Castaway 68k/Atari ST Emulators   SourceForge.net Logo
Overview ST Emulator 68k Emulator Download History Links CastCE

History

Way back in time (1995/1996) Castaway started out as an Atari ST(tm) emulator named FAST developed under SunOS 4.1.3 on SPARC(tm) systems, ported in 1996 to linux (i386). It was fun to write, yet when the interesting problems where solved and a lot of programs were running, I placed it under the GPL, mailed it to a few people and promptly lost interest in the project. The last I heard about it for a long time was the FAST floppy disc controller emulator being included into STonX.

Martin's patches in 2001 improved X11 support and completed and optimized the 68k CPU emulation. The 68k CPU emulation now seems to be one of the fastest around (and smallest in terms of source code lines), and surprisingly, there are people around using it.

The X11 implementation was discontinued and replaced by the Simple Directmedia Layer (SDL) in 2002.

FAST originally stands for fine Atari ST emulator, though this name never was any good. After briefly considering "fast", "feeble", "fickle" instead of "fine", I decided to rename the project "Castaway", given its not at all straightforward history.

Note that FAST never had anything to do with another ST emulator project, the Fake Atari ST.