The Atari ST train a family of personal computers whose business success marked second half of the Années 1980.

History

The name ST means Sixteen/Thirty-Two (“sixteen/thirty-two”) in reference to mixed architecture 16/32 bits of the Microprocesseur Motorola 68000 of the first models. The legend says that it was also selected because they are the initial ones of Samuel Tramiel, wire of Jack Tramiel, president of Atari at the time.

The first model of the series (spring 1985) was the 130ST (of Random access memory), followed 520ST (and 520ST+ (left in 1985 and 260ST () but with Tos out of diskette has to charge in RAM and 520STm (in 1986. Followed the 520STf ( F for Floppy , disk drive 3" 5 integrated), 1040STf (1 Mo of random access memory), 520STe , 1040STe ( E for extended : graphic and sound capacities wide). With more professional destination, there were also the Mega ST , the Mega co. , the ''' TT ''' (competitor of the Macintosh for the Desktop publishing and the Musique computer-assisted) and the portables Stacy and ST Book. The last computer of the series manufactured by Atari was the ''' Falcon030 ''', integrating a processor Motorola 68030 and a DSP Motorola 56001.

After the repurchase of Atari by Hasbro, of the clones were put on the market, like Eagle, Medusa, Hadès and Milan. Some of them took as a starting point the design by the TT, others of that of Falcon (with a DSP (DIGITAL Signal Processor)), by integrating evolutions of processor (68040 even 68060), and other evolutions, like the drunk use of a NCV.

These computers were a sharp success near the musicians thanks to the catches MIDDAY present in standard configuration.

The range Atari ST was in direct competition with the Amiga of the manufacturer Commodore. The owners of micro Europeans were then divided into two clans: owners of Atari and owners of Amiga.

Description

The Operating system is TOS for The Operating System (officially) or “Tramiel Operating System”, according to the name of Jack Tramiel.

The system is in fact derived from the GEM, graphic OS (with windows and mouse) created by DIGITAL Research (creative of CP/M) for the platforms such as Intel or Motorola. It was delivered in particular on PC Amstrad, until Apple makes prohibit its marketing on platform PC for a murky story of icon of dustbin. Microsoft had not yet marketed an exploitable Windows version, but worked hand in the hand with Apple for the bearing of Multiplan-Back towards Exel-Mac, and was thus removed from its dangerous competitor (and model) while Apple continued to see Atari cutting down its market by bottom to him. The slogan of Tramiel for Atari STF was: “The Power without the Price”, more especially as one of the first emulators was the Magic-Bag/Specter 128 and GCR (developed by Dave Small, one of the most active programmers of the Atari scene), Mac emulator for Atari being prided on video performances 30% higher.

Specifications

Technical specifications:
  • Processor Motorola 68000 with 8 MHz (ST/Mega ST/STe), Motorola 68000 to 16 MHz (Mega co.), Motorola 68030 to 16 MHz (Falcon030), Motorola 68030 with 16 then 32 MHz (TT).
  • RAM (130ST), RAM (260ST), RAM (520ST), RAM (520ST+ and 1040ST), to RAM (Mega co.), RAM (TT).
  • Resolutions: 320×200 (16 colors), 640×200 (4 colors), 640×400 (monochromic). Color, STf supported 8 levels per elementary component (either 512 colors in all). The co., 16 levels (4  096 colors in all). The TT made it possible to reach the 1280x960 (monochromic), 640x480 (16 colors, standard VGA) and the 320x240 (256 colors). Falcon 30 when to him went up until 640x480 (256 colors), 320x240 (True Color 16 bits), to see more with the accelerators of last generation (1024x768 256 colors).
In addition the colors of ST were not fixed but constituted of a pallet of 4 or 16 colors to be chosen among 512 (or 4096 on co.) and, at the price of a deceleration of the execution, it was possible to change pallet to each line of video sweeping, which exploited of the photo design software and final improvement.
  • Two monitors separated for all the series from ST, a TV type for the two resolutions colors (320x200 and 640x200) either the monitor Atari SC1224 or any station with a Péritel catch, a specific monitor Atari (SM124) for the high-resolution (640x400 monochromic). Of course, a monitor multisynchro was usable but expensive. A do-it-yourselfing made it possible to connect a standard monitor VGA for the high-resolution, with undoubtedly a certain loss of luminosity.
  • sound Chipset Yamaha YM2149 (3 ways) + its numerical stereophony 8 bits 50 Khz (co., TT, Falcon) DMA/PCM + equalisor real-time (volume, low and acute), 8 channels 16 bits 50 Khz connected to matrix DSP on Falcon 30.
  • Ports series up to 19200 bauds (ST, CO., Mega ST) or 115200 bauds (Mega CO., TT, Falcon)
  • Ports ACSI DMA for peripherals (CD, Hard drive, Card reader SD/MMC…) for which an interface allowed conversion into SCSI
  • Disk drive 3" ½ double density (high density on the last revision of the TT)
  • Hard drive SCSI of 48 Mo for the TT and Méga co.
  • Hard drive IDE 2" ½ for Falcon
  • Ports MIDDAY
  • Port //
  • Port cartouche in the beginning dedicated to an application resident of 128ko in ROMANIAN but which was especially used for extensions hardware: video digitizers (VidiST), scanners with hand, digitizers sound (ST Replay), emulators (Spectrum CGR), or for keys hardware of certain musical software. (and lately, Ethernet chart, port USB and IDE)

See too

Related bonds

  • Atari
  • List of applications Atari ST
  • List of plays Atari ST
  • List of computers of passed through manufacturer

External bonds

  • Atari Connection, site on Atari ST with plays, TOS in several languages, music, a tutoriel of Steem.
  • St-fanémule, site on Atari ST with the plays and of the tutoriels on the history dAtari, the Tramiel times and Bushnell, and also of the cards on Tos, St and consoles.
  • Atari Legend, a free site indexing all the plays left on Atari ST and Atari CO. Atari Legend also proposes complete news, interviews, tests, etc
  • Atari-Forum, the most important center of discussion dedicated to the machines Atari 16 and 32 bits.
  • Dinomicro, site on Atari ST and the old video plays in general. Video game
  • atari.org, a noncommercial service dedicated to the users of Atari machines and to the amateurs of traditional of the Video game
  • The Little Green Desktop.
  • GameBaseST a project having for goal to join together, catalog and place at the disposal the plays of the atari ST
  • Official site of Steem, an emulator Graticiel, for Windows and Linux of the atari CO.
  • Holy Official site of , an emulator Graticiel, for Windows of the atari ST and of St-Sound
  • Official site of ARAnyM, a free emulator of platform Atari
  • Official site of sc68, a project Open source free having for goal to allow to listen to on the current machines the musics created for Atari ST and Amiga.
  • Plopbox, files and jukebox of musics in various formats, therefore the YM and MOD, formats of the atari ST
  • Atari History Museum the museum of Atari.
  • Sothius Home off Ancient Microcomputers excellent photographs and detailed technical specifications.
  • ST Magazine the only Atari magazine printed, software and hardware tests, emulation, Leitartikeces on platforms TOS and compatible.

Random links:Hubert sawmills | Bine Zupan | Manager of tasks | Scandinavian compound world cup 2003 | Tremolite