{"product_id":"atari-legacy-q3-2026","title":"Atari Legacy Q3 2026","description":"\u003ch2\u003eIssue 02: the Falcon is being built again, and the magazine about it is still made \u003ci\u003eon\u003c\/i\u003e one.\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAtari Legacy\u003c\/em\u003e is back for its second quarterly issue. Ninety-two pages, full colour, in English, covering every machine that ever wore the Fuji logo: the \u003cstrong\u003eAtari 2600\u003c\/strong\u003e, the 8-bit \u003cstrong\u003eXL\/XE\/XEGS\u003c\/strong\u003e line, the \u003cstrong\u003eST \/ STe \/ TT\u003c\/strong\u003e, the \u003cstrong\u003eFalcon030\u003c\/strong\u003e and the \u003cstrong\u003eAtari Jaguar\u003c\/strong\u003e. Issue 02 (Q3 2026) leads with the \u003cstrong\u003eReFalcon Project\u003c\/strong\u003e, the first replica of an Atari Falcon motherboard ever to boot TOS, and with a long interview with the musician \u003cstrong\u003eJarosław “Yaro” Płocica\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAs far as we know, this is still the only magazine in the world typeset from cover to cover on an Atari Falcon030, in the Calamus desktop-publishing program.\u003c\/strong\u003e Every page was laid out on a real Falcon030 running a CT63 (68060) card and a CTPCI bus, driving a Radeon card at Full HD, and composed in \u003cstrong\u003eCalamus SL C2015 “Complete Edition.”\u003c\/strong\u003e No InDesign. No QuarkXPress. The magazine about Atari is \u003cem\u003emade on an Atari\u003c\/em\u003e, and that is the whole point of it. Editorial archaeology, practised rather than described.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEdited by a working physicist, and by one of the most recognised authorities on Atari 16- and 32-bit computers anywhere.\u003c\/strong\u003e Piotr “Kroll” Mietniowski holds a doctorate in physics. Across the international scene he is widely taken to be the most recognisable living expert on Atari ST, STe, TT and Falcon hardware. That mix of academic rigour and four decades at the keyboard shows in every review, teardown and interview in the issue.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eInside Issue 02\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNinety-two pages of first-hand reporting: two party reports, the second part of the Polish 8-bit demoscene history, hardware tested in the workshop, a Jaguar review, and an interview you will not find elsewhere.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eIntroduction\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eA Note from the Editor\u003c\/em\u003e. Piotr “Kroll” Mietniowski, PhD, on what the second issue set out to do, and how it was put together.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eDemoscene\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eLost Party. \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Great Gathering of the 8-bit Computer Demoscene\u003c\/em\u003e. A report from the party that still gets the whole 8-bit scene into one room.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eSilly Venture 2026SE. \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003eRetro Demoscene in the Heart of Gdańsk\u003c\/em\u003e. Inside the biggest Atari party in the world, on its home ground.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eThe History of the Polish Demoscene on 8-bit Atari (Part 2)\u003c\/em\u003e. The series continues with first-hand accounts. One group took its name straight off a wall: \u003cem\u003e“On the pavilions near where I lived, someone had spray-painted Air Star Force.\u003c\/em\u003e \u003cem\u003eAt some point, already knowing Magnus, Joker and others, I wanted to create my own group, which I named Atari Star Force, from the writing on the wall.”\u003c\/em\u003e Elsewhere a half-damaged disk bought at the Saska market, a copy of \u003cem\u003eRambrandt\u003c\/em\u003e and a home-written picture viewer turn into somebody’s first mini-demo.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eInterview with Jarosław “Yaro” Płocica\u003c\/em\u003e. \u003cem\u003e“Introvert. Modest. Withdrawn. \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003eMy only connection to the world was music.”\u003c\/em\u003e A musician on producer self-sufficiency, on the thousands of ideas that will never leave his drive, and on why the process itself is enough.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eMusic \/ MIDI\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eWhen Dreams Come True. \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003eAtari and MIDI (Part 2)\u003c\/em\u003e. Why a forty-year-old Atari still beats USB on timing. The Motorola 6850 ACIA sits hardwired to the system bus and raises a direct IRQ to an 8 MHz 68000. No operating system in the middle, no USB packet layer, and jitter low enough to hear the difference. \u003cem\u003e“In my opinion using a USB solution in a MIDI connection causes more timing problems than the built-in MIDI in over-40-year-old Atari computers. That is why I think this is still an unbeatable solution.”\u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eGame reviews\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eVROOM for the Atari Jaguar\u003c\/em\u003e. Three and a half decades after its debut, VROOM is back on the grid, thanks to the indie publisher \u003cstrong\u003eSongbird\u003c\/strong\u003e. The Jaguar version comes straight from the enhanced Atari ST build, with all the add-ons. The frame rate holds steady, the controls are tight without being twitchy, and alternate inputs work too, including rotary and mouse. A faithful recreation rather than a reinvention: no flashy upgrades, and no compromises to the original design either.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eAn Atari ST Recipe, British Style, or Entertainment with Stronger Tea\u003c\/em\u003e. After France, the series crosses the Channel. Britain in the second half of the 1980s was the coding heart of the European games industry. Bedroom coders raised on the Spectrum and the C64. Devpac and Lattice C on every desk. A specialist press (\u003cem\u003eST Format\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eST Action\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe One\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eST\/Amiga Format\u003c\/em\u003e) and distribution into every shop from Cornwall to Scotland. And the part that usually gets lost in the ST versus Amiga argument: for several years the ST was the first machine a British coder owned, which is why a good share of the games remembered today as Amiga titles were born on the Atari.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eHardware, news and hands-on\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eThe ReFalcon Project\u003c\/em\u003e. The cover story. A replica of the Atari Falcon motherboard introduced in 1992. There have been a couple of attempts to recreate the design since then, but none produced a working prototype until the turn of 2025\/26, when the first ReFalcon prototype PCB booted to TOS after five months of reverse-engineering.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eSophia 3 for the Atari XL\/XE. \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003eDigital video and audio without losing the classic character\u003c\/em\u003e. Sophia 3 goes inside the computer, in place of the GTIA, and builds the picture before anything is turned into analogue PAL or NTSC. It gives you digital DVI output plus several analogue options. An external converter has to undo the blurred lines, colour fringes and crosstalk that the machine’s own analogue path put there; this one never lets them happen. The original monitor socket and RF modulator stay live, so a CRT and composite artefacts are still there whenever they belong to the intended look.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eBack to the gaming roots\u003c\/em\u003e. \u003cem\u003e“This is a real return to the roots, one that gives a lot of quiet satisfaction and reminds me why I fell in love with games in the first place.”\u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eIs the Atari 8-bit entering a new era?\u003c\/em\u003e Can \u003cstrong\u003eRapidus\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cstrong\u003eVBXE\u003c\/strong\u003e and large language models open the door to 16-bit-class games? For years the assumption was that a 6502 running at roughly 1.79 MHz, with ANTIC and GTIA beside it, had been explored to its limit. The expansions raised the ceiling. What stayed in the way was software, and the time it takes to write it, and that is exactly what AI-assisted 6502 development is now changing.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eSoftware and programming\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eCalamus. \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Power of the Pen (Part 2)\u003c\/em\u003e. The DTP series continues: “power without the price”, how the ST quietly took over desktop publishing, and why Calamus became a cult.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eMad-Pascal. \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003eChapter 2: Bomber\u003c\/em\u003e. The cross-development series continues, building a complete game step by step with Mad-Pascal and the MADS cross-assembler.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eWhere does intelligent or life-like behaviour come from? \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003eArtificial Intelligence, Artificial Life and the Infinity of Fractals on Classic Atari Machines (Part 1)\u003c\/em\u003e. People who do not know the history of AI tend to date the field to 2012, or to 2017, and to picture room-sized mainframes at MIT or Stanford. In 1984 Joseph Hafner sat in front of an Atari 800 with 16 kilobytes of RAM and wrote a BASIC program that taught itself to play Tic-Tac-Toe.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eStory\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eThe Atari I Somehow Missed\u003c\/em\u003e. A 2600 loyalist meets a real Atari computer for the first time, at a friend’s house, with a dyed-in-the-wool IBM father driving him there. The same father who once called the people who made those games geniuses.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eA Garage Full of Worlds. \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe 2600\u003c\/em\u003e. A garage packed with Atari 2600 consoles, and the worlds still sitting inside them.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eComing in Issue 03, out December 8, 2026\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMIDI environment configuration\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMad-Pascal: sound and colours\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eInterview with Carl Fornhan (Songbird Productions)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe story of the Atari VCS, the most important console in history\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhy this issue belongs on your shelf\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe ReFalcon, first-hand.\u003c\/strong\u003e The first working Falcon motherboard replica in over thirty years, documented by the people closest to it.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eMade on the metal.\u003c\/strong\u003e Typeset on a real Atari Falcon030 in Calamus. As far as we know, no other magazine on Earth is produced this way.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eFirst-hand material.\u003c\/strong\u003e Party reports, developer interviews, and hardware tested by people who actually use it.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNinety-two pages, full colour, perfect-bound.\u003c\/strong\u003e Made to be kept.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eLimited first print run\u003c\/strong\u003e at an introductory launch price.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eWritten in English\u003c\/strong\u003e for the worldwide Atari community.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“All the scores for Trinidad were created in Notator. Without [Atari] computers, it would have taken ten days. In fact, it took me half an hour!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eJean-Michel Jarre, on using the Atari ST and Notator for \u003cem\u003eWaiting for Cousteau\u003c\/em\u003e, 1990. The closing thought of Issue 02.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eProduct specifications\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTitle: Atari Legacy\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eIssue: Issue 02 (Q3 2026)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLanguage: English\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFormat: A4 (210 × 297 mm), full colour\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBinding: Perfect-bound\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePages: 92\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eISSN: 3072-5127\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFrequency: Quarterly\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePublisher: LTEK Labs, publishing house affiliated with L-TEK Sp. z o.o.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePatrons: Katarzyna \u0026amp; Tomasz Krupnik\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eEditor-in-Chief: Piotr “Kroll” Mietniowski, PhD\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTypeset on: Atari Falcon030 + CT63 (68060) + CTPCI + Radeon, in Calamus SL C2015\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePrint run: Limited first print run\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNext issue: Issue 03, December 8, 2026\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Rhythm Gamer","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46184381579308,"sku":null,"price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0364\/7497\/8348\/files\/sq-atari-legacy-issue-02-cover.jpg?v=1789794727","url":"https:\/\/rhythmgamer.com\/products\/atari-legacy-q3-2026","provider":"Rhythm Gamer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}