Atari 16/32 bit Development Resources

A collection of resources for developing software for the 16/32 bit Atari series of computers.

Community Websites

• AtariAge
• AtariCrypt
• Atariforum
  • A forum dedicated to Atari ST development and discussions.
• AtariAge Forums
• Atari Mania
• atariscne.org
• D-Bug
• Exxos Forum
  • A forum focused on Atari ST hardware and software development.

Books and references

• Atari ST Platform
  • Atari Document Archive
  • The Atari Compendium
    • Probably the most extensive technical reference ever published for the Atari ST and derivatives.
  • The Atari Wiki
  • The Documentation for TOS
    • The famous tos.hyp pages.
• Compilers
  • GCC online documentation
• Hardware intrinsics
  • ST/STE Scanlines
    • This page provides pseudocode descriptions of various processes involved in the generation of each frame of the video output, in both the Atari ST and the STE.

Blogs, wikis, and other resources

• Beyond Brown
• BUS ERROR Atari 16/32 Bit Development Info Page
  • Has some very useful information about cross compilation and assembly, hardware reference materials and tools.
• DrCoolZic Atari ST Site
  • Contains a lot of detailed information about the hardware and software side of the Atari ST.

Discord Servers

• Atari FreeMiNT User Group
• Atari Scene/Demoscene
• Atari ST 16/32bit
• GFABASIC

Emulators

• Hatari
  • Hatari User manual
  • Hatari Debugger manual
• STeem

C Programming

C is the primary programming language used for professional Atari ST development.

• Makefile tutorial
  • A very useful guide to writing Makefiles.
• Object Oriented Programming in C
  • Explains how to implement object-oriented programming concepts in C.
  • The references at the bottom of the page are also very useful.

Assembly Programming

• Bugaboo usage
  • Some very interesting and useful Bugaboo debugger tips and tricks.
• Cycle counting in the Atari ST
• M68000 Programmer's Reference Manual

Cross compilation

This section contains resources for cross-compiling Atari ST software from other platforms. Developing on the Atari ST itself is often limited by its hardware capabilities and with cross-compilation, you can leverage more powerful development environments.

• M68k LVVM documentation
  • Resources for users of M68k LLVM toolchain.
• Platform Guide: Atari ST
  • A VBCC/VASM oriented guide.
• Thorsten Otto's m68k-atari-mint cross-tools page
  • A page full of resources for cross-compiling for the Atari ST using GCC.
• VBCC
  • A highly optimizing portable and retargetable ISO C compiler.

Github repositories

• ReservoirGods/GODLIB
  • An extensive C library by Resevoir Gods that provides many features that can be useful for game development.

Tools

• Compiler Explorer
  • Handy tool to see live compiler output asembly. Supports M68K GCC compilers and M68K assembly.
• Amiga & Atari Bitmap Converter
  • A command line tool to convert bitmap images into ready to use binary data.
• CycleSpitter
  • A cycle-accurate scanline splitter tool for Atari ST fullscreen (sync) programming.

Game Development Libraries

• Atari Game Tools

Game Development Articles

• Turrican II