Transferring Files

At some point in time, you'll want to be able to transfer files between your PC/Mac/Linux box and your Atari. This page will cover some of the possibilities.

1. Using a home-brew SneakerNet
   • floppy
   • USB memory stick / thumb drive - NetUSBee
   • SD / CF card
   • HDD
   • CDROM
2. A network between your Atari and PC
   • Ghostlink using serial port
   • PARCP using LPT (printer port)
   • Generic NULL modem serial communication with Zmodem
   • Ethernet - a TCP/IP network

SneakerNet

Simply put, you write the files to your media and bring it over to the other computer, insert the media and read the files off it.

For media like USB memory stick and thumb drives, you will need MINT and the correct drivers. The USB memory stick/thumb drive will be plug & play, so you will be able to move from Atari to PC very quickly without a reboot.

For SD, CF and HDD, the media can either be in FAT32 or TOS/DOS compatible format. For FAT32 support, you will need MagiC or MINT. It's best to use TOS/DOS compatible mode for this as normal TOS will be sufficient to access the media. Note that using these media is not plug and play (even if your SD/CF card adapter says so) as these devices will be identified as fixed hard disk by the Atari on TOS, MagiC or Mint. So when you change these type of media, you will need to power down to remove and reboot after inserting back the media. Fortunately, these media are normally in Gigabytes so there is little need to swap these media around unlike floppies.

Splitting large file

For files that do not fit on to the media, you will need to split the file. Use the program Splitter to split the files on the Atari. Use an emulator to run the Atari environment in the PC, then use the same splitter to join/split the file.

Programs for serial/LPT network

• DIALUPS : Documentation de DIALUPS by Olivier Booklage.
• Ghostlink : Ghostlink is a link between an Atari GEM Computer (Master) and a MS-DOS computer (Slave) by BLITZ.
• LPT port support on Windows : Deprotection against program access to the computer's device input/output registers on Microsoft Windows.
• PARCP : PARallel CoPier by Petr Stehlik.

Information for Ethernet networking

• Ethernet for Atari ST/Falcon
• Atari-Windows connectivity using SMB & shared folders

External links

• Full article by Matthias Arndt on 'How to use an Atari ST machine as a Linux terminal
• DIALUPS
• PARCP
• NULL modem connection between Atari and PC

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