After two years of C64 use, I bought the Atari ST. Although the computer itself was far superior to the ’64 in almost every way, its sound chip was the most basic of affairs – a crummy Yamaha chip that Hubbard, Galway, and Whittaker scoffed at. Shivji, who had also designed the ST (in his kitchen, as legend will have it), appeared to have made a mistake here. I was overjoyed when Rob Hubbard appeared on the ST system, in 1987 somewhere, with music in some pretty good Microdeal games – “Goldrunner” and “Jupiter Probe”. Though basic in comparison to any of his recent ’64 tracks, this seemed to open up a whole future of Atari ST audio excellence. After all, wasn’t Hubbard’s ’64 game music debut, “Confuzion”, a decidedly basic effort too?

One day in late ’87 or early ’88, everything improved overnight. I got a small program called “Little Sound Demo” which, apart from some nice graphics and lots of colours on the screen, contained high-potential conversions of several classic Rob Hubbard tunes. I don’t remember which tunes, but I do remember that I was impressed to no end. Who were the exceptional guys behind this demo? Who was this “Mad Max” dude that seemed to have single-handedly improved ST sound programming by leaps and bounds? I managed to get in touch with them and even ended up spending 18 months in Germany. There, at Thalion, I worked closely together with the crème of ST programmers, including my hero Jochen “Mad Max” Hippel, the sound programmer behind the legendary “BIG Demo” (all Rob Hubbard’s tunes on the ’64 converted to the ST in large demo).

It was a time of ups and downs. On the one hand I lived in a German shithole that closed down completely at 18:00, I watched one German-dubbed movie after another, I had no home-cooked meal for 18 months and suffered dictatorial management styles. On the other hand, I worked together with people who were highly respected, there was the lovely Manuela, and I generally spent my days doing the very thing that I would gladly have done in my spare time, for free.

Although the Atari ST sound chip never amounted to as much as the ’64 SID, great stuff was done. I am not sure if technically Jochen Hippel was ever beaten, but other sound programmers/ composers left their mark on the Atari ST, too. David Whittaker actually made quite a few ST tunes, as did Tim Follin. I think Martin Galway also did a track for a 1988 roleplaying game of sorts. Even Ben Daglish did some music on the ST version of “Deflektor”, but he didn’t persevere. In the scene, which was vibrant and enthusiastic, Gunnar “Big Alec” Gaubatz of Delta Force, Cyril “Doclands” Payet of Overlanders, Laurens “The Mind” van der Klis of Quartermass Xperiment and Joris “Scavenger” de Man of Synergy ruled the sound-waves and were continually pushing the boundaries.

This CD can only pay tribute to a fraction of the finest. Here, modern-day musicians interpret classics by Hippel, Hubbard, Whittaker and de Man, among others. Some of them are poppy, some heavy, some orchestral, and some electronic. No matter what the variations in musical style of these modern interpretations, they all seek to maintain the original composition’s vibe and feel. They are sure to make the spirit of the Atari ST rise from the dead. They will whisk you back to a simpler time when 8 MHz was enough, 1 MB was the most RAM you’d ever need, 20 MB of hard disk took years to fill (even if you tried), and you took it for granted that you only had 2 colours (and needed a physically different monitor) when you wanted 640 by 400 pixels.

This isn’t the first retro-tribute CD, nor will it be the last one. I guess that just goes to show the lasting appeal of those old tunes that many of us grew up with. Right now I’m in for another evening of “SIDplay” and “SNDPlay”, a trip down memory lane.

Richard Karsmakers (Thalion Software)