A Tumultuous Start With an Atari ST

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I was beyond excited to have recently had the opportunity to pick up an Atari 520ST complete with an SC1224 RGB monitor and SF354 disk drive! Unfortunately, despite it all seeming to work initially, it was hiding some big problems that will need to be solved.
You can read some more detailed thoughts about my troubles with the ST in a post I wrote here: techtangents.net/2021/07/23/f...
This was far from the video I planned on making about this computer. There were so many things that went wrong in this project that I nearly wrote the video off completely a few times. But everything can't go perfectly every time. I am still just as excited about this computer, if not a little defeated though. I will be back to it, the floppy drive repairs will be along very soon. But I need to make some plans for the rest of the issues before I can continue after that.
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22 июл 2021

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Комментарии : 356

@Si1983h 3 года назад

That’s an early machine you have there. The 520 shipped with 512k of ram, the 1040 shipped with 1Mb… I don’t know about earlier machines like yours, but later ones could be upgraded to a maximum of 4Mb of ram. The later “FM” machines were physically deeper and had an integral PSU and FDD, and the later “E” variants had stereo sound with RCA jacks on the back. The port on the side was for expansion dongles. One of the most famous ones was for running Cubase music production/editing software. If you ever find a clean working 1040STe, get it, they’re fun machines. I had one from new, I gamed on it, did my schoolwork on it (including some basic CAD and programming work) and my family used it for all their business records and invoices. A genuinely useful machine in its day.

@sgtcreasegrease 3 года назад

Lets not forget the Notator sequencer software. Lots of Electronic/Hip-Hop producers used that.

@ErraticPT 3 года назад

You can update early models RAM but it requires desoldering/soldering unlike the STE where you can simply replace/add SIMMs to do so. Still got both a 520STM (like in this video) and 2MB 520STE (was 4MB but I took 2MB when I built my very 1st PC).

@bornach 3 года назад

This 520ST (TOS in ROM) with monitor and single sided external floppy was basically the starter system sold in stores off the shelf in the mid 80s. My Dad bought exactly this set up sometime around 1986-87. He later upgraded the floppy to double-sided. We reformatted the single-sided disks as double-sided which surprisingly worked as reliably as branded double sided diskettes. I think he daisy chained the single sided floppy as the B drive. He also soldered RAM chips directly on top of the existing RAM chips, upgrading it to 1M. The mouse kept gumming up with dirt and the buttons did start to fail a few years later around the time when I left for university and Dad migrated to PCs. He later scrapped that Atari ST, desoldering many of the components for use in his electronics projects.

@auteurfiddler8706 3 года назад

@@ErraticPT Were they standard 30 pin 1 mb dimms? They can be found cheap still.

@auteurfiddler8706 3 года назад

@@bornach We used to reformat the 720 disks as 1.44s for PC's for the same reason. Sometimes I had to burn a hole in a corner to satisfy some floppy drives that had a sensor and cared about which disk you used.

@draggonhedd 3 года назад

"I need a TOS disk, I'm trying to boot TOS" He says, while within TOS.

@Vanders456 3 года назад

TOS is so limited though it's easy to think you're in some sort of very basic boot environment.

@bornach 3 года назад

And GEM is so limited it is very easy to think you're in a very basic TOS environment!

@ropersonline 3 года назад

@@Vanders456 You say limited, I say fat-free.

@ropersonline 3 года назад

Honest question: Wasn't it also possible to boot a non-ROM TOS from disk (possibly a later, more advanced version) even if you were doing it on a ROM TOS machine?

@evensgrey 3 года назад

The Atari ST was kind of weird about that, compared to the norm for 16 bit systems. It had TOS in ROM, but any configuration settings had to go on a floppy.

@KwanLowe 3 года назад

I had the ST before the Amiga, and it's still my favorite. Yes, the Amiga was technologically superior in many ways, but the hackery that was the ST was more my style. The simplicity of the ST made it easier to do certain things. One of my first real programs drove an external synthesizer over the MIDI ports which I'd written from scratch in GFA BASIC. The ST had a built-in VT-52 emulator (sort of), which again allowed some trivial code to draw on the screen. To put this in context, at the time I was used to just lines of text scrolling. When a menu needed to be refreshed, the entire screen was redrawn. The first time I could write a routine to go to the first line and draw a drop-dowm menu I literally jumped up in excitement. I credit the ST with sparking the excitement that I later transferred into a career.

@ErraticPT 3 года назад

Congratulation you got your self an 520STM(M=Modulator), one of the earliest and rarest models apart from the 520ST. As opposed to common STFM(F=Floppy, M=Modulator) or STE (E=Enhanced). Pity its a cosmetically poor example, but atleast it works. You don't need a TOS disk unless you need to boot either a earlier or later version for specific programs. As for a FD just get a cheap 3rd party drive, you don't need an official one.

@TechTangents 3 года назад

Going in blind was fun but there were so many different weird things about these computers that researching first would been better. It being a 520STm is interesting and I don't think I mind missing the internal floppy and PSU since I would likely have to open it to fix both now anyway. Other than the yellowing , which I personally don't care about, it's actually in pretty good shape. There aren't any scratches or dings, just a bit of cleaning is needed. And yeah, the TOS disk was a lesson hard learned.

@IsaacKuo 3 года назад

@@TechTangents The internal floppy comes at the expense of VERY annoying joystick/mouse port placement (underneath the computer, at an awkward angle).

@samtheelf7 Год назад

I just got a machine like this a few days ago. Mine was still in its factory shipping box both the computer and monitor. It looks unused by anyone. Did you ever get it fully working after the monitor died and do you still use it? What games would you recommend?

@DeadCat-42 Месяц назад

I still.have my original stm complete with both monitors and all the boxes.

@Mamiya645 3 года назад

Manufacturing: "How many pins do you want in your DIN cable?" Engineering: "Yes"

@ZXRulezzz 3 года назад

I once had to make my own connector for UHER 6000 tape recorder. It also had DIN14 connectors for remote control, although those were different, they were the same size as normal DIN (3...8) conenctors, but had 2 circles of pins, 5 in the inner circle and the rest in the outer circle. Apparently, internet is mostly unaware of this connector - only managed to find a single datasheet with dimensions. That connector is still sitting in my parts bin, I didn't think through what would I need it for :D

@paveloleynikov4715 3 года назад

More good content for us, more frustration for you, courtesy of Jack Tramiel. Also, that 14-pin monstrosity really gives an impression of extreme source for bent pin contact troubleshooting

@kevinshumaker3753 3 года назад

Very first network / LAN game I played multiplayer was on an Atari ST, midi-cabled to 6 other Atari STs, called 'Kill the Happy Face". Those were the days!

@mmille10 Год назад

MIDIMaze! Yeah, that was fun. :)

@winstonsmith478 3 года назад

I owned a 1040ST with color monitor back during its time and like the many other classic old computers I owned, I really wish I had kept it boxed up.

@lrochfort 3 года назад

I had a 520 STFM that had a built in floppy drive. I remember swapping the single sided drive for a double sided drive. It was a big upgrade. It was a great system

@DaveCurran 3 года назад

"I've always wanted an ST." - really? "I don't know a whole lot about the Atari ST" - ah, that explains why.

@cbmeeks 3 года назад

LOL. Even though I don't share your opinion, it did make me chuckle.

@tarstarkusz 3 года назад

The Amiga is better in more or less every way.

@cbmeeks 3 года назад

@@tarstarkusz I've been a hardcore Amiga user since I was 16. Tell me more! ;-/

@YQN2149 2 года назад

@@tarstarkusz *was* better. Today an Amiga is just as boring as an early PC, it has no personality unlike the ST, or even better the C64 ;)

@tarstarkusz 2 года назад

@@YQN2149 If Amiga was anything, boring wasn't it. I have no idea what you are talking about.

@thedungeondelver 3 года назад

In my Amiga days we used to scoff at the ST for its considerable limitations compared to the Amiga, but at the end of the day, STs were still being made in various stripes until the late 1990s, where C= imploded in 1993/4. The ST got forced out by competition, the Amiga died because of C= stupidity...

@Desmaad 3 года назад

I read Atari STs were discontinued because Atari wanted to pull out of the computer market in 1993 to focus on the Jaguar.

@IsaacKuo 3 года назад

@@Desmaad You're correct, the Atari ST was killed off in 1993, three years before the Amiga was killed off. I feel that this was an incredibly bad call by Atari. They should have merged the Jaguar into the Atari ST, producing something like an ST version of the XEGS but with 3D accelerated graphics. Yes, this ST/Jaguar hybrid would have cost more. But it would have had a LOT of RAM, making it a prestige system that could do stuff not possible anywhere else. Remember that the Amiga 1000 was too expensive to gain mass market appeal. But developers flocked to it because it was the Rolls Royce of game development.

@Desmaad 3 года назад

@@Great-Documentaries I'd say the writing was on the wall for the Amiga with the arrival of VGA and Soundblaster cards.

@thedungeondelver 3 года назад

@@Great-Documentaries Interesting perspective; I always felt from a tech standpoint that the ST was a step to the left and backwards vs., say, the Mac 128k. More RAM sure, but ultimately a GUI on top of CP/M was a weird way to go in terms of an OS. Not, mind you, that OS1.2 for the Amiga (which let's be honest was its real competition at the time, not the Mac nor the PC) was any great shakes either with its unprotected memory scheme (for example). Both had shortcomings which took a loooooong time compared to the development cycle of the PC to overcome, and by 1990/1991...that was all she wrote. Big box Amigas (a format the ST never ever had) were too expensive, despite the fact that you could use PC hardware in them, and indeed with bridgeboards make them in to PCs (or with other hardware/software solutions, macintosh systems). But I do go on about ancient history.

@IsaacKuo 3 года назад

@@Great-Documentaries I was in the US, and it simply isn't accurate to say the ST and Amiga were dead in 1990. In fact, I had a mistaken impression that the press ignored the alternatives to PC and Mac at that time. I went back through episodes of The Computer Chronicles (a popular computer TV show in the USA at the time) and noticed that it did, in fact, continue to cover newer Amiga and ST models into the 90s. Neither Windows 3 (haha) nor Windows 3.1 (actually pretty good) were Amiga/ST killers, nor of course Mac killers. They simply didn't attract a whole lot of developer interest compared to good old DOS. Windows 95 was the thing that finally got lots of folks to switch over. As for the Amiga's superior hardware ... well, unfortunately it would stunt the platform's ability to keep up in the early 1990s. AGA was expensive to develop, complex, and just wasn't competitive. The ST ironically was in a better position to leapfrog into the 3D accelerated era, with its simpler base paradigm and Atari's investment in 3D acceleration for Jaguar. As it was, the Amiga (in the USA) was a damn fine platform to use for productivity and video production, with its pre-emptive multitasking OS, easy to handle plug-and-play expansion, and IFF format making workflows with different software a breeze. (This is before jpg and gif became de facto standards.) This was all great, but it didn't truly rely upon the Amiga's unique hardware to make happen. Windows 95 and PCI would come and do a good enough close enough replacement, but with higher resolution SVGA and CPUs many times faster. Yes, in Europe the ST and Amiga were more popular but they were heavily used simply as games machines. Here in the USA they were more heavily used as actual productivity platforms. Yes, MIDI on the ST was a big deal, giving musicians an affordable platform that had lots of software useful for them and which was EASY to setup and maintain. Good lord the PC platform was a nightmare. Similarly, the video and genlock capabilities of the Amiga were a big deal for video production. For one thing, it freaking produced an actual valid NTSC signal with CORRECT NTSC standard video timings. The genlock, and of course Video Toaster, were easy to setup and maintain. PC and Mac alternatives were ... ugh. You may scoff and say, "Who cares about that stuff?" Well, if you were someone working in those fields, you cared.

@MegaManNeo 3 года назад

I remember the ST line in person from a childhood friend who happened to own one. Not sure which model though, however, the games look nice on those computers.

@amandawashington4239 2 года назад

When the Filter Caps went bad, I was thinking of MoonLight Sonata. You have the patience of a saint!

@dnwheeler 3 года назад

TOS on floppy was only used briefly because they didn't finish TOS in time for the release of the 520ST. The TOS ROMs became available very soon after the release of the 520ST and virtually everyone replaced their temporary boot ROMs with the final TOS ROMs (the machine was all set up to accept the ROMs, so there wasn't a new model involved). You're probably already learning these details, but you commented on having icons for drive A and B when there was only one drive - TOS could virtualize the second drive by asking you to swap disks as appropriate (it would keep track of which was in use). You can copy files from one disk to another just by dragging to the other drive icon and you will be prompted to switch disks back and forth as necessary.

@sdrc92126 3 года назад

I wanted one of these soo badly. I read every single byte, analog, antic and compute magazine for years. I took busses for hours and walked six miles just to see one. Then I went to college and the dream ended.

@FADE2GRY2048 3 года назад

Hehe. It was fun to watch your frustration. As soon as I saw it was 520ST I thought “oh boy, not the best choice for an ST”. I was a very early adopter of the Atari ST and got my 520 as soon as it was available and it indeed needed to load TOS from floppy for a few months until the ROMs became available. It quickly became apparent that 512k was not enough so as soon as the 1040ST became available less than a year later I traded in my 520 for one. The 1040ST was a much more useful computer and it served me well during my time studying Engineering. I loved the built in terminal emulation which allowed me login to the school’s systems and do computer work without having to go to a lab. The productivity software was also on par with the software available on the computer lab’s PCs (XT). I only had one game, Time Bandit. By 1989, a few years after graduating, I moved on to a very expensive 386DX based PC running DOS and GEM. I found it funny that in parts of the world the ST was just taking off when I gave up on it.

@leandrocosta3709 3 года назад

I wish you the best of luck with this system. Looking forward to see how it turns out.

@nickbnash 3 года назад

Looking forward to all of the videos in this series! Thanks for the great work.

@maltoNitho 3 года назад

Stinks you had such a rough start, but I can’t wait to see all the future videos about this machine. Tyty!

@twiddler71 3 года назад

I have many old retro computers, including an Amiga 500, but the Atari ST is the only one I don't have and desperately want to get. It's my favorite 16bit computer.

@auteurfiddler8706 3 года назад

Really? I though the gild was kind of taken off the lily with his report. But I just bought a Mac IIX from the same year, so...

@angry_wizard 8 месяцев назад

I grew up on the ST, my dad bought one the same week I was born, he was a musician so it was the hot thing to have. It was the 1040STfm model with 1MB RAM. We had both the monochrome hi-res monitor and the colour monitor. Really great system, going from that really wonderful GUI to using DOS 6.0 when I got my first computer of my own (a 90mhz 486 with 16MB RAM) almost felt like a step backwards. And on the note of printers for the ST, we had the official ST printer and I wound up using that for years after with different computers, really reliable dot-matrix printer and it worked with Windows.

@user-oz1ix5pd4c 7 месяцев назад

Замечательный компьютер, замечательная технология. Мне нравится этот компьютер гораздо больше Амиги и Мака. Относительно простой, с отличным графическим интерфейсом, умеренным быстродействием.

@danyoutube7491 Год назад

Leather keyboard and monitor covers, now that's luxury! They look great.

@galier2 3 года назад

You can also make a adapter cable for the monochrome 640x400 resolution which can feed into a normal VGA monnitor. Some software, especially non game programs prefer that resolution.

@wmalden 3 года назад

My first computer was an Atari 1200XL. I had the “matching” 5.25 floppy drive, cassette drive and printer. It was good for playing games.

@LusRetroSource 3 года назад

Nice! Congratulations! I always wanted an Atari ST too. I love the way the keyboard case looks, I wish cases like those were still common nowadays. Sucks that you had so many problems with it. At least it means more great followup content for us.

@cbmeeks 3 года назад

I have six Atari ST's. Every one of them has some kind of issue and only one "sorta" works. I keep meaning to do some full restorations on them. Oh, and the keyboards suck. Despite me saying all of that, I'm a huge fan of them! I wished there were more videos of ST's that didn't talk or compare them to the Amiga. Amiga is better...we get it. But let's talk about ST's for a while. :-)

@cbmeeks 3 года назад

@Lewis Cressey Amiga 500 released in 1987 but the Amiga 1000 (formerly just called "the Amiga") was released less then a year after the 520 ST. I think it was late 1985 or early 1986.

@bornach 3 года назад

Every one should have RMC's Amiga "swear" jar when filming their Atari ST videos. Would raise a lot for charity.

@cbmeeks 3 года назад

@Lewis Cressey thanks but I already knew that. I was just speaking earlier that the Amiga had a closer release date to the ST than what was indicated.

@richardpeel6056 9 месяцев назад

If you are still having trouble with the monitor your can plug any (regionally accepted) TV into the RF socket. In the UK we use PAL they make an Atari to SCART cable for connecting to more modern flat screen TVs, although the latest TVs no longer have SCART. I use an SD4ST Atari hard drive emulator, it's a lot easier to use than the Gotek floppy emulator you have. If you intend to take your Atari ST apart consider upgrading to a whole 4Mb of RAM, it does involve a lot of soldering on your early machine. The other upgrade to get is to TOS 1.4, the Rainbow TOS, you have TOS ROM chips. The games to look out for are Ikari Warriors and Jeff Minter's Lamatron, the original version of Sid Meyers Civillization play well on the Atari. The cartridge socket in the side supports a sound sampler, an image scanner and a TV digitiser and a recent USB socket card. I have an Atari STE with a TOS switcher between 1.06 and 2.06, 4Mb RAM. If I wanted to go any further I'd need the elusive Atari Falcon!

@TrenchcoatSteve 3 года назад

Congrats on obtaining an Atari ST. I got my first 1040ST in the late 1990s and have been an ST and TT user ever since.

@robintst 3 года назад

"I've always wanted an ST." Me, an Amiga person, waiting for the punchline: "Oh, you're serious...?" I'm only kidding. ;-)

@superxorn 3 года назад

This many years there are people so attached to one old system. I had both and they were both great. Now I only have an Atari but would love a A1200.

@sypialnia_studio 3 года назад

As an ST user back in the day I whole-heartedly agree with this comment. Now, STE is a different story, but we'll have to wait for a video on this.

@robintst 3 года назад

@@superxorn Just some friendly joking. I was an Amiga owner but that doesn't mean I'm down on the ST. The MIDI capabilities at that price point I know were a huge deal for music composers and I remember seeing a few years ago that Dr. Dre still uses one in his personal studio which is very cool.

@branchonequal 3 года назад

@@robintst Fun fact: MIDI was only added as a makeshift solution more or less as the built-in sound capabilities were lacking.

@krnlg 3 года назад

@@robintst Its funny how the old rivalry is still going on like 20 years later! I've always been on the ST side because it was the computer I was familiar with growing up. I have an A500 as well and of course its great - but the attachment comes from the early experience, I suppose :) (And hey, low price is not an insignificant thing!)

@ET_AYY_LMAO 3 года назад

I had a MEGA 4 ST and my mom threw it away :((( The cartridge slot was primarily used for periphiral hardware, such as the band-in-a-box "soundcard", modems etc.

@theannoyedmrfloyd3998 3 года назад

Why would you let your mom do that? Like seriously WTF?

@auteurfiddler8706 3 года назад

@@theannoyedmrfloyd3998 If I told you what my mom through away.... I wasn't around to stop her.... Later, I still only had one mom.

@batlin 2 года назад

The same fate happened to my two STFMs after I got my first x86 PC in 1998. It seems ridiculous now but we just didn't have enough space and the ST was totally old news by then. Still hurts thinking about it though... those machines served me really well.

@Harfinou Год назад

There were a few mods for ST : put in a double TOS system (like 1.0 + 1.2) as some games required TOS 1.2. It was also possible to had a switch, being able to select which side of a single disk you wanted to use. A 5,25" floppy drive was a great addon too, and using another switch, we were able to select A: and B: drive on-the-fly. About the "said TOS disk" : power on the ST, wait until it ends on the desktop, format a blank disk and voila ! This disk was useful because when it's inside the computer, it boots faster. A real TOS disk was the Rainbow TOS 1.4 : it was first released on a disk, then a ROM version came out.

@Fred_le_lorrain Год назад

It's the first time that I see one of the first Atari 520st. It's not the good version to begin Atari experience. So good luck. I hope that since one year you resolved all you issues with this old computer.

@systemchris 2 года назад

I just acquired a 520 st ... I'm missing a PSU so I'm even more behind you on this lol can't wait to see more about this stuff

@aaroncheah2088 3 года назад

Mine is the 520STFM. Now in pieces. Need to recap. Same monitor as yours but long dead. Mouse also kaput.

@boelwerkr 3 года назад

The ST you got is a low cost variant. 512K RAM 360K Floppy The First Atari ST on the market where 520STM with a boot ROM and the TOS on Floppy. The Developer had problems to squeeze the TOS into 192K of ROM. There where ROM update available later on, after the developer could shrink the TOS to the ROM size. The SF354 Floppy (360K) was specially produced to use XL/XE floppy hardware. Later on only the SF314 (720K) was produced. To reduce the complexity of the floppy controlling hardware, the media change relies on a hardware switch in the drive, that pulls a line on the shugart bus down to ground. The Problem is that most Floppies are'n using this line or pulling it up on media change. So only specially prepared floppies are working on the ST. The old Floppy hardware (wide eject button) is not very reliable. It's the more iconic design but the mechanic has no protection for some types of self destruction or misalignment of the read/write head (i had some heads got struck due to an boot virus). And is a little bit slower. This hardware makes the very typical loud floppy noises known on STs. But the missing protection hardware allows to write up to 2 more tracks and 2 more Sectors to floppy disk compared to the later models. Boosting the capacity up to 940K (compared to 820K). You could reliably squeeze 1.2Mb on 5 1/4" floppies. The 520ST can be easily expanded to 1Mb RAM. You have to solder the same RAM-ICs on the back on the existing one and connect a few signals to them. Such modification was even sold by Atari as the "520STM+". The 520ST is usable as a game machine but the 512K RAM is not enough to run serious software. I had one myself an the first modification i ever made to any hardware was to solder in 2Mb RAM.

@EdCourtenay 3 года назад

The later STFM machines had built in floppy disk drives on the right hand side (same as the Amiga and Archimedes systems) and the joystick / mouse ports moved to the underside of the machine

@Sonictrainkid 3 года назад

i want more ST content

@TPau65 3 года назад

Ah, good old 520 STM (you, as myself, have the M model which stands for RF modulator)! I digged out my STM system three years ago after 25 years of storage. After some trouble with bombs (you already saw these too ^^) which was a result of a bad contact of one of the socketed chips, it still works fine! Interesting PSU (the white one) you got there for the floppy drive,with a very thin cable. You can be happy that you could directly connect a Gotek to the connector board of the 354. It's not possible with my SF314, as it has a totally proprietary connector! Atari produced so many different FD versions back then...

@NileCoy 3 года назад

When you said "it's mine! I own it!!" I said "YAY!!"

@andrewb9830 3 года назад

I recently scored an elusive Atari 520STFM also. It was a mystery computer to me seemingly so rare in North America and surviving unit hard to find. Discovered it was either a swapped 1040 board or an upgraded 520 to 1MB board. Floppy drive was packed with dust bunnies and not surprisingly did not work. It seemed they must have been using an external drive and they had modded the computer with a A/B switch. Consensus on the Atari forum is this was a way to choose the side of a double sided disk in double sided drive and be able to copy single side software without wasting half the disk. Either way I swapped in a Gotek in a 3D printed bracket. Still got to get back to it to play around more with it.

@computeraisle 2 года назад

SF354 disk drive was the low density disk drive - 360k. It was actually pretty easy to upgrade to 1.44mb (with some rewiring and a 1.44mb floppy drive)

@KJohansson 3 года назад

As a old Atari ST user since 1986-ish this was a fun one! I feel your pains, what was cutting edge 30+ years ago is not that hot today :P

@vylbird8014 3 года назад

I remember my old ST. Those were the things you bought when you couldn't afford an Amiga.

@AndrewHelgeCox 3 года назад

Or the monochrome screen was super useful for doing homework on.

@xXTheoLinuxXx 3 года назад

Or you were into MIDI

@lelandclayton5462 3 года назад

I had an ST once. Was stored in the Attic and when Mom lost the house I had forgotten it was up in the Attic and was left.

@bjbell52 8 месяцев назад

If I remember correctly, that slot was also used to hold the Macintosh ROMS that could be used to turn your $1000 ST into a $2000+ Mac. It was also slightly FASTER than the MAC. One problem, there was a jingling noise coming out every time I used my ST. It turned out to be the $1000 pocket change I saved by buying the ST over the MAC. I could print my own APPLE sticker to put on my ST and I would still be $999 ahead.

@kevinbarry71 3 года назад

I had one when they were new, you aren't missing out on anything

@mobilephone4045 3 года назад

Despite the fact that an entire decade of music wouldn't exist without the STe and Notator? Sure.

@another3997 3 года назад

At the time the original ST came out, the choice of 16 bit computers wasn't exactly overwhelming. The Amiga and the ST for home, or an IBM compatible that was great for office tasks, but not games. The Apple stuff was too expensive for most home users. The Acorn Archimedes had their new ARM 32 bit chips, but they were not so common outside of the UK... although the Acorn ARM processor eventually conquered the world.

@dvuemedia 3 года назад

I can feel your frustration. I was in the same position as you. I got my first 520ST from Goodwill about 15 years ago, never owning one before. It also came with SF354 drive. I found out it was single sided, so I tried to upgrade it to DD, but failed not knowing why. I sold it, it was too limiting, and got Atari STE, which I still have one with moded Gotek drive. Good luck.

@hundgirridchannel 3 года назад

Nice early ST setup but I prefer the later models with PSU and integrated double sided Drive, like the ones I have to make my videos. I hope you can enjoy the many good things an Atari ST can offer and I also hope to see many other ST based videos on your channel.

@ropersonline 3 года назад

@Tech Tangents: If I'm reading a 1 Nov 1982 InfoWorld article correctly, the single-sided 3½" floppy was intended as a "look-alike" (presumably not physically, but electronically, to the computer) to the then-common 5¼" DSDD 360KB floppy. It got obsoleted very quickly. The name of the article in question is "Tandon announces tiny but powerful 3½-inch disk drive". You might think that with a new machine there'd be no reason to go for 360KB-floppy compatibility, but remember these were built to a cost, and presumably there was a price difference. Look on the bright side: What you have is a an artefact that's probably quite rare these days.

@kevinh96 3 года назад

That is a very early revision you have there and consequently actually quite rare. The model that was the biggest seller was the STFM variant which had a built in 720k double sided disc drive and an RF modulator, it was followed up a couple of years later with the STE, the "E" meaning Enhanced as it had full stereo sound to compete with the Amiga. I still think the Atari ST is by far the best looking of all that era's 16 bit systems even if the Amiga was a bit more powerful.

@JesterEric 3 года назад

Early 520 STFMs came with single sided 360k disk drives. They changed in 1988. All 1040s came with double sided drives

@kaczan3 3 года назад

Congrats on 100k.

@CheshireNoir 3 года назад

I love my Atari ST systems. I have an 1040STfm that came with an internal Gotek and I have an STe that I've upgraded to 4MB. Have a look at the ACSI2STM project for EVEN MORE storage for your system. I was interested to see that the ST family pushed hard (And successfully for a while) into the Business space, as an alternative to the Macs. The so-called "Jackintosh", after Jack Tramiel.

@skyilah Год назад

you solved one of the misteries in my life . i always wondered why st never took off like commodore did , as a matter of fact i dont even recall a single friend ( at the time ) who had one . now i know why LOL

@nilz23 3 года назад

We had one of these, ONE, in our computer lab in high school. Everything else was Mac SEs where we wrote stuff in Turbo Pascal and Hypercard. I have no idea what the Atari ST was for, it never seemed to be on any nobody ever used it and we didn't seem to be able to use it either. It just sat there in silence mocking me for 2 years.

@BAZFANSHOTHITSClassicTunes 2 года назад

I loved my Atari STe my first real computer. Before that i had a good ole Commore 64. Great times.After the STe i got an Amiga 1200. The Cartridge slot i used for a sound sampler.

@mcborge1 3 года назад

I had the 1040 STE. It was ok but what I really wanted was an Amiga and as soon as I got one (A500+), I sold the Atari.

@PeteyHoudini Год назад

I had a double-sided 3.5 floppy drive around 1991-92. Cost almost $300. Bought it with birthday money. I had a 1040 ST.

@travistaylor3186 3 года назад

I love my ST. I got mine from a music studio that closed its doors a few years ago. Mine was still powering a set of midi keyboards a monochrome monitor and using Cubase in the 21st century. I actually got the big boxed copy of Cubase and the keyboards as part of the deal.

@BillyMartin4Life 3 года назад

Because Atari was on such a time crunch to get the ST out the door, they didn't have enough time to get TOS built in ROM from the go, so the first ST machines had TOS shipped on Floppy discs, with the ability for it to be added later. But after the first few, all ST's had TOS built into ROM

@CH32mix 3 года назад

Is that a nexus 10? Man, that thing is even rarer that the atari st, nobody remembers it despite being very powerful hardware, very ahead of its time

@substance1 2 года назад

The Atari ST's had a Motorola 68000, the Atari XL and XE had a 6502. Also, the Atari XL 1050 5 1/4 floppy drive also used a 6502 CPU, same as the computer.

@markdjdeenix6846 3 года назад

I have been thinking getting about Atari i like the midi ports but was confused about a few things .the single sided disk thing thanks for that info 10/10 on content cheers Shelby 👍

@user-oz1ix5pd4c 7 месяцев назад

Для меня Атари СТ лучший компьютер до сих пор. Zx-Spectrum был первой машиной, которая у меня появилась. Атари - для меня это уже СуперСпектрум. Обожаю обе эти системы.

@kcinplatinumgaming2598 2 года назад

I was so upset I always wanted a 1040stfm .. i finally bought one and it was faulty.. gutted so hate ebay .. lol anyway .. one day ill fix it when i go back uk .. I had a few 520st's as well .. but amiga and st were ahead of there time like.. gary kildall but we got bill gates instead .. so loved the ST range, XE & XL range were good but you were the man when you had an ST or an AMIGA! actually my mate got me into the amiga's back in 1989 when it was released when his brother worked for Ocean software, not seen him in over 30 years .. his name was Stephen Dunn .. his brother wrote the music for a lot of the gaming titles.. I was a bedroom coder but never published games with Ocean

@dimensiongamer534 3 года назад

For some reason seeing all the little bits of dirt and such on the st and monitor really stuck out to me in this video XD "*shakes fist at my inner neat freak*" Fun video dude.

@ShadowTronBlog 3 года назад

Early 520s shipped without TOS in ROM so you had to boot TOS from a floppy. Your 520 either shipped with TOS in ROM or someone added the ROMs later in its life. As I understand it TOS wasn't ready to be committed to ROM when the 520 production runs started.

@YQN2149 2 года назад

When the mouse won't work you can use Alt+cursor keys to move the pointer, Alt+Insert to left click and Alt+Home to right click!

@jasonc3a 3 года назад

As a person who used an Amiga at home and an ST at my grandparents, both well after the point in which IBM PC-compatibles had "won", I can assure you your challenges are far less daunting thanks to the modern era of retro-computer enthusiasts, 3d-printing, etc. than they were back then. God, when the ST joystick broke, that was game over. Done. Mouse-only games from that point on.

@tr606 3 года назад

Maybe someone has already commented, but the cartridge port is for an early style dongle used for software like Steinberg Cubase and maybe Notator. I have the ruby coloured Cubase dongle still. I just found it recently.

@yopachi 3 года назад

I'm always quick to click on coverage of the Atari ST since Amiga seems to dominate my subscription feed. I love the radioactive green default background of the ToS. Good luck with that beauty! 💣💣💣💣💣💣💣💣💣

@NerdThingsAndMore Год назад

Good video thanks

@sprybug 3 года назад

I hear ya on this. I have an Atari 520ST almost identical to this and I still have to get it working properly. It's got socket issues too. Because over a time of a day or two, I have to open it back up and push down on the chips to get it to even boot.

@user_romanport 3 года назад

Great video, really enjoyed it...but PLEASE set that digital clock in the background, haha!

@synthesizerhome2041 10 месяцев назад

In Germany the Atari STs are very common, every musician had one in the years 1987-1992. The Mac was very expensive.

@greenaum 2 года назад

There could have been cartridge games, but yes there's no point when a floppy held 720K and loaded in seconds, and 720K of ROM would have cost half the price of the computer. But what did come out, were audio samplers, and even the odd video sampler. Also handheld scanners. It's a standard sort of cartridge port, access to most of the CPU bus, so theoretically you could add what you like to it, but Atari did a good enough job of putting ports on the machine, that nobody needed to produce adaptors via the cartridge port. The original 520ST had no floppy or RF modulator. STF had a built-in floppy (can you guess why?), STFM had a built-in modulator. Almost all ST's sold were the STFM model, pre-STFMs were only the very earliest. Then after, the STE, which had a better graphics chip, and also a blitter, which could blast sprites all over the place, as well as do other bit-block-operating stuff. The built-in floppy was on the right hand side where your joystick & mouse ports are. This demoted those ports to the stupidest place ever invented to put such things... underneath, right-hand side. You had to lift the bugger up, to plug in sticks! So a popular investment is just 2 lengths of ribbon cable with 9-pin plug and sockets on either end. To extend the connection to where you could reach it. All that uncomfortable waggling and pushing can't have been good for the ports, either, which were soldered straight onto the motherboard. It never caused a problem for me but it was still a bloody stupid idea. Any dance music you listened to in the late '80s and even quite far into the '90s, was 60% likely to have started off on an Atari ST. Sometimes you'd watch Top Of The Pops or whatever, and you'd see one there, with it's little mono high-res monitor, controlling half a dozen synths that cost more than your house did!

@PaulTheFox1988 3 года назад

You might be thinking of very early ST machines that needed a boot floppy cause the ROM wasn't ready at launch, the one you have has TOS on at least 2 (maybe four or 6) ROM chips, and yours was running a later TOS version than 1.0 in ROM. I have an 520STe upgraded with 4MB of RAM, as well as an ultrasatan, an internal gotek floppy emulator and has TOS 2.06 (last version for STe) it's a nice machine but very limited compared to the Amiga it was up against. The gotek needs custom firmware to support the ST iirc, I bought mine pre-modded to save the hassle. Edit: nvm, I should have waited a bit before commenting, you figured out the things I mentioned :D

@mmille10 Год назад

Re. the Gotek - The fact that the two disk drive icons showed up with it means it detected at least one drive; better than with the real drive, since it didn't show up at all. I'm thinking your device is not mounting the disk images properly, perhaps due to the images not being where the gotek can find them on the thumb drive, or they're not in a format it recognizes. I think I remember with my STe that it also showed two floppy drives even though I only had one FD. My guess is the reason it had this was so you could click and drag-copy files from one disk to another. The way you'd do that is open one disk in Drive A, select the file you wanted to copy, and then drag it to Drive B. That would start the copy operation, and GEM would prompt you to switch disks during the copy. .arc is a compression format ("arc" stands for "archive"). There were a few different ones that were commonly used in the ST days: .arc, .lzh (called Limpel-Ziv, IIRC), and .zoo, or I think also .z (just called "zoo"). I had some TOS utilities back in the day to compress/decompress these. BTW, you're going to want either a second FD, or a HD to decompress files, unless they're fairly small, and you can just decompress to the same disk, or else you're going to go nuts flipping disks, because the compression program asks you to flip disks A LOT, otherwise.

@macheifach 3 года назад

How can it be, you were looking for an Atari ST for six years? There are two listings on ebay right now. HOW?

@TechTangents 3 года назад

I was originally going to have a companion video to go along with this one to explain that. But the TL;DR is that I don't buy any of my vintage computers online. There are too many reasons why I don't to list them all in a comment, but I only buy things locally.

@buttguy 3 года назад

@@TechTangents same. Anything you want is usually out there, online, for sale, for way too much money. But people like us like the thrill of having a system finally pop up locally, and typically muuuuch cheaper than grabbing the first BIN that pops up on ebay. Nearly every system I've wanted, whether it took 2 months or 10 years, eventually popped up locally for free or cheap. Just gotta look!

@dykodesigns 3 года назад

The cartridge slot is mainly used for midi expanders and Cubase/Logic/C-Lab license dongles. You could backup your original Cubase disks but needed the cartridge to allow the software to run. Most people used competition pro joysticks on them, at least a childhood friend of mine with an ST had a competition pro joystick. The ST has a pretty decent version of The New Zealand Story and Robocop. It got a lot of games that where also on the Amiga, C64 and to some extend DOS.

@djdjukic 3 года назад

The ST is a fine computer, you'll love the MIDI. You must get a proper 720k drive, 1MB of RAM and if you can, a SD card/HDD solution to enjoy the machine. Also, you should order a monochrome VGA cable or SM124 if it's not too expensive.

@auteurfiddler8706 3 года назад

Can you plug in a Midi synth box and select it for games, like on PC games of the era? I used a Pro Audio Spectrum 16 on my PC (486?) and I liked listening to Midi files and the game output in games that had that option. A Roland Sound Canvas daughter board was even better. I wanted to try an external synth but never bought one.

@djdjukic 3 года назад

@@auteurfiddler8706 yes, absolutely. Wikipedia has a list of Roland MT-32 compatible games including those for the Atari ST, I haven't found a comprehensive list for ST games that support General MIDI/Roland Sound Canvas, but they're out there as well.

@KenPurchase 3 года назад

If you've got a Master System controller, those will work as a replacement joystick.

@mcd3379 2 года назад

"Jackintosh" was a great computer and might have conquered the world if the cards had fallen the other way. What you are experiencing are classic issues you face with computers that are 30 plus years old - they are going to have parts that break down.

@cbmeeks 3 года назад

Having watched the video to the end, just wanted to say thanks for not mentioning the Amiga. I love the Amiga. But it's frustrating that the ST doesn't stand on it's own because everyone has to compare it to the Amiga. If you look at the ST when it was introduced, and realize the next best thing was a B/W Mac, it really was a great machine (despite lots of cheapo manufacturing). But then again, I love all computers made before 1990. Which explains my very large collection of them. ;-D

@bornach 3 года назад

I wonder if TT followed what RMC did and had a "swear jar" to penalise any mention of Amiga. It was stuffed full of money by the end of the filming of that video.

@mortarmopp3919 3 года назад

I remember messing with one in a computer store. At the time there was only the Paper White, b/w display available, which looked damn good. It was a toss up between buying the ST and the Amiga 1000, which had color by default, but more expensive. I ended up with the 1000; no regrets, but I wouldn't have minded getting an ST.

@user-bz9sj8mh5d Год назад

The ST had both color and mono displays available from day 1.

@hfiguiere 3 года назад

17:40 the 520STF (built-in floppy) came with a 720k floppy (Double Density, Double Sided)

@tonyrad8714 3 года назад

ive been watching you for years and live and work near Linus Media so went to LTX. Great display as always .

@robertsneddon731 3 года назад

I used the ST cartridge port to develop a parallel-I/O device (16 input pins and 16 output pins). It worked but with limited capabilities, I did eventually get a Centronics printer to print from it but not very well.

@ropersonline 3 года назад

If you can, get the monochrome monitor too. There's a lot of software, especially professional European-made software that's optimised for that and maybe won't even work with the colour monitor. (There also are some b/w-only games.) The monochrome monitor was surprisingly good for its time and made the ST a machine with Mac-like "power without the price". PS: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calamus_(DTP)#Calamus_Intelligent_Kerning

@JesterEric 3 года назад

SM124 mono monitor was nice to use with its high refresh rate. 125 bigger but not quite as sharp

@ropersonline 3 года назад

@@JesterEric If Tech Tangents were to add an SM124 or SM125, he would also double his vertical resolution (640x400 vs 640x200). That said, the SC1224 runs all those games that mono monitors won't, so definitely not a bad thing to have. Sometimes the mono monitors are advertised on ebay as "MIDI monitors", which kind of tells you a lot about where the ST had longevity in professional use.

@MarekBartovic 3 года назад

st1040 was my first computer. I miss it sooooo much... Also had a 20 or 30 MB hdd with it.

@EgonOlsen71 3 года назад

I really don't understand how one can consider a pad of any kind to be more precise and superior to a proper joystick. Whenever I have to use a pad, I would like to throw it against the wall in frustration. Must be a thing of what you used to have when growing up, I guess.

@kyle8952 3 года назад

That's a really strange opinion you have. Joysticks are slow, imprecise, and uncomfortable. The CX40 in particular is really terrible.

@EgonOlsen71 3 года назад

@@kyle8952 I really think it depends on what you grew up with. I tried multiple times to use game pads (you can't really avoid it, because all the modern stuff comes with that crap). I really really really (really!) hate them. They are uncomfortable and imprecise to me. I can play racing games (Mario Kart on the Switch for example) with them, but that's about it. And please don't judge joysticks based on the one from the Atari VCS. There are far better sticks out there. That said, I would prefer a CX40 over a pad any day.

@mushroomsamba82 3 года назад

I've watched a ton of vintage computer repairs on youtube and have come to the conclusion that the more of a shitshow the repair is, the more entertaining the video is.

@tambarskelfir 3 года назад

Love the ST, though it has to be said, your model is one of the antediluvian models that did not have a built-in disk drive. Machines with floppy were branded STF, I assume yours is an STM, since it has a TV modulator. Looking forward to more ST adventures!!

@mechamania 8 месяцев назад

Faster than the XE? Oh, then you should know that the XEs are *essentially 1979 computers (400 and 800) with 64KB (65XE and XEGS) and 128KB (130XE) versions in second (1983; XL), third (1985; XE), and fourth (1986; XEGS) sets of newer boxes,* and for the XEGS, put into a final, angle-happy Easter present box (1986) separated into component parts that connect just the computer with cartridge slot/joystick and other ports (“Game System”; the “GS”) to the disk drive and keyboard parts that came with it - a more versatile and fancier-looking 65XE. In other words, they were the last of the 8-bits that aimed at being *very* budget-friendly tech for doing “basic computer and Nintendo things.” On the other hand the Atari STs were the next generation of Atari computers, meant to compete with the Commodore Amiga and Apple Mac, as opposed to the C64 and the Apple II series (minus the GS). So, basically leap forward from 1979 tech to 1985 tech, despite being put out the same year. The difference is akin to the OG Quest compared to the Quest III. Also, any DB9/“Atari Joystick Port” joystick should work fine - and there were tons of great designs, particularly the TAC-2. Hope that helps add some context from a slightly older person...

@Miesiu 11 месяцев назад

Very good movie including info like 8:20.

@insoft_uk Год назад

The cartridge slot was used tho things like sampling audio, I have a cartridge for my STE that I used back in the day to sample music from Tape

@AndrewHelgeCox 3 года назад

I think that's a rare config. The classic / peak ST is the STFM, and the STE is the later improved version.

@NozomuYume 3 года назад

This is "Tech Tangents" so instead of the ST you should have bought an Atari TT! (ST stands for Sixteen/ThirtyTwo TT stands for ThirtyTwo/ThirtyTwo, a comparison of data bus width and register width on their respective CPUs)

@piratestation69 3 года назад

I've had one for years... It's pretty impressive. I prefer the 800... I like my tanks.

@DatBlueHusky 3 года назад

i just got a 1040 sitting and collecting dust lol havent used it yet, the amigas are so much fun

@MarkTheMorose 3 года назад

Like all home computers, it has its idiosyncrasies, but you should have some fun. As an Amiga man, I was gutted that the fantastic game Oids was never ported across, unlike another game by the same publisher (Dungeon Master). So I bought a second-hand early ST model (no floppy or modulator built in) just to play it.

@IsaacKuo 3 года назад

Ah, I remember Dungeon Master envy well! Fortunately for me, I was able to get my Oids fix thanks to tons of university Macs around.

@MarkTheMorose 3 года назад

@@IsaacKuo I'd forgotten that Oids was also released on the Mac. It makes it all the more puzzling why it wasn't released on the Amiga. Still, somewhere I have an Atari ST, and there is always emulation, these days.