This is an experimental system for displaying Atari 8-bit ATASCII animations using Javascript and HTML5.
The system is not multiline aware yet, but at this point seems to play most animations with few glitches.
Hidden commands
The following hidden commands can be invoked by hitting a key on your keyboard while an animation is playing:
| key | Action |
|---|---|
| P | Print screen -- create an IMG element for saving screen capture as PNG |
| C | Capture animation -- toggle to start/finish saving frames. Makes animated GIF. |
| ESC | Stop animation |
These two hidden commands work only in diagnostic mode:
| key | Action |
|---|---|
| LEFT | Step backward one frame |
| RIGHT | Step forward one frame |
- Numerous emulation fixes
- Rudimentary support for controlling playback speed
- Added full-screen mode
- First publicly-available version. Still a beta.
I found the following resources very handy in decoding the ATASCII format:
- Mapping the Atari Appendix 10.
- ATASCII table at joyfulcoder.net.
- ATASCII article at wikipedia.org.
One big reason I was inspired to create this viewer was finding the old "Break Movie Warehouse" website, which is archived in the Wayback Machine. This site was created by Tom D'Ambrosio to showcase the many ATASCII animations he created over the years. It included a Java applet by Tony Smolar which would play the animations in a web browser. But Java has changed a lot since then, and the applet doesn't work anymore.