recommended software to get started with...

There are still a few people developing new software for the standard (non-multitasking) TOS.

Firstly, desktop replacements: I found teradesk and I like it. It is available from
here.

I found an editor which is specifically for html. Only I like to program so I'm using it as a normal text editor too. Its called Joe. There are a few other programs available from this page, they all seem to be free and the author seems to be a bit of a fan of GFA basic. Get it from here.

And finally, I wanted to get perl for the Atari. The latest version that I see that runs with TOS is version 4, and these are found in the form of zoo archives. Pain in the neck...
Anyway the Perl files I found were:
perl4_10.zoo (252kb)
perl_419.zoo (191kb)

Then the zoo archive program was zoo21.lzh

And to unpack the zoo program I used winrar (boo.. hiss..)

So, once I had ZOO.TTP and readme.st, it was just a matter of typing in the correct command line. Which turned out to be a right pain because I couldn't find the forward slash key..
In Teradesk, I ran Zoo.ttp and entered 'x C:/ATARI/perl_419.zoo'
and hey presto, it all unpacked.

Perl 4 is not as cool as later versions of perl and perhaps there's a 'command line' for the ST that would make error messages stay on-screen for longer, but any bugs in my perl didn't seem to be usefully reported to the screen. After a lot of trial and error, I wrote a working prime number generator..

@primes = (2);

$t_s = time;
for ($i = 3; $i < 35000; $i = $i+2) {
  $sqrt_i = sqrt($i);
  $prime = 1;
  foreach $k (@primes) {
    if ( 0== $i%$k) {
      $prime = 0;
      # print " $i is divisible by $k \n";
      last;
    } elsif ($k > $sqrt_i) {
      last;
    }
  }
  if ($prime) {
    push (@primes, $i);
  }
}
$t_e = time;

The two biggest bugs were:
'push @primes, $i;' -- didn't work because you need brackets for push.
'if ($i%$k) {' -- didn't work because that wasn't the correct test..
'if (not $i%$k) {' -- should have worked, but seems perl 4 doesn't work like that.

So that's plenty enough for one day...

Getting Started

I personally have used Gemulator in the past for working in the Atari world.. Its a fast emulator and generally pretty reliable once you've got going.
So as I didn't have it on my computer, here's a guide from the beginning:
1. Get Gemulator -- either the smaller version (Gemulator 2000) or the latest 'beta' version which may be faster on your computer.
Download from
www.emulators.com

2. Next step is to find some roms. Of course that's no longer as much of a hassle because there's a freeware (new development) ROM which you can use to get you started called 'EmuTOS'. Available from
emutos.sourceforge.net

Personally, I also find that Tos 2.06 to be pretty reliable (you can either find a working machine with it already installed and dump it to floppy and copy that to your pc, or find an alternate source)

Either way, the older Gemulator expects you to call the rom TOS.IMG and doesn't really make it easy to switch between different roms in the same path.

Gemulator lets you access your PC hard drive as a 'C:' drive etc. so you can put Atari applications into an Auto folder and boot with winsizer.prg in there to get a high resolution (I find 640x480 in 16 colours to be sufficient)..

So then all that's left to do is download software (usually zipped) and stick it on your hard drive.
Of course there's the slight problem that some software is for better machines and setups than what I've got working so far, so as I go on I'll find more useful apps and utilities to get the most from the system.

Introduction

I seem to have forgotten how to use the Atari ST -- Mostly because I haven't gotten round to it..
Anyway: No more excuses.. Here I will ocasionally document what I've done using the Gem based operating system.
And maybe try and tie together other bits of the internet about Atari developments.