Wikipedia: Atari ST

The Atari ST was a computer system released by Atari in 1985.

The ST allegedly stood for "Sixteen/Thirty-two bit" which refered to the 16 bit processor with 32 bit registers. Other theories exist that ST stood for "Sam Tramiel" one of owners of the Atari corporation.

The Atari ST was a competitor to the Commodore? Amiga systems. This platform rivalry was often relflected by the owners and was most prominent in the Demo Scene.

Where the Amiga had custom hardware which gave it the edge in the games market the ST was generally cheaper and thanks to its built-in MIDI ports enjoyed success as a sequencer and controller of musicial instruments. In some markets, particularly Germany, the machine gained a strong foothold as a small business machine for CAD? and [Desktop publishing]? work.

Tech Specs

Processor: 8Mhz Motorola 68000
RAM: 128Kb (130ST), 256kB(260ST), 512kB (520 STFM the most common version)
Drive: on the STFM a built in single sided 3.5" floppy drive, later models had double sided drives (upto 720k!)
Ports: TV out (on FM models), MIDI In/Out?, RS232?, Printer, Monitor (RGB and Mono), Extra Disk drive port, Joystick and Mouse ports
Operating System: TOS (The Operating System) with the GEM? (Graphic Enviroment Manager) GUI
Display modes: 320x200 (16 colour), 640x200 (4 colour), 640x400 (mono)

Later models included:

1040ST (with 1 MB of RAM)
The Mega ST (with a detached keyboard and 2 or 4 MB RAM), processor running at 16 Mhz, also have blitter chip
The STe (with enhanced sound and graphics capabilites), with blitter chip, colors palette extended to 4096 colors
The TT (based on a Motorola 68030 processor running at 32 Mhz)
The Falcon 030 (based on a Motorola 68030 running at 16 Mhz, with greatly enhanced graphics and sound, including a [Motorola 56000]? DSP)
STacey (a portable atari)
ST Book (later version of portable atari)

There was also some unrelased prototypes: Falcon 040 (based on a Motorola 68040), and STylus (palmptop)

Since Atari pulled out of the computer market (?and got bought by Hasbro?) there has been a market for powerful TOS based machines (clones). Like most retro computers the Atari enjoys support in the emulator scene.

Atari ST

Tech Specs

Links

General

Emulators