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How to play Atari ST games

/ How to play / Atari ST games

The Atari ST (1985) was the Amiga's great rival, very popular in Europe for games and loved by musicians for its built-in MIDI ports. The STE (1989) added better sound and graphics, and some games were made for it only.

We have about 1,600 Atari ST games on My Abandonware.

Atari ST emulators

Hatari is our pick: free, on Windows, Mac and Linux, and ready to play with no ROM to find. Steem SSE is a very accurate choice on Windows and Linux.

  • Hatari (Windows, Mac with Apple Silicon, Linux): emulates the ST, the STE, and, still partly, the TT and Falcon. It comes with EmuTOS, a free replacement of the Atari system, so it runs most games at once. Recommended.
  • Steem SSE (Windows, Linux): one of the most accurate Atari ST emulators, still updated, with many options for tricky games. It needs a TOS file (see below).

Hatari also exists as a RetroArch core, see our page about multi-system emulators.

Running Atari ST games in Hatari

Drop the disk image on the Hatari window, or start Hatari and choose the disk in its menu. The Atari boots from the disk, and most games start by themselves.

  • Download Hatari and start it.
  • Drag and drop the game's disk image on the window. You can also press F12 to open the options, go to Floppy disks, and choose the file for drive A.
  • The game starts. If it shows the Atari desktop instead, double-click the disk icon, then the game program (a .prg file).
  • F11 switches to fullscreen, F12 opens the options again.

Our game archives hold one of these disk formats:

  • .st, .msa: the usual floppy images.
  • .stx: an exact copy of the original disk, copy protection included. Use it when the other versions of a game refuse to start.
  • .dim: another floppy image format, less common.

When a game asks for disk 2, press F12 and put the next file in drive A.

TOS, EmuTOS and the ST or STE model

TOS is the Atari's built-in system. Hatari's free EmuTOS runs most games, but some need a real TOS: TOS 1.02 or 1.04 for ST games, TOS 1.62 for STE games.

If a game crashes or shows a black screen, try a real TOS file. It's copyrighted, so emulators don't include it. You have 2 ways to get one:

  • Dump it from your own Atari ST.
  • Find it on the internet, using a search engine like Google or Bing.

In Hatari, press F12, choose the TOS file in ROM, and set the machine in System: ST for most games, STE for games made for it. The game's name or description often says "STE" when it needs one.

Games in a folder

Some games come as a folder of files rather than a disk image, often games made to be installed on a hard disk. Hatari can show a folder of your computer as a hard disk of the Atari.

Press F12, go to Hard disks, and choose the game folder as the GEMDOS drive. Boot the machine: the folder appears as drive C on the Atari desktop. Open it and start the game's .prg file.

I need help!

We do not provide support for running abandonware games. The Atari ST community is very active, and very helpful.

Ask on Atari-Forum, the main Atari ST forum. Atarimania lists almost every ST game, often with notes on the right model and TOS. The Hatari manual explains every option.

Checked in October 2026 against each emulator's own documentation and, where it exists, its source code. Game counts and file sizes come from our own catalogue. These guides were drafted with the help of an AI assistant and checked by hand before publishing. If something here is out of date, tell us.