TOS (The Operating System) is theoperating system of theAtari ST range of computers. This range includes the 520ST and 1040ST, their STF/M/FM and STE variants and the Mega ST/STE. Later,32-bit machines (TT,Falcon030) were developed using a new version ofTOS, calledMultiTOS, which allowedmultitasking. More recently, users have further developed TOS intoFreeMiNT.
Atari TOS (The Operating System)[1] debuted with the Atari 520ST in 1985. TOS combinesDigital Research'sGEM GUI running on top ofGEMDOS. Features include aflat memory model,DOS-compatible disk format (starting with TOS 1.04), support forMIDI, and a variant ofSCSI called ACSI in later versions. Atari's TOS is usually run from ROM chips contained in the computer: Thus, before local hard drives were available in home computers, it was an almost instant-running OS. TOS booted off floppy disks in the very first STs, but only about half a year after the ST was introduced, all ST models started shipping with the latest version of TOS inROM.[2]
The TOS desktop uses icons to represent files and devices, windows and dialog boxes to display info. The desktop file "DESKTOP.INF" was read to determine window settings, icon placements and drive icons, otherwise the standard default desktop of two floppy icons and the trash icon was used.
Later versions use "NEWDESK.INF" for saving and reading the desktop configuration.
*.TOS – "TOS" program that doesn't use GEM — i.e., similar to a PC's.EXE or.COM running in aCLI-mode box. The desktop clears the screen, turns on thetext cursor, and hides themouse pointer.
*.TTP – "TOS takes parameters". This opens adialog box wherearguments can be added for the program. It converts characters touppercase.
*.GTP – "GEM takes parameters". This opens a dialog box where arguments can be added for the program. It converts characters to uppercase.
TOS programs (but not GEM programs) can auto boot by placing them in a folder named "AUTO". TOS 1.4 allows GEM programs to be set to load automatically from the "Install Application" dialog. Programs with *.TTP extensions and environments can not be used for auto boot. Desktop accessories were placed in theroot directory of the default drive and loaded automatically.
Atari TOS is based on GEMDOS which uses a modifiedFAT12 (or, onhard disks,FAT16) file system.[3] The major differences are the fact that theboot sector does not need to contain the IBM compatiblejump sequence at the beginning (typically0xE9 0x?? 0x?? or0xEB 0x?? 0x90), the lack (before TOS 1.04) of an OEM identifier compatible with PC-based systems, and the fact that achecksum is used to mark the boot sector as executable (the PC format uses the signatureword0x55 0xAA instead). Executable boot sectors for the Atari platform typically start with anMC68K jumpopcode (e.g.0x603C, and the last two byte word must sum with the rest of the boot sector (inbig-endian word form) to0x1234 in order to be bootable.
Unlike MS-DOS, GEMDOS would typically allow disks with unusualsector andtrack counts. As such, disks with 10 or even 11 sectors per track and over 80 formatted tracks were not uncommon in the Atari community. Typically a safe combination, such as 10 sectors per track by 80 tracks, was used, yielding an unformatted capacity of 800KB, but many users pushed the capacity of their double-density disks beyond 900KB using custom formats.
GEMDOS disc file systems can be read usingDOS orWindows 9x.
1.04 (RAINBOW TOS) Many bug fixes, file selector changed, DOS-compatible disk formatting, much improved performance. However, compatibility problems with older software.
Formats: 2 chip and 6 chip ROMs (192 KB)
ROM date: 6 April 1989
Machines: 520ST, 1040ST, Mega 1, Mega 2, Mega 4, Stacy
1.06 (STE TOS, Revision 1) Support for STe machines only. Needed STE_FIX.PRG to patch bugs.
Format: 2 chip ROMs (256 KB)
ROM date: 29 July 1989
Machines: 520STE, 1040 STE
1.62 (STE TOS, Revision 2) bug fixes for the previous 1.06 STE TOS.
2.05 (Mega STE TOS) Only found in the Mega STE with 720K floppy drive.
Format: 2 chip ROMs (256 KB)
ROM date: 5 December 1990
Machines: Mega STE
2.06 (ST/STE TOS) Last TOS version for (Mega) ST/STE computers. Bug fixes, 1.44 MB disk support, memory test. Adds GTP program support (GEM-Takes-Parameters). Greatly enhanced GEM GUI.IDE hard disk booting. Atari logo display at boot-up. Automaticcold boot memory test. Supports higher resolutions.
Format: 2 chip ROMs (256 KB)
ROM date: 14 November 1991
Machines: 520ST, 1040ST, 520STE, 1040STE
2.07 used on the Falcon prototype "FX-1"
2.08 used in notebook ST. ROM also contains some notebook-specific utilities: STTRANS (null-modem/ parallel-cable data transfer),power management tools, hard disk drive tools and drivers (AHDI, XHDI, BOOKINST and BOOKFMT) and aRAMdisk installer.
3.01, 3.05, 3.06 (TT TOS) Primarily for 68030 TT support only. Supports fast "TT RAM", special TT screen resolutions etc. ST-hardware-compatible "Line-A" API dropped for extended TT functionality, forcing programmers to use GEM-compliant VDI calls etc. and thus encouraging GEM-compatible (as opposed to ST-compatible) development.
4.00, 4.01, 4.02, 4.04 (512 KB) Update for Falcon 030 machines only. 68030 only. Adds support for DSP, 16 MHz blitter and video overlay. New v3.40 AES (last single-tasking version, but MiNT/MultiTOS-multitasking-aware) supports: pop-up menus, 3D window and dialog objects (later modified to use more compatible ob_state flags instead of extended type), 256-colour "animated" icons, soft-loaded fonts, inter-app drag&drop, background window manipulation, extensible filesystems. New CPX module for international localisation configuration. V4.04 was the last official Atari version of TOS.
4.08 (512 KB) Developed and released by Milan Computersysteme for the Milan, a 68040/60 TOS/GEM computer.
4.9x (4.92, 4.98) Never officially released, though prototypes were leaked and subsequently shared.
TOS 4.92 was a version of MultiTOS, the multitasking version of TOS, in a format (.IMG) designed to be written to a ROM chip.TOS 4 ROM contains five user-selectable language versions.
EmuTOS with the built-in desktop and the desk accessory COPS
EmuTOS is a replacement for TOS (the operating system of the Atari ST and its successors), released as free software.[4] It runs on Atari andAmiga hardware and various emulators.[5] Its compatibility with computer video games for Atari ST is limited.[6]
"Row of mushroom clouds" error screen in TOS version 1.0 – 20 bombs denotes that an unspecified error has occurred
Row of bombs – a system used by TOS to display error messages as one or more rows of bombs, the exact number of bombs denoting an error specified in the manual; version 1.0 usedmushroom clouds instead
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