MagiC

MagiC was originally released as Mag!X (or MagiX) in 1992. At that time, TOS featured only limited multitasking in the form of desk accessory programs, simple programs accessed from the "Desk" menu and that multitasked using cooperative task switching. In contrast, MagiC offered preemptive multitasking, giving the ability to run multiple (well-behaved) GEM applications as well as other non-graphical software on the Atari ST series the Atari STE and Atari TT.

The name changed from Mag!X to MagiC with the release of version 3.0, which added many improvements and a significant amount of MiNT compatibility. Version 4.0 added support for the Atari Falcon, and finally in 1995 version 5.0 brought the significant addition of loadable file system support, along with an implementation of VFAT with long file names, and a number of other improvements to the GEMDOS layer including threads and signals.

MagiC versions 6.0 through 6.2 were released also for use with Atari clone machines of the late 1990s (e.g. Milan manufactured by MILAN Computersystems, Hades by Medusa Computer Systems). They include significant enhancements, such as support for FAT32, increased MiNT compatibility, and support for newer processors and hardware found in the clone systems. Version 6.2 is the latest for Atari machines.

Atari was slow to improve the hardware of its systems, and in the mid- to late 1990s it was apparent that the Apple Macintosh systems, and some clones by other manufacturers, were a superior hardware platform. Given that Ataris and Macs shared a very similar user interface, the latter were a logical upgrade path for many Atari users. So in 1994 a variant of MagiC known as MagiCMac was released, allowing Atari ST users to run their software on modern Mac hardware.

At first MagiCMac was offered for Macs with Motorola 680x0 CPU, a version for PPC CPUs followed. Later releases offered improved integration with the classic Mac OS, and allowed well-behaved Atari software to access the native graphics modes offered by the host machine, in addition to emulations of the standard Atari screen modes.[1] Version 6.2 is the latest for machines with Mac OS classic (up to version 9.2).

With introduction of Mac OS X on newer PowerMacs, the original MagiC-Mac would no longer run as it operated at a low level within the former Mac OS classic in order to function. Newer OS X versions have no system-wide emulation layer for Motorola 680x0 code included, as was the case before. So in 2002 a reworked variant MagiC-Mac X for OS X was released.

The program itself is a "Carbon" program; it did run under Mac OS X only, not with Mac OS 9.x or in the "Classic Environment". To maximise effectiveness it contained improved code, and integrated parts of the Asgard68k emulator written in hand-optimised PPC assembler (also used in MESS and MAME projects), to reach high emulation speeds on machines with PowerPC processors (typically PowerPC G4 and G5 Macs). MagiC-Mac X was updated in 2004 and 2009, becoming a "Universal Binary" and running natively on both older PowerPC Macs and newer Macs with Intel processors under Mac OS X (version 10.4 "Tiger" to 10.6 "Snow Leopard"). Version 2.0 is the latest for PowerPC machines.[2]

In summer 1996 the version MagiC-PC was released, now allowing Atari ST users to run their software on top of MS-DOS based Windows 9x to ME, as well as under more modern Windows NT 4 to XP. Atari files and directories were organised in drive containers, which represented bigger file archives for Windows. Windows' own directories were mapped as partitions to access them. Networking access and printing via Windows and Novell NetWare was provided for the Atari environment.

System requirements for emulating an Atari ST or STE system were:

• A PC with minimum of 16 megabytes of RAM
• An Intel 80486 processor, or those comparable in performance by other manufacturers

For speed similar to an Atari Falcon system (with Motorola 68030):

• An Intel Pentium (P5/80586) at 100 MHz and higher, or comparable processors of other manufacturers

To achieve faster program execution than on original Atari environments, higher clocked CPUs and more usable system memory were good upgrades for PCs.[3]

MagiC-PC is fast but unsupported on newer versions of Windows. It does still work but may cause problems (hangs) when trying to shut down the Atari session itself (pausing the emulation and then closing it is possible as work-around). It can help to change the original "Shutdown" program that comes with MagiC (and is ending an Atari session) for a different one. Restarting a session is then done using the "MagiC" menu bar under Windows.[4][5][6] Installing Magic-PC on a USB flash drive is also possible, so the emulation environment can be used on computers under Windows 7 and higher.[7]

An alternative to MagiC-PC is Hatari, especially under other free operating systems like Linux. Because the program is written in plain C, using SDL libs and in part UAE (emulator) for multimedia and hardware, it requires quite performant processors (over 1 GHz for Atari ST/STE emulation, over 2 GHz for Atari Falcon emulation). For faster program execution the machine should be at least of the Pentium 4 or Athlon XP class respectively.[8]