Steem SSE
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V. 3.3.0, 28/02/2012

Steem Engine, by Anthony & Russell Hayward
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Steem is a well known Atari ST emulator. It used to be the best ST emulator.
Its development was stopped in 2004, at v3.2.
Since then, it has remained the best ST emulator with respects to "gameplay",
 but other ST emulators like Hatari and SainT are trying to usurp Steem's 
throne.

In 2011 the Steem authors (Hayward bros) released the source code for further
development.

SSE
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Steem SSE is a new version of Steem based on this release. 
The 'SSE' stand for 'Steven Seagal Edition'. Steven Seagal is a well known 
Aikido grandmaster, action movie star, musician and playboy.
 This is also my handle at http://www.atari-forum.com. 
'SSE' is a bit pompous but it seems better for now to call this version 
different from the mainstream one (that is, Steem), because it rips code off
 the competing Hatari emulator, which raises ethical and technical issues, and
there are other hacks as well.
Whether this becomes the main version or not depends on the Steem authors, and
on other people coming or not with alternatives.
It is still possible to do without Hatari code in the future, if one is ready
to code a "third way".

Improvements
------------

There are improvements of two kinds: emulation and features.

The new features are:

- F12 starts/stop emulation, like in most other emulators. The odd Steem key
combination was confusing, and dangerous! Imagine your boss barging in and you
don't know how to stop your virtual ST...
Please edit your shortcuts if this key was assigned. The old combination still
works too.

- Option automatic mouse capture on/off.

- Drive led: green for reading, red for writing. Yellow for hard disk.

- Option 'Hacks'. To have some programs running better, we sometimes use 
'hacks' because some features are hard to precisely emulate. There's an option
 in case those hacks break another program.

- STF/STE switch. The STE was the better computer but most programs were coded 
with the older STF in mind.

- Option 'Display Size', with 3 settings, no less!
'Original' is what you had in Steem 3.2, and is fine for most programs. It's 
also close to what a real Atari SC1224 monitor showed.
'Large' adds some pixels and is the max for fullscreen (800 pixels width). 
'Very Large' is more like on Hatari and displays all the ST could possibly 
display, but that most users didn't see due to the monitor. This could reveal
some trash.
Due to the way the ST shifter works and the way the setting was implemented,
 some rare programs work poorly with the 'Large' option.

- Option 'No keyboard click'. It's like on the GEM Control Panel, but always
available.



Emulation improvements are best appreciated by giving a list of programs that
run better in Steem SSE. Many improvements come from using Hatari code, others
from translating other insights in the Steem system (like ijor's DIV timings),
and some are actually mine (a minority!).
This list of programs contains some gems in any case.

- Games
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Enchanted Land ("no patch no hack")
The Final Conflict
Hyper Force (STF)
International 3D Tennis (STF)
Live & Let Die (STF)
Nightdawn (STF)
No Buddies Land 100% (vertical scrolling)
Rainbow Island (auto 231) (STF)
Sentinel (Auto) (mouse hacks)
Seven Gates Of Jambala

- Demos
--------

Beyond by Kruz 
Death of the Left Border (STF)
Delirious 4:NGC, Nightmare, Tekila 
Dragonnels: Loader, Menu, Rainbow Wall, Unlimited Bobs
Forest aka shforstv.exe (STF)
Froggies Over The Fence: Menu 
Japtro (STF)
More or less Zero (STE, *2MB*)
No Cooper: Greetings
Nostalgic-O: Lemmings 100%
Omega Full Overscan Screen (just a hack)
Pandemonium: Loader
Phaleon: Loader
PYM: Best Part of the Creation, ST-CNX (STF)
SoWatt: Menu (STF)
Super Neo Demo Show (all RAM configs)
Swedish New Year Demo/TCB
Transbeauce 2: Loader, Menu
Union Demo: Menu
V8 Music System (no patch)

- Menus
--------

Here we only care about the intros, not the games on the menus.

Automation 168
BBC 52
Lemmings 40 (STF)


And countless other programs!

Web sites:

http://ataristeven.host898.net/Steem.htm
http://code.google.com/p/steem-engine/ (source)
