What do I do with my Atari ST's? 

I love using my Falcon more as time goes by; My primary reason I enjoy it is its truely a personal computer, it's entirely in my control and there is not massive corporation telling me what I can and can't do. In the early years of computers, Atari and Commodore understood their world position. They where tools only as good as the uses to which the users put them. I was never obstructed by software, and even the copy protections had a light hand. The reason retro computing is popular (IMO) amoung people who never even owned the systems is the refreshing experience of being in charge and responsible for what your machine could do. No two peoples Atari setup was ever quite identical, everyone favoured different software and use cases. Now its just a boring melange of standards.

Cubase 2.0 is still the best MIDI sequencer. Using it for the drum programming in a death metal band

My wife does not understand why I love my retro computers and consoles. When I boot one up, it brings me a smile and returns those past feelings of excitement and fun. Those days of retro computers was a new expanding technological frontier that I was fortunate to experience. My ST and Amiga days were filled with buying hundreds of Kao 3.5" floppy disks.

My Dad bought the ST for us when I was only about 6-7 years old, he used it a lot for his business. Inside his office he had a couple of Ataris for work. Funnily enough, I have all the nostalgia for the Ataris - where as he has absolutely none at all! He doesn't understand my nostalgia at all. Same with my uncle, he used Atari ST's at the same time as my Dad, he played lots of games, but he has absolutely no fondness for them even though he still plays modern games today on modern computers. Weird isn't it how nostalgia works? My Dad remembers buying a 512kb RAM upgrade cost him £100 back in the day.

I guess, we all own retro machines for similar reasons. I do have an 1040 STE and an 1040STF , the first for nostalgia reasons (my best friend had one and we spend a lot of time playing, creating, discovering) and the STF to let some steam off by playing kick off and some other games I grew up with. Since my collection is quite diverse I do host some tours to kids and younger people who missed that period of computing. I enjoy meshing with Jay Miner's machines (Atari 8bit and Amiga 500) . My interests shifts as years pass by, I used to love repairing and upgrading 8bit Ataris, then I got involved with Αmstrad CPCs, ZX spectrums, MSX but now I am really into designing "retro" cases, building them with traditional techniques (no 2d/3d printing) and housing extra motherboards that I repair. I also enjoy browsing their huge software libraries especially for demos and apps. I do enjoy drawing so I extensively check their drawing programs.

I use my STE for MIDI stuff, gaming and distraction-free word processing.

Nice video. It's always cool to listen to people commenting on why we love these computers and also it's some kind of a guilty pleasure. too.. 🤭 I love tinkering with it. Just finished installing and wiring a twiSTer, replacing the power supply, etc... The amount of pleasure you get when you put the cover back on and start the computer and everything works nicely in inmense. Also, last year I discovered assembly languaje and I love it to death. It finally allowed me begin to understand how the computer really works.

Well you've certainly justified your collection. It seems like the ST is doing what it has always done. Productivity, family togetherness, and entertainment. Good to see 😊

Nice work. Think you hit the nail on the head there with most of those points. There’s also that ahhh moment when you walk into your room of retro and go. Wow I’ve got some cool shit 👍

I understand the barrier to entry part of having the vintage computers set up to be used. Atari STs are very foreign to me but I love to tinker and learn about them. I have several 520s, 1040s, and now 2 Mega STs (one isnt working). I built an internal ACSI2STM for the Mega and would love to use it more to play Ultima III and IV but need to fine a way to keep them setup. Luckily I also build RGB2HDMIs plus I have a modern monitor that supports 15khz.

Your son was brilliant at playing the game tunes :) awesome. I thought recently about buying a dot matrix printer for my STE. May do later in the year.

I remember figuring out that I could get a hard drive for my Commodore 64... it was 10 MB and literally held everything I had (for awhile)

I started playing Ultima IV on my Atari 800 first, but never finished until I played on my 1040.

Thank you *so* much for this video. It did scratch an itch. If you want to play games with your boys, I would highly recommend The Gauntlet 2. This game is a blast to play with many players - especially when you deal with "it". Back in the day I did use a word processor a lot. Not First Word but a German one (cannot remember the name) which had beautiful custom fonts. It took 6 passes on the dot matrix printer to print. It was making a heck of a noise, it was consuming a lot of ink but the results were fantastic for the time! I don't own an Atari anymore - I am only using one through emulation. Mainly to understand how video games were made back then, like the tricks used by various developers to achieve smooth scrolling and other effects.

I had many Atari computers in the past. A 1040STF and in the end around 1995 an Atari Falcon 030. I had a lot of fun and party with my friends. And I had a special school friend with whom I would play. I wouldn't buy another old computer because I won't get the exact feelings back. I tried it. That doesn't work this way. :( So I play with emulators and a MiST FPGA, the old games and computers. It does take less space than 'real hardware'. And, at least FPGAs, are very close to the real hardware without the hassle.

your son should put up videos of him playing game music on his piano!

My SH204 still works with original drive. I swapped out the PSU though. After it sits the drive won’t spin up unless it spin the shaft of the head positioning stepper motor. For some reason after turning that a little bit then it spins right up and works perfectly.

It is fun seeing the differences between the ports from Atari ST to Amiga to PC. The feel of the real hardware does enhance the experience for me personally, I did find an SF 354 drive with the power supply at the last swap meet I went to - haven't tried it out yet but once I get it a deep clean will be fun to see if it still works.

i have a view Atari St and mostly i use them in Monochrome ... I am playing no Games with them ,..i am trying Programming in Pure_c and GFA_Basic ...The Atari St line is best Computer for that !! in my younger dayes (before Collecting Retro ,i am most Time Played Frontier Spacesim on the Atari ST ...till i got the Imperial Courier )

What happened in 1993? The beginning of the end in computing and music. It will be decades before find out the truth. 🖋

Welp....time to fall down the ultima rabbit hole!

You don't happen to have a spare keyboard, or more exact the HD6301 IC on the backside of the keyboards? I upgraded the ram to 4meg, replaced the floppy, got a 15khz lcd, now I just need a kbd ic to be able to use it properly.... the backside of the kbd accidentaly touched the grounded metal screen - there were some sparks and now several of the keys don't work.. traces and everything looks fine so it must be the ic...

can the st format floppies to higher than 920 kilobytes ?? using a special program you can download ?? thanks do you like the amiga too ?? thanks

can you program the st range of home micros ??

Why does the ST GUI and productivity apps look so chunky compared to the Macs of similar vintage? I want an ST but I’m not really a gamer so I’d like to play around with actual apps but I struggle with how bad the resolution is and the blocky pixels.

Papyrus is better than anything else.

i am interested in the atari st floppy disk drives and hard discs too because they’re all differently formatted i mean they have different capacities i love it all

can the st format floppies to higher than 920 kilobytes ?? using a special program you can download ?? thanks

"What do I do with my Atari ST's?" Trade them for an Amiga. What was true in 1987 still is. 🧮🧮🧮🧮🧮🧮🧮🧮🧮🧮🧮🧮🧮🧮🧮🧮🧮🧮🧮