Adam Klobukowski wrote in to say: “Most of you think that Atari computers are dead. In fact they are, but they are still some survivors. FreeMiNT is an Open Source operating system for 16/32 bit Ataris: ATARI ST/STE/MEGA ST/Mega STE/TT/Falcon 030, and clones: Hades/Medusa/Milan. It is under continuous developent and last stable version (1.15.12) was relased about a month ago. Developers are busy working on 1.16. FreeMiNT offers preempative multitasking, memory protection (on 020+ processors), loadable filesystems (VFAT, Minix, Ext2), shared libraries and easy TCP/IP networking. The main FreeMiNT distribution is called SpareMiNT and is based on RPM. Because over the years FreeMint (formerly known as MiNT) developement was a bit messy it is coverend by few diffrent software linceses, but mainly by GNU GPL. There is also a standard C library implementation (libc) called MiNTLib (and is covered by GNU GPL and LGPL). The main future goals of FreeMINT are: adding better shared library support along with ELF support and virtual memory support.”
Introducing the FreeMiNT for Atari Computers
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I have an old atari and think it was a great computer but my big question is Why? I can see this as a small putze around lets see what I can do thing. But its seams almost insane that a group of people are working on this. What practicality can there be. I even can see unpractical things some times but not this. The ataris have so little power your not going to do much of anything with them. Power to them for doing this but it just seams like a waste. How bout trying to get a bash shell and a wireless conection to my old ti-92 plus. Though at least they are starting with something ment to be a computer. Not one of these messed up people trying to linux on a dreamcast/playstation/game thing whatever consol. Thats really dumb, like the thing will run better after you fuck with it like that. Anyways, niffty story
Brad, maybe You are dumb? If someone wants to do something, something that doesn’t mess others ppl life, why You think he shouldn’t?
This ppl must be relly good coders (IMHO) – i don’t know anything about atari coding. You too, probably.
“This ppl” = Those ppl
Sorry for my english
Shard
I was in no way saying they shouldn’t do this. Did you read my post! I just want to know why. I am all for people doing this kinda thing. I just would like to know why they do it, what they get out of it besides just having fun doing it, do they look to get more out of it than that. It doesn’t seam like this would be anymore than a sitting around one night “I wonder” kinda thing.
Sorry if you got the feeling that i was saying people shouldn’t do this.
If so than i’ve must missunderstood You, sorry.
The reason for this is… there’s always some person complaining. This person is not doing anything creative, just complains, and says it’s shit or something… Look for Prophet’s comment under another story… Even if that person creates something, it doesn’t give right to stop others from doing something else.
Why You ask?
Because there is that way
I mean, why to walk into mountains? Because they are. This can be a good reson 
Why? Read my comment on the SkyOS comments section.
Someone fall in love with other people, but someone fall in lov with computer
There is still some people using Ataris over the world and they need new and modern operating system. Thats way. You could say that they could use Linux m68k, yes it is possible, but FreeMiNT is better solution here – it is dedicated to Atari hardware and supports Atari software which Linux does not.
Futhermore it is not a very big project and playing with it is easy and fun!
You make it sound like none of the Atari computers have any power. Granted, they are all running mc680x proc. (althoughPPC cards are under development), but many users have clones that have mc68060s, gigs of hdd space and hundreds of megs of RAM. Most of these systems run 1024/768 x true color! Just because the early Ataris are now considered primitive, there are still new clones coming out, which many people use!
Check out:
http://www.milan-computer.de
or
http://www.xtos.de
For just two of them.
The beauty of Atari is that its software will run on ALL of the systems, no matter the age..thus postponing obsolete-ness
Well, as Brad said, Ataris are crap, and have no power etc etc et-bloody-cetera
Ok, if that was so, then why does my 16mhz Falcon play MP3 files so perfectly without even touching any CPU time, when a Pentium 100 can play an MP3 only barely and pretty much F@@K all else!
What this brad fairy is doing, is comparing 15 year old atari hardware to current PC hardware!!!
Open your eyes you twat. When the Atari came out, what was the PC?
a farty 6mhz Amstrad 1512 or equivalent!!!
PCs could only use 512 or 640k back then, and the ST could use 4MB, PC’s were Mono unless you spent another £800 for a CGA card, and then you had 8 or 16 colours, so dont dare compare the two!!!
When the TT came out, what was there in the PC world? – 286???
TTs could access 4GB of RAM, and the 286 was just a faster 086 as far as everythign was concerned! Graphics were still in the CGA age, and moving onto EGA/XGA – still crap
When Atari brought out the Falcon, the 386 was in, and the 486 was soon to be ( or just out? ) and what could the 486 do that the Falcon could not?? absolutely fuck all!
The advantage we have as atari users, is that software and hardware are designed for one type of machine, and as such, this makes it far better to an equivalent PC – Its the same for Macs.
The 680×0 Processor is 2 – 4 times more efficient than the same x86 processor, which means that a 25mhz 680×0 machine will run roughly the same speed as a 100mhz x86 – This is not quite true, it depends on the tests involved, its close though.
Seriously if you want networking power that really is every bit as good as Linux, then you should try MiNT. If you dont want to have the extremely slow GUI of Linux, then you need to use NAES2 ( erm, thats X for MiNT ) and if you just want out and out fast Multitasking, that will piss all over Linux, then what do you use???
I can say this, because I have compared them in many tests to shut people up from our linux club.
My Milan ( 66mhz 68040 – 64MB ) running MiNT ( Kernel ) / NAES2 ( X ) / Thing ( GUI ) is far faster at networking than Clives AMD Duron 850 ( Debian – 384MB )
All I can say is up your arse mate. Try to look at how far these machines have come before you start to fuck us off. Ataris and Amigas have come one hell of a long way over the last few years. Obviously a lot further than you can see.
The Problem is: when anyone says: “Atari” most people think of the 8 MHz ST.
So the answer is: “oooh, too old, too less power…”
Now what would You say if I would only think of a 286 when talking about PCs ???
What I do with my Atari:
-Internet
-MIDI Music
-Texts etc.
-my studies
-playing MP3s
-burning CDs
so what???
And I can tell You that there are thousands of Atari Users all over the world.
the freemint-guys are not such mad freaks as there are on the 8-bit-computers.
About half of the users have Freemint installed.
And there are many other OS too, such as:
TOS (which is stored in the ROM)
MagiC (which costs about 100 Euros)
N.AES (which costs about 70 Euros)
FreeMint
MinT’98 (which costs about 50 Euros)
The Atari market is indeed alive. The software is cheap but powerful and the system runs very stable.
And I can tell You that the actual fastest Atari is by far faster than the fastest Amiga…
Alex
I use Gemulator.I use ST-Zip because there is little or no space for the larger winzip.I use currency convertor & Gemtrade.
Why? because when I use Windows it is messy, I get loads of files dumped evrywhere.
Why? because microsoft internet explorer caches internet pages and buggers up my machine as i dont have enough free space, so I use gemulator to delete the files.
Tos developed from atari machines but now atari-a-likes are very powerfull whether they be emulators, an operating system(magic(the only o.s to work on pc,apple & atari?), or machines such as hades or milan.
why? because bill gates does not have all the answers.
why? because to install a program you copy the program file(s) to your computer as opposed to windows which you have to install making a mess of your computer besides which when you install a program on windows it will change configurations completly messing up previous installations. you have no idea what is wrong and no control over your computer. with atari/tos etc you have control.
why? because there is an alternative, a different philosophy to be had.
why? because this microsoft thing has gone too far, there is not freedom of choice. I want to connect to the internet and ntl told me that i can only use windows or apple mac o.s. this is not what i call freedom of choice. there are alot of o.s but not much of a free market for them.
so why? because mint is practical & attractive.
booyakasha?
Wow, what a fight inside this messages…
The last two ones are great.
Let me store my opinions here and a little wish from myselve.
1st I use Ataris long time ago and i always can say, i never found such goof programs under Windoows and the quality of the programmers was much more efficient than under Windoows. Remember, the Atari (TOS) could run big apps in a room of 1MByte RAM and the code for such programms are realy effectiv and so on.
In the time of Windows, none is interesting in effectiv coding anymore, because there exist systems with more than 64MByte (standard 128/256) and harddrive space of more than 20GByte. Puh, why to programming effective?!?
That is only one reason, why I´m loving Atari (TOS) and I use a lot my Thinkpad 701C with an TOS emulator and allway wondering, that this kind of solution is stable and gives me all the thinks I like to do with a system. Much more better, than Windoows ever could do.
My base programms are Signum! and the options I have with that programm I can´t find in any other Windows Programm, so why is there any reason to go to Windoows?
I like it, that there exist a lot of programmers/users wich have equal interests and that there exist programmers, wich let the system never die.
With the power of the actuall x86 systems, you can get speed and power for a TOS you could never reach with an original Atari and that much more enough for the normal use.
I like the way, to be undependend from M$ and this is a very good alternativ.
You don´t need to search for new OS or projects and must wait, if they are ready or stable and than looking for Apps, you are interesting in or you need. They allready out and stable and having so much options wich are realy great.
I was searching the hole Internet for a ST Emulator under Windows CE, but I can find only programmers, wich are interesting in emulate the game console under new OSes. What a mess, is there only the interesting with users to have a system for fit the needs of playing?!?
Maybee someone is reading this and can informe me about a working ST Emulator under Windows CE. This would be very nice, or I gave some inspiration to programmer, wich are able to design such emulator, would be perfect.
One of the important think with CE Devices are the power of battery life and all of them would be able to give a ST enviroment enough Space (RAM, etc.) to work with it.
Hope my wishes will become true.
Greatings from Germany
Himmelswanderer