Richard Spowart and Joe Connor take a look at this intriguing Atari ST emulator...
Taming PaCifiSTPaCifiST runs fine from DOS or via Windows 95. After extracting the compact archive (less than 200Kb) setting up PaCifiST involves manually editing a configuration file (PACIFIST.INI) using a text editor (EDIT.EXE under DOS, Notepad under Windows). You may need to change. This file sets the paths to the various data files used by PaCifiST. It's straightforward enough but seems unnecessarily messy in this point and click era.In common with other Atari ST software only emulators you will also need a "TOS image file" - a copy of the contents of the TOS chips inside every real Atari ST (see boxout). A utility program (DUMP_ROM.PRG) is supplied with PaCifiST to make it easy to copy the TOS chips inside your Atari machine. PaCifiST currently supports TOS 1.00, 1.62 or 2.06 but unfortunately skips support for TOS 1.04 which was fitted to large numbers of machines. With Pentium's sold as entry level machines these days raw processor speed isn't an issue anymore and any Pentium based machine will run Atari ST software faster than the real thing but the author reckons the minimum specification is a 486DX-100MHz. PaCifiST is developed on an AMD586-133MHz (roughly equivalent to a Pentium-75MHz) and the emulation normally runs faster than 8MHz at full frame rate with sound enabled for most games. To hear sound you'll need a SoundBlaster or Gravis Ultrasound or compatible sound card and PaCifiST takes about 1.5Mb memory for itself. Playtime!On starting PaCifiST the opening screen is displayed followed by a screen which looks similar to a disassembler. If everything is configured OK pressing G [Return] will transport you to the standard Atari ST Desktop. Drive A will be configured to use whatever is being emulated as though you were using a real ST.However, booting from floppies isn't recommended, in fact, it's strongly discouraged in favour of a utility called IMGBUILD which enables you to create DOS image files of standard double density ST disks and is the recommended way to load any non-protected commercial software. If you own commercial games which feature anti-piracy devices it is possible to persuade these games to run but this is beyond the scoop of this article. By pointing PACIFIST.INI to access the disk image for drive A (you prepared earlier using IMGBUILD) the disk can be read and software run from the desktop in the traditional manner. Most demo disks will also work under PaCifiST. Remember STOS - the application which suffered badly at the hands of a TOS upgrade many eons ago? Well, this works fine under PaCifiST, as verified by Tony "STOSer" Greenwood himself. In use PaCifiST is remarkably stable and, minor glitches, limitations, and irritations aside, runs a wide range of software. The ASCII format documentation is both comprehensive and informative and certainly added to the enjoyment of using the program. It's worth pointing out PaCifiST isn't a substitute for a real ST, if you want to play the odd Atari game on your PC or show off some classic Atari games to jaded PC owners this is the program for you. PaCifiST does not currently support MIDI devices or other hardware plug-ins but with real Atari machines changing hands for less than œ50 there really doesn't seem much point - and you'll need to own the real thing anyway to copy the TOS ROMs won't you?!
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