Machine of the
Month: Atari ST
1
DEVELOPMENT
Tramiel had specific goals for his new machine: It would be
16-bit, powerful, cheap, and dramatically undercut Apple and
IBM on price, while sticking it to Commodore.
>> Commodore 64 developer Shiraz Shivji was put in charge
of the machine’s design. For a CPU, National Semiconductor’s
NS32000 chipset was initially considered, but after witnessing
disappointing performance, the team went with the Motorola
68000 instead.
>> Weirdly, pre-Tramiel Atari had already flirted with Motorola’s
68000, with some key engineers wanting to make a 68000-based
machine, but management wasn’t interested. These engineers
left Atari to start their own company, Amiga, and the computer
Commodore would later buy and sell as its flagship model. In
a strange twist of fate, Atari’s engineers ended up working for
Commodore, and Commodore’s engineers moved to Atari.
>> For an OS, Atari rejected Microsoft’s unfinished Windows
1.0 in favor of Digital Research’s GEM (Graphical Environment
Manager). After combining it with its underlying DOS, the
environment was dubbed TOS (The Operating System). This
simple and highly usable environment was similar to the
Macintosh and often dubbed the “Jackintosh” after Tramiel.
>> While the team had originally planned to use a custom
sound chip, time ran out, and Atari had to settle on a bargain-
bucket Yamaha YM2149 chipset. To make up for it, Atari installed
f ac tor y-standard MIDI por t s, something that would tur n out to be
a 75-cent stroke of genius.2
LAUNCH
Released in June 1985, the Atari ST packed a Motorola
68000 CPU running at 8MHz, laid claim to 512K of RAM,
and had a proper mouse-driven GUI. Arriving a month sooner
than the Amiga, prices were $800 for a monochrome version or
$1,000 for color, around $500 cheaper than an equivalent Amiga.
>> TOS was a hit with consumers. Atari’s high-res monochrome
mode was popular with business users, and being able to buyREGARDED BY MANY as the first proper 16-bit computer, the
Atari ST was a powerhouse for its era and price. If you don’t
associate this kind of serious product with Atari, fair enough.
This is not the same company that put Pacman into American
living rooms—this was a new era led by the most bullish man in
the business: Commodore founder Jack Tramiel.
Tramiel spent the early ’80s aggressively expanding
Commodore’s market share, undercutting the competition.
The results led to the Commodore 64 becoming the best
selling computer of all time, but Tramiel’s brutal methods were
unsustainable and burned too many bridges. Commodore was
sick of Jack, and Jack was sick of Commodore. Tramiel left in a huff in January 1984.
Meanwhile, Atari was reeling from America’s video game crash of 1983, bleeding a million
dollars a day by 1984. Parent company Warner wanted to cut its losses, and Tramiel saw an
opportunity, buying Atari’s consumer division in July 1984. He kicked the company into shape in
his usual aggressive style, firing almost everyone, and bringing a team of engineers snatched
from Commodore to create a new machine. With Atari, Tramiel had an established name
through which he could sell products and focus on developing a new computer. –JOHN KNIGHTYOU’LL NEED THIS
HATARI
Atari ST emulator that
supports a number of host
platforms—get it from
https://hatari.tuxfamily.org.STEEM SSE
If a particular game doesn’t
run under Hatari, this is
worth trying instead:
https://sourceforge.net/
projects/steemsse.an Atari ST with a printer and hard drive for less money
than a single IBM printer made it popular with artists
and publishers, too. Furthermore, it could use MS-DOS
formatted floppies, and even emulate Mac software—
faster than a real Mac.
>> The ST became an instant hit with musicians as
well. Despite the cheap sound chip, when plugged into
external MIDI, the Atari ST truly shines, with better
latency than a lot of professional equipment. Programs
such as Cubase started life on the ST, and its MIDI
functionality is still used today by a number of high-
profile musicians.
>> The ST had rapidly turned Atari’s fortunes around,
although it was only a niche player in the US, where
IBM compatibles were dominant. The ST was far
more popular in Europe (especially France), where it
accounted for 75 percent of total sales—IBM machines
were seen as too expensive, and TV-based micros were
still popular. If you want a real Atari ST, buy a European>> The all-American Atari ST:
Used by approximately three
Americans and a billion
French people.>>Hit F12 in Hatari to bring up the main settings screen.
From here, you can switch to high-res monochrome mode.62 MAXIMUMPC JAN 2020 maximumpc.com
R&D