Maxing out the Atari 520 STFM with upgrades

[@RMCRetro]

Thanks for watching! and a special thanks to retrolemon.co.uk for some of the upgrades you saw in the episode today. Some Episode links! Part 1 Meeting and Restoring an Atari ST: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pnWycpZ6jLOXb7s Part 2 Maxing out the Atari ST kzbin.info/www/bejne/gZm9YYhomtinfKM Retro Lemon: retrolemon.co.uk Neil - RMC

[@keirthomas-bryant6116]

Not sure I agree with the statement that the Atari ST was popular on the back of its games. It was nicknamed the Jackintosh, after all (a portmanteau of Jack Tramiel's name, and Macintosh). I was an Atari ST user in my late teenage years. It stayed with me throughout university life, in fact. While I did play some games, for me it was all about word processing (plus Star LC10 printer!), and music/MIDI. For us in Europe and the UK, the Atari ST was an evolution of the home computer - getting away from just gaming, and into real productivity. In the US this had always been a thing because of the Apple II. But that had never been a success over here. Here in the UK there was a strict line in the UK between PCs for business (or Amstrad WPCs etc), and home computers for games. The Atari ST showed us how you can do both. I don't think the Amiga even managed this, because it was again a good 80-90% gamer audience.

[@MinhasA]

Thanks for the episode guys! As an ST enthusiast it's a great feeling to see you guys not hating on my beloved machine. Can't wait to see some more ST content!

[@Choppy_PHC]

just wanted to say the new backdrop behind the bench looks fantastic

[@cassiodalcin]

Ultra Satan has to be the nicest peripheral name ever

[@DrSteveBagley]

@@keirthomas-bryant6116 Agreed, I was using my Atari STE into the late-1990s, until I finally replaced it in my second year of Uni. Upgraded to 4MB, and with a hard disk and an SM124 and you still had a very usable system for a lot of stuff. With apps like Papyrus (word processor --still maintained today on Mac/Windows), Texel (spreadsheet, although I never used this), CAB (web browser, morphed into iCAB on the mac), Lattice C/Pure C running on top of MagiC and NVDI and it really shows what the ST was capable of.

[@chainq68k]

RMC: Let's not mention the other "A" computer. RMC 30 seconds later: let's get the ST onto the Workbench... Me: HA! You failed!

[@sq1rlsqu4d]

Ha! ISWYDT :D

[@bryansummers15]

Also the four CBM machines in the background are a subtle reminder of their allegiance :o)

[@brianh2771]

As you know, if you base it on the people involved, the ST is clearly the 16-bit successor to Commodore’s 8- bit machines, and the Amiga is the successor to Atari’s 8-bit machines. All the more reason to love ALL FOUR PLATFORMS.

[@bufordmaddogtannen]

Without a midi port, the Atari ST would have been long forgotten...

[@mikolanimator]

Good point Brian

[@mehere3013]

The st had crap ay sound chip . I had the machine them got amiga for better gfx and sound

[@radiozelaza]

ST's zx spectrum class soundchip is no way a successor to Commodore's superior SID

[@mikolanimator]

@@radiozelaza What later became the Atari St, was originally called “Project z8000”. And it was developed by Commodore in the early 80s. Originally it was intended to be a successor to the Commodore64. Jack Tramiel left Commodore in 1983, and bought a consumer division of Atari. Also when he left, he took Project Z8000 and some of the Commodore engineers with him. To release the ST before the Amiga, a lot of off-the-shelf components had to be used, including the “ZX Spectrum’s sound chip”. Also the Z8000 processor was replaced with Motorola 68000. The rest is history. PS. Unfortunately the legendary SID chip died childless 😟

[@mattb154]

As a ST enthusiast, I really appreciate the balanced and mature take on the machine. Thank you! Also delighted to spot Captain Blood in the background!

[@AFCManUk]

My first 'Real' Computer was the Atari 520 STFM. Years of sheer joy. Best game....Dungeon Master!

[@nigec4969]

Oh yes. Many happy and some frustrating hours playing Dungeon Master of the ST back in the day. I was hooked.

[@occamraiser]

Dungeon Master was number 1, but Bard's Tale ran it a close second. AND the original Carrier Command was epic (in the true sense of 'taking days').

[@patbutete1722]

Many a music carrear off the back of the Atari ST. The hardware MIDI interface alone saw to that.

[@AlfredRusselWallace]

the casual "hairdrying" killed me

[@aeiouxs]

As an equally passionate A500 owner, I really feel for the ST - it had something like a 6 month window of desirability for me as a UK schoolkid back in 87-88 before the Amiga 'suddenly' appeared and the prices started to converge. I know they were released 85 and 87 respectively but that's my memory - I really wanted an 520 STFM and then suddenly the Amiga arrived. It deserves more appreciation that we give it!

[@Daz5Daz]

I got my 520 STFM early in 1988 and the price difference to Amiga was substantial still. When you add in the need for a TV modulator, in today's money, my ST bundle was over £300 cheaper than the A500.

[@Daz5Daz]

@@Tondaloona03 True. And the ST was well worth the money.

[@bobbus_74]

I got my STFM in 1989. It was a hundred pound cheaper than the Amiga. That was a big difference at the time and there's no way I could've found the extra money that the Amiga would have cost (I was 15 at the time). I knew the Amiga was more powerful and while I would have loved one, I was happy with my ST. It was a huge leap from the C64 that I had previously and saw me through the next few years nicely.

[@occamraiser]

I also had an STFM520 and didn't feel it was inferior to the Amiga - however if you wanted to bootleg disks that had manufacturer installed parity errors to achieve copy protection you needed a mate with an Amiga to run the copying program, since the Amiga could be instructed to ignore disk parity errors and the Atari couldn't.......oh yes, I almost forgot....'allegedly'.

[@sirconkers342]

huge leap? . play uridium on 64 then on st.

[@MatthewJohnCrittenden]

Same on the price difference, my family wasn't flush with cash so an STFM it was (like the BBC B vs Electron before it). The MIDI ports started my love of electronic music production, so it was actually a plus in the end. Loved the thing and it helped start a software engineering career that continues to this day.

[@DeadCat-42]

Almost the same story, same time same age, just in Cincinnati Ohio. I started with an Atari 400 I bought second hand for $50 (took a year for me to save for it, doing yard work etc as a ten year old. I collected soda bottles for the ten cent deposit and that's how I bought it!). Saved again to buy the Atari ST I still have.

[@guldkrans]

The bodge job on the STe is in fact a factory job. Later models of the STe had that chip on the motherboard.

[@boelwerkr]

That's a fix for the Timer A interrupt of the MFP. The original design triggers the Interrupt to early. The Fix uses a shifter (74164), the original trigger signal and 8Mhz to get the trigger timing right.

[@solhsa]

o_O

[@insoft_uk]

I have a TOS 1.62 STe I upgraded years ago, decades ago to 2MB and didn’t see any mods so guess it was 1.60 models had that mod

[@SullySadface]

Love me some old jank.

[@Xoferif]

My 1990-vintage 1040STE definitely didn't have that bodge!

[@spacedock873]

Yes indeed the ST had many other uses apart from games. The main and obvious one being music thanks to its MIDI ports. In the 80's it was the king of the sequencers for the emerging "synth pop" scene. I used mine to write my university dissertation (Computing Science)!

[@ABrit-bt6ce]

A boss of mine had one as a business *cough* Lemmings *cough* machine back in the day.

[@MrDuncl]

The most professional music software you could get (from Steinberg and eMagic) used by the likes of Fatboy Slim was originally released on the ST and at the time cost more than the computer !. If people are wondering what happened to eMagic, they were bought by Apple, who quickly dropped support for all other platforms making Apple the more obvious choice for musicians. Apple freebies like Garageband have their roots in Atari ST software.

[@Johnsormani]

yes that's true. Atari was the only professional solution for midi at that time. Even today many of the vintage synth sounds can't be edited by the few modern editors that are left ( since the demise of Sound diver) . So an old ST would still be useable for this purpose

[@robert-yates]

Mark if you are being forced against your will to be positive about the Atari please send out smoke signals^^

[@markholle3450]

35 years later and I am pumped to see this Atari ST get upgraded. Takes me back.

[@Keeping_IT_Simple]

As a former ST owner ,& user this series was great to watch . I did an 1mb upgrade back in the day that involved , if memory ( pun intended ) serves no soldering but I had to plug a circuit board over the top of The CPU , which was under a metal case towards the middle of the board I think ? Unfortunately I sold mine many ,many years ago to someone who was taking it to Germany I think . I had collected hundreds of games & disks , many from the extensive Public Domain & shareware collections of such suppliers as Goodman PDL , Fast Club , FloppyShop . Many a happy hour avidly reading through their printed catalogs & saving my pennies for the next order , then waiting for the envelopes to pop through the letterbox a few days later ... Some of the add-ons I had were a fitted internal double sided floppy drive as well as an external one , a audio sampler device , mono monitor, an external hardware disk duplicator . Strangely enough one of the best additions was the mouse / joystick extension cable as the ports on the at were not well placed as you had to lift up the machine to access them .

[@mrdali67]

I am really getting into aquiring an ST again.Just for the fun of it. I had a 1040STfm so the 1mb ram was enough for me back then, but for learning about PC's I baught a board, that like yours had to be placed on top of the 68000. It was indded like you see on their pictures placed towards the front right under the keyboard. This in my case was done by soldering a socket onto the 68000 and placing the board on top. I had to cut a square in the top metal cape to get the board to just barely fit in under the keyboard. The board featured a 80286 that used the ST's ram, so I could boot between MS Dos and the ST. Iirc the 286 was a 10Mhz version, and ran pretty much all the Dos stuff I tried, but the lack of the graphical interface was a barrier to get thru to start with, but eventually both the ST and this fiddling with DOS got me starting to work with computers fulltime.

[@Nibb31]

I went from the Amstrad CPC to a 520 STFM and later got an STE. I was too poor to get an Amiga and a friend sold me the STFM he'd got for Christmas (which got him in big trouble with his parents!). The STE was much more expandable, as it was not only easy to add 4 MB of RAM, but you could also add a IDE HDD board inside, which I did, along with TOS 2.06 (color icons!). My favorite games were Dungeon Master, Captain Blood, Populous and Flight Simulator 2.0. If you plan to play with some productivity programs, you will need to get a monochrome monitor. GEM with a monochrome and one of the later ROMs actually blows away the classic Macs.

[@MrDuncl]

You could use some VGA monitors with an adapter. Some early Multisync monitors like NEC could do both resolutions so you just needed an adapter with a switch to select the resolution. I had a used one, which from the screen burn had been used in a Stockbrokers or similar.

[@ricardobornman1698]

I'm a big Amiga fan but its nice to see the ST getting some love.

[@AutoreplyMusic]

Loved this - the Atari ST and Cubase enabled me to buy my house

[@MrDuncl]

How many records did that take and which ones ?

[@johnabbitt690]

I was going to get the 3.5" floppy disk drive add-on for my Spectrum but my Dad said would you rather have an Atari ST instead? I wasn't getting an Amiga because at the time they were another £100. And so my time with Atart STFM began. Always living in the shadow of my Amiga owning friends. I have to agree with you guys as that was what it was like back then. For me, I was always let down by the sound. The graphics were almost identical to my Amiga owning friends, but their games always sounded better with more digitised sounds and tracker mods for title music. My little Atari always seemed just push out little bleeps and bloops for the most part. In the end, the support for the Atari started to dwindle and it soon became frustrating watching Amiga owners getting new games whilst the Atari ST was left behind. I remember the frustration of reading in ST Format that Monkey Island 2 wasn't coming to the ST but it was for the Amiga. It wasn't all bad, I dabbled in desktop publishing and learnt how to use word processors and my magazine of choice was ST Format which always came with interesting programs to experiment with, not just games. My machine was upgraded to 1mb, which unlike yours, I remember the computer shop added a board so that a couple of Dimm modules could be used. I also got myself a second drive to reduce on drive swapping, essential for those multi-disk games. Sorry Neil, that got a bit long winded but felt very therapeutic. :-)

[@MrDuncl]

But hook the Atari up to an Akai sampler using two simple cables and you would had a setup similar to Fatboy Slim. To me the ST was an obvious choice because I already had a Yamaha synth.

[@kaitlyn__L]

The MIDI and the hard drive port were great additions. TOS was also fairly fully featured for the time. The ST appealed to some small businesses as well as with stuff like music or desktop publishing. In addition to games. That’s part of why they made so many!

[@MrDuncl]

Don't forget the high-res monitor. With that the ST was just as capable as a Mac, and from what I read at the time more popular than them in Germany.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@MrDuncl I can see that being the case for single-user setups, how does it compare on networking?

[@MrDuncl]

@@kaitlyn__L Networking wasn't really a big deal in the early 1990s. The main idea of these types of computer (including the Mac) were that they was personal. Only academics were on the internet and that required a modem irrespective of the computer type. Big businesses (like the one I worked for) were stuck in the world of DEC mainframes or were moving onto Sun Workstations (both very expensive). I have read more of the comments and several people have mentioned using their STs (with a High Res monitor) for desktop publishing.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@MrDuncl I’m talking about file sharing and printer sharing in the small to medium office.

[@MrDuncl]

@@kaitlyn__L Windows for Workgroups released in 1992 was the first version of Windows to actually support networking. Until then, if people needed to move a file to a different computer (whether they were using STs, PCs or Macs) they would be most likely to copy it onto a floppy disk. If an application absolutely had to have a central database you probably would use any of those systems. Check out LGRs video on The Library Computer Terminal. In 1997 my then girlfriend worked for a large insurance company. One day she said that their terminals were being replaced with PCs and she would need how to learn how to use a mouse. That was how things were back until then. P.S. I completely forgot. The ST I had emulation of a DEC terminal built in to the OS. An ST and a Hi-Res monitor was about half the price of the DEC terminal. In fact most "home computers" were cheaper than DEC terminals which were priced for big businesses.

[@empeda]

Thank you for this. This was such a nostalgic thing for me. The 520STFM was my first computer, and for me, it wasn't really about the gaming. I taught myself to code on an ST, using FiRST BASIC and STOS, and I used it for music, and dabbled in electronic wave manipulation for the first time. I'm now a professional software dev with 20 years experience, and an amateur musician and recording artist on the side. My tools are obviously much different these days, but the that ST I got for Christmas when I was 11 has essentially defined a large chuck of my life. Thank you again. PS. I actually performed a RAM upgrade on my machine - put an extra 2MB in (I remember it cost £70!). My mother and I installed it ourselves - think it must have been some kind of kit, because I don't remember having to solder, but it worked all the same :-)

[@mmille10]

I was the same way. I used my Ataris mostly for serious stuff, with some gaming. That's why I wanted them. Plus, by the time I started buying them (late '80s), the prices were more reasonable. I wanted to program on them, and I used them for word processing, but I wanted computers that I could have some fun on. When I look at the retro Atari community today, I seem like an outlier. So many like it for the games. When they talk about programming on them, they talk about developing games. I've gotten back into programming on the 8-bit Atari, and I'm still working on serious stuff with it. :)

[@zorabixun]

@@mmille10 , I try to find a new ST case, keyboard, empty inside, to build my own ST computer, with new parts, in its lovely grey colour. Maybe someone make these parts. Tell me please, do you have the Mark Williams C compiler, Alice Pascal compiler, or Assembler ? Could i have a copy possible recorded to a memory stick I was using them on my ST-520, but later i sold when I started a job on PC. Thanks ....

[@zorabixun]

@Martin Davies , I try to find a new ST case, keyboard, empty inside, to build my own ST computer, with new parts, in its lovely grey colour. Maybe someone make these parts. Tell me please, do you have the Mark Williams C compiler, Alice Pascal compiler, or Assembler ? Could i have a copy possible recorded to a memory stick I was using them on my ST-520, but later i sold when I started a job on PC. Thanks ....

[@mmille10]

@@zorabixun - I don't have any of those. I've mostly been working with the Atari 8-bit, as I said. The only dev. tool I managed to get recently for the ST was the Devpac assembler from HiSoft, for a little something I wanted to try (not ST-specific, but 68000-specific). Everything retro I've been doing with Atari I've gotten off the internet. I'm using emulators. I'm sure you could find the languages you're looking for online, in disk images. Just gotta hunt them down. I don't know of a central repository that has everything. :)

[@benjaminramsey4695]

Love hangin' out with you guys, always a treat.

[@grakkal]

Every time I see that Atari 800XL behind you gents I can't help but think that you're missing an opportunity to trick it out. There's a surprising number of modern upgrades for the Atari 8 bit line, but I would recommend starting with adding an Ulitmate 1MB upgrade (FJC Firmware *highly* recommended). The U1MB also adds a built in OS in SpartaDOS X, and a Real-time clock. After that a cartridge-based HDD solution such as the SIDE3 might be handy. Finally, and possibly the coolest modern upgrade is FujiNet, which not only lets you get on WiFi, but adds an actual N: driver. Thus allowing the Atari to use networked resources programmatically, or from DOS.

[@helmutzollner5496]

Having experienced the ST in Germany with the B&W screen, I mostly used it for DTP Signum2, I started my C programming career with Borland TurboC for the Atari ST. I invested at the time into a CPU upgrade to 68020 with floating point Co-CPU. That's when it got interesting.

[@MrDuncl]

Is it true that in Germany the ST with a high res monitor was more popular than the Mac?

[@helmutzollner5496]

@@MrDuncl Yes, definitely. The Mac was more than 4-6 times of even a high end ST. The bigger screen of the ST in B&W was also a plus. I used Signum!2 for my assignments and thesis. It had thousands of fonts. I always regretted that the Software publisher never released it on Windows, but they stood little chance against MS I guess. So it was probably a prudent decision. Then there was the Midi port. I think I saw the last ST used by a live band only about 5 years ago. In Germany only professionals like Graphic Artists or Designers would invest in a Mac. It was just way out of reach for most teens. There was a pretty good Mac Emulator for the ST though. It was quite reliable and had a decent execution speed, but I always thought the screen resolution was too low, after being spoilt by the ST resolution. I only used it to play a few Mac games and Digisim a digital circuit emulator. The main issue with it was, how hard it was to get the Mac software across onto ST floppies. It had to be sent across a serial line and that could take a long time. However Germany offered pretty nice ST applications for most purposes, so there was little need for that. What I found interesting was when compiling the same C-Source code with Turbo-C on ST and PC. The executable on the ST was only about half the size of a x86 DOS executable and run at more than 2x the speed of a 286. So, I loved my ST, but eventually in the early 1990s I had to cross over to x86 for professional reasons. Shame really.

[@CooChewGames]

I loved my ST; as you say, when you upgraded from an 8-bit machine, it was a whole new world... I don't think a leap in technology has ever been so profound.

[@MrDuncl]

I got my ST in 1990 and it came with some demos on Floppy disk (maybe an Evesham micros extra). After loading in about 2 seconds an animated bird flew across the screen. Having only had tape based computers before I was really impressed. I later got a SCSI hard drive and adaptor, and a real Multisync monitor that could do both standard and HiRes modes which was even more impressive.

[@WaynePutterill]

My computer journey at the time was ZX81 > Spectrum 16k (I upgraded it to 48k, first time I'd done anything like it and I remember being terrified of bricking it) > C64 > 520ST. The ST was as you say a massive leap in performance for me, I knew the "A" computer was better but it was out of my price range, plus I wanted to get into desktop publishing and the Atari with it's bundled mono monitor was excellent for that.

[@occamraiser]

Mine was Oric, Commodore Plus 4, Commodore C16, Sinclair QL (a real computer), Spectrum, PC PC PC PC PC PC The Oric -> Sinclair QL were all while I was doing my 4 year degree in Computer Science - and the QL exhibited many of the Operating System building blocks we where studying, it was a hugely under rated computer IMHO.

[@bobbobson4069]

The whole production is so technically professional! A real joy to watch it! Brilliant! The sound and video quality is second to none! Keep up the good work! Marius (from Warsaw)

[@WolfKenneth]

I always liked design of Atari's compared to other 8 and 16 bits really nice looking machines.

[@cnfuzz]

And built like tanks , if dropped these still run and run , lots of amigas made landfill through the years , love me both

[@thygate]

More about the MOD at 3:36 They've piggybacked an LS164 (shift register) on top of another chip, just to mount it. This then seems to take the input clock straight from that crystal (2.4576 MHz) and seems to be configured as a linear feedback shift register (LFSR), constituting a pseudorandom generator. This then outputs to the Yamaha YM2164 (FM Synth) for which i can't quickly find a datasheet, but i assume it serves as some form of audio noise channel ..

[@thygate]

Reading more into that YM2164, it does have a noise source that must be clocked externally, so rather than an LFSR, the shift register that is tacked on here is likely just dividing the clock aquired from the crystal to drive the noise clock source for the YM2164. source: section 2.1.5 in map.grauw.nl/resources/sound/yamaha_ym2151_synthesis.pdf

[@MatSpeedle]

Great work chaps! I still have my original 520FM and 1040STE. My dad used these heavily for music back in the late 80's through to the 90's and we enjoyed a lot of great games on it. I will however never forget the HUGE disapoinment that was Out Run... >

[@aeiouxs]

fwiw it was also extremely disappointing on the Amiga

[@anthonyciantar6015]

Nice episode! I spent most of my ST time writing out reports! Can't remember the name of the word processor I used, with its spell checker. I sometimes just took the disk to work to print out using an IBM PC. I eventually got page stream, the DTP software and an ink jet printer.

[@MrDuncl]

That is another plus. Floppy discs from the ST is so close to the PC they are interchangable (I recall some slight issue that they had to be formatted in the PC). Being the secretary of a club, I too used my ST for word processing, using "First Word" software. One month after buying the ST I spent as much on a 24 pin Panasonic printer. My dream was to get a laser printer like they had at work but the cheapest were over £1000.

[@1960ARC]

@@MrDuncl I'm pretty sure I bought my 1040 STE and printer for about the same price as an Amiga. Yes I played games on it, the Amiga had amazing sound compared to the ST, but I think the ST had the better OS for business use at the time. It just worked the works windows PC was soooo slow.

[@mattcole6230]

Brilliant this. Coming from the commodore background the ST always interested me. I've just purchased a 520STFM and was really looking forward to seeing this episode. Brilliant as always gents, and please, more on the ST ASAP! 🙂

[@xnonsuchx]

If I remember correctly, some earlier games don't like a full 4MB RAM and will crash (though maybe some cracked versions fixed that?). And some only work correctly w/ TOS 1.00, so there were ROM switchers for the ST (since the last TOS 2.06 also had some compatibility issues w/ older software). I had an original 520 STm and paid someone to upgrade it to 1MB, but had to source the 16 RAM chips myself. I got to watch him do it and it was really interesting because it involved bending up 2 pins on each of the new chips, piggybacking them on the existing chips and then running wires across the bent up pins. I'd seen piggybacking RAM chips used to verify a bad RAM chip, but not to actually perform a RAM upgrade. I wish I coulda filmed it because it was fascinating at the time (1987-ish).

[@mmille10]

Yep, buying games for my Mega STe (TOS 2.06) was a bit of a challenge. My local Atari dealer was generous enough to allow me to test out games on the Mega STe he had in the shop before I bought them. Some weren't compatible. So, I'd skip them. The one that killed me was Masterblazer. It was the ST version of Ballblazer, which was my most favorite game on the Atari 8-bit, but it didn't work on the Mega STe. :( The most compatible TOS for games was 1.04 (for the STFM), as I recall. Buying application software was easier. I didn't worry about compatibility with that, since the publishers typically weren't going for maximum performance tricks. Once I got into the PC world, and starting running ST software in emulation, I managed to try out Masterblazer. Just needed some patience. :)

[@Meebzorp5200]

I loved my 520ST. It was bought in the first few months of release. It was way cheaper than the Amiga and available months prior to the Amiga. I had a 2 mb sandwich board soldered on for a total of 2.5 mb. Good times. Did everything with that machine - programming (I remoted in to our school's mainframe over 1200 baud modem to upload my code and let it compile overnight), MIDI with a Casio CZ-101 keyboard, desktop publishing, and of course games. Truly power without the price!

[@TzOk]

3:40 it actually is a factory bodge, to the early STes... it is for some extra delay.

[@georgeluyckx1437]

I really loved the design of the Atari ST. Was my first ever computer. Had great fun with it as I had with later my Amiga 500.

[@DarrylHughes]

As someone else mentioned Xenon 2. Great intro music and an amazing shoot em up. Great video as always, thank you.

[@dgpsf]

We had a 520ST at my school when I was about 10, and it was connected to a daisywheel printer. It was my favorite computer to write essays on. I was fascinated with it.

[@lotionmedia]

Was an Amiga guy. But I got a 2nd hand cheap 4mb Atari 1040STE in late 90's with Cubase. It became the centre of my music studio. Wow! I so wish I got one years before. An amazing machine for professional music production. (Even Mac compatible).

[@davethackery3773]

We where mostly Amiga fan boys apart from 1. His only preference to the ST was that he was able to roll a cig whilst driving down the Hockenheim straight in Microprose Grand Prix. He ran out of time when trying on the Amiga :)

[@aeiouxs]

Pure class!

[@MinhasA]

Oh how glorious it is to see Amiga Cave upgrading my beloved Atari! 😁😁. I have heard Xenon 2 is actually better on ST than Amiga, maybe you can test? PS. I do want to thank you guys at RMC for the episode... I was just trying to give a light rib with the "Amiga Cave" comment. You both were quite fair on what you've said about the ST. I can't wait for some more ST content !

[@MinhasA]

@@grex9101 haha, no arguments from me on that... The Amiga and Atari scene was before my time, but I happen to be into STs and never played an Amiga. I know the Amigas generally had better graphics and sound. I saw a comparison specifically on Xenon 2 which is why I brought it up..

[@Nibb31]

@@grex9101 Dungeon Master, Pinball Obsession, Captain Blood, Xenon 2 were absolutely better on the ST. Often, the games that were STE-only were best. Sure, not many games were better than on the Amiga, but some dedicated ST programmers could do wonders.

[@Wiggs1979]

Great to see the ST getting some attention. I still recall the school playground arguments between it and the more popular competitor. I had (well still have) my 520STFM. I've also got version 2 of one of those SIMCHECK testers - I took a peek inside mine and it's powered by a suitably retro 486 CPU!

[@dnwheeler]

The ST was definitely a better fit for my uses than the Amiga. I did a lot of desktop publishing with a 19" Moniterm monitor (1280x1024 monochrome) and Atari SLM804 laser printer. I also used the MIDI quite a bit and also did a lot of programming. That high-res (non-interlaced) monochrome display was very sharp and easy on the eyes. Emulating a Macintosh and running Pagemaker, etc. was a fun bonus. I rarely played games and my color monitor didn't get much use.

[@pstzz]

I absolutely loved our 520STFM! I was about 6 years old when I unexpectedly found my dad playing with it in the living room one weekend. We started out with the discovery pack that included Bombjack/Space Harrier/Outrun/Carrier Command. I tried writing a game in STOS using English instead of BASIC, which in hindsight went hilariously badly! My Dad kindly upgraded the machine to 1MB at some point, so it was capable of playing some great games (of which we had many). My overall favourite has to be Cannon Fodder, which was a nightmare to find, taking months to come into stock. Well worth it, though! Sadly I eventually broke the machine by taking it apart to see if the RAM could be upgraded any further. I dropped the floppy drive onto the motherboard and broke something. The repair shop sadly replaced the motherboard and floppy drive with dodgy ones, and over time several of my favourite game disks were destroyed by it, not to mention many of my musical creations made with Quartet. I was just a kid so this was pretty sad at the time :( I think my parents still have the machine in the loft. Might pull it out again at some point and see if it still works...

[@fluffycritter]

In the Cave would you consider having any of the music production software available as well? It'd be really cool to put the original version of Logic on display, for example, as that's music production software that is still being used (and developed) to this day and I think would be pretty joyful for many modern music producers to see where that software started out. Or at least I sure would get a huge thrill out of it.

[@MrDuncl]

It would go really well with the MT32 Neil was lucky enough to receive as a donation.

[@fluffycritter]

@@MrDuncl oh, heck yes

[@2001pl]

Love the Atari ST, much more than the amiga ;)

[@richard1113]

I'm an original "Atarian" 2600, 800, 800XL, 130XE, dreams of a 1450XLD, and made the jump to the 520ST (not STFM). Loved them all and thoroughly enjoyed writing programs for them. I ultimately sold my 520ST to buy an Amiga 500 back in the day, and, hate to say it, would choose that if had a choice of old computers. At any rate, thanks for the video and bringing back memories.

[@NickFellows]

Amazed the PSU was on top of the ram chips - all that heat!

[@TheTurnipKing]

Doubly so because it means you probably can't bodge a SIMM socket on top of the supplied pads.

[@matthehat]

Heat rises though, and rising hot air pulls cold air in from the bottom.

[@brianwild4640]

The power supply was on top of a thick piece of metal then a gap before the chips

[@johnyk.4738]

What`s about Falcon 030?

[@CameraObscure]

I brought an ST520 for its MIDI capabilities. They could be found in virtually every proffessional music studio. The proffessional music DAWS for the ST was amazing steinburg Pro being one of the originals as well as Cubase. I also used a korg M1 sound editor. This where the ST was King in the PC market and even today some are still in use in some studios. It has a very robust MIDI implimentation solid reliable and I loved it.

[@slinkyninja]

If you get enough Ataris you can hook them up and play MIDI Maze.

[@Nibb31]

Oh yes ! MIDI Maze, I remember that ! They do seem to have at least 3, so that deserves a video !

[@rapiqui]

That STE piggybacked and soldered IC was stock. Yeah, looks like Mr. Tramiel had some words with uncle Clive 😁

[@GeorgesChannel]

Great video and upgrades. Thank you for giving the ST(E) a chance in your great channel. The STE has two special ports for the ATARI Jaguar Joysticks (if you happen to have one). There was also one or two games, which supported them. You could also show some of the special STE games, which support the blitter and DMA-sound.

[@nonamenola33]

I don't remember if I wrote it on the other video, but I still have my Mega STE in the basement. With the 40MB (I think) Hard drive, four megs of ram and TOS 2.06. Those were the days.

[@mrkrunch4340]

I remember upgrading my 520STFM with a non-solder memory kit. You had to prise one of the chips (I assume the MMU) out of it's socket on the main board. The upgrade itself was formed with the main memory modules on a daughter board with a ribbon cable running to a socket "frame" that replicated the socket on the main board with its own set of socket pins. You push the socket frame into the socket on the main board, then place the chip in the secondary socket, so the daughter board memory modules would be feeding into the original socket. From 512k to glorious 1024k. It never quite worked properly after that upgrade though. After about a year I would just get the line of bombs whenever I tried to run anything.

[@kooky216]

love your videos, 19:11 glad you'll cover those, always nice to see business apps

[@cbmsysmobile]

I remember doing a RAM upgrade on my friend's Atari ST back in the early 90's. He got me to do it because I knew how to solder things. There wasn't any SMT work involved back then.

[@wilsvgaddiction4456]

This has become my favorite YT channel by a large margin.

[@Ar-kx4hp]

Great video. With ref to the ST compared to the Amiga….confession time. I was a load screen artist back in the day, working in Covent Garden and various other areas of London. As much as the Amiga was a wow machine at shows… it did not have the walk to match the talk. It was good, but nowhere near as good as marketing at the time made it out to be. The ST never pretended to be anything other than it was. And we preferred it. It was great to produce on. Still recall the juggler demo on an A1000 running via a voltage converter in the office (it was an American model) we smiled, then went back to the ST to get stuff done. The machine that actually delivered what the Amiga promised? Hands down the Apple Macintosh with a graphic upgrade. That thing was insanely good. The Amiga had no chance against it.

[@bobbobson4069]

PS. Normally I hate adverts, but the way RMC have integrated the sponsor into the show, doesn't bother me.

[@mkrleza]

Always great to see the two of you tinkering. Great show!

[@atari-staffroom]

I jumped from the Dragon 32 to the ST. It blew my mind and I was never jealous of my Amiga owning friends....mostly. Oh and try out the 2 Grandad adventure games and of course llamatron. 😁

[@daishi5571]

I went Dragon 64 to Amiga lol.

[@erinwiebe7026]

I'm loving the new intro music with the outdoor shot panning up to the RMC headquarters. I hope it sticks around. :)

[@RMCRetro]

Thanks Erin, it's a view I never tire of!

[@graealex]

@@RMCRetro I'd love to see it change with the seasons. Btw. I need an address to ship those non-lint PCB swabs to you.

[@sandrinowitschM]

I rarely look at the screen while watching these because I just like hearing Neil's voice while doing stuff around the house. So I had to skip back to the beginning and damn! That IS a very nice view.

[@bazza5699]

"get over to the workbench" knew you'd slip in an amiga reference..

[@MultiMidden]

For some historical context, by about late 86 / early 87 a 520ST (with modulator) cost less than a BBC Master 128 (eventually even the Amiga was cheaper than the Master).

[@Alan_UK]

Great review. Please do a office suite review. I bought my ST for desktop publishing using TimeWorks (a UK company I think). There was also spreadsheet s/w (K-Spead or was it ST Calc), GST 1st Word for word processing, Superbase was as very nice visual database system. For leisure we had Flight Simulator and Elite, and my son learnt to program with GFA Basic. I still have the machine - been in a box for 30+ years. Must get it out and see if it works!

[@NozomuYume]

I love how it was almost a Keeps sponsorship but it turned out to be PCBWay

[@nicwilson89]

9:50 Awwwh, c'mon...that's the perfect opportunity to have fun with heatshrink and also prevents it from coming unstuck sometime, something jiggles it somewhere down the line, and it shorts to something nearby :D

[@OidHunter]

Loving these videos, thanks guys. I still have my 1040 STfm from around 1991. In recent years I've had to replace the psu as I suspected the caps were failing, then I found the space bar didn't work which I ended up bodging a fix for using a solder pen.. I also have a 520 ST that was given to me, and I need to upgrade both machines. I've always wanted a Gotek as my disks are suffering from bit rot, luckily I copied off some of my game saves many years ago (Frontier: Elite II, Oids).

[@mikedavies5049]

My favourite computer I ever owned. I also remember upgrading the RAM but with a kit that needed no soldering. Bought it via an Atari magazine. Would love to own one again.

[@jaxey1631]

Would be great if you could get hold of and cover the Falcon030 too, I went ZX81->Spectrum->STE->Falcon030->PC during my teens and loved the Falcon030 (almost as much as the speccy at the time I got that), especially with a multisync monitor and HDD it was a very usable machine, and some of the tricks the Motorola 56001 DSP could do were awesome for the time.

[@MrDuncl]

Having had an ST then STe (bought from someone who upgraded to an HDD equipped A1200) I would love to know more about the Falcon.

[@adamw.p.6287]

I agree, one of the greatest bundles ever. I can't think of any better bundle. Even the PS1 bundle I bought back in 1996 with 5 top games didn't compare in terms of value.

[@GreySectoid]

Yay my favorite 16-bit machine getting special coverage, so excited. While Amiga is awesome too, for some reason this has been the machine for me.

[@Thijs_NL]

That media problem reminded me of my own media problem back then.. C&C on 24 floppy disks.. but at one point.. number 14 had a CRC error when trying to unpack it :(.

in germany most of st/tt buyers used it as a cheap mac alternative, mostly with the (at the time) excellent monochrome monitor

[@luapnitsua5859]

Great video.I had an atari 520st that had been upgraded to 1mb in the late 80's/early 90's...And yes there was a small amount of competition between owners.From what I can recall the Atari was supposed to be slightly better with handling music?. Regardless I love 2player lemmings and still can't find it today

[@GraemeWoller]

Why are the three LEDs off-center on that beautiful little sdcard HD emulator?! So triggering!

[@richardpeel6056]

I've got an Atari STE, I had the RAM upgrade and an optional operating system switch put in when I first got it (second hand), I actually have a compatible hard drive but I image it's died through old age and non use, I also have the Atari Mono Monitor although I have a TV set up as well with a monitor. I also have a VIDI ST TV digitiser, allowing you to transfer analogue TV to the Atari and take still frames off it, this meant with an analogue camcorder you could actually print still photos from the computer in black and white. A Matador105 handscanner for Atari allowing you to transfer photos and text to the Atari. And an Atari ST Replay which I think did something musical. These 3 items attached to the side port of the computer. Now I want to switch it on and see if it still works.

[@richardpeel6056]

I was using a VHSC video recorder and wanted to insert text and still image slides as I edited and rerecorded video from compact to full size VHS tape. I also used an audio mixer to add music backing where needed. All this was done on an Atari STE , you can record Atari output simply by putting a VCR between the computer and the TV used as a monitor. My Atari was probably better and considerable more flexible than the 386 computers we had at work.

[@ArthLud]

Super cool! Great soldering job! I actually purchased an Atari 520STFM just couple of days before the show. What a coincidence. I heard something about project MiNT (MiNT is not TOS) but I never used it - it suppose to bring multitasking to Atari.

[@leepshin]

A question and a suggestion. Where did you get your games from and does the bundle include Cubase 3? Do an episode covering the recovery of failing media or physical restoration of those pesky floppies that have problems being read.

[@Retromicky82]

Surprisingly alot of my atari discs still work as my cough "backups" lol At the time we couldn't find any amiga anywhere near me so we went with the St. I didn't know much about the amiga to bit later

[@fensoxx]

I gotta say as an A500 owner from back in the hey day… that games bundle power pack is pretty much the clincher. Wow.. would have killed for that for my other A machine.

[@JoFreddieRevDr]

Back in the 90's when I upgraded my STFM (circa 87 model) I used a kit like the "4MB Marpet Memory Upgrade Kit" (available on eBay, I won't link as KZbin would bury this comment if I did) I had to source my own dims, lucky they had just replaced a batch in some of the (industrial) printers at work so I acquired to old ones, I picked out the ones that were not faulty, a lot easier to install than the route you followed.

[@robwebster7406]

Thanks for the video, few years now just getting into the Amiga A500 now, was a mega drive owner back in the time, shocked on the bad st to Amiga software and think Amiga was better, but due to lazy software conversions the Amiga didn’t did well, love too hear your thoughts on that, keep up the great work your doing 👍

[@graealex]

Regarding the adapter board for the Ultrasatan: DB-19 is an obsolete connector which no one manufactures anymore. Well, Big Mess o' Wires did order 10,000 completely new ones from a Chinese factory for the Floppy Emu project. Obviously the best choice would be a DB-19 ribbon cable connector, which is basically equivalent to a unicorn.

[@oestrek]

Yep I have experienced much the same frustration with that connector both on the Atari and the NeXT computers. My option was to chop (or grind) a DB-25 down to size with a Dremel tool.

[@graealex]

@@oestrek It's an easy part, but if no one is making it anymore, it's really hard to come up with an alternative. Especially for a female one.

[@andreslb151]

3:48 why? xd

[@eightbit1975]

This two part series was really enjoyable to watch. Thank you! The benefits of the Atari ST (even earliest revisions) over the other wedge shaped "A" computer in my book are two. One being the integrated HDD port. The other being the ease of getting software from a modern PC to this thanks to the DOS file system cross compatibility. I can think of no other 16 bit era computer that is as easy to work with in these terms. The Amiga (now that I have said it I feel I need to contribute to the tip jar!) was a real PITA to do this. I recall having to use WinUAE to read a partition, having to mount windows folders to it in emulation, and having to copy the files all in emulation...and it was fiddly....crashing many times during a copy process. Vintage Mac's were even worse. I don't even want to remember how difficult it was just to get some simple apps over to a Mac SE from a modern PC. With the ST you don't even need an UltraSatan to work with it if you are strapped for cash. You can work with this all on floppy from an old PC with a floppy drive. I still find it amazing that DOS format compatibility was included in the machine.

[@bionicgeekgrrl]

These videos will probably provide me a little help when I get around to looking at my 4096ste (without going and digging it out I'm pretty sure that's what it is, I know it has 4mb though), the hdd emulator and the mouse adapter look like useful options instead of trying to find a working mouse and looking at a gotek drive.

[@arnetrautmann9783]

Ah, good ol' ST, how I miss it. But please come back to that DTP and MIDI-stuff because this balance of games and productivity was what the ST was *really* about.

[@alexwoods1094]

Great to see some Atari ST content. Would love to see some more in the future.🙏

[@alexatkin]

This literally WAS my first computer, with the power pack. I had very few other games back then as I'd be lucky to get one a year, so magazine coverdisks were vital. It really was an amazing introduction to computers. I even got the STe later before moving to the Amiga A600. I can't even remember how that happened considered the limited funds available.

[@456gt59]

I was the owner of a $hitty sinclair zx81 (never had a game working on it...) then I decided to buy a descent computer, the atari 520ST was the only one in my tiny budget, it was fine for 2-3 years but then I discovered my friends' amiga and I was so jealous but no money to move to amiga, then it was the time for sega megadrive/genesis and Super Nintendo, and I was so eager to repeat the same mistake I waited 1 year to be sure of my choice and finally bought a Snes. It was a good time, good games on this machine like speedball2, IK and IK+, robocop, nebulous, gauntlet 2, lemmings, Vroum!!!, super sprint, stunt car racer, arkanoid, major motion, cannon fodder, sim city, megalomania, flashback , north & south et xenon 2 :D

[@davidmoore4567]

This machine got me though college. Seem to recall two machines getting the single sided drive changed, getting the ram increased and using sm124 monitor and hard disk, together with tools like Lattace C, Devpak 3 assembler and Modula 2 compiler from HIsoft plus drawing, word processing software and dot matrix printer. They were games of course. Even networked with serial cables using a cartridge based other operating system called Mirage

[@markbaker594]

I bought an Ste years ago and taught myself about the hardware scrolling, with this I manged to put a ball sprite on the screen and gave the impression of moving the screen in 8 directions at 16 different speeds, all controlled by a joystick, I impressed myself, all done in lovely 68k machine code!! The way I believe Atari increased the colour pallet was doing something with the bits in the colour registers I think? So that it would be backwardly compatible with the older ST range. I heard some music through the DMA chip and too be fair it did sound really good!

[@MrDuncl]

The STe made some big improvements but very little software made use of it. In fact Atari brought back the ST as it could be made and sold even cheaper. From the SMT DRAM I reckon the ST RMC has been working on is one of the post STe models.

[@thingi]

The best upgrade you could do... Upgrade those horrid dome switches in the ST Mouse. Every Atari mouse I ever used was knackered by the same problem!

[@JesterEric]

Have you seen the tech tangents video on that?

[@thingi]

@@JesterEric yeah, as soon as I saw the vid I remembered the mushy mouse buttons all my non Amiga owning friends had.. I was the odd one out with an Archimedes A310 with a 36Mhz Arm3 and a 4Mb upgrade :)

[@simeonjohnston5941]

oh man... LOVED OIDS on mac os. Really need to find that again.

[@chessoc7799]

Never realized Chaos engine needed 1mb Mind you by the time that came out I has a 2mb upgrade in mine :) Got to find where my old st is sometime to check if it still works.

[@retrogameon]

We own the same multimeter AND label maker! A man of taste I see. I'm tempted to pick up that SD drive. I might actually use my ST!

[@kattan2006]

Amazing coverage but I just wonder about one thing probably you don't know. The very early ST models came with a single sided floppy drive! I had one of these and it had a unique central eject button. Not sure what was the exact model. May be you can shed some light on that?

[@akfreed6949]

Wasn't the operating system on disk also ?

[@kattan2006]

@@akfreed6949 if I recall correctly yes.

[@TPau65]

Very useful upgrades. Personaly I prefer the Micro-Ultrasatan, as it's far more compact, uses micro-SD cards and no ribbon cable as it's put directly onto the ACSI port. I didn't have to use a micro USB PSU as I lead out a 5V cable from inside the ST to a marked pin on the Micro-Ultrasatan. 🙂

[@jinxterx]

What's the source of the 5V inside the ST?

[@TPau65]

@@jinxterx In my case it's from the Gotek drive, as it has 5V pins. I simply put out a jumper wire and connected it to the Micro-Ultrasatan. See here (put a . instead of (dot) as I can't put direct links into YT comments anymore): flic(dot)kr/p/2iz5bX2 and flic(dot)kr/p/2kCt6Fg

[@jinxterx]

@@TPau65 okay cool thanks for the information, I'll look at your pictures :D

[@stefanweilhartner4415]

i hand soldered a 4Mb fast ram extension for my a500 that already had 1mb chip mem. it was a brilliant cheap way of extending it in 1990

[@MrButtonpresser]

Brilliant work guys. Very enjoyable.