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Inside the 1040ST

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Re: Inside the 1040ST

#71

Post by cmrdporcupine »

ajross wrote: post #51

People didn't see it at the time, but the Atari ST was the first signal of the End of the Platform Computer. On paper, this should have been perfect: it was a maximally cost-reduced 68k board with capabilities that met or exceeded everything on the market. It was faster than a Mac Plus or PC/AT and 3x cheaper than either, it had an EGA level framebuffer (though the color monitor was still a TV tube). I had one of the…

Not sure what you're defining platform computer, but yeah, I think you're right. Tramiel Sr. also never understood the concept of an evolving platform with forward compatibility. Each of the Commodore home computers under his watch were bespoke and unique and not really expandable.

Operating system at both Atari and Commodore was treated as an afterthought and didn't get ongoing development. At Atari they put very little investment into the operating system after the original launch, and not much into the hardware either.

Not until his sons took over. Under them, Atari did finally make moves in the early 90s to try to build a large growable ecosystem on what was started and to diversify but it was too late.

Re: Inside the 1040ST

#72

Post by cmrdporcupine »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #55
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, slightly higher clock and bus rate. That and it ran at 640x400, so more screen real estate. So people would use the Macintosh emulators on them (piece of hardware that plugged in the Mac ROMs and some floppy adapter stuff) and get a machine far cheaper than (and superior to) a standard Mac of the time. Biggest problem was getting the ROMs. If I recall the products were SpectreGCR & Magic Sac. https://en.wikiped…

Hrm. Had no problem with the ROMs at all. They came integrated into the cracked version which also eliminated the need for hardware. Just two floppies. Made the rounds in schoolyards at the time ;->

Interesting. I hadn't heard of anybody running without the cartridge before. I surely would have tried this :-)

Without the hardware you wouldn't have been able to read Macintosh floppies (SpectreGCR included some hardware to adapt the frequencies etc on the floppy drive to be able to read Mac floppies), and you'd have to give up a bunch of RAM, no?

Re: Inside the 1040ST

#73

Post by timbit42 »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #46
timbit42 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What made it faster than a Mac? Clock speed, low wait states, or something else?

Yeah, slightly higher clock and bus rate. That and it ran at 640x400, so more screen real estate. So people would use the Macintosh emulators on them (piece of hardware that plugged in the Mac ROMs and some floppy adapter stuff) and get a machine far cheaper than (and superior to) a standard Mac of the time. Biggest problem was getting the ROMs. If I recall the products were SpectreGCR & Magic Sac. https://en.wikiped…

I've heard people say Mac emulators on the Amiga were faster than a real Mac at the same clock rate, apparently something to do with the graphics being drawn faster. Perhaps it was the hardware blitter making moving pixels around faster than the software blitter, but I've never seen actual benchmarks.

Re: Inside the 1040ST

#74

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #72
LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hrm. Had no problem with the ROMs at all. They came integrated into the cracked version which also eliminated the need for hardware. Just two floppies. Made the rounds in schoolyards at the time ;->

Interesting. I hadn't heard of anybody running without the cartridge before. I surely would have tried this :-) Without the hardware you wouldn't have been able to read Macintosh floppies (SpectreGCR included some hardware to adapt the frequencies etc on the floppy drive to be able to read Mac floppies), and you'd have to give up a bunch of RAM, no?

Uhm yes, there was that. But in the circles where that crack made the rounds, there were sources which had that hardware, converted and distributed anything which was available as normal floppies :-)

Which really wasn't that much, at the time. But very impressive nonetheless. Mac Write, Paint, Draw, few DTP which I can't remember anymore, Hypercard, few gadgets and tools, few games, and ...errrm... Virtual Valerie...

Was even more fun with a HDD, no more DJing floppies!

Re: Inside the 1040ST

#75

Post by TMWNN »

BYTE in March 1986 put the Atari ST on its cover https://archive.org/details/eu_BYTE-1986-03_OCR/page/n85/mod...>, because it was the first computer at a price point of less than $1 per 1K RAM.

Re: Inside the 1040ST

#76

Post by lokedhs »

OnlyMortal wrote: post #35
earthbee wrote: post #8

"Some 3rd parties produced boards that could contain a Blitter chip, but I’m not aware of anyone directly adding one to the board." My 520ST was upgraded with 2.5MB of RAM and an added blitter chip, so it did happen. I still have the computer and it was still working the last time I powered it up a few years ago.

A school friend of mine added an fpu. I’d lent him a Mac Plus with a copy of Excel on it. He was using it as a reference when writing his own spreadsheet. He’d previously written one for the Spectrum called “TasCalc” and had done some GEM programming, a product he sold as “Proshare ST”. It downloaded stock prices from Teletext via an adapter. Smart lad.

There was no FPU for the 68000. This was supported by the 68010, which was not present in any Atari computers. Are you sure he didn't add it for the Falcon, which did have a slot for an FPU.

Re: Inside the 1040ST

#77

Post by lproven »

snvzz wrote: post #69
lproven wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All excellent points. It does seem to me that Atari did very well with the use of COTS hardware and software to get a usable machine out at such a low price. It was more usable than the Amiga at base spec (512kB RAM, 1 floppy) because the OS in ROM meant much less disk swapping. But it did need both a lot more upgrades and expansions as time went on, as you point out, correctly IMHO. Secondly, I think Atari should ha…

>It was more usable than the Amiga at base spec (512kB RAM, 1 floppy) because the OS in ROM meant much less disk swapping. Amiga also has the OS in the ROM. Much more of it even (256KB ROM).

> Amiga also has the OS in the ROM.

Yeah, no. I own one. This is deeply disingenuous.

It has Kickstart in ROM. That is, broadly, the bootloader. All the rest is loaded in from floppy.

The classic Amiga is a legendarily poor experience with a single floppy drive: disk-swapping agogo. It was famous for it 35 years ago.

With an ST -- or an Archimedes -- you can turn on and with no media at all reach the desktop.

You can insert a disk with a desktop app and run that app from that disk with no other media at all.

Both of these are impossible on an Amiga, and with any Mac, 680x0 or PowerPC, except a single model: the Mac Classic, which has System 6.0.3 in a ROMdisk.

https://lowendmac.com/1990/mac-classic/

Re: Inside the 1040ST

#78

Post by lproven »

alexisread wrote: post #64
lproven wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All excellent points. It does seem to me that Atari did very well with the use of COTS hardware and software to get a usable machine out at such a low price. It was more usable than the Amiga at base spec (512kB RAM, 1 floppy) because the OS in ROM meant much less disk swapping. But it did need both a lot more upgrades and expansions as time went on, as you point out, correctly IMHO. Secondly, I think Atari should ha…

Agreed. The Falcon started down this route with IDE, SCSI2, localtalk, chunky VGA (props to Richard Miller), but Atari cheaped out as they had already decided to leave the computer market and were really just clearing stock.

Yup.

It is a damned shame, really.

TOS/GEM was so very basic that enterprising 3rd party developers were able to extend it from a single-tasking OS to a complete multitasking one, over time, without totally losing compatibility.

(Yes, yes, before any Amiga owners "Well actually..." me: we know, AmigaOS had that built in... But with interprocess communications designed for a single flat shared memory space, that meant that it could't be extended to support 68030+ memory management without breaking compatibility.)

The ST had the potential to really grow as a platform, just as Atari gave up on it. The TT 030, Falcon and ATW (AKA Abaq) were amazing machines with great potential, but it went unrealised.

Oddly enough, the relatively humble Sinclair QL, which was by Sinclair standards a flop, went on to inspire both hardware compatibles (ICL One Per Desk, Merlin Tonto, Telecom Australia ComputerPhone), motherboard upgrades (Gold Card, Aurora), and up-specced clones (CST Thor, Thor II, Thor XVI), and subsequent compatible machines (Q40, Q60, Q68), and hardware boards for other PCs (QXL card), and its OS continued on other hardware (SMSQ/E).

An impressive legacy for a "flop".

Re: Inside the 1040ST

#79

Post by j45 »

thomasfl wrote: post #63
j45 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s amazing is how capable that setup would still be today

Yes. The only important inventions since the 1980'ies in music technology is synthesizer emulators and autotune. Most of the techno music that has become popular lately, could easily be made with vintage gear from the 1980'ies.

I almost feel like looking up a 1040st or a master ST.. but stop at the thought of the one I never got.. the Falcon

Re: Inside the 1040ST

#80

Post by j45 »

chris_j wrote: post #67
j45 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. It was like visiting the future a little early. The IBM XT it sat next to looked depressing in comparison. And there has never been a game like Revenge of the Mutant Camels since. Or a tweener that was as simple and powerful as the one I used then. And.. I think I’m off to go look for an emulator.

Did I hear that you're looking for an emulator? I recommend Hatari [0] if you want to run games and demos. You'll likely need a TOS ROM image [1]; Hatari comes with EmuTOS, which doesn't work with a lot of games that make assumptions about the memory layout of internal OS structures and the like. If you want to run well written GEM applications then I recommend ARAnyM [2], which is a lot faster, due to not attempting…

Hey. Thanks so much. Really for the links and the guidance on how I might want to navigate it.

Help like this makes a passing wish but little time a lot more doable.

I know some HNers don’t like unprovoked longer form content but I have always been appreciative of it like this and try to do it myself cuz you never know who it might reach passively.

Signing up for Atari forum :)

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