Welcome to MakeAtr, the first in hopefully a series of useful ATR utilities.
This program may be freely distributed but not sold alone or with any other
program for profit.  Original Docs must also be with the program.  'nuff
said, here goes...

What is MAKEATR
---------------

This program will take almost any atari executable and turn it into an ATR
disk image you can run directly from most Atari 8-bit emulators.  It should
work with any stand alone program that does not need DOS.  The ATR file it
generates is only large enough to contain 3 boot sectors (384 bytes) and the
file itself.  This makes it easier to load any specific program without
having to use any Atari Dos.  It should also make it easy to develop a
front end menu program for an Atari Emulator.


How to use MAKEATR to create an ATR
-----------------------------------

Make ATR is used by simply typing from a DOS prompt:

MAKEATR atrname.atr executable

Where atrname.atr is the ATR file to create and executable is an Atari 8-bit
executable.  Common extenders for executables are .EXE, .COM, .BIN, .OBJ or
even none at all with the extender as part of the name.  If the file you
want is contained within ATR or XFD you will need to use another program
to extract the file you want.  You can use my program ATREXTR.  There are
also other programs such as ADIR for doing this.  If the ATR file you
pecify on the command line exists, it will be overwritten.  If a program
fails to work when booting the ATR  (screen turns red), please ensure that
it works when loaded normally from DOS or another method.

Programs that consist of more than one file, or require access to files
via DOS, will not work obviously since the disk created can only contain
one file and there is no DOS emulation.

How to load the ATR
-------------------

With XLIT, simply use:

ATARI -nobasic atrname.atr  (using any other options desired)

It will automatically load and run.  A 'k' will display in the upper left
hand corner of the screen while the program loads unless the program puts
up its own Splash screen.  If for any reason the screen turns red, that
indicates an error occured loading from the disk.

Press Shift-F8 to exit XL-IT and load something else.


For other emulators, SIO2PC, or APE, follow the directions and set the ATR
to be on Drive 1, and boot up the emulator or the real Atari.  Disable BASIC
via options for the emulator or pressing the OPTION key.


How to create an executable back from the ATR file
---------------------------------------------

Use another utility called UnMakAtr by me.


How MAKEATR came about
----------------------

I was working on an ATR programmers library, when this came to mind.
Other items in the library that make it to future utilities or one
ultimate utility include:
ATR Directory sorter, ATR creation, ATR file extraction, ATR file insertion,
Shrink an ATR to fit its contents, ATR directory, File viewers & converters.

Anyone with information on Sparta Dos or other disk formats drop me a line.
I am also interested in algorithms for determining the DOS format of a disk.
Specifically MyDos 1050 Density vs Atari 1050 Density,  How to tell if a
disk is in Atari or MyDos format.  I think Mydos doesn't store File Number
within each sector along with the sector link information when there is above
a certain number of sectors.  Also complete Docs on DCM format would be
appreciated.


Ken Siders
mail:ken_siders@compuserve.com
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ken_siders/atari.htm


Last Official Update 09/3/97 version 0.9

Unofficial Update 11/11/02 version 0.9-1 by Jeffry Johnston
Reason for update:
  Seperated makeatr.c source from the other ATR utilities
  Created makeatr.h header for makeatr.c
  Made makeatr.c and makeatr.h sources ANSI compliant
  Fixed a small bug in the ATR header
