LGR - Atari ST Computer System Review
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Date: 2022-04-14
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Comments and reviews: 10
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The 7 things I remember about having an Atari ST.
- I first remember seeing a shop display playing the game Xenon 2 Megablast. Coming from a 48k Spectrum, I knew I had to have an Atari ST. Seeing that game was a quantum leap.
- Having a large plastic case full of floppies.
- Pirate copies or getting copies off your friend. Towards the end of the era, most games had a security feature where the game asked you to type in a word from the instruction manual (what is the 5th word on page 10. The game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles actually had a codebook that was black ink on brown paper so you couldn't photocopy it
- In the UK there was stiff competition between the Amiga and ST. Similar to Xbox vs Playstation. Annoyingly most of my friends had Amiga's. One Amiga owning friend must have had over 100 games, all of them copies.
- The Atari ST was a favourite with the music industry with its MIDI port. I remember them still being used in 1993 or 1994 rather than PC's that were coming into use. In fact, my well equipped music class at school used an Atari ST.
- Back then, you could buy games magazines that came with a free floppy disc stuck onto the cover that had demo versions of new games (or tape if you were a speccy owner.
- If you did buy an original game, how awesome the packaging was. Great big cardboard boxes full of stuff and some flight sims had instruction manuals that were like 200 page textbooks. There was no expense spared.
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The 7 things I remember about having an Atari ST.
- I first remember seeing a shop display playing the game Xenon 2 Megablast. Coming from a 48k Spectrum, I knew I had to have an Atari ST. Seeing that game was a quantum leap.
- Having a large plastic case full of floppies.
- Pirate copies or getting copies off your friend. Towards the end of the era, most games had a security feature where the game asked you to type in a word from the instruction manual (what is the 5th word on page 10. The game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles actually had a codebook that was black ink on brown paper so you couldn't photocopy it
- In the UK there was stiff competition between the Amiga and ST. Similar to Xbox vs Playstation. Annoyingly most of my friends had Amiga's. One Amiga owning friend must have had over 100 games, all of them copies.
- The Atari ST was a favourite with the music industry with its MIDI port. I remember them still being used in 1993 or 1994 rather than PC's that were coming into use. In fact, my well equipped music class at school used an Atari ST.
- Back then, you could buy games magazines that came with a free floppy disc stuck onto the cover that had demo versions of new games (or tape if you were a speccy owner.
- If you did buy an original game, how awesome the packaging was. Great big cardboard boxes full of stuff and some flight sims had instruction manuals that were like 200 page textbooks. There was no expense spared.
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10p6
The Joystick / Mouse ports were put underneath to save cost. Adding the 9 pin connectors on to the main PCB would have been cheaper than underneath the keyboard, the problem was the keyboard controller was on the keyboard and only used a few lines from the main PCB (compare that to the Amiga 600 / 1200. If the controller was on the main PCB it would have made connecting the 9 pin ports much easier, but then they would have required a huge cable for all the keyboard lines. With the controller on the keyboard, and if the ports were on the main PCB then another cable (at least 12 pin) would have had to then go back to the main PCB to connect to the controller ports, adding cost for more cables and connectors. Atari could have added another IC to control the 9 pin ports on the PCB, but they would have needed to add another hardware interrupt which would have slowed down the system a little more and added more cost.
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The Joystick / Mouse ports were put underneath to save cost. Adding the 9 pin connectors on to the main PCB would have been cheaper than underneath the keyboard, the problem was the keyboard controller was on the keyboard and only used a few lines from the main PCB (compare that to the Amiga 600 / 1200. If the controller was on the main PCB it would have made connecting the 9 pin ports much easier, but then they would have required a huge cable for all the keyboard lines. With the controller on the keyboard, and if the ports were on the main PCB then another cable (at least 12 pin) would have had to then go back to the main PCB to connect to the controller ports, adding cost for more cables and connectors. Atari could have added another IC to control the 9 pin ports on the PCB, but they would have needed to add another hardware interrupt which would have slowed down the system a little more and added more cost.
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Herv-
I began with Atari 800xl, 520stf and put a second tos 2. 4 or like that also my last machine was the facon 30 and jaguar with cd player, basically the jaguar was a falcon 30 whiteout keyboard and Gem & Tos but in the future Atari have the idea to create a external keyboard and a system in cartridge and eventually a modem tu use the interface behind the jaguar but unfortunately they never did because Atari lost a ot customer in Europe, because the commun point is the compatibility between the machine was horrible, st, stf( floppy disk ), ste, stee, falcon, thanks you for your video, it reminds me some excellent souvenir; )
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I began with Atari 800xl, 520stf and put a second tos 2. 4 or like that also my last machine was the facon 30 and jaguar with cd player, basically the jaguar was a falcon 30 whiteout keyboard and Gem & Tos but in the future Atari have the idea to create a external keyboard and a system in cartridge and eventually a modem tu use the interface behind the jaguar but unfortunately they never did because Atari lost a ot customer in Europe, because the commun point is the compatibility between the machine was horrible, st, stf( floppy disk ), ste, stee, falcon, thanks you for your video, it reminds me some excellent souvenir; )
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Krzysztof
These joystick ports are not accidentally called -Atari joystick DB9 ports-. At that time, most of the major home computers on the market had such ports in this - de facto - standard, and joysticks compatible with them were also compatible with many other computers/consoles. From WiKi: -The addition of the Atari joystick port to other platforms cemented its popularity. It was the standard for the Atari 8-bit family of home computers and was compatible with the VIC-20, Commodore 64, MSX, and later the Atari ST and Amiga. -. So these ports are quite fine. The only problem is their inconvenient placement.
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These joystick ports are not accidentally called -Atari joystick DB9 ports-. At that time, most of the major home computers on the market had such ports in this - de facto - standard, and joysticks compatible with them were also compatible with many other computers/consoles. From WiKi: -The addition of the Atari joystick port to other platforms cemented its popularity. It was the standard for the Atari 8-bit family of home computers and was compatible with the VIC-20, Commodore 64, MSX, and later the Atari ST and Amiga. -. So these ports are quite fine. The only problem is their inconvenient placement.
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Mr.
I have owned and still own STs and Amiga machines. The ST is put down often, but it's simply amazing at how quickly the ST was designed and how capable it was. My 1040STFM ST not only had a built in drive, rom chips and power supply. my Amiga 500? It continued with a big, sightly power brick similar to Xbox 360s. I know it has extra custom chips absent from the ST, but still, the ST was nicely designed. My favourite is the Mega ST with a blitter chip that is sadly ever used. too bad the blitter was not standard in all models, for this would make the ST a far more capable gaming rig.
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I have owned and still own STs and Amiga machines. The ST is put down often, but it's simply amazing at how quickly the ST was designed and how capable it was. My 1040STFM ST not only had a built in drive, rom chips and power supply. my Amiga 500? It continued with a big, sightly power brick similar to Xbox 360s. I know it has extra custom chips absent from the ST, but still, the ST was nicely designed. My favourite is the Mega ST with a blitter chip that is sadly ever used. too bad the blitter was not standard in all models, for this would make the ST a far more capable gaming rig.
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Tetsujin
4: 09 - The Jaguar may not have worked out, but it was probably a better plan than persisting with the ST line as the PC platform was on its way to more or less take over computing. Going head-to-head with Nintendo, Sega, and Sony in the console market may have been a hard sell, but I think sticking with ST in a world that was generally becoming all about PC, or alternatively becoming a PC manufacturer and engaging in that race to the bottom among all the PC manufacturers trying to make cheaper multimedia PCs was probably a worse proposition.
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4: 09 - The Jaguar may not have worked out, but it was probably a better plan than persisting with the ST line as the PC platform was on its way to more or less take over computing. Going head-to-head with Nintendo, Sega, and Sony in the console market may have been a hard sell, but I think sticking with ST in a world that was generally becoming all about PC, or alternatively becoming a PC manufacturer and engaging in that race to the bottom among all the PC manufacturers trying to make cheaper multimedia PCs was probably a worse proposition.
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NepNep
A thrift shop I work at just took in one of these and I just wanted to ask if there is a simple way of identifying if it has a single, or double-sided disk drive. I have seen some pictures that claim that the version seen in this video is the 360 version while the more slanted version is the 720 version, but that flies in the face of what he says in the video here. I'm nowhere near an expert on all of this and hoped to get either answers or at least some directions to where I can find answers. Thanks in advance!
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A thrift shop I work at just took in one of these and I just wanted to ask if there is a simple way of identifying if it has a single, or double-sided disk drive. I have seen some pictures that claim that the version seen in this video is the 360 version while the more slanted version is the 720 version, but that flies in the face of what he says in the video here. I'm nowhere near an expert on all of this and hoped to get either answers or at least some directions to where I can find answers. Thanks in advance!
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eddiehimself
That's a great analogy about emulation vs having the actual equipment. Compared to emulation, having the real thing gives you the authentic, visceral experience. But at the same time, it takes a lot of time, effort, and money and one day you might just wake up to find that it's not working any more and everything you built up over weeks, months, or even years has just gone to waste. So yeah, just like a real relationship: p
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That's a great analogy about emulation vs having the actual equipment. Compared to emulation, having the real thing gives you the authentic, visceral experience. But at the same time, it takes a lot of time, effort, and money and one day you might just wake up to find that it's not working any more and everything you built up over weeks, months, or even years has just gone to waste. So yeah, just like a real relationship: p
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Felicity
I can totally see the thought process behind the ports. They were concerned with it being a 'living room' aesthetic- minimal wires poking out of everything. So it's designed in such a way that the cables are still fed out the front, without actually showing any 'ugly' ports or connectors, which would look really sleek on display. Unfortunately, it's about as user-friendly as my ford focus having the analog port in the glovebox.
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I can totally see the thought process behind the ports. They were concerned with it being a 'living room' aesthetic- minimal wires poking out of everything. So it's designed in such a way that the cables are still fed out the front, without actually showing any 'ugly' ports or connectors, which would look really sleek on display. Unfortunately, it's about as user-friendly as my ford focus having the analog port in the glovebox.
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Insoft
The ports for the joystick and mouse location I found quite nice, I used a lot of computers and that was one thing I liked about the atari st, made for a neatly tidy way, you use the mouse and the lead comes straight out of the computer not around the back side to the front found so clumsy PCs, so atari st not that bad as some made out to be and once I plugged in the mouse and joystick they stayed plugged in.
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The ports for the joystick and mouse location I found quite nice, I used a lot of computers and that was one thing I liked about the atari st, made for a neatly tidy way, you use the mouse and the lead comes straight out of the computer not around the back side to the front found so clumsy PCs, so atari st not that bad as some made out to be and once I plugged in the mouse and joystick they stayed plugged in.
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