Loved the Atari ST. Sold them back in the day and they were very capable machines. They were the ZX Spectrum of the 16 bit world. Built to a price with off the shelf components. They may have lacked the custom hardware of the Amiga but boy you could still do some amazing things with an ST. Power without the price!

The problem with the ST is that it was the Spectrum of its era: dependent on CPU brute force to get anything done. Not that it was bad, it wasn't, but it's nature as a machine cobbled together quickly from off-the-shelf parts ended up being a dead weight on the Amiga, leading to many Amiga releases being ports built for the lowest common denominator, which was the ST.

Great video. As well as a HHGTTG reference. Don’t Panic! Looking forward to Part 2.

It's great to see the ST get some love. My parents weren't rich, so I could always only afford the underdog computers of the time: Commodore 16, CPC 464 (green screen) and Atari ST.

Another great video. I was an Amiga user back in the day, but appreciate the ST gave the Amiga some competition. Looking forward to seeing what you can do with it (and the tea towels obviously)!!

white town used an amiga :) great video as usual :) i too had an ST after having a 6128 and before getting an amiga 500... great days.

Nice hhgg reference!

I was Amiga but I appreciated the ST, its games, its use in music (Prodigy probably my favourite group of all time) and the fact it was really the only thing opposing Amiga in the UK in the late eighties/early nineties. Sega and Nintendo were big obviously but nothing like the computer market. If anything, consoles were for kids so Atari ST and Amiga 500 were clearly an inviting investment. Interesting documentary vid, keep up the good work fella and stay safe.

I remember running some 3D games on my cousin's Amiga and they were slacking compared to their ST counterparts (F29 Retaliator and Formula One come to mind...). I didn't expect 0.86 mHz to make such a difference. Then again, 2D games on ST were such a dismal sight...

didnt think id be the only one to spot the douglas adams reference lol good vid....cant wait for the next bit

All of my early computers popped up on this video, from the ZX81, Atari 400, Atari 800, Atari ST then an Amiga 500. Also had a Atari 130xe, happy days.

Nice overview of the troubled mid-'80s and the transition from 8-bit to 16-bit. The Atari 8-bit computers were originally designed to be the successor to the VCS, but the VCS had become to intrenched in the market it was considered too difficult to replace such a winner. Warner decided to jump on the new computer boom and add a keyboard and Basic to their new game system. I bought an Atari 800 because it had superior graphics to anything else on the market. I was really looking forward to the Amiga Lorraine when I heard of it, but by the time the new 16-bit machines were available I had already learned so much about the "Jackintosh" and it looked to me that the Abiga was a 'Christmas tree.' I would have to keep adding accessories to do many of the things that were already built into the ST. Also the ST was cheaper and the built-in MIDI held a lot of promise. As I was an avid Asssembly Language programmer I wanted access to that 68000 chip. Eventually I moved up to a real Mac and never looked back. I sure did enjoy the special effects on Babylon 5 though.

I just love this style of video so much keep it up

Your presentation style is really enjoyable. Great stuff!

Wow, nice to see the Aries memory upgrade. I designed that when I worked for Ladbroke computing, I built and fitted quite a few of them too. It could be one that I installed :)

Ooo the Vectrex. I so adore that console so much. It gets so little love nowadays. Would be nice to see a video about it.

I had an original Atari ST back in the day. It had no in-built disc drive so they had to be linked in externally and instead had the joystick and mouse ports on the side. It was the first usefully powerful computer I ever owned myself (I did have a C64 but really all it was good for was a few games). The real issue with this PC was that while the CPU was faster, the rest of the machine was just not as quite good as the Amiga 500. The most impressive game I played on it was probably Street Fighter 2 (for its day that game had more hype than Cyberpunk 2077). Stunt Car Racer and Elvira: Mistress of the dark were games I would always come back to alongside the likes of Populous and Lemmings.

Had an STE back in the days and it was lovely! It really made me what I am today, so I owe Atari a great deal. I know you "only" have an STFM, but it would be nice to see a versus of the newly enhanced Lotus game for STE vs the Amiga version. Also, to be honest, I mainly used my ST for programming, word processing, DTP and such, and the high resolution monitor was wonderful!

Just found your channel, and it's great. You should have more views than you do. Hopefully that comes soon. Thanks for the outstanding content

A friend of mine bought an ST for the Midi connections ant therefore all of his friends bought one too. So I had a 1040 STFM at first and later on I got the Mega STE, which I still have stored away down in the basement. I think it still works, though it's not been started up in many years.

Love the reference to a famous Douglas Adams book/tv series. Kudos.

All of your videos bring back great memories of when i was a computer fanatic. I had (and still have) an Amiga 500 back then. I also still have all of the game consoles I bought, 5 or 6 if I can remember correctly. Thanks for all you do.

Forget MIDI, I use one to make CHIPTUNES on! (well and emulated ST as I don't own the real thing, but hope own one one day)

I worked for the company that brought you Fast Food for the 2600. I came on board after the crash and the rise of Commodore with the VIC 20 and C64. We manufactured printer interfaces and sales were good but not good enough and the original investors pulled the plug.

Great video! Looking forward to part 2 and the chemical cocktail.

The Video game crash was bad for the industry, Good for the consumer. I remember getting in to Atari 2600 post 1985 and the games were cheep then, $1 or 25 cents a game used. K mart Toys R Us and Zellers had Atari 2600 games up to the mid 90's and I got many deals on those bin finds :)

Vectrex was possibly the one original console, just due to its built in screen. Understand that in the early 80s, households didn't have more than one or at best two TVs, so you had to battle your parents to use the sole TV set to play video games when your parents wanted to watch Magnum PI or Love Boat in the US, so the Vectrex having its own screen was a coup for kids in those days. Add to that the fact that the GCR/MB console was released and canned within one year, and you saw them selling for $99 (or less when the videogame market crash happened), and you could get those on the cheap.

Marvellous, extra points for the HHGTTG hat tip. As an ST fan back in the day (and remembering upgrading the floppy like it was yesterday) I feel a bit dirty for running an Amiga emulator on my Pi but all retro gaming is fun these days.

Love the Hitchhiker's reference. Spot on lol.

Two things you got wrong. 1. The 19 pin socket for the peripheral is called ACSI (or in many software/books the "DMA" ) Not ASCSI. Atari-Computer-System-Interface 2. The first computer the Bitter was installed from the factory was the MegaST2 and MegaST4, later renamed to MEGA1/Mega2/Mega4. The Number states the amount of ram installed. The STE series hat an newer higher integrated and more capable chip set. The 520STf(m) was a low budget machine because RAM was expensive. The RAM is separated into two banks each 2Mb max. The expansion in your machine is hooked to the second bank and the first has 512Kb. You have unused socket space for additional 512Kb getting a sum of 3Mb in your machine. The 2MB expansion is quite common. especially for the 520ST series. 512Kb is not really enough to rum "serious" software.

Can't wait for the next Episode! I have broken STE's that I'd love to donate for you to fix up, but there are here in California and not easy to send out (especially Post Brexit)

The big RF sheild reminded me so much of my Atari 800, whose innards were almost completely encased in metal It was an absolute tank. Maybe Atari had particular issues with RF interference that didn't affect other computers.

I always got a laugh from Jack's company's name: Tramel Technology Limited = TTL. It is also funny that he decided to misspell "Tramiel" before other people did it.

Wow my 1st computer (520 ST daisy chained?? twin external FDs) - I remember a game, "Braticus" I think... Be careful of the gold contacts - wouldn't want to get a slice of lemon wrapped around one.

My first "propper" computer was a ZX81 built from a kit. I upgraded to a Spectrum 48k then to a 128k. I hankered for an ST but by the time i had enough to buy one I'd missed the boat. My first PC was a lugable 80286 that saw me through uni. Since then I have built myself many a PC my current being a gaming beast specified to run X-Plane at a lively frame rate.

I brought the ST model without the inbuilt floppy drive then shorty after visiting my local Micro City store I was gobsmacked by the Amiga so within about 6 months I had upgraded to the Amiga. Before then I was an Amstrad 464 owner. Happy days.

I had one of these machines, too. I remember buying and fitting a small circuit board that did away with the black edge around the monitor screen, theoretically making the screen resolution larger.

Can’t wait for the next videos. I have an STFM in very similar condition to this -with aftermarket memory upgrade. I think I may have to get some refurbishment work done on it. I will be watching closely for advice!

Heard the story a thousands times (ok maybe not) but REALY enjoyed your presentation on this video. I'm firmly in camp Amiga but the more I learn about the history, the more I understand the STs place, and the fact that it wasn't a cheap Amiga rip-off at all as I thought back then. In fact, dare we say, the truth is the opposite?

Always funny seeing it from the losing side ;)

Looking forward to part 2

Still have my 3 Atari St's one is an STe. Great machine for the time.

Looks like that memory upgrade was fitted by Ladbroke Computing. I recognise the warranty seals.

I did some work at a music studio in Stockport many years ago and one guy was using the Atari St to do some edits. Looking forward to the next Video.

9:40 - ah nothings like some THHGTG references! :)

7:45 Ah, the days of fewer modifier keys, when space bars were longer ...

Aries. The RAM. I like it :)

There are a few notes I believe are inconsistent with this story. Amiga were looking for investors from many people (including Steve Jobs) after the original ones left (due to the shaky market) and was originally given money by Atari/WB to complete the chipset. Before JT/New Atari took over the 1850XL/Freddie/Amiga(ish) had already been cancelled by James Morgan. When new Atari took over additional projects were canceled and most of the staff released because they couldn't afford them (reportedly losing $1M a day). The ST was already in development before Amiga/Commodore paid back the investment/loan and the Amiga only came to their attention (they were unaware of this before) when they paid the money back. Also note the money wasn't turned down lol. Now this bit is conjecture but I believe if Commodore had not bought it and paid back the Atari money Amiga would have ceased to be, as it was nowhere near complete and in fact required Commodore to invest time (almost an extra year for the initial silicon) and money (new engineers, hardware and software) heavily, so would have been doubtful Atari would have brought it in house and invest like that (it would have gone the way of the Atari Pokey upgrade Amy) I think the ST looked better than the A500.

Commodore could been closed earlier if Atari had taken the Amiga. Instead they lived for some more years. Remember the C64 was still a huge succes for many years. They would probably have tried some other computer after the C64.

I owned several Amigas and one Atari ST and about the only good thing I can say about the ST is it booted into a desktop without a disk. I guess if I were into MIDI that would be another advantage but I didn't. Otherwise the graphics & sound were worse, the GEM desktop was worse, multitasking was non-existent and the whole experience was very inferior. Atari rectified many of those issues with the STE & Falcon and MultiTOS but by that point it was too late. Commodore weren't exactly doing well at that point either. I remember saving up enough money to buy an Amiga 4000, ringing up to order one and getting told they had jacked the price up by £100. So I bought a PC instead. A sliding doors moment if ever there was one.

Had an STE 1040, loved it but it ultimately fell to the dodgy mouse port underneath.

I still have my 520stm (yes with an external floppydrive), and my RAM expansion is a bit different :) My dad had to piggybanking 16 chips in it. I had also an 1040STE (with 4mb standard SIMM modules) and I regret the day that I sold it :(

It's a shack with a very dirty machine in it. Is it the B52's "love shack"? :P

Still got my ST, well 2 of them. 520STFM. Went from the 800XL to it.

13:28 How about taking castoffs from the Mrs? Ones with holes in them, for example?

8:19 Woah, no one's been in this Atari yet! The warranty stickers are still intact! 11:42 Apparently they have? Weird.

I wonder sometimes if Atari and Amiga basic killed each other. That one or the other might have found a niche, outside of the PC/Mac, but together they split up the market too much.

Brilliant.

Was there ever a part 2?

I grew up with the 520STFM which my dad bought back in 1989.

Now I have to watch the next video to find out what the heck a blitter chip is as the caption doesn’t really explain that much.

You got the best 1040 PCB layout (IMHO) as you can easily upgrade the onboard RAM to 4MByte with 1M x4 DRAMs found on 4MB PS/2 SIMMs.

12:03 “640K limit? What’s that?”

Forget The Crown - the videogame / console intrigues and interplay would be a Netflix classic 😆

Nice video. You really need to buy one of them insanely cheap screwdriver magnetiser.

I came to the ST late in the game, but I do love my STfm. I haven't hit anything that needs more than 1Mb of ram so I haven't looked at any upgrades yet. Mine came with a Gotek so that's one less issue too :-) Maybe I'll buy an ACSI2STM for it? Not entirely sure.

You really have to know where your towel is :)

I swear i heard the skype sound effect somewhere in the video, but i can't say where exactly!

Was there ever a part 2??

Had the TI-99/4A been supplied with 1GB of RAM and a CPU with built in Floating point would have taken over the home computer market.

.. did you know that Amiga means ‘Friend’ in broken Spanish ! Cool.

13:02 well you gotta have one.

When can we expect part 2?

I have the NTSC 60hz version of this machine!

Why was there never an STFMe model? ;)

the best homecomputer are amiga, c64, atari st

What would an Atari Amiga with midi port have meant for the market?

Started off well but soon collapsed into a seizure-inducing number of popups at the tail-end which ruined the experience

in the video its mentioned that the 1040ST was the first computer on market with 1MB of RAM, this is wrong.

I always wanted one. I still do, dammit! :-)

His name was Tramiel, not Tramel.

Great vid but your mic seems too hot. Could do with some attenuation.

I have autism so my whole world is literally When he says " I want to mod the lights to emit a cool blue light" ... he is joking right? Please be joking ...

Everyone is giving geek cred for the Douglas Adams quote, but I happen to think it's just pandering. Like when the bassist from every band is from your same, tiny village.

Blue LEDs... 🤮

It's not 'tayto' it's 'tyto'.

the NEW Atari company that is. When it was (re) created, it flushed all the 8bit computers in a toilet drain. When it happen, I was very angry! Talk about killing your own consumers!

No... no... no... no... you got so much wrong here... did you bother actually asking anybody involved about any of this? First, there was *NEVER* any plan for what became the original ST to use the Amiga chipset. Never. The original ST hardware design was in development for 6 months before Jack Tramiel bought Atari. The ST hardware was already essentially finished before the new Atari Corp. even found out about the Amiga deal. They sued to block Commodore from releasing the Amiga and to get back ownership of the chipset, but it was purely a financially motivated legal strategy and they never even had the technical info required to start thinking about actually using the chipset. Atari eventually won a cash legal settlement but that was the extent of it. Did you even bother doing any research about all this? All this information is well documented and most of the people involved are still alive.