Pimp My ST, quality of life improvements, better looks and a CLI. Oh my.
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 เม.ย. 2023
- In this the second video in a series where I take a vanilla Atari ST and incrementally improve it, into a custom, fully functional, productivity and gaming machine, we:
- Tidy up the file system from the last episode
- Install a text file viewer
- Improve the looks of the desktop with a custom font.
- And change everything, with the introduction of a CLI.
Joseph Ceklosky (@josephceklosky6875) came up with the goods for us and sent me a scan of the CLI manual. I've made it available here: www.overtakenbyevents.com/the...
Thanks Joe!
First Video in the series
• Supercharge your atari...
QED Editor:
tho-otto.de/snapshots/qed/ - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Great job .I love your content . The ST never had enough presence with quality videos like yours in TH-cam. Keep going!
Soon as get back from Vacation I'll be on it!
It's very exciting to see what direction the ST took after I "left" my 1040ST behind to move on to Apple and between NeXT.
Today the ST became again my favored Retro Computer (which is also visible in my Cave, lol.
Thanks for all does awesome videos that help me jumpstart again on the "modern" ST side!
Glad you like it.
I’ve enjoyed your Atari ST video series because it gave me a different perspective on the computer. My experience comes from owning a 520ST from the time it was first available in Toronto, Canada in 1985. It was replaced by a 1040ST less than a year later. By mid-1989 I was working full-time and moved on to a 386DX 25MHz PC compatible. At the time of my ST purchase I was in university and mainly used the ST for productivity. I particularly liked that I could use file compatible programs on the ST and then load these files in IBM PC DOS programs at school. Also, the VT52 terminal emulation that came with the ST was used often to log into the school’s computers.
I tried to play games on my ST and did buy a colour monitor but the games were mostly disappointing, the exception being Time Bandit. So to hear that the ST was primarily used for gaming in the UK makes me chuckle. Timing is everything. And to see all the software upgrades that came to the platform after I moved on is really fascinating.
I do own a nice collection of ST computers and I will be exploring all of what you’ve introduced me to.
For me, the biggest legacy of the ST is GEM. I used it on every PC I could at work and at home up to Windows 3.1.
Thanks for renewing my interest in my STs.
I think we had very similar paths. I used the ST every day at uni, it had the best free compilers out there. You did have to have a German, english dictionary to hand, but they were awesome.
My absolute favorite though was LaTex. I Wrote both my BSc and Msc thesis using that typesetting programming. I'd will be reproducing that environment, but I'll keep it to myself I think. Bit too niche even for me.
@@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit Definitely niche but it does demonstrate the large scope of applications for the ST. In all my years in the software industry here in Canada I've only come across one other ex-owner/user of an Atari ST. BTW, the Amiga was equally rare. It made for a lonely experience even with the BBSes.
Atari should've bought or licensed NeoDesk and shipped it with all STs. It was pretty much a must-have for anyone looking to do serious work.
Totally agree. When ever I used to think about the ST in the gap between leaving and coming back into the Atari fold, I always remembered the alternative desktops, never vanilla GEM. And of all of the NeoDesk was the favourite for me, with Gemini in second place. It's a pity Gemini was never progressed.
absolute nonsense, first years till 1990-94 when HDDs started to be more widespread, the plain TOS was the best option for work. You have to understand that majority of users had either 512KB or 1MB of RAM, using alternative desktop would quickly fill up the RAM. Also loading from floppy every reset was not much an option. The TOS was great and fast GUI to work with. Unlike the Workbench 1.x garbage on Amiga....
When the era of wider spreading HDDs and STs with RAM upgrades to 4MB came, the MultiTOS and MagiC era began, so Atari had it covered...
@@madigorfkgoogle9349 Yeah, you're right, I probably should have specified in the 90s. Most people I knew who used their STs for serious work had memory upgrades, hard drives, and ran NeoDesk.
The Geneva developer had clearly looked at the Macintosh Chicago font for "inspiration" ;) in the same way jobs got his inspo i guess ;) i agree the new typeface looks great. I remember as a kid seeing it in magazines and wondering how they did it.
Some many of the alternative desktops on the ST "borrowed" many things from the Mac :-)
🙂Super video.
Thank you very much, always appreciated
Thanks!
Your very much welcome.
I remember the first time I played with a Mac, the original 128k model, and not having a CLI was disconcerting.
I can't remember whether I looked into if I could just drop the GUI and work someway just in text or not.
First time I remember using a CLI on a mac was the AU/X operating system, which was as wierd as a bag of cats. It was apples workbench onto of Unix System 5. THere was backward compatability with system 7 and a really strange mix of C based APIs and Pascal ones. Total nightmare to work on, i'd love to have one now though
@@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit Yes I remember some of those weirder varieties of Unix line Xenix. Yes everything was a hotchpotch back then.
The very best way of pimping an atari st would be to get rid of the
fuzzeling/moving lines jailbars and the ghosting on the video signal.
The video-signal is bad compared to amiga/macintosh
My OSSC does a reasonable job of displaying the video output on my modern monitor. But your right the source video isn't great. I don't know if it's rose tinted specticles but my original Atari Mono Monitor was fantastic back in the day
@@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit the original monitors sm124/sc1224 do not care about the bad video signal output...especially the sm124 is fantastic. I also have the SM144 for my MegaSTE and this thing is even better...but I dont want to use those bulky things anymore... I am all in for TFT/LCD. Mostly I use Nec Accusync 71vm.
I think you associate BAT files to the NEO CLI NPG . Then double click on the BAT file to load the CLI with your settings.
That works, it's how I ran the settings.bat file from NeoDesk, what I remember and really, really want is the equivilent of the DOS autoexec.bat functionality. I swear it used to work (like most of my code!)
The change of font makes it look a bit Mac-like. :)
Nothing toooo wrong about that :-)
Would you consider, if possible, sharing with us an image of your C drive ?
I have been thinking of this but I'm a bit worried about the copyright status of some of the components (or at least one of them) So I need to do my research
I have the neo CLI manual in hardcopy that I can scan for you
Yes, please, that would be awesome.
Can you post your email address?
@@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit I'm also looking for that mythical CLI manual if anyone ever scans it. Great videos, I've watched all your ST series.
I have the scanned manual ready. Where can I send a copy?
Really sorry I didn’t see your previous message. I have put an email address on the about page of my channel. I really want to thank you for this.
I'm new in Atari ST world and when I'm trying to set default system font using "s" before font name I'm getting Panic: Address Error... No idea why. Would you help me with that?
What version of NVDI and which font are you using?
@@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit I'm trying with NVDI 5.x and default Geneva font, from installation disks. As I presume, this "bug" was the reason of choosing 2.x over 5.x. Am I right? 😅
@@arti040 if you watch the follow up video in this series I swapped to using a different font. I was getting the same issues you were after I changed my auto load order. The video is das xboot I think
@@arti040 Yes. Then I swapped to NVDI 5 and it's default font in the next video.
@@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit Everything works like a charm now :) By the way, I got video suggestion, if you don't mind - presentation of some cool, non-standard cpx/accessories?
The character spacing on that Chicago-esque font is pretty dreadful
I know what you mean, but it’s a Its a monospaced font. Not sure what they could do. Still I’m used to it now and like it.
@@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit Are the char widths coming from the font or the from the original font? If the former, just edit the font.
@@perfectionbox It's a bit of a moot point. That font doesn't survive the next episode, as it blew up NVDI 5 when I had to upgrade