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[ Atariscne.org - News ] New zeST update!

Yesterday Zerkman released a new version of the zeST Atari ST FPGA replica machine.

Brief list of  zeST 2026-05-18 improvements:

• Blitter chip support, with help from Thadoss / Dune.  One step closer to STe chipset compatibility!
• Optimized DMA-chip, the new DMA uses us far less FPGA resources
• Audio out, you can now get analogue audio out with the help of a I2S-based audio DAC
• And various Linux-host improvements, such as bugfixed GEMDOS harddrive (fixes some programs that didn't work previously), new kernel (6.12), improved keyboard management, more drivers for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices.

🔗 Check out the complete zeST release notice

💾 Get the latest zeST at the Download directory

[ Atariscne.org - News ] Buxton Bytes 2026, "Buxton Bytes Back", Party Report

This year’s Buxon Bytes ran from the 8th to the 11th of May, once again from the idyllic surroundings of Thirkelow, a lovely farmhouse tucked away in the hills just outside Buxton, surrounded by fields, sheep, more sheep, and the kind of quintessential English countryside that makes you briefly forget the rest of the world exists, and the trials and tribulations of everyday life.

[ Atariscne.org - News ] YM2149 emulation using Amiga's Paula

Leonard/Oxygene elaborates on his experiences in emulating the YM2149 chip on Amiga in a fresh blog article. Oxygene's AmigAtari demo was showcasing first results at Revision party in 2020.

🔗 Read more on Leonards Block

Thanks to Charon for the hint!

[ Atariscne.org - News ] News in Brief - News Snippets.

A quick look at a number of things happening close together in a very short time.

Spring and summer seem to be the most intense period for demo parties and the releases that come with them. Plus there are a few stories which we could well miss, if we’re not careful.

[ Atariscne.org - News ] Outline 2026 is over

The Outline timetable says: "12:00 GTFO or Help cleaning", so while Havoc and friends are swinging the broom, we can sip at our coffee and enjoy some party impressions and results.

A quick Outline overview, photos by Jade

Atari activity has been spotted! 42Bastian was hyperactive in the small size intro competitions with some nice screens: RTB, Fountain and Zini for Jaguar. 

This Atari Jaguar 256 Bytro is utterly beautiful

First place in the oldschool 256 Byte category was taken by F#READY with an Atari 8-Bit entry called Flexus. Further, LX took part with Lynx releases in both the oldschool 128 Bytro and 256 Bytro compo, but no further information on those is available at the moment.

On ST we got three screens by Cortin, nice little contributions and partly looking really interesting.

On the Atari demo side of things we also had "YOFO", as a first release by Scion, a young group made of old people. Be aware that there is more to see than what is shown in the video capture. But this secret is left to reveal for real hardware warriors.

YOFO by Scion - The most orange ST demo so far

Then we got a couple of nice Atari ST graphics. Mysterious #592C63/akaikoshi striked back with a piece of his sticker collection and an additional anti-capitalistic motive. Steffest/Desire won the competition with an impressive and somewhat scary picture.

stickers by Akaikoshi - the new brand on the market

a random Amiga scener visualised: "Harbinger" by Steffest

Dma-Sc and Doclands both were present and hold up the Atari chiptunes flag in the music compo, ranking 3rd and 5th place. These entries are not available yet, but will certainly pop up in the sndh archive. I remember some very nice and clean lead sounds in Dma-Sc's track on the stream.

The attendance is reported to have been a bit smaller sized this year, while the number of releases and particularly those of high quality went straight uphill in some categories.

As a small but painful step outside the Atari box:
The new school demos were really remarkable and packed. There was about a handful of entries which seemed to be the clear compo highlight, but the show went on and on. Among others, groups like Guidline or GDA were having their comebacks. And Majestetic released a nice homage to the 2000s PC demoscene spirit.

First place went to "Kablam!" by Trepaan which was a complete detective movie like experience, and entirely atmospheric and beautiful. Haujobb delivered a very uplifting fantasy console demo which also represents this year's Evoke invitation and features the new scene standard of unreadable greetings. The vibrant and funky soundtrack by Jazz was also winning the music competition at Outline.

If I would have to pick a favourite, that would be "Human Kaleidoskope" by Teadrinker. An absolutely gallant demo production, playing with one's imagination, accompanied by a really, really, really good soundtrack :-)

As far as I can judge, I think this has been the most comprehensive newschool demo competition at any Outline so far.

But let's not stretch the Atarians attention span any further with those side roads. Have a look at all the releases on the respective pages, if you like.

Thanks to spkr and Jade for sharing a few of their insights for this article!

🔗 Outline 2026 on Demozoo

🔗 Outline 2026 on Pouet