Atari STs

TidBITS Talk
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(FWIW, AI created a title of “A horse’s endless quest through time” for this. So much for AI)

Continuing the discussion from Decades After HyperCard, AI Is Democratizing Development Again:

Since it appears we have at least two Atari ST users here, maybe someone can answer this question.

What, if anything, does the model number mean?

I assume it’s related to the memory capacity because the 520 and 1040 models had 512K and 1M RAM, respectively (and there was apparently a 260 model with 256K).

But is it a simple matter of rounding up? That would make sense for the 260 and 520, but a round-up of 1024K would imply a “1030” model number?

So could the difference (4, 8 or 16) be referencing something else? Maybe video memory? I thought it might be the clock frequency, but all of the first-generation models ran at 8 MHz.

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OMG, a memory test on all levels. Yes, I believe 1040 indicates RAM. I recall it was a 16-bit machine, running TOS (Tramiel Operating System, after Jack Tramiel.) Called the GEM interface, It had Mac-like WISYWIG as t was. Musicians loved it when attached to MIDI hardware. I loved it for writing screenplays and even wrote a specification for a screenwriting app. Then came HyperCard availability and I was off on a rocket.

I could have swung either way from the ST, either to Windows or Mac, but I wanted to play with HyperCard so that meant the Mac emulator, which worked well.

Today I work on a desktop beast called the Mac Studio M1 Ultra.

I miss HyperCard.

Best as always,
Loren

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I don’t know the answer, but in a larger context, Atari frequently (always?) used numbers in computer names. Atari 400, 800, 1200, and even 2600 for its gaming console.

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To expand on Loren’s excellent response, “ST” stood for “sixteen-thirtytwo”, referring to the CPU’s native data word size (16 bits) and its address register size (32 bits.) This was a way of distinguishing the Motorola CPU it used from the Intel chips that were still in used in many PCs at the time which had a 20- or 24-bit wide address space.

Since Hypercard was mentioned, I’ll also add that the ST was the main platform for Zoomracks, possibly the first program to use the card metaphor and, notably, the source of a major lawsuit against Apple for patent infringement.

(Back in the 80’s-90’s, I made a fairly good living as a developer of Atari home computer software.)

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All the musicians I knew back then were all over the ST. There was quite a good DTP offering as I recall.

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Yes. The presence of built-in MIDI ports had a lot to do with that.

PCs and Macs required (and still require) installation of third-party hardware in order to get MIDI. And at the time, those devices (especially the good ones) were not cheap and there was no standard API for accessing them.

So developing MIDI software for an ST was a lot easier than for a PC or Mac.

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Marketing.

There was also an Atari 260ST.

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My first ’Mac’ was in the 80s — an emulation on the 1040ST, using Mac firmware called Magic Sac. It displayed more screen real estate than the closed (and much more expensive) Macs of the day, in colour! The 1040ST used the same processor as the Mac.

Musical friends used the built in MIDI for many years after the demise of Atari.

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I had an emulator too and the challenge was to «find» or buy the original Apple ROMs