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Many games, utilities, and educational programs were available for Atari 8-bit computers. Atari, Inc. was primarily the publisher following the launch of the Atari 400/800 in 1979, then increasingly by third parties. Atari also distributed "user written" software through the Atari Program Exchange from 1981 to 1984. After APX folded, many titles were picked up by Antic Software.
Atari, Inc. published two assemblers. The Atari Assembler Editor cartridge is a friendlier, integrated development environment using line numbers for editing source code similar to Atari BASIC. The professionally targeted Atari Macro Assembler shipped at a higher price on a copy protected disk without editor or debugger. Third-party assemblers include SynAssembler from Synapse Software and MAE (Macro Assembler Editor) from Eastern House.
Optimized Systems Software published an enhanced disk-based assembler mimicking the structure of Atari's Assembler Editor as EASMD (Editor/Assembler/Debug). It followed that with MAC/65 first on disk with BUG/65 as a companion product, then as a 16KB bank-switched cartridge. MAC/65 tokenizes lines of code as they are entered and has much faster assembly times than Atari's products.
Dunion's Debugging Tool (or DDT) by Jim Dunion is a machine language debugger originally sold through the Atari Program Exchange. A reduced version is included in the cartridge version of MAC/65. Atari magazine ANALOG Computing published the machine language monitor H:BUG as a type-in listing, [1] followed by BBK Monitor. [2]
Atari shipped Atari BASIC with all their machines either as a cartridge or in ROM. It also sold Atari Microsoft BASIC on disk. Optimized Systems Software created a series of enhanced BASIC interpreters: BASIC A+, BASIC XL, BASIC XE. Commercial BASIC compilers for Atari BASIC were available: ABC (Monarch Data Systems, 1982), [3] MMG BASIC Compiler (1984), [4] Advan BASIC (1985). [5] The freeware Turbo-BASIC XL compiler, released in 1985, was popular in the later years of the Atari 8-bit line.
In 1984, ANALOG Computing published Minicomp, a compiler that generates machine code from a very limited subset of Atari BASIC statements. [6]
Atari's own Atari Pascal requires two disk drives and was relegated to the Atari Program Exchange instead of the official product line. Later options were Draper Pascal (1983), Kyan Pascal (1986), and CLSN Pascal (1989).
Atari 8-bit Forths include fig-Forth, Extended fig-Forth (Atari Program Exchange), ES-Forth, QS Forth, and ValFORTH. The animated in-store demo to promote the 400/800 line was written with Atari's internal "Coin-Op Forth" implementation. [7]
Action! is an ALGOL 68-like procedural programming language on cartridge with an integrated compiler and full-screen text editor. The language is designed for quick compile times and to generate efficient 6502 machine code.
Deep Blue C is a port of Ron Cain's Small-C compiler. It was sold through the Atari Program Exchange.
Atari, Inc. published the highly regarded Atari Logo as well as Atari PILOT, both on cartridge.
Other Atari 8-bit family languages include Extended WSFN [8] and Inter-LISP/65. [9]
Atari, Inc. published the Atari Word Processor in 1981, followed by the more popular AtariWriter cartridge in 1983. Third party options include PaperClip, Letter Perfect, Word Magic, Superscript, Bank Street Writer, COMPUTE! magazine's type-in SpeedScript, The Writer's Tool cartridge from OSS, [10] Muse Software's Super-Text, [11] KISS, [12] Wordman, and relative latecomer The First XLEnt Word Processor in 1986. Cut & Paste from Electronic Arts and Homeword from Sierra On-Line [11] were designed to be simpler to use than other programs.
Two integrated software packages that include word processing are HomePak and Mini Office II. Antic compared seven word processors in the February 1987 issue of the magazine. [13]
Video Easel is an art generation and drawing program released on cartridge by Atari, Inc. in 1980. Graphics Magician (1984), from Penguin Software, is a bitmap drawing program which was used to create images for commercial graphic adventures. [14] Other graphics editors are Drawit (Atari Program Exchange, 1983) [15] and RAMbrandt (Antic Software, 1985). [16]
Movie Maker, originally from Reston Publishing then later Electronic Arts, allows creating full-screen animations with synchronized audio that can be saved in a standalone playback format. Cartoonist (Atari Program Exchange, 1983), by Bryan Talbot, is designed for drawing animated sequences. [17]
Atari's Music Composer cartridge (1979), the first music composition software for the Atari 8-bit family, was later joined by Advanced MusicSystem from the Atari Program Exchange (1982), Music Construction Set (1983), and Bank Street Music Writer (1985). Antic published the Antic Music Processor in 1988 as a disk bonus. [18]
Because of graphics superior to that of the Apple II [19] and Atari's home-oriented marketing, [20] the Atari 8-bit computers gained a good reputation for games. BYTE in 1981 stated that "for sound and video graphics [they] are hard to beat". [21] Jerry Pournelle wrote in the magazine in 1982, when trying to decide what computer to buy his sons, that "if you're only interested in games, that's the machine to get. It's not all that expensive, either". [19] A 1984 compendium of reviews used 198 pages for games compared to 167 for all other software. It noted the existence of a distinct "graphics look" to native Atari software: "Multiple graphics modes, four directional fine scrolling, colorful modified character-set backgrounds, and, of course, player missile graphics". [20]
Star Raiders was Atari's killer app, akin to VisiCalc for the Apple II in its ability to persuade customers to buy the computer. [22] Antic in 1986 stated that "it was the first program that showed all of the Atari computer's audio and visual capabilities. It was just a game, yes, but it revolutionized the idea of what a personal computer could be made to do." [23] When Electronic Arts started publishing games in 1983, the Atari 8-bit line was a key platform. EA's M.U.L.E takes advantage of the four joystick ports on the original Atari 400/800 models, as does the cooperative dungeon crawl Dandy . Dandy was the direct inspiration for the 1985 Gauntlet arcade game, which also allows four players.
Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the company's 8-bit home computers. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985, and it was widely available in July. The ST was the first personal computer with a bitmapped color graphical user interface, using a version of Digital Research's GEM interface / operating system, from February 1985.
Turbo Pascal is a software development system that includes a compiler and an integrated development environment (IDE) for the programming language Pascal running on the operating systems CP/M, CP/M-86, and DOS. It was originally developed by Anders Hejlsberg at Borland, and was notable for its very fast compiling. Turbo Pascal, and the later but similar Turbo C, made Borland a leader in PC-based development tools.
The Atari 8-bit computers, formally launched as the Atari Home Computer System, are a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 with the Atari 400 and Atari 800. It is the first home computer architecture with coprocessors, enabling more advanced graphics and sound than most of its contemporaries. Video games are key to its software library, and the 1980 first-person space combat simulator Star Raiders is considered the platform's killer app.
Atari BASIC is an interpreter for the BASIC programming language that shipped with Atari 8-bit computers. Unlike most American BASICs of the home computer era, Atari BASIC is not a derivative of Microsoft BASIC and differs in significant ways. It includes keywords for Atari-specific features and lacks support for string arrays.
A type-in program or type-in listing was computer source code printed in a home computer magazine or book. It was meant to be entered via the keyboard by the reader and then saved to cassette tape or floppy disk. The result was a usable game, utility, or application program.
Action! is a procedural programming language and integrated development environment written by Clinton Parker for the Atari 8-bit computers. The language, which is similar to ALGOL, compiles to high-performance code for the MOS Technology 6502 of the Atari computers. Action! was distributed on ROM cartridge by Optimized Systems Software starting in 1983. It was one of the company's first bank-switched 16 kB "Super Cartridges". The runtime library is stored in the cartridge; to make a standalone application requires the Action! Toolkit which was sold separately by OSS.
Cut & Paste is a word processor published in 1984 for Apple II series, Atari 8-bit computers, Commodore 64, IBM PC compatibles, and IBM PCjr. It is one of the few productivity releases from game developer and publisher Electronic Arts, along with the contemporaneous Financial Cookbook. In the UK it was distributed by Ariolasoft.
Optimized Systems Software (OSS) was a company that produced disk operating systems, programming languages with integrated development environments, and applications primarily for Atari 8-bit computers. The founders of OSS previously developed Atari DOS, Atari BASIC, and the Atari Assembler Editor for Atari, Inc., and many OSS products are substantially improved versions. OS A+ and DOS XL are based on Atari DOS. BASIC A+, BASIC XL, and BASIC XE are based on Atari BASIC. EASMD and MAC/65 are modeled on the Atari Assembler Editor. Action! is an ALGOL-inspired compiled programming language with an integrated full-screen editor. OSS also sold some software for the Apple II.
AtariWriter is a word processor program for the Atari 8-bit computers released by Atari, Inc. as a 16 kB ROM cartridge in 1983. The program was fast and easy to use, while still allowing for the creation of fairly complex documents. It was a success for the platform, with at least 800,000 units initially sold, not including international versions and later updates.
Atari Assembler Editor is a ROM cartridge-based development system released by Atari, Inc. in 1981. It is used to edit, assemble, and debug 6502 programs for Atari 8-bit computers without the need for additional tools. It was programmed by Kathleen O'Brien of Shepardson Microsystems, the company which wrote Atari BASIC, and Assembler Editor shares many design concepts with that language implementation.
Atari Logo is ROM cartridge-based version of the Logo programming language for the Atari 8-bit computers published by Atari, Inc. in 1983. It was developed by Logo Computer Systems, Inc. (LCSI) in Quebec, Canada. LCSI wrote Apple Logo, and the Atari version maintains strong compatibility with it.
ANALOG Computing was an American computer magazine devoted to Atari 8-bit computers. It was published from 1981 until 1989. In addition to reviews and tutorials, ANALOG printed multiple programs in each issue for users to type in. Almost every issue included a machine language video game—as opposed to Atari BASIC—which were uncommon in competing magazines. Such games were accompanied by the assembly language source code. ANALOG also sold commercial games, two books of type-in software, and access to a custom bulletin-board system. After the Atari ST was released, coverage of the new systems moved to an ST-Log section of the magazine before spinning off into a separate publication under the ST-Log name.
Bank Street Writer is a word processor for the Apple II, Atari 8-bit computers, Commodore 64, MSX, Mac, IBM PC, and IBM PCjr computers. It was designed in 1981 by a team of educators at the Bank Street College of Education in New York City, software developer Franklin E. Smith, and programmers at Intentional Educations in Watertown, Massachusetts. The software was sold in two versions: one for elementary school students published by Scholastic and a general version from Broderbund.
Synapse Software Corporation was an American software developer and publisher founded in 1981 by Ihor Wolosenko and Ken Grant. Synapse published application software and developer tools and was primarily known for video games. It initially focused on the Atari 8-bit computers, then later developed for the Commodore 64 and other systems. Synapse was purchased by Broderbund in late 1984 and the Synapse label retired in 1985.
Atari Program Exchange (APX) was a division of Atari, Inc. that sold software via mail-order for Atari 8-bit computers from 1981 until 1984. Quarterly APX catalogs were sent to all registered Atari 8-bit owners. APX encouraged any programmer, not just professionals, to submit video games, educational software, applications, and utilities. A few internally developed Atari products were sold through APX, such as Atari Pascal, the developer handbook De Re Atari, and a port of the arcade video game Kangaroo.
De Re Atari, subtitled A Guide to Effective Programming, is a book written by Atari, Inc. employees in 1981 and published by the Atari Program Exchange in 1982 as an unbound, shrink-wrapped set of three-holed punched pages. It was one of the few non-software products sold by APX. Targeted at developers, it documents the advanced features of the Atari 8-bit computers and includes ideas for how to use them in applications. The information in the book was not available in a single, collected source at the time of publication.
Happy drives are series of disk drive enhancements for the Atari 8-bit and Atari ST computer families produced by a small company Happy Computers. Happy Computers is most noted for the add-in boards for the Atari 810 and Atari 1050 floppy disk drives, which achieved a tremendous speed improvement for reading and writing, and for the ability to "back up" floppies. Happy's products were among the most popular Atari computer add-ons. They were still in use and active in the aftermarket as of 2009.
MAC/65 is a 6502 assembler written by Stephen D. Lawrow for Atari 8-bit computers. MAC/65 was first released on disk by Optimized Systems Software in 1982, with the program requiring 16 KB RAM. A bank switched "SuperCartridge" from OSS followed in January 1984 for US$99, occupying only 8 KB.
Tom Hudson is an American programmer best known for co-creating the 3D modeling and animation package 3D Studio as well as creating its precursor, CAD-3D for the Atari ST.
Atari Word Processor is a word processor program for the Atari 8-bit computers, announced by Atari, Inc. in January 1981 and shipped that summer. The program was powerful for its era, including numerous features like superscripts and two-column layouts. It was also quite complex, with a long list of control keys for basic operations and text-based menus for more complex ones. It left little memory free after loading, so longer documents had to be stored as separate files of about a page each and printing demanded a long re-formatting process as they were stitched together.