Atari 520ST Review in Creative Computing – By Paul Lefebvre

https://www.goto10retro.com/p/atari-520st-review-in-creative-computing

by rbanffy • 2 years ago

100 83 2 years ago

PaulHoule• 2 years ago

John Anderson wrote several articles a month for Creative Computing, particularly covering the Atari beat. He was a definite hero of mine as a kid. Sadly he was killed in this earthquake

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Loma_Prieta_earthquake

at the age of 33.

curiousObject• 2 years ago

Sad story. There’s a Wikipedia page for him which also remembers his colleague, Derek van Alstyne, who died alongside him, both caught by bad luck in a building collapse during the quake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_J._Anderson

rcarmo• 2 years ago

I used a 520 and a 1040 for a short while. Running the Mac emulator on it was amazing at the time.

heisenbit• 2 years ago

There was a company that sold an external card with a patched MacOS. To prevent people copying their prom with an eprom programmer and a generic eprom card they switched lines on the data bus.

Atari had a truly amazing laser printer and with friend we managed to drive it from the Mac emulator via the Mac HP printer driver yielding an amazing quality 300dpi print for a relatively low budget.

LargoLasskhyfv3• 2 years ago

That prevention didn't work out. I also remember at least two different products from different vendors.

Anyways, something called "Aladin" got traded in schools. That's how I got mine :-)

One floppy to boot that thing. One floppy to boot System 6.x or later 7 from there, one floppy for MacPaint, Draw, Write, or whatever else. Ran rock-solid, depending on amount of RAM (1 MB at least, 4 excellent). With a HDD it morphed your ST into a slightly faster Mac.

oldnetguy• 2 years ago

The ST for it's time was a good computer. It didn't gain the popularity that the Amiga and Mac did but it was a decent machine. Also the history of GEM could have its own article.

richardw2• 2 years ago

Good times. Remember these?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes

TacticalCoder3• 2 years ago

Yes but they were nowhere near as successful as the Atari ST or Amiga. They arrived kinda late to the party compared to the Amiga 1000 (1985) or Atari ST.

You'd occasionally see one but the personal computers scene in Europe was clearly dominated by the Atari ST and the Amiga. You'd also see a few Macintosh. The Archimedes has always been a rare sighting.

lproven4• 2 years ago

Still got one. :-)

And unlike the ST or Mac or Amiga, its OS is still around, still FOSS, still actively maintained, and runs on modern bare-metal hardware, without emulation.

https://www.riscosopen.org/content/

That says a lot about success and longevity.

andrewstuart• 2 years ago

Yes a solid machine.

It might have been impressive but it had to stand next to the dazzlingly attractive Amiga.

cmrdporcupine7• 2 years ago

Only for Amiga fans with a complex of some kind. I was a member of a local Atari users group and none of us were comparing to the Amiga? Mac and PC were the competitors because most of us were interested in productivity software and the like. Many were running Mac emulation on the ST and the biggest uses were MIDI sequencers and DTP.

Amiga was just something else. Impressive achievement, certainly. But for what it was I had no need to pay that kind of extra $$ just to play games better.

rbanffy5• 2 years ago

dazzlingly attractive Amiga.

dazzlingly expensive as well.

benou• 2 years ago

Atari ST serie was very popular in Europe, more popular than Mac or Amiga at the time I believe.

vardump4• 2 years ago

I remember wanting Atari 520ST for a moment. So shiny in the store.

Then I heard about Amiga 1000, but it was too expensive. But those colors and sound!

Eventually I had an Amiga 500. But it could have gone differently.

chiph• 2 years ago

I bought a 1040ST not long after they came out in 1986. I got the system unit, the color monitor, a mouse, GEM/TOS disks, and that was it for about $1500. Software titles were scarce but I was eventually able to pick up the Megamax C compiler. To be effective with it you needed to have a second floppy drive or the pricey SH204 20 Megabyte (yes, megs!) external hard drive.

Megamax C was a K&R style single-pass compiler that had libraries to access the special features of the Atari like the MIDI port.

bregma2• 2 years ago

I chose an ST because the Amiga was too expensive, the Mac didn't have colour and was very very expensive, and the PC was a wretched business-use-only text-only waste of desk space.

I had a 1040 STe. I rigged up a hard drive (the Atari ST had what was effectively a SCSI bus built in, it just needed a small adaptor board to adjust some signals). Installed MiNT (a multitasking operating system extension) and the GNU tools and was in developer heaven.

The ST was responsible for the desktop publishing revolution with a very affordable laser printer peripheral (although I couldn't afford one, it cost almost as much as a basic Macintosh). It was also a leading light in the music industry: I had a copy of Cubase v1.0 (a DAW), which was available only on the ST with its built-in MIDI out and MIDI through ports.

Unfortunately the company was run by the Tramiel family so it didn't really stand a chance. Then a couple of hears ago a derecho destroyed the drive shed where I kept all my old computers and I lost my ST. No more Time Bandits.

wslh• 2 years ago

My father, who currently doesn't know how to send a message via WhatsApp, was very presient (businesswise) in the 80s and had two Macs with a printer, and one 1040 STs with another printer on his printing shops.

Just now, after your comment, I realized how weird was to have a 1040 ST in a printing shop instead of only Macs. He was also lucky on having a few people deciding on the technical and cost side.

TacticalCoder3• 2 years ago

Music I agree but...

The ST was responsible for the desktop publishing revolution with a very affordable laser printer peripheral (although I couldn't afford one, it cost almost as much as a basic Macintosh).

I actually worked in the DTP industry. I did both write and typeset books.

Everything professional and semi-professional was made on Macintosh. You'd enter a bookstore and easily 99%+ of the books and magazines were typeset on Mac.

I don't remember the Atari ST as having a particularly good or influential font story neither.

I mean: yup, I was typeseting my Dungeons & Dragons character sheets on my Amiga. Doesn't mean it was a revolution.

The DTP revolution was the Macintosh.

ofrzeta• 2 years ago

I don't say you are wrong but there was a DTP story on the ST with Calamus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calamus_(DTP) (maybe more popular in Europe than in the US)

cmrdporcupine7• 2 years ago

It's true the ST had almost no presence in that market. The Tramiels I think wanted to get in there and really shake it up, but they made some mis-steps.

GDOS (part of GEM with proportional fonts etc) not shipping with the original machine was a huge mistake for one.

Still Calamus + the cheap Atari laser printer was a pretty amazing piece of DTP kid for the people who got it.

That and it was simple to just turn your ST into a Macintosh. But with higher resolution and slightly higher clock speed.

bregma2• 2 years ago

The profesional publishing revolution was on the Macintosh. I worked in that industry and I experienced it. The Apple LaserWriter was a proofer the size of a washing machine and cost more than a diamond engagement ring and it probably hung off a Mac II running A/UX and acting as a (Appletalk) network spooler. That's not the stuff of a desktop revolution.

The desktop publishing revolution came when average Joe Schmoe could whip off a (almost) professional-looking typeset zine on his home desktop computer. That was An Atari ST, and Atari SLM, and Calamus.

Max-q• 2 years ago

The trio Amiga, ST and Macintosh all had music software, DTP and graphics, but I think they ruled one craft each:

The ST became the king of MIDI.

The Amiga was the queen of gfx and video.

Machintosh created and ruled the DTP revolution.

Still, they had so much in common. If the three companies had made one OS and all standardized on the Amiga chipset, they could have won over the IBM PC.

Of course, back then, they didn't know how the PC would crush them all, at that time the three thought they were each others biggest competitors.

snek_case• 2 years ago

It's kind of insane that the Amiga didn't do better, given it had much better graphics and sound than the PC at the time. It effectively had some simple accelerated 2D graphics. It feels like a wasted opportunity.

weebull3• 2 years ago

Those 3 68000 based machines did ok against the PC until the 486 arrived. At that point all Motorola had was the 68030, and it wasn't enough progression. If the processor line had had more legs, then maybe Commodore and Atari could've remained competitive. I think they both did 68030 based machines, but it was too small a step.

Then it became a battle of operating systems.

j452• 2 years ago

Except, Calamus on the ST seemed to be light years ahead of anything else out there.

1oooqooq3• 2 years ago

that's funny to read being from outside the usa.

the pc were the best thing one could get that was not a commodore or a bootlegged import chiclet keyboard from the uk.

the amigas were considered just expensive game machines. the apples were an extremely expensive status symbol, and the you felt like a fool because there was no compatible peripheral anywhere.

and the Ataris were unheard of.

deaddodo2• 2 years ago

that's funny to read being from outside the usa.

Idk where outside the USA you are, but the IBM PC easily had the easiest time taking over the USA. Amiga and Atari were considered hobbyist computers while Macintosh constantly battled DOS until slowly fading to irrelevancy between Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, not regaining real steam until Mac OS X 10.2-10.4.

The TI series was very common on the super low-end/hobbyist end, and Sinclair/Coco/Dendy/Timex/etc derivatives had negligible marketshare.

cycomanic2• 2 years ago

Atari and Amiga were equally popular in Germany and much more common than PCs when I grew up. The major difference was that Amigas were much more common for gaming and Ataris were largely work machines (music and DTP). In my experience both were actually much more common in Europe than in the US where Macs and IBM PCs were more common (I did an exchange year and didn't see one Amiga or Atari)

TacticalCoder3• 2 years ago

The Commodore Amiga was better at everything but the Atari ST had a MIDI port. I saw Atari ST used in music studio well into the 2000s and not for nostalgic purposes: they were silent. Back then ultra loud PCs (PCs were ultra loud back then) were an issue in music studios, so some kept using Atari ST way past they're prime.

I remember in the late 80s a neighbor's friend would bring his Korg synth and hook it up to my neighbor's Atari ST. That was quite something.

Another thing the ST had that the Amiga didn't was a port of FTL's Sundog: Frozen Legacy. One of the very best video games of that era. FWIW that little FTL studio then went on to make another incredible hit: Dungeon Master (best selling Atari ST game ever and an incredibly prescient video game).

For whatever reason Dungeon Master got ported to the Amiga but Sundog: Frozen Legacy never did.

cmrdporcupine7• 2 years ago

Things better on the ST than the Amiga:

The monochrome monitor & mode was way better for productivity than interlaced Amiga high res. MS-DOS compatible floppies. Price. By far.

In any case I don't see them as directly comparable machines. The ST was made to be a cheap Macintosh or PC competitor ("Jackintosh"). Not a multimedia games machine. It wasn't terribly great at games, but it was a great productivity (and MIDI as you say) machine.

lproven4• 2 years ago

Absolutely.

Other things the ST was better at:

• single-floppy operation (because the OS was in ROM)

• being useful for productivity with only 1/2MB RAM (ROM again)

• being more affordable until a price war that killed both companies

Me, I owned an Acorn Archimedes. But I used them all.

A single-floppy Mac or Amiga was a massive PITA to use. More RAM helped but didn't cure it. Until adding a hard disk didn't triple the price (end of the 1980s, early 1990s) you needed dual floppies for Mac or Amiga. ST was... OK with one.

m-i-l• 2 years ago

"Price. By far."

In the UK, the Atari ST was originally £299 while the Amiga was £499, so it's not really fair to compare the two. I was able to save up for an ST with various weekend and school holiday jobs, but there's no way I could have saved up for an Amiga (and the only classmates I knew with Amigas had their parents buy it for them).

Ylpertnodi• 2 years ago

I'll guess your friend had the Korg Wavestation, which would sync to midi clock. Additionally, we would independently set off two 1040s and they would stay in sync all night. One of the first cracks for the atari was the "Mike Hunt" 2.1 version of Cubase, a musical program, that is still going strong. I am now using a (paid for) version 13 on PC - which is why i won't convert to linux.

UncleOxidant• 2 years ago

Another thing the ST had that the Amiga didn't was a port of FTL's Sundog: Frozen Legacy.

Oh, man, that brings back memories. I didn't much get into games, but I did play Sundog on my ST quite a bit.

LargoLasskhyfv3• 2 years ago

Aww Sundog... The better Elite :-)

rjsw2• 2 years ago

I got a 1040STFM and SH204 through their developer offer, had been writing GEM applications on a PC so it was an obvious choice over an Amiga.

Got a Mega 4 soon after they were launched, followed by a 1040STe at home that I upgraded to 4MB RAM.

Still have the SH204 but with a 40MB drive in it.

the_af2• 2 years ago

I think I missed some of this in my youth, going from the Commodore 64 straight to a PC XT clone. Monochrome Hercules graphics, but I still coded my first games in it (using GW Basic).

I still wonder about this early era of computers that came after the C64.

What's the word for nostalgia about something you didn't actually get to experience back then?

bemmu• 2 years ago

My first encounter with an Atari ST was when I visited a recording studio as a kid. They were in the middle of a recording session, and I asked if I can play with the Atari while they were doing that. "No, you see, we are running the whole recording session with this Atari..."

jll29• 2 years ago

The Atari ST (for me, a 520 ST+) filled the gap between entertainment-centric home computers (Commodore C64) and PCs that could run Linux (some no-name with Intel i486DX-33), you could program it in so many languages (ST Basic, GFA Basic, Pascal, Modula-2, C, Forth etc.).

With a dream black/white monitor, this was a wonderful machine to improve one's programming skills on with structured programming and to do systems programming (TOS/GEM) on - it was the monitor and the available range of compilers that made me want an ST ASAP.

(At the same time, the Amiga had more powerful graphics hardware, but was very slow if you did not have a harddrive and "Kickstart ROMs", as it originally required two floppy disks to start up, not just one. The Amiga had a sophisticated OS but I always felt it was too demanding for the hardware it was running on.)

a-dub2• 2 years ago

many 520STs had TV out built in so you could get started by hooking it up to a TV if you had to.

very cool machine, with affordability that made it available for many. so much cool european software.

weebull3• 2 years ago

That was the M (for modulator) in 520 STFM.

The F was for floppy drive.

a-dub2• 2 years ago

also. one cannot have a thread about the atari st without mentioning midimaze!

the original multiplayer first person shooter that would run over an ad-hoc midi ring network.

my first ever network program was a multiplayer math problem race game, written in gfa basic in the '80s. :)

krs_• 2 years ago

Funny, I plugged my ST back in today and then there's an ST article linked here.

I never had one back in the day (in fact I wasn't even alive yet), but became aware of it when my interest in the demo scene and chip music started in my teens. The ST's sound chip, the YM2149 - an antiquated PSG based design, was of course made fun of back in the day by Amiga and even C64 owners. But ironically something about the sound it makes spoke to me and I had to get one. The history of the ST demoscene is quite interesting to explore chronologically, seeing the hardware get pushed past it's boundaries time and time again as the years went on, and the rivalry with the Amiga scene is fun.

Recently I've been doing some retro coding on it for fun, setting up okami shell, MicroEMACS, and a sort of make wrapper [1] for the Pure C compiler, using some available C libraries to make a little curses-like SNDH player for myself. Of course using a cross-compiler on a PC would be simpler but where's the fun in that?

[1] https://github.com/th-otto/pcmake

Atari 520ST Review in Creative Computing – By Paul Lefebvre

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