Recommended applications

This is a list of recommended Atari applications that are among the best in their respective categories. Criterias are: overall quality, compatibility with different screen resolutions and support for current file formats.

Program Version Date
EmuTOS 1.3 2024-03-17
HD-Driver 12.03 2024-01-04
GFA-Basic Editor (GBE) 3.74 2024-01-01
MyAES 0.99 beta 1 2023-12-31
Vision 4.9b2 2022-01-03
2nd Life 1.0 Emulators
2nd Life is a complete TRS-80 Model III emulator for Atari ST, STE, TT, Falcon or compatible computers. It can be used to run most TRS-80 Model I and III programs. It emulates the Z-80 microprocessor, video subsystem, keyboard, cassette relay, printer port, internal clock, floppy disk controller and four 80-track single sided disk drives. The emulation code is written completely in assembler, and as a result the emulated computer runs on a 16 MHz 68000 (STE) virtually as fast as the original machine. But even on an 8 Mhz ST the perceived speed is close to that of the original machine, as the emulator optimizes key ROM subroutines.
7up 2.33pl8 Editors
GEM based text editor for the Atari ST. It utilizes all the functions of GEM including drop down menus, windows, dialog boxes, and desktop icons.
AHCC 6.0 C
AHCC is a Pure C compatible compiler/assembler for the ATARI ST and its offspring.
Aniplayer 2.23.1 Video-Player
Aniplayer is a media player in window or fullscreen with sound in D2D.
Movie player: Video For Windows, MOV Quicktime (and VR 1/2), FLI Autodesk Animator, RM Real Media., Video MPEG 1/2 with sound.
Audio player: AVR Audio Visual Research, WAV Microsoft RIFF-WAVE, AIF Apple Interchange File Format, DVS Falcon Winrec, Real Audio RA 14K4 and 28K8, MPEG 1/2 Audio Layer 1,2, AC3 Dolby Digital, OGG Ogg Vorbis
ArtWorx 2.09 Illustration software

Atari Works 1.207 Office

Beats of Rage Beat'em up

Calamus SL SL2015R4 Desktop Publishing (DTP)
Professional DTP programme with many additional modules. Is still in use today.
CoMa 5.3.2 Communication
Fax application for modems and digital answering machines (the latter only in connection with certain types of modem).
CoNnect 97b Communication
Very good software for remote data transmission.
Cypress 1.73 Word processor

DynaCADD CAD

EmuTOS 1.3 Operating systems (Singletasking)
EmuTOS is a GEMDOS compatible operating system for Atari ST series computers. It is made from Digital Research's GPLed original sources and is a free and open source replacement for common TOS images for Atari ST emulators.
FreeMiNT 1.19 Operating systems (Multitasking)
FreeMiNT is a multitasking, multiuser operating system. It belongs to the same family as System V, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NeXT Step, HP/UX, Ultrix, Solaris, QNX, Linux. A large number of Unix software has been compiled for FreeMiNT and is available in source and binary form from FTP services.
GEM-Setup 2.01 Utilities - General
GEMSetup is an all-purpose setup and install tool. Using GEMSetup, you can build installers that run on all TOS compatible operating systems, like TOS, MagiC or N.AES. The main features consist of file installation from LZH archives, licence text display, automatic installation of language specific resources on the basis of the user's choice, setting of environment variables, startup script configuration and much more.
GEMGraph 2.20 Chart graphics
GEMGraph version 2 is a powerful chart software for ATARI computers.
GFA-Basic Editor (GBE) 3.74 Basic - GFA
GBE is short for 'GFA-Basic Editor'. It's fully compatible with v3.x tokenized files and offers many new features, most importantly multi-tasking. Work on documentation, resource files, or whatever without ever having to exit the editor. It's a full IDE, meaning there's no need for the old MENU.PRG shell that was used for compiling. Everything can be done from GBE. It supports building 68K and Coldfire V4E binaries regardless of the host machine. This is accomplished via two separate libraries. The entire GFA manual is included and GBE provides context sensitive help via ST-Guide.
HD-Driver 12.03 Drivers - Devices
When it is about a driver for hard disk drives, removable media drives or memory cards, for more than 20 years Atari users have relied on HDDRIVER. HDDRIVER supports all fully Atari compatibles and numerous software emulators. With HDDRIVER you can use any hard disk drive, removable media drive or memory card that can be connected to the Atari. With many optical drives DVD-RAM, DVD+RW or BD-RE media can also be used for storing data.
HypView 0.40.0 Hypertext
The project HypView aims at developing a free ST-Guide replacement. ST-Guide is hypertext viewer for TOS compatible systems and used to display online help in many applications. It allows to read documentations not only in a linear manner (from beginning to end), but also to freely jump across chapters by clicking on a highlighted text passage.
JAnE 2.20 Editors
Powerful text editor, up to ten texts simultaneously, syntax highlighting, programmable.
Jinnee 2.5 Desktop - Jinnee
jinnee is a desktop for the operating systems MagiC, MagiC PC and MagiC Mac. jinnee offers many functions that should make your work with the computer more comfortable. In doing so, jinnee tries to combine the best of all desktops. You will find jinnee functions of the Macintosh Finder, the Windows desktop and of course many proven features of the Atari desktop.
Litchi 1.3I FTP
Next generation FTP client. STinG or MiNTnet+Gluestick TCP/IP layer needed.
Mini vMac Emulators - Mac 2015-01-16
Emulates a classic 68k Mac in a GEM window. Requires a rom file and a disk image with the Mac operating system. Due to CPU emulation, Mini vMac demands a fast Atari with at least a 040 CPU.
MyAES 0.99 beta 1 Operating systems (Multitasking)
The goal of MyAES is to provide a free, fast, reliable and modern AES. It should be at least as good as "standard" AESes (MagiC and NAES are the references), but the second step is to have a good portable AES for future machines.
NetSurf 2.9upd1 Browser

OLGA 1.51 System extensions
"Object Linking for GEM Applications": OLGA Manager 1.51, OLGA Tools 1.50, description of the OLGA protocol (ASCII/ST-Guide), C(!) source code of the Manager,C/Pascal-Includes. Freeware!
Papillon 3.04 Graphics

papyrus 10.20 Word processor

Phoenix 5.5 Database - Phoenix

PhotoLine 2.3 plus EBV

Pixart 4.52 Graphics

qed 5.0.5 Editors
A very powerful text editor from Germany. QED is fast, GEM based and supports the calling of external programs allowing you to make, link, compile and run your own source code via any SE compatible shell. It supports the use of any loaded font (rather than the System font) if (Speedo)GDOS or NVDI (v3 or later) is installed and prints using 1st Wordplus printer drivers so there should be no problem finding a driver to suit. Like Everest, it supports the use of kurzels (shortcuts for commonly used words and phrases), keyboard shortcuts and the GEM Clipboard. A macro recorder is built in. Supports the following protocols, VA_START, AP_TERM, AC_HELP, SH_WDRAW, SC_CHANGED, DRAG & DROP, OLGA and SE and supports the use of long filenames (on systems offering this feature).
ResourceMaster 3.651 Development - Resource Editor
The Resource Master is an excellent resource editor that meets all modern resource creation requirements. An integrated icon editor, which also supports colour icons in all colour resolutions and animated icons, and a modern user interface are features of the program.
Signum! 4.4 Word processor - Signum

Smurf 1.06 Effects

STarCall Pro 3.2D Communication
Recommended terminal program. Features: GEM, terminal full screen or window, any fonts, status and fee display, full ANSI colour/ANSI greyscale, all attributes such as blinking text! Function keys, text editor, buffer, quote, citation, mini mail box, full screen chat, protocols as modules, password protection, large number memory with initstring and baud, batches for autologin, accounting, protocols, updates via mail box.
SysInfo 5.02 System info
SysInfo is a utility program that provides a very comprehensive list of information about your system including processor type, cookie jar listing, FPU info, Blitter info
Tempus Word NG 5.4 Word processor
Tempus-Word has been specially developed for editing large texts with many cross-references, footnotes/chapters and endnotes. For illustrated documents over 250 pages, Tempus-Word just gets started; while other systems slow down or have problems with correct pagination, Tempus-Word remains consistently fast, even if it ends up with over 1500 pages.
TeraDesk 4.08 Desktop
Open-souce desktop for the 16-bit and 32-bit lines of Atari computers. A small, fast and simple desktop suitable for the modern multitasking environments.
Texel 2.2 Spread sheet
Spreadsheet for TOS and MagiC
That's Write 4.12 Word processor - That's Write

Troll 1.8F News & Email
Next generation usenet newsreader and email client. STinG or MiNTnet+GlueSTiK TCP/IP layer needed.
Vision 4.9b2 Graphics
VISION is a software tool under GEM : - Managing image formats JPEG, TIFF, GIF, TARGA, BMP, IMG, X-IMG, DEGAS, ART DIRECTOR, NEOCHROME - Multiple documents, with clipboard management - Tools : pencil, eraser, lines, ellipses, rectangles, blocks, zooms x 2, 4 ,8, 16, free block, arrays, color selection dropper, text, hand, palette management - Image processing : resize, negative, mirors, rotations (1° accuracy), filtering (using DSP on FALCON), brightness, gamma correction
XaAES 1.6.4 Operating systems (Multitasking)
XaAES: A multitasking AES replacement for MiNT. New versions are distributed as part of FreeMiNT.
XAct/SciGraph 3.1 Chart graphics

zBench 0.99 Benchmark

zView 1.0.2 Graphic converters
Zview is a plugin-based image and PDF browser, converter and viewer for Atari TOS and compatible systems. Load JPG, TIFF (almost all the variants), PDF, GIF, Animated GIF, (X)IMG, Degas ( even the compressed ones), Neochrome, PNG, BMP, Eureka RAW, GodPaint and TGA pictures. Save in JPG, TIFF and GodPaint with many extended options.
ZX-Spectrum 2.07 Emulators - Sinclair
Sinclair ZX-Spectrum Emulator version 2.07. This program emulates a SINCLAIR ZX-Spectrum/48 computer, a Z80-machine with integrated BASIC interpreter, 48 KB ram, equipped with joystick (Kempston, Interface 2) and optional Interface 1 with up to 8 microdrives (Sinclair specific "mass"-storage devices).
ZX81-Emulator 2.1 Emulators - Sinclair
Sinclair ZX81 Emulator. This program allows the Atari ST computers to emulate one of the first home microcomputers, the Timex - Sinclair ZX81.
49 applications.
Standard support
GEMScript
OLGA
BubbleGEM
Programs written in...
Assembler
GFA-Basic
Pure C
STOS