I still use Mega STe today for writing my Finnish articles about retro computing and Atari history, mainly using Papyrus Gold. I also use Twist 2 database to maintain parts of Atarimania ST database. Nothing beats the good old SM124, and the keyboard is still ace to type. I've had my unit since the mid 90's and it has huge amounts of working hours under the belt. It's actually a small miracle it still runs like new. The system is nowadays powered by 4 megs of ram, CosmosEx for SD hard disk/USB connectivity, NetUSBee for internet access/file transfer, Goex SD Floppy Emulator with a small track display, Roland MT-32 for those great Sierra games amongst others and Geneva+Neodesk for full multitasking OS with NVDI screen accelerator and TrueType fonts. I have a graphics card waiting when the October 1988 manufactured SM124 finally dies one day. And for the modern day stuff my weapon of choice is the new Atari VCS800 running that booooring Windows 10 ;-)
Ha, one of these days I will have my old Mega STe back up and running again... with all the things... but I do have my Atari VCS 800 with a proper operating system. Debian Linux! I haven't booted into it for a long while though, since I actually use it for playing games in AtariOS more. 😀
I totally agree with your comments reading the differences between the Mega STE and the ST. I had an Amiga 500 back in the days and the story is very similar. In 1987 the Amiga and the ST were way better than any PC you could get... 5 years later their successors, Amiga 4000 and Falcon could barely keep up with 486 PC's. These 2 manufacturers were no longer leaders. Even on the software side Windows 3.1 looked already more polished... It took me another 3 years to leave my Amiga, but when Windows 95 came out this was truly the end! Now, I use Linux at home, Windows in the office (because I have to)... But I still have my old Amiga... I even bought an Atari STE recently! They're totally outdated but I love them both!
@@fubaralakbar6800 It wasn't just adapting to the times, it was marketing. Remember back in those days the slogan was "Nobody got fired for buying IBM"? Atari, Commodore, and even Apple were not taken seriously when it came to serious computers. They were marketed as home computers and many people saw them as that, a home computer. Not a business computer. They were seen as toys. Because business was buying IBM and their clones for their companies, people wanted to learn how to use the PC, not an Atari, Commodore, or Apple. Apple only survived because of the Mac and the impact they had on Desktop Publishing then later, the iPhone. Furthermore. IBM never intended clones to be made at all. The emergence of cheap IBM clones sealed the deal on all computer companies that didn't make IBM-compatible computers.
I had a 1 meg Mega STe. Upgraded it with the built-in 50 meg hard drive. Bought the SM144 mono monitor that slotted into the left-hand top perfectly as designed. Looked very cool. Great system, still miss it.
It depends!! If you run the Noctua at full speed it is fine. But if you run it slower, using one of the in-built cables, it's not good enough. I have exactly the same power supply, I made that mistake, the PSU overheated and a component blew - it sent 7v down the 5v rail of my Atari and I'm very lucky that I noticed it and got it fixed.
Yes, those are Stereo out. My Mega STe came with a SC1435, which is a stereo monitor. One of the things the STe added to catch up to the Amiga was Stereo sound. Amusing that the falcon went with a 3.5mm, but they also have a built in mic jack, which the Amiga never got.
While I thought the Falcon was sweet back in the day, but I always desired the Mega STE. It seemed to me to be the "ultimate" ST and in many ways it was. 16MHz 68k, external keyboard and that awesome design. Sadly I couldn't afford it because I was just a kid and had to make do with my 1040 STE. Even today these things are so expensive I can't justify buying a vintage one. I hope yours brings you much joy!
They weren't expensive for no reason - lots of extra chips (LAN, VME, cache), huge and complex multilayer PCB, complicated case (these plastics are heavy and covered with copper, and that mini HDD cover was different than non-HDD cover). Fun computers, but when something failed, it was really difficult to find a fix (for example, one of my machines refused to work with internal SCSI adapter, and it was a hard pass). What I'm telling is that even if you got one relatively cheap, there's a chance you could become a victim of Murphy's law. Frankly, sometimes I had better time with a plain STFM expanded with overscan hack, at least in case of coding on 14-inch hires mono monitor.
Non-discolored case of Mega STe is pure gray. Also note that red-ish coating on the inside of the case. This is conductive copper layer. Makes these plastics really heavy. I think this computer was released much earlier than Falcon, but the price was so high, they probably dumped unsold units at some later time (as a re-release on other markets). The complexity of Mega is astounding, and I don't understand why they put so much effort (and money) in all these bells and whistles, but kept 68000 (OK, adding cache made it seriously fast compared to ST, but still). Interestingly, my favorite machine was my plain STFM that I expanded here and there, mostly because there was an easy HW overscan hack that made working on some non-Atari mono monitors so much more comfortable because of more real estate.
@@powerofvintage9442 1.44 MB and 1.2 MB floppies (3.5 and 5.25), overscan, added blitter (mainboard had a place for it), replaced one of system chips (don't remember whether it was MMU or GLUE, mine was slightly incompatible and one of the games never worked with original one... Team Suzuki I think)... some of it was a pain, because these chips were SMD mounted (as well as memory). Once I had AY chip instead of Yamaha, but that didn't work well, I also exploited the fact that MMU allows some pretty odd memory configs, and TOS supports them, so I made an auxiliary address decoder so I could expand memory to some odd capacity (2.75 MB IIRC - in post-communist Poland stuff like memory was pretty expensive...). I also modified one of these SCSI adapters so mine supports both parity/non parity enabled devices, and it supports multiple drives on a single ribbon (you set device ID on drives, not on adapter board). I still have this one. I also made address decoder for TOS 2.06/ATAPI drives, but switched to PCs before I was able to test it (the LED blinked at bootup, so it wasn't completely dead). I also was contemplating 16 MHz mod, but didn't have access to such chip at the time, and people who actually did it reported moderate success (because you need to revert back to 8 MHz at various instances). Oh, I also converted a plain ST keyboard to a Mega-style separate one (required extra capacitor on 5V rail), 8-bit Atari trackball to ST mouse (great for racing games like Vroom and No Second Prize), and a MAC analog joystick to ST mouse (this required extra shielding, because the thing was going crazy anywhere near a color monitor). From keyboard thing it is obvious that I also put my ST into a large PC case, and made kind of control panel for switching floppy IDs, write protecting them, forcing HD on 1.22 drive, etc.
Back in the early 1990's I had a friend who had one of the first TT/030s. I was at his house to see it and as he's showing it to me, I mentioned how lucky he was to have a TT/030. His wife happened to be walking by at that moment. She blew her mind because he had told her he only got the Mega STE. I guess he had some explaining as I think the TT/030 was like 2.5x time price....LOL A while later I was able to (With the help of the wonderful people at Toad Computers) get my own TT/030. I was a software developer of a program called Mailing Manager ST Pro. They allowed me to pay for about 1/3 of the price of the TT/030 with sales of my program to them.
I managed to get my TT for like 400 back in the late 90s (I think it was the first thing I bought off of eBay, it must have been around '96?). I only really got some short usage out of it before I finally gave in and built a PC of my own. Which amusingly happened because my parents had bought a Packard Bell with Windows 95 on it, and I kept slowly upgrading all of the things in it... enough that eventually had all the extra parts to build my own. But I remember being happy on the TT, since I could finally use terminals in 16 colors at a decent resolution like my friend cound on his Amiga, and get proper ANSI graphics on BBSs. Unfortunately, almost all of my ST library of games stopped working on it... 😞 these days there are patches for such things though! The TT030 was, unfortunately, Atari's bastard step child when it came to support. Had they not done the same weird thing they did with the ST and made you get a different monitor for TT High, it could have been a Mac killer for DTP.
@@slaapliedje boy that TT would bring a pretty penny today. I had a 19" like 1280 x 960 mono monitor. That seemed so amazing and big back then. Today I run dual 32" 4K monitors... Lol My current dev rig has dual Xeon 22 core processors with 128gb of RAM. I remember back when I had my TT there was a company in Germany that sold a 256MB upgrade that would cost like $30k to fully populate. Man how times have changed.
@SEEMERIDECOM And yet somehow that TT030 would be far easier to use to get work done and be funner to use on top of that! Operating systems have become needlessly bloated, just to feed hardware sales. Even at 4k, you end up with it scaling up enough to read, and don't get the real estate you think you should by such a high resolution. Using an Amiga or Falcon at 1080p gives you a huge amount of work space! Ha, recently have been messing with my mostly stock Falcon, and realized that we long ago dropped being able to drag a file onto an application to launch it. That was a brilliant mechanism... I should see if KDE or GNOME supports such a thing. Pretty sure Win11 does not...
@SEEMERIDECOM I have since upgraded the TT030 with a VME card, and the Lightning USB. I have the Thunderstorm for it as well, but haven't installed it yet. I think I have 256mb of TT RAM on it. Ha, could probably sell it for 3k if I were wanting to...
5:48 It's often said that the positioning of the STF mouse and joystick ports was a silly choice, but to those of us who actually used them back in the day, it was a non-issue. Yes it was a bit awkward to plug them in, but no more difficult than plugging things into ports at the rear of the machine. Once they were plugged in, you could pretty much just forget about them. How often do you realistically need to unplug and replug your mouse and joystick? Its true that certain two player games could use a second joystick in the mouse port, but other than that rather rare use case, you never needed to touch them. The up side (and the reason the ports were moved to this location when the floppy drive was added) is that the cables came neatly out of the front of the machine, and thus did not interfere with the floppy drive, which was on the side of the machine.
I can definitely see that kind of use case where there is minimal plugging and unplugging. In those cases, it isn't as bad IMO. My friends and I as young kids swapped controllers in those ports regularly. Since I had a 520ST (the original) with ports on the side of the computer, it was far easier for me, but not for them. In recent times, when refurbishing Atari's I have found more than a few damaged solder joints on the controller connectors for those under the keyboard. While it isn't a deal breaker, it was an odd choice.
@@OlgierdSnieszko The mouse port is also the player 2 joystick port, so if you need two joysticks to play a game, then you need to unplug the mouse temporarily so you can plug in the joystick. I suppose if it was a game you played a lot, you could use a splitter to have them both plugged in at the same time.
@@thepenultimateninja5797 I know (I got STFM). Just answered your question ("How often do you realistically need to unplug and replug your mouse and joystick?") perhaps while trying to be a bit sarcastic 🙂. Yah, the splitter was probably best option.
Aaaah, I love your videos. Brings back so many good memories. I would have loved the Ataris to be "better" compared to other computers at the time, but still, they launched my music and studio carreer so I'm eternally grateful for those standard MIDI ports. So small details can make such a huge difference... I had them all from the 1040ST all the way to the Falcon 030 including the TT030 and I loved them. Sold them to buy Mac over the years and now I'm slowly getting some back :D I already have a 1040 STF and 2 Mega STs... repairing them, rejuvenating them, giving back the love :D I'm stunned that there are still software and games being developed for the platform, that's a HUGE thing!! Thanks for these videos!!
Much appreciated! I love these computers myself and like you I've had a blast picking them back up and restoring them. Do regret getting rid of my original 520ST, but such is life pre-nostalgia.
Apple used an RS-442 Serial port for early Appletalk networking. the RS-442 serial port was much faster than the RS-232 at the time. The RJ-45 jack we are accustomed to today was not used for networking back then.
I always liked the slanting edge to the function keys on the traditional ST, they look good and the keys are a nice size, making it easy to hit the right key. I suppose the idea of having joystick/mouse ports beneath the keyboard was so that the plug would be invisible and therefore it would look a bit neater, but of course it must have been annoying to change input devices.
Great video. Atari should have released the Falcon in the Mega STe case. It wouldn't have made a jot of difference to how successful it was, but at least the computer line would have gone out in style.
I think that the Atari's had the most consistent style of the machines from the 80's to early 90's to a level not seen until the Steve Job's Apple Macs in the late 90's / early 00's.
They were working on the Falcon 2 when they left the computer market which was similar style case, photos of prototypes are online. Sony eventually bought the design and used it for their Playstation 2 console released in 2000
@@powerofvintage9442you say “consistent” - I say Jack T. said “we paid big money for those case designs .. we’re gonna keep using them” 😂 The truth is probably somewhere in between. I’ve got a project 1040 here and it’s lovely outside. But while the internal 720k floppy is nice like A500, my svelte project 520 (no internal floppy) leaning up against the 1040 is better. Like a bigger 130XE that I had back in the day. Also like the original Mega cases. So .. I don’t even have the words. I saved up my after school job money for an A2000 with expanded ram and scsi hd etc etc but I never loved how it looked.
Really enjoy your Atari content! Thanks for watching here! Hope we can get Grind on the Falcon as well eventually (although it's not a really big market).
My Atari Mega STE still world fine. I used it some weeks ago to recover the content of an Atari formatted floppy disk where my Brother stored a document in 1992.
The PSU is actually a AT standard PSU, so a simple ATX-AT reduction cable allows you to connect modern ATX PSU, I have one on TT030. Edit: As @blackcarhardware mentioned, the ATX PSU has to have -5V rail that is usually a white wire, so be sure to check it, not all newer ATX PSUs do have it. I totally forgot to mention.
@@powerofvintage9442 oh and one more thing, you just have to cut off the "locks" on AT connectors since they are in the way and do not mess the two parts of connector (AT connector is two part, but the pinout is same as Atari if connected in right order)
@@blackcathardware6238 good point, I totally forgot that, I researched it about a year ago. So yes, the ATX has to have -5V rail, usually white wire, you might even find ATX 2.x with it, since you probably will shop for some small factor PSU, and those are often used in industrial applications. And those sometimes do use ISA slots which require -5V rail. So thank you for clarification, Im going to alter my OP.
@@madigorfkgoogle9349 Besides: even if you use a 7905 to convert -12V to -5V then both voltages draw current from the -12V rail and one should check if the PSU can supply that current. They don't provide many Amps on negative voltage lines. Oh and even more: the 7905 will convert the voltage difference of |-7V| into heat i.e. it dissipates Watts that the -12V rail has to provide!
Very interesting that this machine supported using an FPU with a 68000 CPU. I've known for decades that the '881/'882 could be used in 'peripheral mode' but have never seen it actually implemented.
A few reasons why you might want two serial ports: serial printer, industrial devices that are controlled over serial e.g. CNC machines, null modem cable to another computers for (slow) file transfer/terminal emulation or even something like a DECtalk speech synthesiser.
@@powerofvintage9442 It seems like they were hoping for a bit of the professional market. If I remember it right, the TT was originally meant to be a UNIX workstation for Very Serious Business. Only pipe-smokers and beard-strokers allowed!
Why the two RS232 you asked? At that time a lot of peripherals where using RS232. Plotter, card reader, printer, scanner, lab and monitoring equipment. You cold never have enough RS232 ports. A lot of electronic magazines had some guides to build parallel port controlled switches for the serial port to be able to add more devices.
Multiple RS232 ports, either used if running a BBS on the machine or could be used as TTY terminals if running a different OS/Mint. VME port, I have a Matrix graphics card installed in my TT.
Hi! Atari had excellent machines. I didn't know them before :(. We always talk about Amiga everywhere. One question: if I were to have an Atari today, which machine would you recommend I get? Falcon?
If you're in the US, a 1040STF. You have 1mb of RAM (sufficient for almost everything), an internal PSU (may need to be recapped), an internal floppy drive (the drive may not work, but can be fixed or replaced easily with a Gotek). If you're in Europe, either a 1040STF or a 520STe or 1040STe. The STe is a bit better mostly because upgrading the RAM is as easy as a modern computer but are hard to find in the US (pretty common in Europe). Check out this video here for some considerations: ruclips.net/video/yHmp01qaBZg/видео.html
An advantage to the thinner function keys was you could buy holders for labels to go above them to say what each one did. Sure, you could also stick a pen in the indentation but it was better used for labels.
More than why there are 2 serial ports, I’m more interested in why someone needed a 3rd in the VME slot??? My first hard drive was a self-built external for my 520STm. 32MB for only $580! :-)
Great video, but one small correction: The original LED's were not all green. While the power and floppy disk's LED's are green, the HD light is yellow.
Serial ports are good for a lot more things than just modems. They were the USB port of the time. You can also connect a terminal to one of them and use it for debugging your graphical game without having to show text on your graphics screen. On the PC there were some _crazy_ serial devices but I don't know if those would have worked on the ST (probably not...)
I wired my directly replacing the existing one. I’ll take a close look once I’m home from traveling, but there should just be two wires and if you wire them backwards then the fan just changes from a pull to a push.
My Mega STe had a monitor switch box with mono and colour (multi sync) monitors, a 386Sx board inside although just the default graphics. Video cards were way beyond my budget. External SCSI hard drive and an HP laser printer. It was an awesome workhorse for several years, particularly with Word Up for processing duties, LDW power for spreadsheets and Lattice C and Devpac for coding.
That reminds me .. although a mention was made of a switch and a multi sync monitor.. for standard ST monitors there was a switch box from Practical Peripherals (iirc) called Monitor Master (iirc). I waited patiently on the bay of e for one to appear without a large Buy It Now price or if it was an auction then for a reasonable final bid. Some stuff goes for crazy prices these days. I’ve been hunting and gathering for a decade or so (hit my midlife crisis) and the price creep has been unreal.
Sure does...at least according to GEMbench that tests a number of various items. GEM dialog box, VDI text etc all show a significant 50% or more uplift from the blitter enabled Mega ST4 versus a standard ST without a blitter (not adding the STe features either). See this other benchmarking video I posted a while back: ruclips.net/video/olC8Fz-1rN0/видео.htmlfeature=shared&t=1332 I've sent at a timestamp in the middle showing the Mega ST4 results in Gembench.
@@powerofvintage9442 I am actually more into Hardware development then gaming on this computers anymore. Currently working on Atari printer port output to USB, on PC (MAC-WIN-LINUX) side I have software developed in Processing which allows me to print on network printers. (A proof of concept)😀
Originally the TT was planned as the replacement for the ST series. They had lined up the system for 68040/60, hundreds MB of RAM, fast SCSI, additional graphic and expansion cards. But it didn't sell. To expensive and not compatible enough. So in a rush the MegaSTE was put out to hold on to the users who wanted compatibility and speed. All after the TT was trying to soften the fall. If the TT had been designed a litte bit different it could have been a hit it hat all the good specs and was expandable in a good form format.
The trouble with the TT was that it just cost too much. An entry level TT was $3K, a tough sell if you owned an ST, STE or Mega ST that cost between $599 and $1800 at launch. Had they managed to make a “baby TT” in an ST style case with similar specs at an ST price (under $1K with monitor), things would have been very different.
@@Sl1pstreams The TT was so expensive because of the way it was constructed, despite the goal to reduce the production price with a clever construction. The "Funnel" chips was developed to reduce the production cost. The argument was that multilayer PCP's where so expensive that making chips to reduce the conducting paths was cost effective. But mulitlayer PCBs got cheaper much faster than anticipated. The development of the Funnel chip took more time than anticipated. Without the Funnels a TT would have been cheaper and at least a year earlier. But Atari had committed to it and didn't had the money to change that. All after the TT was scrambling to get on the feet again from that disaster.
Yes, it looks good. Way better than anything i remember from the period. I loved the look of Amiga 3000 and original Acorn Archimedes, then i saw the TT, oh my! Way too expensive for me just for that faster CPU. I did't even know the Mega STE was available in this (TT) style case. As you point out not as practical as other systems, in a time when CPU tech was accelerating at a phenomenal rate and expandability was also needed. What really gets me is cache RAM for a 68000!? Did Atari really go to the trouble of building a motherboard cache for the CPU? I love the idea of 8 and 16Mhz modes. It really is a system for the (then) current user base and current retro users, hey an STE with a faster CPU option in a great looking case and detached keyboard. I Would have bought it if i had the pennies and i knew it existed. Motorola 68K chips didn't have the legacy paged memory problem the x86 PC platform had back then. 68K '020 and '030 (the Falcon CPU) had a built in 256 byte instruction cache, the '030 had a same sized data cache as well. The continuous memory map gave the architecture an advantage. However the 486 followed by the Pentium with Windows 9x pretty much ended the 68K advantage. Even Apple migrated from 68K to the PowerPC processor. In a time when you needed at least a 68040 (it had a built-in FPU) to compete with 486DX models, the Mega STE was harking back, but... seriously it look good. PS. Re additional serial ports. Prior to USB I recall alot of serial devices appearing. Particularly digital cameras, i had one that used a serial interface. Someone clearly thought ahead, your not going to want to detach your modem just to offload some data from a detachable device.
The L1 cache (16KByte) is designed like any other TurboBoard based on 68000 + L1 at the time. They just copied the design of previously designed TurboBoards by other companies (e.g. Mach16, Turbo16, HBS240 and many others).
My understanding is that the Bus and all the other chips still ran at 8mhz, so the cache allows the CPU some 'room' to read and write at 16mhz instead of waiting for the bus. Lovely looking machine, always wanted one. Bought a 386 Dx40 instead with VGA graphics and a sound blaster instead.
The SCSI controller the Mega-STE has is only capable to control one device. It's a relative simple ACSI-to-SCSI bridge. It's important to note that this adapter only supports SCSI1 and no parity check. This gave people hard times updating the Drive. It also can't transfer with the theoretical 5Mb/s of SCSI1 because of the limits of the ACSI-bus. There where third party developers who provided full SCSI2 bridge as drop in replacement.
Double the clock speed and an L2 cache? I'd say that's an excellent upgrade expectially given it was software switchable for virtually full backwards compatibility. Yes, it wasn't the Falcon and the obvious missing upgrade was in the video department, but I'd say this is probably what the STE should have been. Perhaps two years late.
Mega STe has a slot for graphics card which can display thousands of colours, even 256 in resolution of 1280x1024. Not that they were cheap back in the day, but upgrade option was there the same way it was available for older Mega ST line.
Ahh, ataris I could never afford.. still have my 1040 ST but never use it - SD readers are so expensive.. upgraded SOJ's to 4meg and can boot modern TOS's from floppy and still have plenty of RAM but it's a card reader/hdd one really wants :) btw if someone needs 8 Hitachi HM514400 SOJ's chips (totalling 4MB) just let me know - I have an extra set laying around.
Free of charge, I'll even pay the stamps - I just like engaging hobbyists with any help I can :) but only if you really need it or someone else might have the fun :)
I do like EmuTOS and run it on my Mega ST (not STe) that has a TF536 50mhz accelerator and Tseng ET4000 graphics card in it. EmuTOS really helps that one to take more advantage of the bonus hardware.
@@powerofvintage9442cool... Reminds me that I once hooked up a dumb terminal to my Amiga 500 and wrote some proof of concept software for it. I got my operating systems class university teacher really impressed with the result. You could really have 2 people use the Amiga and the same time, one on the unit itself and the other on the terminal! Pity I have long lost that software as I still have the Amiga and would love to rekindle that setup!
I never knew the point of an mega st at the time, but maybe these key improvements are what the music industry wanted? Just an ste with more ram, big hdd, compatible and that could be stashed away from your desk? Midi was an ST's 'business niche' lifeblood and I would think where most of these ended up - extending the ST's professional life?
Basic Mega ST was actually built for desktop publishing use with Atari's laser printer. It also had a slot for additional graphics card to use then huge 19" displays with 1280x900 pixels resolution. The whole desktop publishing workstation with software from Atari cost less than Apple's laser printer alone.
@@Maraka77i That does make sense and it would make it a powerful DTP for the time. It wasn't unfortunately where it really had any market share with Amstrad PCW's wiping the floor in the lower end and at high end Mac's taking the professional market. As said I've only seen three of these in real life and all 3 were in music studios and even then i only could see the keyboard the rest if it was buried under other music equipment 🙂.
@@anticat900 A German company DMC made an excellent DTP package (Calamus - one of very few that used vector fonts back then), and on Mega STe it could run twice as fast as on normal ST, AND you could plug one of those Tseng ET4000 cards to VME for more pixels. Basically, it was a half-way TT030 for cheap. If Atari had optimized this design over time to make it cheaper/faster/more powerful, then maybe they would survive a bit longer.
@@przemekkobel4874 Was DTP really a thing for Atari or was it a thing they were trying to get into and failed? I only knew ST's in music, and a 16mhz 68000 i doubt cut much mustard in 1991?
@@anticat900 It had some success for a bit of time. For smaller print shops it has a cheap and ultra-fast laser printer (it was connected via DMA cable to the computer, and most of the image processing was done on Atari). For serious projects it could be connected directly to an imagesetter, and (wiith Calamus) it could perform full RIP for printing plates - again, very fast, and with direct raster preview - that was a huge deal, since people could see pixel-exact previews, which at the time was either impossible, or ultra-expensive. Even one of imagestter manufacturers recommend Atari setup, as it suddenly, for very cheap, became the fastest thing on the market (I mean, their machine, not the computer). The problem I think was that many people, especially outside of Europe, used less advanced DTP packages, and with time Mac software became more and more advanced (for example, Calamus didn't support some kinds of raster rotations for some types of print), and then RIPs became so cheap that Calamus magic didn't count anymore. Now everything is PDF-based, and print shops aren't even surprised if you send them stuff made with something as exotic as Scribus on Ubuntu.
Atari spent over 5 years repackaging 1985 technology in different looking boxes. Making very tiny incremental changes in what was basically the same machine. By the time they got around to the Falcon, it was too late. Atari had blown its reserves on the Portfolio, Lynx and piece of crap Jaguar. It's really amazing that the Falcon even saw the light of day, never mind the TT and the Transputer. Talk about poor management, OO FAH! But even if Atari had done everything right, they would have ended up defunct like Commodore did. PC Clones ruled the world.
@@powerofvintage9442 There wasn't even room for Apple. Microsoft ended up bailing them out to avoid being a monopoly, otherwise they would have died in the 90s too.
PC clones ruled because the 68k crowd couldn’t get their acts together. The combination of 386 memory map and all of its functionality and Windows 3.1 didn’t take hold for many years. And DOS was stretched thin with all different kinds of memory solutions beyond 640k and getting all those drivers for all the devices was a PIA. Even IBM themselves were loosing out because they wanted too much $ for not enough goodness and OS/2 was not going to plan for the longest time. I think that if the others played their hands well then they could make the case for doing office and business work on their easier to use and maintain systems. And I never could take seriously the thing about black and green (or amber, or white) meaning “business” when by the later 80s that was more and more rare. People wanted color charts and reports! Think about CAD. In college in the 90s we used high res color CAD systems in an engineering lab. Even the Macintosh went color by ‘87. And the popularity of Ad Lib cards… They all fumbled it. Plain and simple. Atari and CBM didn’t know what they were doing. At best Apple did but made some bad decisions and got distracted. Do we need to get into “pink” and Taligent? Even MS was looking down the barrel of an antitrust gun in the late 90s and the judge couldn’t resist talking to the press and trying to make himself into a somebody like (I’m speculating here) we wanted fame/fortune/political career. And MS cried foul and was let off the hook. If Steve (Mr Pixar) wanted he could have done more but getting Bill to give a few $ (and it wasn’t THAT much in the grand scheme of things) then that could have been the path. But the partnership looked better. Oh to return to the spring of ‘87 when I picked up a computer magazine at the convince store magazine rack (tbh I was there for a sugary snack .. I was a teenager) and learn that the Macintosh has a new version II with a PC like case and color (!) monitor (that was separate) AND IBM wants us to “PS/2 it” with and exciting new line of beautiful machines.
Apple came up with a way for their computer line to leverage postscript laser printers and seized a beachhead of desktop publishing - this enabled them to hold onto a number two position relative to the avalanche of PC clones. The irony is that the generic defacto standatd of an MS-DOS PC architecture merely created a race to the bottom of low margins. A low margin industry was not conducive for long term company survival and most cloners also went the way of Commodore
Oh nice! So if one swapped the other country ROMs to the US version and swap the power supply for 110v, that's all that's needed to make it work in the US with US software? That would make overseas models cheaper to get for sure...
Actually, the PSU's are compatible with both voltages on the Mega STe, so you don't have to swap those. In the case of standard Atari STF's and STe's you do need to switch, but a Meanwell RD-50a or RD-35a could also be swapped in with minimal soldering skill. ROM's are relatively easy to burn as well with a minor investment or just purchase off of ebay.
"Aesthetic isn't why you buy a computer..." (yes, I had to use the spell check). Every computer I ever bought, aesthetics played a part in which one I chose, except maybe the Mac Book I bought in 2015 (plain silver was pretty much the only think Apple was offering at the time). I carry laptops around in public, and desktops sit in a highly visible spot in my home. Why would buying an ugly one be acceptable?
The Mega STE I'm pretty sure was best for small business uses where they already had an ST and wanted to be able to do some things faster if the software allowed it. These days though it's just the best ST to own. I've swapped the keyboard in mine for a Mega ST
Agreed! The Mega STe keyboard is good vs the typical ST keyboard, but I agree that the Mega ST is better. Nice linear Mx switches. It's my favorite vintage keyboard! Took me a while to find a US Mega ST keyboard...I have it now and I'm not letting it go!
I bought a Mega ST just to get the keyboard! I've just found your channel and very much enjoyed it. I hope you explore the side of st that's often ignored. Another new channel "Commodore is not the only fruit" is doing a bit of that too. Very interesting stuff!
@@DaveVelociraptor glad you enjoy it! I love the podcast and listen to it weekly while working "retro" projects (glad there is an Atarian and Ultima geek representing there!). "Commodore is not the only fruit" has inspired me to up my Mint desktop game!
It was designed for cool dudes managing their music synthesisers on midi is my belief, style, some more ram and a hdd, is all they wanted so Atari made this for that market (the fact it was their only market must have helped too 🙂).
The Doom clone Grind is still in development, but if you are a patreon you can download the latest version. www.patreon.com/Grind_Amiga/posts There might still be the demo version of a simple first level floating around under the name "Dread"
I disagree with your conclusions, here is why. First of all, Commodore had just A500+ that was kinda in same price range as Mega STE, the A3000 was way more expensive then even TT030. Second, the Mega STE was a vast improvement on OG Atari 520ST from 1985, it had almost double the computing power, had much better audio system (in fact better then any Amiga), had much better and more modern TOS 2.05 (the 2.06 was later made by Atari to bring 2.05 features to all STs), had built in BLiTTER, had 4096 colour palette (instead of 512), had easy RAM upgrade via SIMMs, had a built in VME bus for professional upgrades (not just VGA and network, but also lab equipment), had a slot for FPU, had 3/4 serial ports (some highspeed ports), optional SCSI HDD (much faste then ACSI), ... and had a professional looks and all that for a price only slightly higher then 1040STE. And third, while you are right that in PC world in 1991 you could already get 486DX2 that had much higher computing power, but then again you could had 5 pieces of the 16MHz Mega STE for less money. Which means that instead of one worker, 5 workers could work on 5 different tasks. Also the GUI on Mega STE is really snappy, and productivity apps are usually snappier on Mega STE then on 486. And even CAD is not bad on Mega STE, for example DynaCADD is faster then on 386DX and obviously slower then AutoCAD 10 on 486 (if you dont have dedicated CAD VGA of course, and the FPU did help a lot on 486). So the productivity (which was the market target for Mega STE) was very relevant even for year 1991 and the power/price ratio was still very good for Atari. Also the software was much cheaper for Atari platform then for Mac or PCs, with similar usability and even cross platform compatibility.
One correction is the DX2 was available later on in 1992 not 91. I sold computers from early 93 to 98 and we still sold the DX50 in 93. The DX2/66 was the workhorse of 93. 91 and 92 was more about the DX33. This is going by memory but I built and sold around 300-500 of these per year back then.
All very good points! I still stand by my point that the Falcon was too little too late and thus the Mega STe was even more too little too late. Don't get me wrong, I love this computer, and it really was probably moot even at this point and no matter what Atari did it was unlikely to turn the tides of fate.
@@powerofvintage9442 thats why Trammel "killed" the computer division after realizing how more versatile and advanced the PC clones are and where the market is heading. My point was that in 1991 and even 92-94 the Mega STE was still a very relevant computer for given target customer. It was the time that i286 were still sold and both were pretty competent at the work that was expected from them (i286 under DOS, i386 under win 3.0). All really changed in office area with the approach of win95, where a i486 with 8MB RAM was a usable minimum for anything, even as rudimentary as word processor or spreadsheet. The Mega STE was no longer the home "do it all" computer, and it was still powerful, easy to use (GUI) non expensive office computer, despite reusing "guts" from a STE home computer. ST line of computer, after all, was never aiming for the spot of the best computer, it was always "a lot of computer" for a great price. And here Mega STE was a great Office computer with huge list of software often compatible with PC software, doing same tasks often faster and more elegant, for a decent price. For the "Power user" there was the TT030 as a flagship and later for "Home Power user" there was the Falcon. So I dont think that Mega STE was too little too late for this matter, it was not trying to push any limits, it was a "budget" office computer.
@@powerofvintage9442 one more thing, I just now realized that you are form US, here in Europe the situation was very very different and ST line of computers and even Amiga, CPC or Archimedes was very wide spread, having huge lists of productivity software you didnt have in US. Few weeks ago I missed out on a TT030 eBay auction, but got in touch with the owner to hear his story. He bought the TT030 in 1993 and was using it "daily" in his business until the end of 2018 when he retired! He was using it for office tasks to write letters and for his accounting and invoicing via a program from 1994. Also he made flyers via CalamusSL DTP program. He was kind enough to help my computer archeology and made me a copy of his HDD. There is a story here in youtube of a guy from Netherlands, who is using ST for track of visitors on his campground, till now. So you see that the relevancy of "beefed up" ST computer in office here in Europe was very different to US, where PC and Mac dominated offices since late 80s.
@@paulbird3216 very wrong. First I compared the Mega STE to the OG 520ST for a reason, it was mentioned in the video that it was not much of a improvement which is not true. Now to your theory, STE was not the predecessor of the Mega STE, it was produced roughly in same time and while STE was a home computer solution, the Mega STE was a office computer, very different market. Besides that, the Mega STE was just 150UKP more expensive then 1040STE, but it had port for SCSI adapter, it had slot for FPU, it had high speed serial ports and theoretical apple talk, had about double the CPU power and had a VME bay. I dont know, but this is a lot more then 1040STE had and that for just 150? Whats your point? Also the monochrome 640x400 resolution of ST was still a great option in office where majority of applications were "text" oriented. And while basic PC already started to be equipped with VGA, it was not the colourful SVGA you know from more pricey PCs. You do overrate the VGA a bit, standard VGA is 640x480 at monochrome or if you had more VRAM, 16 colours and no Blitter. Not much better then MegaSTE, and low VRAM was always equipped on value 386s that were still a bit more expensive then MegaSTE, while Atari was way faster with graphics then 386 with cheap VGA. So could you get a 486DX with SVGA card for tripple or quadruple the price of Mega STE? Yes, did you need it for office work? Hell no! So what was your point again? CD playback was done same as on any other computer, via audio out directly on CD player, no other computer did it different, SB cards just had a header to connect the audio out from CD and mix it to audio out of its own DAC, the music from CD was analogue since the computers didnt have the power to move the CD quality digital audio, that came later in Pentium times.. The 8-bit DAC was standard even on PCs, Soundblaster16 came out in 1992 and the card did cost more then MegaSTE alone. So whats your point? Single VME slot was enough since the MegaSTE already had all needed input/output ports a stock PC often lacked, also you can use VME splitter adapter if you happen to need more then one VME board, for example Rothron VME-Bus adapter. But usually one VME was more then enough, people in office environment usually didnt use the slot at all, or sometimes they used it for network card and some in DTP environment did use NOVA graphics solutions. In lab you usually used the 19" Rothron with multiple VME slots and SM144 monitor. So again, what is your point? Your comment ybout the 4MB RAM limitation shows that you dont know much about ST architecture. The limitation was given by the MMU chip, but that was not the limit and there were solutions to have more RAM, especially on MegaSTE with its space. Also what address does the VME use, what do you think? i286 was released just 3 years after MC68000 and PCs with i286 were still sold in 1991, hell even VC20/30 XTs were still sold into office environment back then, so what was your point again? Atari MegaSTE was not replacement for anything not even for Mega ST (that was the TT030), it was budget oriented office computer. And while the budget 386DX computer had definitely much higher raw computing power, the entry level 386 usually used DOS, had no audio, used cheap VGA chip with low VRAM (640x480mono), and was very very slow from user experience (especially if you wanted to have GUI like Win 3.x). Anything office oriented that is not relying on math calculations is so much faster on MegaSTE then on value 386 that it hurts. MegaSTE often rivals 486DX running Win3.11 at the speed of office applications. And in CAD area, DynaCADD on MegaSTE is about one quarter faster then Autocad on value 386, and with M68882 the MegaSTE utterly eats up a value 386 for same money... Seems to me that you missed the point and you compare a value office computer to a gaming machine you remember as a kid...MegaSTE never pretended to be one.
0:50 Mac was not even close to the first computer to do this. There were a bunch of CP/M machines that did this plus a few IBM models too. Long before Apple Mac.
@@powerofvintage9442 C64 music, 8bit Atari music - those sound great and trigger great memories. But whenever I hear Atari ST chip music, I break into tears. Tears of frustration, because I know how those tunes sounded on my cousin's Amiga...
No worries! To each their own. I do think that there was more experimentation done to by this old computer manufacturers. This led to some really interesting and cool designs as well as some odd less functional ones. The 80's were a cool time!
9:15 That is probably not aesthetics. It's probably structural. The 2 ports you showed on the back as serial ports might be joystick ports. The grind port of dread is awful looking. This computer is ridiculous for 1991. The 68k chip is long obsolete at this point. While 4MB is good for 1991, I would think it didn't come with 4MB. To be honest, the plastic case is a bit ridiculous for 1991. Given the complexity of the case, I can't imagine it was that much cheaper than a real metal computer case. While ST owners were probably impressed by this machine, at least somewhat, this machine was cost cut to the point of hurting it. Commodore was tending to make the same mistakes, at least with the consumer lines (the Amiga absolutely should not have been divided up into separate consumer and business lines). Comparing these machines to the improvements in the Mac line is a bit unfair, especially the Mac II which you mentioned by name. The Mac 2 was a five thousand Dollar machine. Loaded up, it was well above that. But I do agree this machine is badly under powered and should have an 030 at 25mhz or better. Please eliminate 90% of the commercials. It's ridiculous. If I actually had to watch them, I would not have watched the whole video. . I would have clicked away at the first commercial which randomly interrupts the video in the middle of motion. 1 commercial at the beginning of the video is all I am ever willing to watch. There has been at least 4 commercial brakes 28 minutes into the video. Not even network tv is this bad., These commercials are hurting you far more than they are helping. They might generate a few dollars income, but they are preventing growth.
The Mac IIsi which is a contemporary of this machine was a much more "affordable" machine and while not totally in the ballpark price-wise was targeted towards a similar home market with a 030 @ 25mhz. Thank you for the heads up about the commercials. I did not realize how many RUclips decided to put in the videos...I'm still new at this having started just in July. I believe I have adjusted it to remove most if not all mid-video ads.
@@powerofvintage9442 I thought I recalled you saying the Mac II. But I might be mistaken. I believe the II, IIfx and IIsi were all quite expensive machines. I'm just trying to be as fair as possible. OTOH, I don't think these machines could be saved. The DOS PC was an unstoppable force by 1990. Thanks for the commercials. I stopped watching network TV because of them. They really grate on me.
Nah. 1040STE was the best looking - perhaps ever. The Mega STe just looks bonkers! I had a 4MB ST back in the day, but it didn't look like that. It was a standalone pizza box with separate keyboard, but it didn't have a 'base' that it sat it like yours. Nice video 👍
I’m a fan of all the ST designs really (except the STacy). The standalone pizza box ST was the Mega ST (no “e”). That was one of the first ST’s I picked up when I started back into them. Great computer!
The purpose of the video was just to showcase the Mega STe at a high level and not push it to its limits....yet. I like the idea of some content showing off "the best" demos etc.
7:22 WHY in god's good name would you put an FPU in this machine, especially today? If you were doing work that would benefit from an FPU, you wouldn't be using this machine (even back then). By far the most common use of an FPU was for spreadsheets. Nobody was doing complex spreadsheet modeling on these computers. Certainly nobody is using these for productivity today. I seriously doubt there is a single person anywhere in the world using any Atari computer for actual work. Not even a Luddite author who is writing a book or something because this is what they've been using for 30 years and they won't change. . It is just comical to me how many retro-computing guys put FPUs in their XT class computer or their Amiga and now with this ST. There is probably not a single game ever made for any of these platforms that requires an FPU. Gaming is the ONLY use these machines have today.
Why is a good question. Why even use these vintage computers at all? I mean emulation would provide for a better gaming experience really. My reason for “why” is that I find tinkering fun. Is there any software I use that even uses the FPU? Nothing except for the benchmarking software. I did it because it was there and was a fun simple project to do. Everyone does “vintage” a bit differently. I really don’t even play the games much….I do actually use my Falcon to write RUclips scripts for the heck of it though and to listen to MP3’s while doing it. Could I do it on my PC, Mac or Raspberry Pi even, sure, but I find it fun to do it on an old computer because I can.
@@powerofvintage9442 Nothing beats original hardware on a CRT monitor. Emulation can get close and in some ways is more convenient, but for the best results, hardware is required. Not for every game. A lot of modern vintage games were designed on a modern PC with a flat screen LCD and so the graphics are designed to be viewed on modern LCD screens. I get that it's a project. I really do. We do lots of dumb things because it's fun. I bake bread. You cannot possibly bake bread cheaper than the store bought bread and it spoils in a day or so. I do it because I love the smell of baking bread and because I like it. Still, I just think it is comical.
There are indeed several musicians that *still* use OG STs for part of their workflow. There are people that do their retro write-ups, scripts, etc on 8 bit machines.
@@markstrickland438 Like who? People writing a game for an Atari ST? None of the retrogaming magazines could be done on an 8 bit computer. If anyone types out the article on an 8 bit computer, its novelty.
@@tarstarkusz music, YT scripts, games, whatever...they are actively written on 1980s machines, and yes, even eight bit machines. Because you don't see why anyone would do certain upgrades doesn't mean anything.
I still use Mega STe today for writing my Finnish articles about retro computing and Atari history, mainly using Papyrus Gold. I also use Twist 2 database to maintain parts of Atarimania ST database. Nothing beats the good old SM124, and the keyboard is still ace to type.
I've had my unit since the mid 90's and it has huge amounts of working hours under the belt. It's actually a small miracle it still runs like new.
The system is nowadays powered by 4 megs of ram, CosmosEx for SD hard disk/USB connectivity, NetUSBee for internet access/file transfer, Goex SD Floppy Emulator with a small track display, Roland MT-32 for those great Sierra games amongst others and Geneva+Neodesk for full multitasking OS with NVDI screen accelerator and TrueType fonts.
I have a graphics card waiting when the October 1988 manufactured SM124 finally dies one day.
And for the modern day stuff my weapon of choice is the new Atari VCS800 running that booooring Windows 10 ;-)
Ha, one of these days I will have my old Mega STe back up and running again... with all the things... but I do have my Atari VCS 800 with a proper operating system. Debian Linux! I haven't booted into it for a long while though, since I actually use it for playing games in AtariOS more. 😀
I totally agree with your comments reading the differences between the Mega STE and the ST. I had an Amiga 500 back in the days and the story is very similar. In 1987 the Amiga and the ST were way better than any PC you could get... 5 years later their successors, Amiga 4000 and Falcon could barely keep up with 486 PC's. These 2 manufacturers were no longer leaders. Even on the software side Windows 3.1 looked already more polished... It took me another 3 years to leave my Amiga, but when Windows 95 came out this was truly the end!
Now, I use Linux at home, Windows in the office (because I have to)... But I still have my old Amiga... I even bought an Atari STE recently! They're totally outdated but I love them both!
The fact that the PC clone manufacturers were so good at adapting to the times is the reason Atari machines are not around today.
@@fubaralakbar6800
It wasn't just adapting to the times, it was marketing. Remember back in those days the slogan was "Nobody got fired for buying IBM"? Atari, Commodore, and even Apple were not taken seriously when it came to serious computers. They were marketed as home computers and many people saw them as that, a home computer. Not a business computer. They were seen as toys. Because business was buying IBM and their clones for their companies, people wanted to learn how to use the PC, not an Atari, Commodore, or Apple. Apple only survived because of the Mac and the impact they had on Desktop Publishing then later, the iPhone. Furthermore. IBM never intended clones to be made at all. The emergence of cheap IBM clones sealed the deal on all computer companies that didn't make IBM-compatible computers.
I had a 1 meg Mega STe. Upgraded it with the built-in 50 meg hard drive. Bought the SM144 mono monitor that slotted into the left-hand top perfectly as designed. Looked very cool. Great system, still miss it.
I love these stories. It's the memories that make this hobby fun!
I wouldn't worry about the replacement fan. Noctua fans are one of the best quality fans you can get.
It depends!! If you run the Noctua at full speed it is fine. But if you run it slower, using one of the in-built cables, it's not good enough. I have exactly the same power supply, I made that mistake, the PSU overheated and a component blew - it sent 7v down the 5v rail of my Atari and I'm very lucky that I noticed it and got it fixed.
@@Storm_.I am running it at full speed!
Jean Michel Jarre was using this computer
Yes, those are Stereo out. My Mega STe came with a SC1435, which is a stereo monitor. One of the things the STe added to catch up to the Amiga was Stereo sound.
Amusing that the falcon went with a 3.5mm, but they also have a built in mic jack, which the Amiga never got.
While I thought the Falcon was sweet back in the day, but I always desired the Mega STE. It seemed to me to be the "ultimate" ST and in many ways it was. 16MHz 68k, external keyboard and that awesome design. Sadly I couldn't afford it because I was just a kid and had to make do with my 1040 STE. Even today these things are so expensive I can't justify buying a vintage one. I hope yours brings you much joy!
Yeah, the TT and Mega STe weren't too common and so are pretty pricey....but super cool!
They weren't expensive for no reason - lots of extra chips (LAN, VME, cache), huge and complex multilayer PCB, complicated case (these plastics are heavy and covered with copper, and that mini HDD cover was different than non-HDD cover). Fun computers, but when something failed, it was really difficult to find a fix (for example, one of my machines refused to work with internal SCSI adapter, and it was a hard pass).
What I'm telling is that even if you got one relatively cheap, there's a chance you could become a victim of Murphy's law. Frankly, sometimes I had better time with a plain STFM expanded with overscan hack, at least in case of coding on 14-inch hires mono monitor.
Non-discolored case of Mega STe is pure gray. Also note that red-ish coating on the inside of the case. This is conductive copper layer. Makes these plastics really heavy. I think this computer was released much earlier than Falcon, but the price was so high, they probably dumped unsold units at some later time (as a re-release on other markets). The complexity of Mega is astounding, and I don't understand why they put so much effort (and money) in all these bells and whistles, but kept 68000 (OK, adding cache made it seriously fast compared to ST, but still). Interestingly, my favorite machine was my plain STFM that I expanded here and there, mostly because there was an easy HW overscan hack that made working on some non-Atari mono monitors so much more comfortable because of more real estate.
How did you expand your STFM? Always love learning more about the various mods/tweaks.
@@powerofvintage9442 1.44 MB and 1.2 MB floppies (3.5 and 5.25), overscan, added blitter (mainboard had a place for it), replaced one of system chips (don't remember whether it was MMU or GLUE, mine was slightly incompatible and one of the games never worked with original one... Team Suzuki I think)... some of it was a pain, because these chips were SMD mounted (as well as memory). Once I had AY chip instead of Yamaha, but that didn't work well, I also exploited the fact that MMU allows some pretty odd memory configs, and TOS supports them, so I made an auxiliary address decoder so I could expand memory to some odd capacity (2.75 MB IIRC - in post-communist Poland stuff like memory was pretty expensive...). I also modified one of these SCSI adapters so mine supports both parity/non parity enabled devices, and it supports multiple drives on a single ribbon (you set device ID on drives, not on adapter board). I still have this one. I also made address decoder for TOS 2.06/ATAPI drives, but switched to PCs before I was able to test it (the LED blinked at bootup, so it wasn't completely dead). I also was contemplating 16 MHz mod, but didn't have access to such chip at the time, and people who actually did it reported moderate success (because you need to revert back to 8 MHz at various instances). Oh, I also converted a plain ST keyboard to a Mega-style separate one (required extra capacitor on 5V rail), 8-bit Atari trackball to ST mouse (great for racing games like Vroom and No Second Prize), and a MAC analog joystick to ST mouse (this required extra shielding, because the thing was going crazy anywhere near a color monitor). From keyboard thing it is obvious that I also put my ST into a large PC case, and made kind of control panel for switching floppy IDs, write protecting them, forcing HD on 1.22 drive, etc.
Wow! I thought I’ve modded my ST’s a lot. Very cool!
Back in the early 1990's I had a friend who had one of the first TT/030s. I was at his house to see it and as he's showing it to me, I mentioned how lucky he was to have a TT/030. His wife happened to be walking by at that moment. She blew her mind because he had told her he only got the Mega STE. I guess he had some explaining as I think the TT/030 was like 2.5x time price....LOL
A while later I was able to (With the help of the wonderful people at Toad Computers) get my own TT/030. I was a software developer of a program called Mailing Manager ST Pro. They allowed me to pay for about 1/3 of the price of the TT/030 with sales of my program to them.
I’m still on the lookout for a TT! I really do love the design of the Mega STe / TT. Unique.
I managed to get my TT for like 400 back in the late 90s (I think it was the first thing I bought off of eBay, it must have been around '96?). I only really got some short usage out of it before I finally gave in and built a PC of my own. Which amusingly happened because my parents had bought a Packard Bell with Windows 95 on it, and I kept slowly upgrading all of the things in it... enough that eventually had all the extra parts to build my own.
But I remember being happy on the TT, since I could finally use terminals in 16 colors at a decent resolution like my friend cound on his Amiga, and get proper ANSI graphics on BBSs. Unfortunately, almost all of my ST library of games stopped working on it... 😞 these days there are patches for such things though!
The TT030 was, unfortunately, Atari's bastard step child when it came to support. Had they not done the same weird thing they did with the ST and made you get a different monitor for TT High, it could have been a Mac killer for DTP.
@@slaapliedje boy that TT would bring a pretty penny today.
I had a 19" like 1280 x 960 mono monitor. That seemed so amazing and big back then. Today I run dual 32" 4K monitors... Lol
My current dev rig has dual Xeon 22 core processors with 128gb of RAM.
I remember back when I had my TT there was a company in Germany that sold a 256MB upgrade that would cost like $30k to fully populate.
Man how times have changed.
@SEEMERIDECOM And yet somehow that TT030 would be far easier to use to get work done and be funner to use on top of that! Operating systems have become needlessly bloated, just to feed hardware sales. Even at 4k, you end up with it scaling up enough to read, and don't get the real estate you think you should by such a high resolution. Using an Amiga or Falcon at 1080p gives you a huge amount of work space!
Ha, recently have been messing with my mostly stock Falcon, and realized that we long ago dropped being able to drag a file onto an application to launch it. That was a brilliant mechanism... I should see if KDE or GNOME supports such a thing. Pretty sure Win11 does not...
@SEEMERIDECOM I have since upgraded the TT030 with a VME card, and the Lightning USB. I have the Thunderstorm for it as well, but haven't installed it yet. I think I have 256mb of TT RAM on it. Ha, could probably sell it for 3k if I were wanting to...
5:48 It's often said that the positioning of the STF mouse and joystick ports was a silly choice, but to those of us who actually used them back in the day, it was a non-issue.
Yes it was a bit awkward to plug them in, but no more difficult than plugging things into ports at the rear of the machine.
Once they were plugged in, you could pretty much just forget about them. How often do you realistically need to unplug and replug your mouse and joystick?
Its true that certain two player games could use a second joystick in the mouse port, but other than that rather rare use case, you never needed to touch them.
The up side (and the reason the ports were moved to this location when the floppy drive was added) is that the cables came neatly out of the front of the machine, and thus did not interfere with the floppy drive, which was on the side of the machine.
I can definitely see that kind of use case where there is minimal plugging and unplugging. In those cases, it isn't as bad IMO. My friends and I as young kids swapped controllers in those ports regularly. Since I had a 520ST (the original) with ports on the side of the computer, it was far easier for me, but not for them. In recent times, when refurbishing Atari's I have found more than a few damaged solder joints on the controller connectors for those under the keyboard. While it isn't a deal breaker, it was an odd choice.
Any two player game?
@@OlgierdSnieszko The mouse port is also the player 2 joystick port, so if you need two joysticks to play a game, then you need to unplug the mouse temporarily so you can plug in the joystick.
I suppose if it was a game you played a lot, you could use a splitter to have them both plugged in at the same time.
@@thepenultimateninja5797 I know (I got STFM). Just answered your question ("How often do you realistically need to unplug and replug your mouse and joystick?") perhaps while trying to be a bit sarcastic 🙂. Yah, the splitter was probably best option.
I remember loads of games only working with a joystick in the first joystick port - the one the mouse was plugged into.
LOVE that RUN Magazine C64 programmer's poster on the wall. I have the same one!
i love the different looks of computers in the 80s...the absolute best!i love collecting them.!
Agreed. Way more variety with the exception of the early Steve Jobs return to Apple in the late 90s early 00s.
@@powerofvintage9442 well.......yeah!
Aaaah, I love your videos. Brings back so many good memories. I would have loved the Ataris to be "better" compared to other computers at the time, but still, they launched my music and studio carreer so I'm eternally grateful for those standard MIDI ports. So small details can make such a huge difference... I had them all from the 1040ST all the way to the Falcon 030 including the TT030 and I loved them. Sold them to buy Mac over the years and now I'm slowly getting some back :D I already have a 1040 STF and 2 Mega STs... repairing them, rejuvenating them, giving back the love :D I'm stunned that there are still software and games being developed for the platform, that's a HUGE thing!! Thanks for these videos!!
Much appreciated! I love these computers myself and like you I've had a blast picking them back up and restoring them. Do regret getting rid of my original 520ST, but such is life pre-nostalgia.
Apple used an RS-442 Serial port for early Appletalk networking. the RS-442 serial port was much faster than the RS-232 at the time. The RJ-45 jack we are accustomed to today was not used for networking back then.
The design is Mega cool. Looks like a building these gaps and elements, loos like you could take those components apart.
I always liked the slanting edge to the function keys on the traditional ST, they look good and the keys are a nice size, making it easy to hit the right key. I suppose the idea of having joystick/mouse ports beneath the keyboard was so that the plug would be invisible and therefore it would look a bit neater, but of course it must have been annoying to change input devices.
It is annoying especially for the stfs. Great now with wireless capabilities.
Great video. Atari should have released the Falcon in the Mega STe case. It wouldn't have made a jot of difference to how successful it was, but at least the computer line would have gone out in style.
I think that the Atari's had the most consistent style of the machines from the 80's to early 90's to a level not seen until the Steve Job's Apple Macs in the late 90's / early 00's.
They were working on the Falcon 2 when they left the computer market which was similar style case, photos of prototypes are online. Sony eventually bought the design and used it for their Playstation 2 console released in 2000
@@powerofvintage9442you say “consistent” - I say Jack T. said “we paid big money for those case designs .. we’re gonna keep using them” 😂
The truth is probably somewhere in between. I’ve got a project 1040 here and it’s lovely outside. But while the internal 720k floppy is nice like A500, my svelte project 520 (no internal floppy) leaning up against the 1040 is better. Like a bigger 130XE that I had back in the day. Also like the original Mega cases. So .. I don’t even have the words. I saved up my after school job money for an A2000 with expanded ram and scsi hd etc etc but I never loved how it looked.
To use a 1.44 Mb floppy drive in an Atari STE, you need a special version of the disk controller named Ajax
I have two cause I agree with you - the greatest industrial design ever 👍
Great video, great voice as well! Thanks for showing Grind on this beast!
Really enjoy your Atari content! Thanks for watching here! Hope we can get Grind on the Falcon as well eventually (although it's not a really big market).
@@powerofvintage9442 Thanks, likewise!
10:20 - What software use LAN port ? Have anyone used this port ? Have anyone worked in network on the ATARI ?
Best Atari ever i still use my one as a terminal with et4000. Amazing Video !!
Thank you!
My Atari Mega STE still world fine. I used it some weeks ago to recover the content of an Atari formatted floppy disk where my Brother stored a document in 1992.
They are pretty durable machines!
The PSU is actually a AT standard PSU, so a simple ATX-AT reduction cable allows you to connect modern ATX PSU, I have one on TT030.
Edit:
As @blackcarhardware mentioned, the ATX PSU has to have -5V rail that is usually a white wire, so be sure to check it, not all newer ATX PSUs do have it. I totally forgot to mention.
Awesome! That is one less thing to worry about.
@@powerofvintage9442 oh and one more thing, you just have to cut off the "locks" on AT connectors since they are in the way and do not mess the two parts of connector (AT connector is two part, but the pinout is same as Atari if connected in right order)
ATX 2.0 PSUs do NOT provide -5V anymore!
@@blackcathardware6238 good point, I totally forgot that, I researched it about a year ago.
So yes, the ATX has to have -5V rail, usually white wire, you might even find ATX 2.x with it, since you probably will shop for some small factor PSU, and those are often used in industrial applications. And those sometimes do use ISA slots which require -5V rail.
So thank you for clarification, Im going to alter my OP.
@@madigorfkgoogle9349 Besides: even if you use a 7905 to convert -12V to -5V then both voltages draw current from the -12V rail and one should check if the PSU can supply that current. They don't provide many Amps on negative voltage lines. Oh and even more: the 7905 will convert the voltage difference of |-7V| into heat i.e. it dissipates Watts that the -12V rail has to provide!
Very interesting that this machine supported using an FPU with a 68000 CPU. I've known for decades that the '881/'882 could be used in 'peripheral mode' but have never seen it actually implemented.
A few reasons why you might want two serial ports: serial printer, industrial devices that are controlled over serial e.g. CNC machines, null modem cable to another computers for (slow) file transfer/terminal emulation or even something like a DECtalk speech synthesiser.
Thank you! I didn't realize that market was one that Atari was going after.
@@powerofvintage9442 It seems like they were hoping for a bit of the professional market. If I remember it right, the TT was originally meant to be a UNIX workstation for Very Serious Business. Only pipe-smokers and beard-strokers allowed!
@@SanguineBrah that would make sense. I wonder how many of these computers made it to that market? The TT seemed more designed down that path.
Why the two RS232 you asked? At that time a lot of peripherals where using RS232. Plotter, card reader, printer, scanner, lab and monitoring equipment. You cold never have enough RS232 ports. A lot of electronic magazines had some guides to build parallel port controlled switches for the serial port to be able to add more devices.
Multiple RS232 ports, either used if running a BBS on the machine or could be used as TTY terminals if running a different OS/Mint. VME port, I have a Matrix graphics card installed in my TT.
Hi! Atari had excellent machines. I didn't know them before :(. We always talk about Amiga everywhere. One question: if I were to have an Atari today, which machine would you recommend I get? Falcon?
If you're in the US, a 1040STF. You have 1mb of RAM (sufficient for almost everything), an internal PSU (may need to be recapped), an internal floppy drive (the drive may not work, but can be fixed or replaced easily with a Gotek).
If you're in Europe, either a 1040STF or a 520STe or 1040STe. The STe is a bit better mostly because upgrading the RAM is as easy as a modern computer but are hard to find in the US (pretty common in Europe).
Check out this video here for some considerations: ruclips.net/video/yHmp01qaBZg/видео.html
i still love this video on this beauty!
An advantage to the thinner function keys was you could buy holders for labels to go above them to say what each one did. Sure, you could also stick a pen in the indentation but it was better used for labels.
I do like the look of the angled function keys a bit better personally.
Aesthetic, yeah.
I would have said the additional network port would be for LAN, but you have shown it has a dedicated LAN port, so idk.
More than why there are 2 serial ports, I’m more interested in why someone needed a 3rd in the VME slot???
My first hard drive was a self-built external for my 520STm. 32MB for only $580! :-)
Great video, but one small correction: The original LED's were not all green. While the power and floppy disk's LED's are green, the HD light is yellow.
Thank you for the heads up! In mine it was a corroded mess so I assumed it was green.
Serial ports are good for a lot more things than just modems. They were the USB port of the time.
You can also connect a terminal to one of them and use it for debugging your graphical game without having to show text on your graphics screen.
On the PC there were some _crazy_ serial devices but I don't know if those would have worked on the ST (probably not...)
I must have wired my Noctua in wrong, because my PSU (or fuse?) blew right afterward. Did you have to do any modification to the wiring?
I wired my directly replacing the existing one. I’ll take a close look once I’m home from traveling, but there should just be two wires and if you wire them backwards then the fan just changes from a pull to a push.
My Mega STE has the 68882 coprocessor, 4 Mb RAM and dual TOS 1.63/2.6.
love the video 100%, I remember the ST era. Some good mods. Could some colored tape around the wires restrain them?
absolutely that or zip ties. Great idea.
@@powerofvintage9442 yes 100%, more than one way to skin the proverbial moggy
My Mega STe had a monitor switch box with mono and colour (multi sync) monitors, a 386Sx board inside although just the default graphics. Video cards were way beyond my budget. External SCSI hard drive and an HP laser printer. It was an awesome workhorse for several years, particularly with Word Up for processing duties, LDW power for spreadsheets and Lattice C and Devpac for coding.
Oh, and a 68882 co pro
Nice with both monitors. The mono resolution is just really crisp on these STs.
That reminds me .. although a mention was made of a switch and a multi sync monitor.. for standard ST monitors there was a switch box from Practical Peripherals (iirc) called Monitor Master (iirc). I waited patiently on the bay of e for one to appear without a large Buy It Now price or if it was an auction then for a reasonable final bid. Some stuff goes for crazy prices these days. I’ve been hunting and gathering for a decade or so (hit my midlife crisis) and the price creep has been unreal.
aaahh the pain, the pain... dream machine, don't have a real chance to ever lay my hands on one :-( got a 512STE, a 1040STF and a MegaST2
So sorry, I'm bummed myself that there is no chance in the world to find an STBook laptop.
I'm curious if the Blitter chip on the MEga STe makes any difference just using GEM. Can you tell, or is it practically the same?
Sure does...at least according to GEMbench that tests a number of various items. GEM dialog box, VDI text etc all show a significant 50% or more uplift from the blitter enabled Mega ST4 versus a standard ST without a blitter (not adding the STe features either). See this other benchmarking video I posted a while back: ruclips.net/video/olC8Fz-1rN0/видео.htmlfeature=shared&t=1332 I've sent at a timestamp in the middle showing the Mega ST4 results in Gembench.
Try NVDI 5 massive speed increase ):
@@DieselPLLAgreed! You do lose some compatibility with games though. Although that's what xboot is for.
@@powerofvintage9442 I am actually more into Hardware development then gaming on this computers anymore. Currently working on Atari printer port output to USB, on PC (MAC-WIN-LINUX) side I have software developed in Processing which allows me to print on network printers.
(A proof of concept)😀
Duet is software that can use the lan or midi ports for a network. It is on Atari mania.
Awesome, I'll have to take a look at that and find a cable to connect the falcon to the Mega STe and try it out.
Originally the TT was planned as the replacement for the ST series. They had lined up the system for 68040/60, hundreds MB of RAM, fast SCSI, additional graphic and expansion cards. But it didn't sell. To expensive and not compatible enough. So in a rush the MegaSTE was put out to hold on to the users who wanted compatibility and speed.
All after the TT was trying to soften the fall. If the TT had been designed a litte bit different it could have been a hit it hat all the good specs and was expandable in a good form format.
Agree that the TT was much better in line with what would have seemed an appropriate level of upgrade for the time.
The trouble with the TT was that it just cost too much. An entry level TT was $3K, a tough sell if you owned an ST, STE or Mega ST that cost between $599 and $1800 at launch.
Had they managed to make a “baby TT” in an ST style case with similar specs at an ST price (under $1K with monitor), things would have been very different.
@@Sl1pstreams The TT was so expensive because of the way it was constructed, despite the goal to reduce the production price with a clever construction. The "Funnel" chips was developed to reduce the production cost. The argument was that multilayer PCP's where so expensive that making chips to reduce the conducting paths was cost effective. But mulitlayer PCBs got cheaper much faster than anticipated. The development of the Funnel chip took more time than anticipated. Without the Funnels a TT would have been cheaper and at least a year earlier. But Atari had committed to it and didn't had the money to change that.
All after the TT was scrambling to get on the feet again from that disaster.
Great video! Thanks.
Glad you liked it!
Yes, it looks good. Way better than anything i remember from the period. I loved the look of Amiga 3000 and original Acorn Archimedes, then i saw the TT, oh my! Way too expensive for me just for that faster CPU. I did't even know the Mega STE was available in this (TT) style case. As you point out not as practical as other systems, in a time when CPU tech was accelerating at a phenomenal rate and expandability was also needed.
What really gets me is cache RAM for a 68000!? Did Atari really go to the trouble of building a motherboard cache for the CPU? I love the idea of 8 and 16Mhz modes. It really is a system for the (then) current user base and current retro users, hey an STE with a faster CPU option in a great looking case and detached keyboard. I Would have bought it if i had the pennies and i knew it existed.
Motorola 68K chips didn't have the legacy paged memory problem the x86 PC platform had back then. 68K '020 and '030 (the Falcon CPU) had a built in 256 byte instruction cache, the '030 had a same sized data cache as well. The continuous memory map gave the architecture an advantage. However the 486 followed by the Pentium with Windows 9x pretty much ended the 68K advantage. Even Apple migrated from 68K to the PowerPC processor.
In a time when you needed at least a 68040 (it had a built-in FPU) to compete with 486DX models, the Mega STE was harking back, but... seriously it look good.
PS. Re additional serial ports. Prior to USB I recall alot of serial devices appearing. Particularly digital cameras, i had one that used a serial interface. Someone clearly thought ahead, your not going to want to detach your modem just to offload some data from a detachable device.
Good points on the serial ports!
The L1 cache (16KByte) is designed like any other TurboBoard based on 68000 + L1 at the time. They just copied the design of previously designed TurboBoards by other companies (e.g. Mach16, Turbo16, HBS240 and many others).
My understanding is that the Bus and all the other chips still ran at 8mhz, so the cache allows the CPU some 'room' to read and write at 16mhz instead of waiting for the bus. Lovely looking machine, always wanted one. Bought a 386 Dx40 instead with VGA graphics and a sound blaster instead.
The SCSI controller the Mega-STE has is only capable to control one device. It's a relative simple ACSI-to-SCSI bridge. It's important to note that this adapter only supports SCSI1 and no parity check. This gave people hard times updating the Drive. It also can't transfer with the theoretical 5Mb/s of SCSI1 because of the limits of the ACSI-bus.
There where third party developers who provided full SCSI2 bridge as drop in replacement.
One nice thing about it is that I've been able to get it to work with both ACSI2SD and Bluescsi drive emulators.
Double the clock speed and an L2 cache? I'd say that's an excellent upgrade expectially given it was software switchable for virtually full backwards compatibility. Yes, it wasn't the Falcon and the obvious missing upgrade was in the video department, but I'd say this is probably what the STE should have been. Perhaps two years late.
Mega STe has a slot for graphics card which can display thousands of colours, even 256 in resolution of 1280x1024. Not that they were cheap back in the day, but upgrade option was there the same way it was available for older Mega ST line.
Ahh, ataris I could never afford.. still have my 1040 ST but never use it - SD readers are so expensive.. upgraded SOJ's to 4meg and can boot modern TOS's from floppy and still have plenty of RAM but it's a card reader/hdd one really wants :) btw if someone needs 8 Hitachi HM514400 SOJ's chips (totalling 4MB) just let me know - I have an extra set laying around.
Free of charge, I'll even pay the stamps - I just like engaging hobbyists with any help I can :) but only if you really need it or someone else might have the fun :)
the original Monitor fits perfekt on the left part ...
I have one with German TOS - just needs an EMUTOS upgrade!
I do like EmuTOS and run it on my Mega ST (not STe) that has a TF536 50mhz accelerator and Tseng ET4000 graphics card in it. EmuTOS really helps that one to take more advantage of the bonus hardware.
Extra serial ports to support 68k Unix - hook up dumb terminals to it.
Thank you! Did you ever use them or see them used in that way? I would love to see how that kind of connection would work.
@@powerofvintage9442cool... Reminds me that I once hooked up a dumb terminal to my Amiga 500 and wrote some proof of concept software for it. I got my operating systems class university teacher really impressed with the result. You could really have 2 people use the Amiga and the same time, one on the unit itself and the other on the terminal! Pity I have long lost that software as I still have the Amiga and would love to rekindle that setup!
I never knew the point of an mega st at the time, but maybe these key improvements are what the music industry wanted? Just an ste with more ram, big hdd, compatible and that could be stashed away from your desk? Midi was an ST's 'business niche' lifeblood and I would think where most of these ended up - extending the ST's professional life?
Basic Mega ST was actually built for desktop publishing use with Atari's laser printer. It also had a slot for additional graphics card to use then huge 19" displays with 1280x900 pixels resolution. The whole desktop publishing workstation with software from Atari cost less than Apple's laser printer alone.
@@Maraka77i That does make sense and it would make it a powerful DTP for the time. It wasn't unfortunately where it really had any market share with Amstrad PCW's wiping the floor in the lower end and at high end Mac's taking the professional market. As said I've only seen three of these in real life and all 3 were in music studios and even then i only could see the keyboard the rest if it was buried under other music equipment 🙂.
@@anticat900 A German company DMC made an excellent DTP package (Calamus - one of very few that used vector fonts back then), and on Mega STe it could run twice as fast as on normal ST, AND you could plug one of those Tseng ET4000 cards to VME for more pixels. Basically, it was a half-way TT030 for cheap. If Atari had optimized this design over time to make it cheaper/faster/more powerful, then maybe they would survive a bit longer.
@@przemekkobel4874 Was DTP really a thing for Atari or was it a thing they were trying to get into and failed? I only knew ST's in music, and a 16mhz 68000 i doubt cut much mustard in 1991?
@@anticat900 It had some success for a bit of time. For smaller print shops it has a cheap and ultra-fast laser printer (it was connected via DMA cable to the computer, and most of the image processing was done on Atari). For serious projects it could be connected directly to an imagesetter, and (wiith Calamus) it could perform full RIP for printing plates - again, very fast, and with direct raster preview - that was a huge deal, since people could see pixel-exact previews, which at the time was either impossible, or ultra-expensive.
Even one of imagestter manufacturers recommend Atari setup, as it suddenly, for very cheap, became the fastest thing on the market (I mean, their machine, not the computer).
The problem I think was that many people, especially outside of Europe, used less advanced DTP packages, and with time Mac software became more and more advanced (for example, Calamus didn't support some kinds of raster rotations for some types of print), and then RIPs became so cheap that Calamus magic didn't count anymore. Now everything is PDF-based, and print shops aren't even surprised if you send them stuff made with something as exotic as Scribus on Ubuntu.
hola amigo tengo un Atari Mega STE me puedes poner el enlace del ventilador para comprarlo ✌🏼
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009NQMESS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
@@powerofvintage9442 ok gracias es para mi Mega STE
Atari spent over 5 years repackaging 1985 technology in different looking boxes. Making very tiny incremental changes in what was basically the same machine. By the time they got around to the Falcon, it was too late. Atari had blown its reserves on the Portfolio, Lynx and piece of crap Jaguar. It's really amazing that the Falcon even saw the light of day, never mind the TT and the Transputer. Talk about poor management, OO FAH! But even if Atari had done everything right, they would have ended up defunct like Commodore did. PC Clones ruled the world.
There was room in the market for two players. Everyone ended up fighting for the #2 spot and Apple won there.
@@powerofvintage9442 There wasn't even room for Apple. Microsoft ended up bailing them out to avoid being a monopoly, otherwise they would have died in the 90s too.
@@dotaman6837 That is true, but they did survive to today...thankfully so we still effectively have a "two'ish-platform" market today.
PC clones ruled because the 68k crowd couldn’t get their acts together. The combination of 386 memory map and all of its functionality and Windows 3.1 didn’t take hold for many years. And DOS was stretched thin with all different kinds of memory solutions beyond 640k and getting all those drivers for all the devices was a PIA. Even IBM themselves were loosing out because they wanted too much $ for not enough goodness and OS/2 was not going to plan for the longest time.
I think that if the others played their hands well then they could make the case for doing office and business work on their easier to use and maintain systems.
And I never could take seriously the thing about black and green (or amber, or white) meaning “business” when by the later 80s that was more and more rare. People wanted color charts and reports! Think about CAD. In college in the 90s we used high res color CAD systems in an engineering lab. Even the Macintosh went color by ‘87. And the popularity of Ad Lib cards…
They all fumbled it. Plain and simple. Atari and CBM didn’t know what they were doing. At best Apple did but made some bad decisions and got distracted. Do we need to get into “pink” and Taligent?
Even MS was looking down the barrel of an antitrust gun in the late 90s and the judge couldn’t resist talking to the press and trying to make himself into a somebody like (I’m speculating here) we wanted fame/fortune/political career. And MS cried foul and was let off the hook.
If Steve (Mr Pixar) wanted he could have done more but getting Bill to give a few $ (and it wasn’t THAT much in the grand scheme of things) then that could have been the path. But the partnership looked better.
Oh to return to the spring of ‘87 when I picked up a computer magazine at the convince store magazine rack (tbh I was there for a sugary snack .. I was a teenager) and learn that the Macintosh has a new version II with a PC like case and color (!) monitor (that was separate) AND IBM wants us to “PS/2 it” with and exciting new line of beautiful machines.
Apple came up with a way for their computer line to leverage postscript laser printers and seized a beachhead of desktop publishing - this enabled them to hold onto a number two position relative to the avalanche of PC clones.
The irony is that the generic defacto standatd of an MS-DOS PC architecture merely created a race to the bottom of low margins.
A low margin industry was not conducive for long term company survival and most cloners also went the way of Commodore
22:24 Look for an Epson SMD-300 PC drive, it's a drop in replacement. Your face plate will swap over to it.
Awesome!! I have one as a backup to my falcon drive. trying it out now!
Got my Epson SMD-300 installed and working!
Oh nice!
So if one swapped the other country ROMs to the US version and swap the power supply for 110v, that's all that's needed to make it work in the US with US software? That would make overseas models cheaper to get for sure...
Actually, the PSU's are compatible with both voltages on the Mega STe, so you don't have to swap those. In the case of standard Atari STF's and STe's you do need to switch, but a Meanwell RD-50a or RD-35a could also be swapped in with minimal soldering skill.
ROM's are relatively easy to burn as well with a minor investment or just purchase off of ebay.
"Aesthetic isn't why you buy a computer..." (yes, I had to use the spell check). Every computer I ever bought, aesthetics played a part in which one I chose, except maybe the Mac Book I bought in 2015 (plain silver was pretty much the only think Apple was offering at the time). I carry laptops around in public, and desktops sit in a highly visible spot in my home. Why would buying an ugly one be acceptable?
The Mega STE I'm pretty sure was best for small business uses where they already had an ST and wanted to be able to do some things faster if the software allowed it.
These days though it's just the best ST to own. I've swapped the keyboard in mine for a Mega ST
Agreed! The Mega STe keyboard is good vs the typical ST keyboard, but I agree that the Mega ST is better.
Nice linear Mx switches. It's my favorite vintage keyboard! Took me a while to find a US Mega ST keyboard...I have it now and I'm not letting it go!
I bought a Mega ST just to get the keyboard! I've just found your channel and very much enjoyed it. I hope you explore the side of st that's often ignored. Another new channel "Commodore is not the only fruit" is doing a bit of that too. Very interesting stuff!
@@DaveVelociraptor glad you enjoy it! I love the podcast and listen to it weekly while working "retro" projects (glad there is an Atarian and Ultima geek representing there!).
"Commodore is not the only fruit" has inspired me to up my Mint desktop game!
Oh I didn't expect you knew I was from that!
@@DaveVelociraptor you're internet famous! (at least retro computing-wise)
Anybody know what is the deal with that orange paint inside?
RF shielding paint
It certainly looks good, but prefer the dark Falcon :-) Or C128 in hindsight probably beats both 🙂
I respect that 100%, but do prefer the Mega STe and TT design. All were better than their contemporaries from a design standpoint in my opinion.
It was designed for cool dudes managing their music synthesisers on midi is my belief, style, some more ram and a hdd, is all they wanted so Atari made this for that market (the fact it was their only market must have helped too 🙂).
Where do i download this game ?
The Doom clone Grind is still in development, but if you are a patreon you can download the latest version. www.patreon.com/Grind_Amiga/posts
There might still be the demo version of a simple first level floating around under the name "Dread"
Banana spacebar. :O
yep, it happens
I disagree with your conclusions, here is why. First of all, Commodore had just A500+ that was kinda in same price range as Mega STE, the A3000 was way more expensive then even TT030. Second, the Mega STE was a vast improvement on OG Atari 520ST from 1985, it had almost double the computing power, had much better audio system (in fact better then any Amiga), had much better and more modern TOS 2.05 (the 2.06 was later made by Atari to bring 2.05 features to all STs), had built in BLiTTER, had 4096 colour palette (instead of 512), had easy RAM upgrade via SIMMs, had a built in VME bus for professional upgrades (not just VGA and network, but also lab equipment), had a slot for FPU, had 3/4 serial ports (some highspeed ports), optional SCSI HDD (much faste then ACSI), ... and had a professional looks and all that for a price only slightly higher then 1040STE.
And third, while you are right that in PC world in 1991 you could already get 486DX2 that had much higher computing power, but then again you could had 5 pieces of the 16MHz Mega STE for less money. Which means that instead of one worker, 5 workers could work on 5 different tasks. Also the GUI on Mega STE is really snappy, and productivity apps are usually snappier on Mega STE then on 486. And even CAD is not bad on Mega STE, for example DynaCADD is faster then on 386DX and obviously slower then AutoCAD 10 on 486 (if you dont have dedicated CAD VGA of course, and the FPU did help a lot on 486).
So the productivity (which was the market target for Mega STE) was very relevant even for year 1991 and the power/price ratio was still very good for Atari. Also the software was much cheaper for Atari platform then for Mac or PCs, with similar usability and even cross platform compatibility.
One correction is the DX2 was available later on in 1992 not 91. I sold computers from early 93 to 98 and we still sold the DX50 in 93. The DX2/66 was the workhorse of 93. 91 and 92 was more about the DX33. This is going by memory but I built and sold around 300-500 of these per year back then.
All very good points! I still stand by my point that the Falcon was too little too late and thus the Mega STe was even more too little too late.
Don't get me wrong, I love this computer, and it really was probably moot even at this point and no matter what Atari did it was unlikely to turn the tides of fate.
@@powerofvintage9442 thats why Trammel "killed" the computer division after realizing how more versatile and advanced the PC clones are and where the market is heading.
My point was that in 1991 and even 92-94 the Mega STE was still a very relevant computer for given target customer. It was the time that i286 were still sold and both were pretty competent at the work that was expected from them (i286 under DOS, i386 under win 3.0). All really changed in office area with the approach of win95, where a i486 with 8MB RAM was a usable minimum for anything, even as rudimentary as word processor or spreadsheet. The Mega STE was no longer the home "do it all" computer, and it was still powerful, easy to use (GUI) non expensive office computer, despite reusing "guts" from a STE home computer.
ST line of computer, after all, was never aiming for the spot of the best computer, it was always "a lot of computer" for a great price. And here Mega STE was a great Office computer with huge list of software often compatible with PC software, doing same tasks often faster and more elegant, for a decent price. For the "Power user" there was the TT030 as a flagship and later for "Home Power user" there was the Falcon. So I dont think that Mega STE was too little too late for this matter, it was not trying to push any limits, it was a "budget" office computer.
@@powerofvintage9442 one more thing, I just now realized that you are form US, here in Europe the situation was very very different and ST line of computers and even Amiga, CPC or Archimedes was very wide spread, having huge lists of productivity software you didnt have in US.
Few weeks ago I missed out on a TT030 eBay auction, but got in touch with the owner to hear his story. He bought the TT030 in 1993 and was using it "daily" in his business until the end of 2018 when he retired! He was using it for office tasks to write letters and for his accounting and invoicing via a program from 1994. Also he made flyers via CalamusSL DTP program. He was kind enough to help my computer archeology and made me a copy of his HDD.
There is a story here in youtube of a guy from Netherlands, who is using ST for track of visitors on his campground, till now.
So you see that the relevancy of "beefed up" ST computer in office here in Europe was very different to US, where PC and Mac dominated offices since late 80s.
@@paulbird3216 very wrong.
First I compared the Mega STE to the OG 520ST for a reason, it was mentioned in the video that it was not much of a improvement which is not true.
Now to your theory, STE was not the predecessor of the Mega STE, it was produced roughly in same time and while STE was a home computer solution, the Mega STE was a office computer, very different market.
Besides that, the Mega STE was just 150UKP more expensive then 1040STE, but it had port for SCSI adapter, it had slot for FPU, it had high speed serial ports and theoretical apple talk, had about double the CPU power and had a VME bay. I dont know, but this is a lot more then 1040STE had and that for just 150? Whats your point?
Also the monochrome 640x400 resolution of ST was still a great option in office where majority of applications were "text" oriented. And while basic PC already started to be equipped with VGA, it was not the colourful SVGA you know from more pricey PCs. You do overrate the VGA a bit, standard VGA is 640x480 at monochrome or if you had more VRAM, 16 colours and no Blitter. Not much better then MegaSTE, and low VRAM was always equipped on value 386s that were still a bit more expensive then MegaSTE, while Atari was way faster with graphics then 386 with cheap VGA. So could you get a 486DX with SVGA card for tripple or quadruple the price of Mega STE? Yes, did you need it for office work? Hell no! So what was your point again?
CD playback was done same as on any other computer, via audio out directly on CD player, no other computer did it different, SB cards just had a header to connect the audio out from CD and mix it to audio out of its own DAC, the music from CD was analogue since the computers didnt have the power to move the CD quality digital audio, that came later in Pentium times..
The 8-bit DAC was standard even on PCs, Soundblaster16 came out in 1992 and the card did cost more then MegaSTE alone.
So whats your point?
Single VME slot was enough since the MegaSTE already had all needed input/output ports a stock PC often lacked, also you can use VME splitter adapter if you happen to need more then one VME board, for example Rothron VME-Bus adapter. But usually one VME was more then enough, people in office environment usually didnt use the slot at all, or sometimes they used it for network card and some in DTP environment did use NOVA graphics solutions. In lab you usually used the 19" Rothron with multiple VME slots and SM144 monitor.
So again, what is your point?
Your comment ybout the 4MB RAM limitation shows that you dont know much about ST architecture. The limitation was given by the MMU chip, but that was not the limit and there were solutions to have more RAM, especially on MegaSTE with its space. Also what address does the VME use, what do you think?
i286 was released just 3 years after MC68000 and PCs with i286 were still sold in 1991, hell even VC20/30 XTs were still sold into office environment back then, so what was your point again?
Atari MegaSTE was not replacement for anything not even for Mega ST (that was the TT030), it was budget oriented office computer.
And while the budget 386DX computer had definitely much higher raw computing power, the entry level 386 usually used DOS, had no audio, used cheap VGA chip with low VRAM (640x480mono), and was very very slow from user experience (especially if you wanted to have GUI like Win 3.x).
Anything office oriented that is not relying on math calculations is so much faster on MegaSTE then on value 386 that it hurts. MegaSTE often rivals 486DX running Win3.11 at the speed of office applications. And in CAD area, DynaCADD on MegaSTE is about one quarter faster then Autocad on value 386, and with M68882 the MegaSTE utterly eats up a value 386 for same money...
Seems to me that you missed the point and you compare a value office computer to a gaming machine you remember as a kid...MegaSTE never pretended to be one.
Big case without additional slots? missed opportunity
It does have one slot....
0:50 Mac was not even close to the first computer to do this. There were a bunch of CP/M machines that did this plus a few IBM models too. Long before Apple Mac.
AY sound chip is a crime
I'm sure it's nostalgia, but it's music to my ears.
@@powerofvintage9442 C64 music, 8bit Atari music - those sound great and trigger great memories. But whenever I hear Atari ST chip music, I break into tears. Tears of frustration, because I know how those tunes sounded on my cousin's Amiga...
I dunno, Xenon (1) game and a few others had some good music.
David Whittaker knew how to work with the AY/YM2194Fchip.
Did this make its way to Europe at all? I have zero recollection of this machine.
Yes it did, and my guess is that it was a bit more popular there than in the US. Mine actually came from the Netherlands.
Yes it did, I had a UK one.
I had the stfm , was a good machine apart from the scrolling amd music
It was all I had myself, so at the time in the mid-80's it was all I had to compare against.
Commodore SX-64 is still one of my favorite designs. The Mega ST doesn't attract me at all.
No worries! To each their own. I do think that there was more experimentation done to by this old computer manufacturers. This led to some really interesting and cool designs as well as some odd less functional ones.
The 80's were a cool time!
9:15 That is probably not aesthetics. It's probably structural.
The 2 ports you showed on the back as serial ports might be joystick ports.
The grind port of dread is awful looking.
This computer is ridiculous for 1991. The 68k chip is long obsolete at this point. While 4MB is good for 1991, I would think it didn't come with 4MB.
To be honest, the plastic case is a bit ridiculous for 1991. Given the complexity of the case, I can't imagine it was that much cheaper than a real metal computer case.
While ST owners were probably impressed by this machine, at least somewhat, this machine was cost cut to the point of hurting it. Commodore was tending to make the same mistakes, at least with the consumer lines (the Amiga absolutely should not have been divided up into separate consumer and business lines).
Comparing these machines to the improvements in the Mac line is a bit unfair, especially the Mac II which you mentioned by name. The Mac 2 was a five thousand Dollar machine. Loaded up, it was well above that. But I do agree this machine is badly under powered and should have an 030 at 25mhz or better.
Please eliminate 90% of the commercials. It's ridiculous. If I actually had to watch them, I would not have watched the whole video. . I would have clicked away at the first commercial which randomly interrupts the video in the middle of motion. 1 commercial at the beginning of the video is all I am ever willing to watch. There has been at least 4 commercial brakes 28 minutes into the video. Not even network tv is this bad., These commercials are hurting you far more than they are helping. They might generate a few dollars income, but they are preventing growth.
The Mac IIsi which is a contemporary of this machine was a much more "affordable" machine and while not totally in the ballpark price-wise was targeted towards a similar home market with a 030 @ 25mhz. Thank you for the heads up about the commercials. I did not realize how many RUclips decided to put in the videos...I'm still new at this having started just in July. I believe I have adjusted it to remove most if not all mid-video ads.
@@powerofvintage9442 I thought I recalled you saying the Mac II. But I might be mistaken. I believe the II, IIfx and IIsi were all quite expensive machines. I'm just trying to be as fair as possible. OTOH, I don't think these machines could be saved. The DOS PC was an unstoppable force by 1990.
Thanks for the commercials. I stopped watching network TV because of them. They really grate on me.
Nah. 1040STE was the best looking - perhaps ever. The Mega STe just looks bonkers! I had a 4MB ST back in the day, but it didn't look like that. It was a standalone pizza box with separate keyboard, but it didn't have a 'base' that it sat it like yours. Nice video 👍
I’m a fan of all the ST designs really (except the STacy). The standalone pizza box ST was the Mega ST (no “e”). That was one of the first ST’s I picked up when I started back into them. Great computer!
Today, all design has been surrendered to RGB. What's easy is easy 😉
Should I try pimping this out and adding RGB to it? J/K
@@powerofvintage9442 Yeah, the thing will work twice as fast with some mottled lights 😉
Oh and make it even faster by making it water cooled!
Put it in a fish tank 💦 😂
at least show off ste software that doom lone was st chip music ste and mega ste could smash amiga and add 10 channels on top
The purpose of the video was just to showcase the Mega STe at a high level and not push it to its limits....yet. I like the idea of some content showing off "the best" demos etc.
This thing looks bad to me. I like the Commodore 128D look way more.
I can respect that, but I prefer something a little less pizza boxy myself. Beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder!
The C128D is a beautiful computer as well indeed.
@@powerofvintage9442 yes it is. I love all the variety out there.
And now that you mention the 128D , I’m thinking A1000
But truly nothing compares to the beauty of a TI99/4A with a dozen side car peripherals.
7:22 WHY in god's good name would you put an FPU in this machine, especially today?
If you were doing work that would benefit from an FPU, you wouldn't be using this machine (even back then). By far the most common use of an FPU was for spreadsheets. Nobody was doing complex spreadsheet modeling on these computers. Certainly nobody is using these for productivity today. I seriously doubt there is a single person anywhere in the world using any Atari computer for actual work. Not even a Luddite author who is writing a book or something because this is what they've been using for 30 years and they won't change.
.
It is just comical to me how many retro-computing guys put FPUs in their XT class computer or their Amiga and now with this ST. There is probably not a single game ever made for any of these platforms that requires an FPU. Gaming is the ONLY use these machines have today.
Why is a good question. Why even use these vintage computers at all? I mean emulation would provide for a better gaming experience really. My reason for “why” is that I find tinkering fun. Is there any software I use that even uses the FPU? Nothing except for the benchmarking software. I did it because it was there and was a fun simple project to do. Everyone does “vintage” a bit differently. I really don’t even play the games much….I do actually use my Falcon to write RUclips scripts for the heck of it though and to listen to MP3’s while doing it. Could I do it on my PC, Mac or Raspberry Pi even, sure, but I find it fun to do it on an old computer because I can.
@@powerofvintage9442 Nothing beats original hardware on a CRT monitor. Emulation can get close and in some ways is more convenient, but for the best results, hardware is required. Not for every game. A lot of modern vintage games were designed on a modern PC with a flat screen LCD and so the graphics are designed to be viewed on modern LCD screens.
I get that it's a project. I really do. We do lots of dumb things because it's fun. I bake bread. You cannot possibly bake bread cheaper than the store bought bread and it spoils in a day or so. I do it because I love the smell of baking bread and because I like it.
Still, I just think it is comical.
There are indeed several musicians that *still* use OG STs for part of their workflow.
There are people that do their retro write-ups, scripts, etc on 8 bit machines.
@@markstrickland438 Like who? People writing a game for an Atari ST?
None of the retrogaming magazines could be done on an 8 bit computer. If anyone types out the article on an 8 bit computer, its novelty.
@@tarstarkusz music, YT scripts, games, whatever...they are actively written on 1980s machines, and yes, even eight bit machines. Because you don't see why anyone would do certain upgrades doesn't mean anything.
It would be pretty awesome to replace all the internals with modern hardware to run Linux.
It would not. You would convert something unique into just the usual Linux box.