Mainframe Computer Music on Microcomputers

Composers of computer music have for many years had to struggle with the problem that if they wished to do any serious work they either had to join the long queues waiting to use the facilities of one of the all too few institutions who could afford large computers, such as IRCAM or MIT or risk working with inferior equipment at home. With the development of truly powerful personal computers it has become possible to port software from mainframe systems to a system individual composers can afford. This paper will look at the problems, both hardware and software, which had to be solved to realize this for one particular machine, the Atari ST.