This has destroyed my productivity, now it can destroy yours...
April 1, 2007 3:47 AM   Subscribe

Steem is an Atari ST emulator for Windows and Linux that is very simple and user-friendly. More details on installing are in a helpful beginner's guide, but you're probably most interested in the games, of which there are lots [more inside].
posted by greycap (22 comments total) 28 users marked this as a favorite
 
Below is an A to Z of some of the best/most memorable games I've found so far. Although you can download these, the easiest way to play is simply to open the link and Steem will auto-launch it. You can map keys or use a joystick/gamepad for the controls. NB the management accepts no responsibility for shattered memories as you realise some of them aren't as good as you remember, or indeed shattered monitors as you throw your joystick away in a rage after realising how hard some of them are.

1943
Afterburner
Atomic Robokid
Barbarian
Battlehawks 1942
Bombjack
Bubble Bobble
Carrier Command
Castle Master
Chuckie Egg
Damocles
Double Dragon
Dragons Breath
Driller
Elite
F19 Stealth Fighter
Fantasy World Dizzy
Flood
Gauntlet
Ghosts and Goblins
Golden Axe
Grid Runner
Impossible Mission 2
Infocom adventures vol 1
Infocom adventures vol 2
Infocom adventures vol 3
James Pond
Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge
Maniac Mansion
Midwinter
New Zealand Story
Night Shift
Operation Wolf
P47 Mustang
Pacmania
Pang
Paperboy
Predator
Rainbow Islands
Rampage
Rick Dangerous
Space Harrier
Speedball 2
Starglider
Starglider 2
Street Fighter
Super Huey
Switchblade
Their Finest Hour
Thunderblade
Treasure Island Dizzy
Turrican
Turrican 2
Virus
Wizball
Xenon 2
Zak McCracken

posted by greycap at 3:47 AM on April 1, 2007


I lost a lot of productivity when I first discovered STEEM, especially when I could play all 65,535 levels of Dungeon Master all over again. Hooray for giant robots shooting rubber cannonballs! That epitomizes dungeons right there. That, and piles of graph paper diagramming all the levels... aaaaaaa...

(When is rock not rock?)

Thanks for the links!
posted by sidereal at 4:59 AM on April 1, 2007


I loved my Atari ST as a kid and Dungeon Master is the only game I ever finished. Thanks for the flashback. I'm now going to geek out.
posted by snez at 5:07 AM on April 1, 2007


I'm going to resist posting to this thread every time I remember an ST game I liked, so I'll stop with this one: Archipelagos. Jebus, what a time suck.
posted by sidereal at 5:21 AM on April 1, 2007


I am just guess here but considering Golden Axe was recently released on the Wii Virtual Console thing, this is all probably links to copyrighted material and ever so slightly illegal right?
posted by public at 5:40 AM on April 1, 2007


Carrier Command forever! A kind of game that hasn't been recreated for a long time. Would love to see an update.

Thanks for your work and link mania!
posted by homodigitalis at 6:12 AM on April 1, 2007


note to self: Google before typing.

Carrier Command remake is coming! But I am afraid it will be an overhyped fuckup like Total Commander (which was supposed to be the new Total Annihilation).

I wonder if this guy ever finished his CC OpenGL version? Here you can download the PC version without the need for a ST emulator.
posted by homodigitalis at 6:17 AM on April 1, 2007


I tried running a few of these on NoSTalgia for OS X but nothing really seemed to work. Does anyone know of a good Atari ST emulator for OS X?
posted by sveskemus at 7:13 AM on April 1, 2007


I don't have the TSO102.img/TSO206.img files required for setup. Where can i find them? Thanks
posted by kenaman at 7:40 AM on April 1, 2007


pah. It's all about the amiga. ST is for weenies!
posted by jaymzjulian at 7:45 AM on April 1, 2007


(but seriously, i havn't thought about dungeon master in years. Don't like my chances of getting much done for the rest of the day....)
posted by jaymzjulian at 7:47 AM on April 1, 2007


I don't have the TSO102.img/TSO206.img files required for setup. Where can i find them? Thanks

Saw them at the top of the downloads page!
posted by kenaman at 8:19 AM on April 1, 2007


when you get sick of games you can set up a directory as a virtual hard drive and fiddle with some old time music software

I don't have the TSO102.img/TSO206.img files required for setup. Where can i find them?

try the download page
posted by pyramid termite at 8:28 AM on April 1, 2007 [1 favorite]


Ataris & music. I started with an ST in 1986, then retired it in '97 when I moved to a Mac. There is some amazing midi software out there, most of it freeware now (see the link in pyramid termite's post). Like sveskemus, I've also tried unsuccessfully to run this stuff using Nostagia and a few other Mac ST emulators. I think most savvy midi programmers bypassed the OS routines and talked directly to the hardware.

My favorite midi sequencer is still Dr. T's "Omega", available as shareware; see the bottom of this page. It had features not seen on any sequencer before or since. Someday I may buy a used PC just to run STEEM and Omega!

Here's a little Atari trivia: back then, a software company called Codehead Software developed some well regarded utilities and music-related titles. It was formed by two musician/programmers: John Eidsvoog, and an L.A. session guitarist who's since gone one to other endeavors. I think most Mefites know him.
posted by keys at 9:32 AM on April 1, 2007


I see no sundog here. How can there be no sundog?

I wish the open source remake was furthur along.
posted by milovoo at 10:13 AM on April 1, 2007


Awesome post.
posted by allkindsoftime at 7:11 PM on April 1, 2007


lol, AMIGA RULEZ!
posted by Artw at 8:04 PM on April 1, 2007


Wow -- would I dare running GfA Basic and resurrecting my implementation of the NeXTStep look and feel for the ST? (that I later rewrote in C when I bought a second floppy drive, essential to run the Maxwell or Lattice C compiler.)

We once ported Minix to the ST. I was doing all the context switch stuff, the only part that required assembly language to be used.
posted by NewBornHippy at 8:24 PM on April 1, 2007


Damn, NewBornHippy, I did the same thing in GFA basic :). Wish I'd known you back then!
posted by jewzilla at 9:00 PM on April 1, 2007


milovoo: SunDog is listed for download on this page. I haven't tried it though.
posted by teleskiving at 4:37 AM on April 2, 2007


I never did beat Chaos Strikes Back, nor did I finish writing my epic Super Mario Bros clone in STOS. But I sure loved my ST. Thanks for the memories.
posted by Succa at 5:03 AM on April 2, 2007


My ST is still piled in a corner of my Mom's garage. I played Sundog for many happy hours without having a clue what the game was about. Dungeon Master, Wrath of the Demon, Auto Duel, Kings Quest IV, the Infocom adventures, they were great fun and devoured many, many ergs of my youthful energy. I sucked at them all. Dungeon Master was true genius and still holds up, to my mind.

And then there was Notator, which, although I'm not really in music anymore, would still seem to be just about all you could want in a sequencing package, albeit with no facility for actual audio recording.

A couple of questions:

I wonder if anyone has had any luck with the Autoduel for STEEM. The only version I can find doesn't work.

And, has anyone found a version of a game called "Amazon"? It was a text adventure with a few cheezy graphics, but what was interesting about it was that it was written by Micheal Crichton, before he turned into a doofus. It was super well put together. I always hoped that it showed the future of gaming/interactive fiction.
posted by Trochanter at 8:16 AM on April 2, 2007


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