Very nice video. I admit that as I watch these retro computing (- related) videos, I'm sometimes quite sorry I have neither my (pride-boosting) Mega ST2, nor my (beloved) 800XL anymore.
Great video. Love the shows about Atari ST. Got a Sidecart. Nice device. Very versital. Looking at their TOS emulator next. Running a 1040STFM. love it.
I am an Amiga Person and recently started to dip my toes into the World of Atari ST and what a learning curve but fortunately for me I have VGA monitors which work with 15khz signals and an electronics bench where I can repair these old systems and build PCB's. I currently have been playing with a 1040STF and 1040STFM and while the disk drives are functional I am going to install internal GOTEKs and add the screen to the top of the 1040's. I do have VGA Adaptors but my plans are to future proof them and get them setup to output HDMI. I am about to burn some ROMS to update TOS to 1.04 but I have no clue why they also call it 1.4 which is confusing. After I upgrade the ROM's I will install the Hard Drive Adaptors I bought. I also have external floppy drives but one had a bad head cable so I have to repair that but I am not worried about. The one thing I am looking to do is get an external keyboard to work with these ST's so I can slide them into a server rack and connect the ST's to a KVM Switch which I have done with my Amiga's. I did recently acquire a MeggaST 2 to play with but the keyboard for that needs some TLC. The last thing I want to add to my Atari Computers is a NetUSBee so I can share files across the network. Right now I have been using a Greaseweasle to make disks to play with the ST but I also have been playing with external GOTEK's. When I put the motherboards on my bench to recap these old puppies I am going to remove that ridiculously soldered drive cable and install a header so I can make my own cables that will reach anything I want to install to the floppy cables. I do have PSU's on the shelf ready to go should the need arise in the future. I am having fun with the ST's and I will probably configure up a PI to emulate an ST. I am not sure I want to accelerate my ST's but I will consider it sometime next year after I have them setup the way I want so they can live in one of my server racks. I may add an STE to my collection. What ever I chose not to use I may just hang on the wall. Well that's my Atari ST Retro Experience so far. The ST's are fun but I am still an Amiga Person.
Love the vid, im also a collector with around a dozen ST's various types and around 6 or so various 8bit machines and a few Amigas/C64's Got all the add on toys including some 1084 monitors and a Framemeister for panel displays, I built the sidecart from your vid etc etc. I'm in Australia, and now its getting hard to find for sale machines here, prices have tripled since I started collecting. My only disappointment is I was never able to get hold of a TT or Falcon. With our tiny population here very few of those were sold here. I use to code for the machines, wrote a fractal program for the ST's that got great reviews in at least 2 of the Atari mags back in the day. Used compiled GFA basic, it was fast. I love running software from all original hardware.
My experiences of these wonderful machines came from going around to friend's homes after school (my 'parents' never liked computers). In fact I have fonder memories of the computers than the friends, which is why I'm watching your channel and am no longer in contact with the friends. 🖋
I picked up an Atari STFM 520 originally a couple of years ago as that is what my friend had as a kid. I didn't realise that the original STFM's only had basic ram and were very hard to upgrade. I also didn't even notice in the 80's that it only had a basic AY sound chip and was very disappointed after owning myself an Amiga 1200 back in the day. Late last year I was super lucky to pick up a cheap STE. This machine was a game changer and had Simm slots for memory YAY!.. I was so happy also it was able to do better sound also (Still has the AY but DMA sound I think it's called?" I too have bought an Ultra Satan also and upgraded it now to the full 4mb of memory from 1mb it came with. Still wish those 2 joystick looking ports on the side were used for a joystick and mouse instead of those sorry bloody hard to get to ones on the bottom. I do now have extension cables so I don't have to keep plugging them in directly.
I was the same way when I started collecting. I owned a 520ST growing up and didn't know about the STe or Falcon, just the 520ST and 1040ST. The STe is much easier to upgrade RAM and has those extra features and capabilities you mention. It's just pretty hard to find them here in the US. They tend to go for 2x or more of what an STF does.
Oh really? I suppose the more rare in a country the more they go for. Does it bug you on tos 2.06 that the Atari logo isn't in the centre or is it just me? 😅😅😅@@powerofvintage9442
Maybe it's that I never saw it myself growing up (no boot screen on my TOS 1.0 520ST). It kind of reminds me of the boot screens of PC's from the 90's, and heck even today. It's all upper left hand corner (except for Macs though).
These are like Pokemon, you've got to catch 'm all 😂 I have collected all Atari's I want over the years: 1040ST, 520STE (upgraded to 4Mb), Mega ST4, Mega STE, TT030 and Falcon. I enjoy collecting vintage computers, saving them from getting scrapped.
IIRC the 260ST had the same amount of RAM as the 520ST but the 260ST originally had TOS on floppy using up half of the available RAM effectively giving it half the usable RAM hence the name. the TOS roms were not ready at production date, most were dealer upgraded with TOS in rom before sold to customers.
@@powerofvintage9442 the difference was that in US the 520ST was sold in bundle with monitor (SM124 or SC1224) and floppy drive, while in Europe you could buy just the computer in form of 260ST and you could get any monitor/TV and floppy. But in reality it was the very same 520ST with same mainboard.
Here in Europe SCART is one of the better choices I think, you can get cheap cables to Atari machines, C64, Amiga and so on all with a SCART at the other end, then just get a SCART to HDMI converter and you can use that for all your retro computers, image is good also just avoid the very cheap SCART to HDMI converters.
Wish I had a card reader for mine, also a new keyboard controller IC... I first thought it just needed a cleaning but cleaned it twice and several keys are still totally dead, no bad traces or solder joins so must be the kbd controller IC.. wherever you can find one today is the big problem....
Have you tried swapping the rubber domes on the keys that are dead with ones that aren't? It could be the contact material on the bottom of the domes that has worn off.
@@powerofvintage9442 Hi, yeah, I had the misunfortunate of accidentaly touching the back of the kbd against the chassic so it sparked a bit but I cant see any damaged traces so I'm assumuing the MCU took a hit and shorted out some I/O pins :( It's always the same dead keys even after 2 cleaning of the keypads...
You can still get a keyboard from "Best Electronics" - as I recently did for my 1040STE. I heard of them from a friend that bought parts years ago for his ST computer. They also have a few internal and external floppy drives (because I bought one of those too). They bought a lot of warehouse stock from Atari way back when they went bankrupt.
It's funny to see the old Atari mouse getting compliments, when it was regarded as being one of the worst mice out there back in the day. Luckily, I've still got a "modern" (1990) no name mouse that's a lot smaller and faster than the standard mouse. One thing to note with the STE is that RAM upgrades are cheap and easy (using 30-pin SIMMs), so you can get a more common 520 STE without any worries (and you get a blitter!). Back when my STE was my main computer, I upgraded mine to 4MB, and was able to use the left over RAM sticks to upgrade my brother's to 1MB. I've still got both of them, and they both still work perfectly. Sadly, I haven't got any the original joysticks or additional hardware (like Stereo Master) that I had when I was younger. I ended up getting a SPEEDLINK Competition PRO EXTRA USB joystick and following a guide to wire it up for use on an Atari. It helps that the wiring for the old 9-pin Atari joysticks is incredibly simple, just solder some wires to the microswitches and you're done.
ST520 won on ebay 4years ago for relativly cheap.Before shipping the internal psu died so the seller send it to me for cost of shopping & ebay fee.PSU swap & sidecard ordered so lets see if there will be some funn
Most games on the ST were designed for the original 68000 at 8 MHz. There are a few designed for the STE though. However I don't know if there are some incompatibility issues with the STE and some of the older games.
There may be some compatibility issues with the STe and older software. I have seen no hardware-related compatibility between STF and STE computers. What I HAVE seen compatibility issues on is TOS 2.06 versus 1.62 (Rainbow TOS) on just a very few games. Sundog for example is a fairly well known one that will not run properly on TOS 2.06 (on either an STE or STF modified to decode TOS 2.06), but it runs flawlessly on an STE with TOS 1.62. Just because I haven't seen hardware STE / STF compatibility issues though doesn't mean it doesn't exist...just not on the software and games that I use.
There are. I discovered that Arkanoid wouldn't run on the STE that I bought my mother. We had to swap computers. My music software and HiSoft BASIC compiler worked fine on both.
Love the video llike all your other ones. Question could you point me to the 3D STL file of that RetroPie case you were showing , please ? Thanks in advance Erik (Lastic)
I'm so sorry, I just spent the last 30 minutes digging through all my old design and gcode files. I couldn't find the design (I printed it over 10 years ago). IIRC I found an ST model on thingiverse and then modified it to fit the raspberry pi.
One problem I've found with the Gotek is that whilst I can configure it to work as a second drive, the ST can't access it when there's a floppy disk in the primary drive. I've tried multiple Goteks, multiple STs (STE and STFM) and every combination of jumper settings (with and without an extra jumper on the Motor On jumper). All to no avail. 😢
It always fascinates me that the US has not adopted the SCART connector. You guys usually like that something is "easy" ;), and SCART is easy and versatile.
Hello mate 🤝 I've had to clean out a relatives house recently unfortunately, and I found an Atari mega 4 ( not the st, just the mega 4) in good nick, it's in the original box and has one of those box screens with it too. How would be the best way to test this? I'd love to try and get it powered up, any help would be greatly appreciated 🤝 cheers
The Mega 4 and Mega ST 4 are the same basic computer, just different badging and I believe slightly different motherboard revisions. Things to do: 1 - Check the clock battery compartment on the top of the case at the rear on the left side. Remove any batteries if present and hope for minimal leakage 2 - Open up the case and remove the RF (metal) shielding to get a look at the inside. 3 - If there was no battery leakage and the inside looks relatively clean (dust bunnies are ok, rust and corrosion is not) I would try powering it on with the monitor. This is the path I usually take. 4 - If you want to take the super careful route, disconnect the PSU from the motherboard and using a multimeter test the output for the +5V and +12V lines. Without load they may look a little wonky, but should be in the ballpark of those values. 5 - If the voltages are in the ballpark plug the PSU back into the motherboard and test it out with the monitor. Lastly, if you don't have a keyboard or it isn't plugged in, you'll hear a constant "pinging" sound if the computer is booting up correctly. You shouldn't need a disk and it will boot to the Green Atari ST desktop.
@powerofvintage9442 thank you very much for the reply and giving me such a detailed step by step mate 🤝 I really appreciate that, I'll be sure to let you know how it goes this weekend. Looking forward to having a look inside 😁 thanks again mate 🤝 hope you're well today and watch how you go bud
Does your STFM have 2 ROM chips or 6? The EPROM's used by the 6 chip setup are pretty easy to source. If yours is currently set up for 2 chips, switching to the 6 chip setup is relatively easy to do (as long as you have the sockets installed).
Cool deal! I haven't done that one, I assume using a converter from the ASCI port to SCSI? I have a Zip drive set up with my Falcon (that's an easy one though).
@@powerofvintage9442 an old ics adscsi plus. I have two, but one is fried I think because years ago I tried to use it but the silkscreen has a plus sign next to the ground pin (talk about a screw up!!) and I plugged the ps in backwards so ..
@@powerofvintage9442 im connecting it to my old SCSI NAT tower and everything else worked (cd drives , hard drives, bournoulli drive, tape drive etc) found some software to control the cd .
Hah! Great question 1 - Use them to play games just like Ultima V 2 - Use Word Processing software (and printing to a dot matrix printer) for YT scripts / outlines 3 - Fixing them - repairing, recapping, and most fun tinkering
@@powerofvintage9442 no, there never was a plan for 256KB version, if you read German ATARI magazines, the 260ST was announced few weeks before its introduction in mid September 1985, right before 520ST+. I think that due to fact the 512KB ST with just the 16KB bootstrap after loading the TOS from floppy the free RAM is somewhere around 256KB, ATARI decided to differentiate the computer only offer from the 520ST bundle with this tag. It was sold until 520STM came to market, maybe even bit longer. Also the 260ST did not have the for free ROM TOS upgrade the 520ST bundle had.
Very nice video. I admit that as I watch these retro computing (- related) videos, I'm sometimes quite sorry I have neither my (pride-boosting) Mega ST2, nor my (beloved) 800XL anymore.
Great video. Love the shows about Atari ST. Got a Sidecart. Nice device. Very versital. Looking at their TOS emulator next. Running a 1040STFM. love it.
I am an Amiga Person and recently started to dip my toes into the World of Atari ST and what a learning curve but fortunately for me I have VGA monitors which work with 15khz signals and an electronics bench where I can repair these old systems and build PCB's. I currently have been playing with a 1040STF and 1040STFM and while the disk drives are functional I am going to install internal GOTEKs and add the screen to the top of the 1040's. I do have VGA Adaptors but my plans are to future proof them and get them setup to output HDMI. I am about to burn some ROMS to update TOS to 1.04 but I have no clue why they also call it 1.4 which is confusing. After I upgrade the ROM's I will install the Hard Drive Adaptors I bought. I also have external floppy drives but one had a bad head cable so I have to repair that but I am not worried about. The one thing I am looking to do is get an external keyboard to work with these ST's so I can slide them into a server rack and connect the ST's to a KVM Switch which I have done with my Amiga's. I did recently acquire a MeggaST 2 to play with but the keyboard for that needs some TLC. The last thing I want to add to my Atari Computers is a NetUSBee so I can share files across the network. Right now I have been using a Greaseweasle to make disks to play with the ST but I also have been playing with external GOTEK's. When I put the motherboards on my bench to recap these old puppies I am going to remove that ridiculously soldered drive cable and install a header so I can make my own cables that will reach anything I want to install to the floppy cables. I do have PSU's on the shelf ready to go should the need arise in the future. I am having fun with the ST's and I will probably configure up a PI to emulate an ST. I am not sure I want to accelerate my ST's but I will consider it sometime next year after I have them setup the way I want so they can live in one of my server racks. I may add an STE to my collection. What ever I chose not to use I may just hang on the wall. Well that's my Atari ST Retro Experience so far. The ST's are fun but I am still an Amiga Person.
Try STE dedicated or enhanced games: much better sound and scrolling. You can find around 40 titles with MIDI music
Great video, and tons of useful info! Merci :)
silkworm, hell yeah!
Love the vid, im also a collector with around a dozen ST's various types and around 6 or so various 8bit machines and a few Amigas/C64's Got all the add on toys including some 1084 monitors and a Framemeister for panel displays, I built the sidecart from your vid etc etc. I'm in Australia, and now its getting hard to find for sale machines here, prices have tripled since I started collecting. My only disappointment is I was never able to get hold of a TT or Falcon. With our tiny population here very few of those were sold here. I use to code for the machines, wrote a fractal program for the ST's that got great reviews in at least 2 of the Atari mags back in the day. Used compiled GFA basic, it was fast. I love running software from all original hardware.
My experiences of these wonderful machines came from going around to friend's homes after school (my 'parents' never liked computers). In fact I have fonder memories of the computers than the friends, which is why I'm watching your channel and am no longer in contact with the friends. 🖋
🤣
I picked up an Atari STFM 520 originally a couple of years ago as that is what my friend had as a kid. I didn't realise that the original STFM's only had basic ram and were very hard to upgrade. I also didn't even notice in the 80's that it only had a basic AY sound chip and was very disappointed after owning myself an Amiga 1200 back in the day. Late last year I was super lucky to pick up a cheap STE. This machine was a game changer and had Simm slots for memory YAY!.. I was so happy also it was able to do better sound also (Still has the AY but DMA sound I think it's called?" I too have bought an Ultra Satan also and upgraded it now to the full 4mb of memory from 1mb it came with. Still wish those 2 joystick looking ports on the side were used for a joystick and mouse instead of those sorry bloody hard to get to ones on the bottom. I do now have extension cables so I don't have to keep plugging them in directly.
I was the same way when I started collecting. I owned a 520ST growing up and didn't know about the STe or Falcon, just the 520ST and 1040ST.
The STe is much easier to upgrade RAM and has those extra features and capabilities you mention. It's just pretty hard to find them here in the US. They tend to go for 2x or more of what an STF does.
Oh really? I suppose the more rare in a country the more they go for. Does it bug you on tos 2.06 that the Atari logo isn't in the centre or is it just me? 😅😅😅@@powerofvintage9442
Maybe it's that I never saw it myself growing up (no boot screen on my TOS 1.0 520ST). It kind of reminds me of the boot screens of PC's from the 90's, and heck even today. It's all upper left hand corner (except for Macs though).
These are like Pokemon, you've got to catch 'm all 😂 I have collected all Atari's I want over the years: 1040ST, 520STE (upgraded to 4Mb), Mega ST4, Mega STE, TT030 and Falcon. I enjoy collecting vintage computers, saving them from getting scrapped.
Believe me, I get it.
IIRC the 260ST had the same amount of RAM as the 520ST but the 260ST originally had TOS on floppy using up half of the available RAM effectively giving it half the usable RAM hence the name. the TOS roms were not ready at production date, most were dealer upgraded with TOS in rom before sold to customers.
The 260ST was only introduced in Europe and in the US the 520ST at that time also started with the disk TOS as well.
@@powerofvintage9442 the difference was that in US the 520ST was sold in bundle with monitor (SM124 or SC1224) and floppy drive, while in Europe you could buy just the computer in form of 260ST and you could get any monitor/TV and floppy. But in reality it was the very same 520ST with same mainboard.
I'm happy with the MiSTer FPGA Atari ST core. Takes up a lot less room and has about 1,399 other cores.
A great solution! A one device does pretty much it all.
I got my first Atari in early 90s. I found some problems and things have escalated a bit since then 🤣
I think that's putting it lightly...there is this show here in the US called "hoarders"...
Here in Europe SCART is one of the better choices I think, you can get cheap cables to Atari machines, C64, Amiga and so on all with a SCART at the other end, then just get a SCART to HDMI converter and you can use that for all your retro computers, image is good also just avoid the very cheap SCART to HDMI converters.
SCART really is a great standard!
Wish I had a card reader for mine, also a new keyboard controller IC... I first thought it just needed a cleaning but cleaned it twice and several keys are still totally dead, no bad traces or solder joins so must be the kbd controller IC.. wherever you can find one today is the big problem....
Have you tried swapping the rubber domes on the keys that are dead with ones that aren't? It could be the contact material on the bottom of the domes that has worn off.
@@powerofvintage9442 Hi, yeah, I had the misunfortunate of accidentaly touching the back of the kbd against the chassic so it sparked a bit but I cant see any damaged traces so I'm assumuing the MCU took a hit and shorted out some I/O pins :( It's always the same dead keys even after 2 cleaning of the keypads...
@@FXGreggan. sorry my bad, the chip is missing already, forget it.
You can still get a keyboard from "Best Electronics" - as I recently did for my 1040STE. I heard of them from a friend that bought parts years ago for his ST computer. They also have a few internal and external floppy drives (because I bought one of those too). They bought a lot of warehouse stock from Atari way back when they went bankrupt.
It's funny to see the old Atari mouse getting compliments, when it was regarded as being one of the worst mice out there back in the day. Luckily, I've still got a "modern" (1990) no name mouse that's a lot smaller and faster than the standard mouse.
One thing to note with the STE is that RAM upgrades are cheap and easy (using 30-pin SIMMs), so you can get a more common 520 STE without any worries (and you get a blitter!). Back when my STE was my main computer, I upgraded mine to 4MB, and was able to use the left over RAM sticks to upgrade my brother's to 1MB. I've still got both of them, and they both still work perfectly.
Sadly, I haven't got any the original joysticks or additional hardware (like Stereo Master) that I had when I was younger. I ended up getting a SPEEDLINK Competition PRO EXTRA USB joystick and following a guide to wire it up for use on an Atari. It helps that the wiring for the old 9-pin Atari joysticks is incredibly simple, just solder some wires to the microswitches and you're done.
ST520 won on ebay 4years ago for relativly cheap.Before shipping the internal psu died so the seller send it to me for cost of shopping & ebay fee.PSU swap & sidecard ordered so lets see if there will be some funn
Love it!
Ever noticed how our nostalgia mind has much faster load times than reality?
Too true!
My ST initially had the TOS loaded on disk, and even now I remember how slow it was - and I was looking forward to put the TOS in ROM.
Most games on the ST were designed for the original 68000 at 8 MHz. There are a few designed for the STE though. However I don't know if there are some incompatibility issues with the STE and some of the older games.
There may be some compatibility issues with the STe and older software. I have seen no hardware-related compatibility between STF and STE computers.
What I HAVE seen compatibility issues on is TOS 2.06 versus 1.62 (Rainbow TOS) on just a very few games. Sundog for example is a fairly well known one that will not run properly on TOS 2.06 (on either an STE or STF modified to decode TOS 2.06), but it runs flawlessly on an STE with TOS 1.62.
Just because I haven't seen hardware STE / STF compatibility issues though doesn't mean it doesn't exist...just not on the software and games that I use.
There are. I discovered that Arkanoid wouldn't run on the STE that I bought my mother. We had to swap computers. My music software and HiSoft BASIC compiler worked fine on both.
@@frankdaly2016 I need to check this out! I love Arkanoid.
@@frankdaly2016 arkanoid 1 and 2 is running fine on my STE with 1.62 TOS. I use the HDD loaded version from 8bitchip webpage and my Ultrasatan.
Love the video llike all your other ones.
Question could you point me to the 3D STL file of that RetroPie case you were showing , please ?
Thanks in advance
Erik (Lastic)
I'm so sorry, I just spent the last 30 minutes digging through all my old design and gcode files. I couldn't find the design (I printed it over 10 years ago).
IIRC I found an ST model on thingiverse and then modified it to fit the raspberry pi.
@@powerofvintage9442 no worries, thanks for searching, I will look into thingiverse
One problem I've found with the Gotek is that whilst I can configure it to work as a second drive, the ST can't access it when there's a floppy disk in the primary drive. I've tried multiple Goteks, multiple STs (STE and STFM) and every combination of jumper settings (with and without an extra jumper on the Motor On jumper). All to no avail. 😢
That is so weird. I’ve used my Gotek to copy cracked floppy images to physical disks many times.
It always fascinates me that the US has not adopted the SCART connector. You guys usually like that something is "easy" ;), and SCART is easy and versatile.
The metric system is also easy....
Hello mate 🤝 I've had to clean out a relatives house recently unfortunately, and I found an Atari mega 4 ( not the st, just the mega 4) in good nick, it's in the original box and has one of those box screens with it too. How would be the best way to test this? I'd love to try and get it powered up, any help would be greatly appreciated 🤝 cheers
The Mega 4 and Mega ST 4 are the same basic computer, just different badging and I believe slightly different motherboard revisions.
Things to do:
1 - Check the clock battery compartment on the top of the case at the rear on the left side. Remove any batteries if present and hope for minimal leakage
2 - Open up the case and remove the RF (metal) shielding to get a look at the inside.
3 - If there was no battery leakage and the inside looks relatively clean (dust bunnies are ok, rust and corrosion is not) I would try powering it on with the monitor. This is the path I usually take.
4 - If you want to take the super careful route, disconnect the PSU from the motherboard and using a multimeter test the output for the +5V and +12V lines. Without load they may look a little wonky, but should be in the ballpark of those values.
5 - If the voltages are in the ballpark plug the PSU back into the motherboard and test it out with the monitor.
Lastly, if you don't have a keyboard or it isn't plugged in, you'll hear a constant "pinging" sound if the computer is booting up correctly.
You shouldn't need a disk and it will boot to the Green Atari ST desktop.
Also, please feel free to reach out to contact.powerofvintage@gmail.com
@powerofvintage9442 thank you very much for the reply and giving me such a detailed step by step mate 🤝 I really appreciate that, I'll be sure to let you know how it goes this weekend. Looking forward to having a look inside 😁 thanks again mate 🤝 hope you're well today and watch how you go bud
Need to upgrade my 1040stfm to 4mb ram, I have a asci2stm but its not stable running tos 1.02 and need to find a 28pin 1.04 or get a dual bios mod....
Does your STFM have 2 ROM chips or 6? The EPROM's used by the 6 chip setup are pretty easy to source. If yours is currently set up for 2 chips, switching to the 6 chip setup is relatively easy to do (as long as you have the sockets installed).
I'm sitting here trying to attach a SCSI zip drive to an STE
Cool deal! I haven't done that one, I assume using a converter from the ASCI port to SCSI? I have a Zip drive set up with my Falcon (that's an easy one though).
@@powerofvintage9442 an old ics adscsi plus. I have two, but one is fried I think because years ago I tried to use it but the silkscreen has a plus sign next to the ground pin (talk about a screw up!!) and I plugged the ps in backwards so ..
@@DeadCat-42 so you have one now :)
@@powerofvintage9442 im connecting it to my old SCSI NAT tower and everything else worked (cd drives , hard drives, bournoulli drive, tape drive etc) found some software to control the cd .
for every person with 4 ST's there are 3 wondering why they cost so much now
I try to only have one of each model and have refurbished dozens and helped them find homes (at around the price of ebay "untested").
The question is: how are YOU using your STs for? Don't tell me only playing Ultima V ;-)
Hah! Great question
1 - Use them to play games just like Ultima V
2 - Use Word Processing software (and printing to a dot matrix printer) for YT scripts / outlines
3 - Fixing them - repairing, recapping, and most fun tinkering
Atari 260ST has 512KB RAM, all of them...
Lol, maybe the 260ST badges had already been manufactured before the decision to up the RAM had been made?
@@powerofvintage9442 no, there never was a plan for 256KB version, if you read German ATARI magazines, the 260ST was announced few weeks before its introduction in mid September 1985, right before 520ST+. I think that due to fact the 512KB ST with just the 16KB bootstrap after loading the TOS from floppy the free RAM is somewhere around 256KB, ATARI decided to differentiate the computer only offer from the 520ST bundle with this tag. It was sold until 520STM came to market, maybe even bit longer. Also the 260ST did not have the for free ROM TOS upgrade the 520ST bundle had.