcool @icing @gereon that's superb! True software archaeology!

Stefan Eissing May 18, 2024

@zwangseinweisung @fluidlogic @mrcool Mupfel was written by @gereon who already used *NIX at work at that time.

zwangseinweisung May 18, 2024

@icing @fluidlogic @mrcool

thank you @gereon ! 😀

Mr Cool May 18, 2024

@zwangseinweisung @fluidlogic @icing Too bad the sources of the last version are lost. Which actually is the last version? Are binaries still available?

I started with UUCP on the ST and I remember there were a few Unix-tools available. Mupfel probably helped to get a Unix-like feeling. It's too long ago for me to remember, but I will surely play around with it.

In the early 90s I switched from the ST to a Unix (real multitasking was so fascinating) and a few years later to Linux.

zwangseinweisung May 18, 2024

@mrcool your bio sounds like mine. i did the very same things too.

TIme to revive UUCP 😉

@fluidlogic @icing

Mr Cool May 19, 2024

@zwangseinweisung @fluidlogic @icing A couple of years ago I configured UUCP on two of my Linux servers but had some problems and gave up.

I remember there was a collection of tools to run UUCP on the ST. For whatever reason there was a specific tool missing which I had to write myself.
What I absolutely can't remember is which programs I used to read email and news.

Stefan Eissing May 18, 2024

@fluidlogic @mrcool We did a crossover of the Mac Finder and a UNIX shell, all in one executable (no multi-processing).

You could drag icons to the terminal, pasting their path, or unto shell scripts to run them with those as arguments, etc.

Troed Sångberg May 18, 2024

@mrcool Plz archive all the things! :D

A Greaseweazle connected to your regular computer and any floppy drive is a great way to backup the original disks. The HD you of course need to dump either to disk and then gw them or get a modern ST-to-sdcard device.

Mr Cool May 18, 2024

@troed I will surely look into such solutions. I still have floppy disk drives but unfortunately I think I won't be able to connect them to the mainboard of my PC.

Troed Sångberg May 18, 2024

@mrcool That's what the Greaseweazle does :) Connects via USB to your PC and allow you to use any normal floppy drive to dump flux data off the disks (that can then be converted to .ST/.STX images etc for emulators)

https://www.retro-updates.com/product/12383903/greaseweazle-v4-1-usb-floppy-adapter-flux-reader-writer

Greaseweazle v4.1 with case

Latest version of the Greaseweazle. Greaseweazle allows versatile floppy drive control over USB. By extracting the raw flux transitions from a drive, any disk format can be captured and analyzed - PC, Amiga, Amstrad, PDP-11, musical instruments, industrial equipment, and more. The Greaseweazle also supports writing to floppy disks, from a range of image file formats including those commonly used for online preservation (ADF, IPF, DSK, IMG, HFE, ...).

Mr Cool May 18, 2024

@troed Wow, that sounds like a must-have. I also have some old 5¼" disks, as well as a 5¼" disk drive. Thanks for the tip.