
EmuTOS, a free operating system for Atari computers - walkingolof
https://github.com/emutos/emutos
======
cmrdporcupine
For those unfamiliar, this is a full open source (GPL) re-implementation of
the original Atari ST (16/32 68000 system) operating system. Here's the long
form:

The Atari ST's operating system ("TOS") was forked from Digital Research's
'GEMDOS' (a kind of CP/M 68k / MS-DOS alike disk operating system) along with
'GEM' (Graphic Environment Manager) which consisted of a device-independent
graphics subsystem ('VDI') and a windowing system / application toolkit ('AES'
application environment services). Atari was given a license from DR back in
1984, and effectively did their own port and forked from the mainline. The
story of how that all went down is chronicled in an excellent series of blog
posts by an original participant here:
[http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=995](http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=995)
and
[http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=1000](http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=1000)

Note that this is 'Atari Corp', which was a company owned by Jack Tramiel
after he quit Commodore. Not Atari Inc, which was the company responsible for
Pong, the Atari 2600, and the original Atari 8-bit computers.

GEM was the brainchild of Lee Jay Lorenzen, who had worked on the Xerox Star
project and who had advocated at Xerox for getting some of those concepts onto
lower end PC-class machines. He joined DR in the early 80s and headed up the
GEM project to work on that. He later left DR to start Ventura Publisher, an
excellent DTP package which was built on GEM.

Digital Research went on to develop GEM on the x86 on a separate branch from
the Atari version. They were forced by an Apple lawsuit to make modifications
to it to make it less Mac-like. Atari's branch was exempted from this.

Atari Corp eventually packed it in, with their assets spread around like
ashes, and the IP around their fork of GEM/GEMDOS has been lost to the world
(well the source has been leaked but not legally). However after a series of
acquisitions, DR's original IP -- including GEM, GEMDOS, CP/M 68k, etc. was
open sourced under the GPL.

EmuTOS was created (many moons ago) from the original DR sources in order to
have open source ROMs for ST emulators, effectively doing again what the team
at Atari did back in the 80s: porting to the 68k Atari ST platform. But since
then it's grown to be a full alternative to Atari's ROMs that works on more
than just emulators.

In addition to being basically full feature (and quirk) parity with Atari's
TOS, it also includes a full hard disk driver which is something Atari's never
included without an add-on. This includes support for IDE drives for modern
devices like compact flash cards, etc.

It also has been ported to and runs well on other 68k and Coldfire platforms,
and runs well on the Amiga, on the Firebee (a modern Coldfire based Atari-like
machine), and headless on Coldfire evaluation boards. It's also been recently
ported to the 'Kiwi' 68008 DIY microcomputer.

~~~
rjsw
> ... it also includes a full hard disk driver which is something Atari's
> never included without an add-on.

I don't remember having to do anything to use a hard disk with any of the
official versions of TOS.

I have an SH204 "shoebox" HD from the initial developer offer.

~~~
amiga-workbench
Those ACSI cables are a massive pain in the ass to lay your hands on nowadays,
the D-Sub connectors haven't been manufactured in the necessary size for ages.

~~~
tom_
Soembody did a production run a couple of years ago:
[https://www.bigmessowires.com/2016/06/04/db-19-resurrecting-...](https://www.bigmessowires.com/2016/06/04/db-19-resurrecting-
an-obsolete-connector/)

~~~
amiga-workbench
Yeah, I managed to grab the last pair off eBay.

------
jhallenworld
So frustrating with Atari.. they were only a little behind the Apple Macintosh
(but with color!). They almost made the IBM PC:

[https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/7135/the-...](https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/7135/the-
almost-was-atari-ibm-pc)

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Different Atari tho. Atari Inc (that made the A8 machines you link to here)
and Atari Corp were two different companies. The latter headed by Jack Tramiel
with a few assets purchased from the former.

~~~
walkingolof
Those assets included the A400/800, which was designed by Jay Miner, same guy
that went on designing the Amiga that Commodore bought

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Yeah and those assets also potentially included rights to the Amiga Loraine IP
itself, depending on who you talk to. Hence the lawsuit that ensued.

------
DominoTree
I knew this existed but had no idea it was still under pretty active
development. How cool!

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Very active. Getting close to 1.0, and pretty much at parity and beyond the
original TOS.

------
sys_64738
Tramiel Operation System (TOS) named. after the legendary computer icon, Jack
Tramiel.

~~~
walkingolof
A trio of Jack Tramiel profiles by Kim Justice:

JACK ATTACK: The Story of Jack Tramiel at Commodore, Part 1 - Kim Justice
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd9kmBn0M9k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd9kmBn0M9k)

Jack Tramiel Part 2: The Commodore 64 vs The TI-99/4A and the American
Computer Crash - Kim Justice
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDJqocxoOBA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDJqocxoOBA)

The Last Stand of Jack Tramiel: The Atari ST vs The Commodore Amiga - Kim
Justice
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bMJt65Jm5E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bMJt65Jm5E)

