What the STE should've been under the hood

[leech]

Agreed.

 

Also I had read the same thing, though I could have sworn it was TOS itself that had issues with anything above a 68000, but then I'm seeing upgrades to 68020 projects for the Mega STE being mentioned on the forum, so I'm not sure if that's the case. We obviously know that 3.x and 4.x have support for 030s and higher.

[rpineau]

TOS 2.06 has direct support for 68020.

[leech]

Interesting. Last night I was reading about the MonSTer, with flashable ROMs, and using EmuTOS on real hardware. What sort of support does EmuTOS have? I'll have to look at it's feature sets, but it'd be rather interesting to get some OS updates for the ol' machines. Even if they were minor graphical ones, like the 3D look of the Falcon's 4.x TOS.

[Prosystemsearch]

The STe definitely could have handled MCGA and VGA. Also they should have been more serious with the idea of allowing the STe to recognize multi button controllers/joysticks for certain games such as Turrican 2, lemmings, Carmen Sandiego, and others.

[leech]

Speaking of multi-button controllers, I had no idea that the other STe computers (not Mega) had the Analog Joystick ports until I looked up what the extra ports on the Falcon were! Makes me wonder why with the Mega STe, they just slapped on the two 9 pin ports, and on the other STe computers, they had both, as well as the Falcon.

 

Would have been awesome to start coding a bunch of games with the Jaguar pad in mind.

[walter_J64bit]

It would be awesome if someone would patch games to work with multi-button controllers, games like Gauntlet and Gauntlet II come to mind, to use a potion I wouldn't have to use the keyboard on the STe which can be a pain at times.

Edited December 23, 2015 by walter_J64bit

[Lynxpro]

Speaking of multi-button controllers, I had no idea that the other STe computers (not Mega) had the Analog Joystick ports until I looked up what the extra ports on the Falcon were! Makes me wonder why with the Mega STe, they just slapped on the two 9 pin ports, and on the other STe computers, they had both, as well as the Falcon.

 

Would have been awesome to start coding a bunch of games with the Jaguar pad in mind.

 

Atari marketed the gamepads for the STE in matching colors in Europe a good 2 years before the Jaguar debuted. Developers supported them as poorly as the other STE enhancements.

[Sak]

I think the biggest letdown of the STE was the use of the ST's case. To most ST users back in the day, it seemed odd that a new and enhanced Atari ST lurked under the same familiar aging case. I never really envied the more capable STE because it looked the same with my ST except the tiny badge. It would be great to see the STE back then with a new case, that would define something different altogether as a new computer, maybe a bit more compact in the lines of the Amiga 600.

 

Under the hood I would love it if it had two speakers (left/right) on the upper back case as well as a volume slider. Most TV's back then were not stereo (as well as the SC1224) so I think it would be a neat feature to provide stereo sound no matter what it was hooked up to.

[+DarkLord]

When I had an STe, I used the Atari SC1435 monitor with it. Worked great there,

with the 2 small speakers built into the monitor. Of course, IMHO, the 1435's

picture is not quite as good as a (JVC) SC1224, but still, it was an option.

[leech]

I think my biggest problem was that I was a bit too young / didn't pay as much attention in the magazines and such what was going on between Commodore / Atari. Because I LOVED my Atari 800xl, so naturally wanted an ST, and one of my older brother's friends had a 1040ST which was pretty sweet. Finally when the time came, we managed to talk the parental units into purchasing a Mega STe instead of what really was the successor to the 800xl, the Amiga. But I loved my Mega STe, but around the same time, a friend of mine managed to get an A500, and it was really awesome because the software at the time was really written for the A500's capabilities and I was hard pressed to find ANYTHING written with the Mega STe in mind, let alone STe software in general.

 

I was pretty spoiled though, Mega STe, SC1435 monitor, etc. Now both are sadly in a currently non-working state in my other room. The SC1435 with a cracked pcboard, and the Mega STe needs a serious bath before I plug it in. I had fun upgrading it to 4MB of memory and playing Ultima 6 out of a RAM disk.

[Amimitl2]

Many are discussing what Atari and Commodore could have done better, but even Apple had serious problems in the 90s and didn't do well. The market changed rapidly in the 90s and the whole home computer market disappeared, which meant all brands of home computers disappeared. In the 80s you had the big difference in price between IBM and Apple computers compared to the home computers, which gave a market for home computers, plus some of the home computers were in fact better in hardware compared to the IBM and Apple computers.

 

In the 90s that difference disappeared, the IBM computers became a lot cheaper and their performance a lot better. There was just no good reason for buying home computers anymore.

 

Regarding Atari and Commodore entering the console market, I think they never could have made it. At that time Sony came into the market with a really big budget, when it came on money spending, they did everything right, absolutely everything. I admire them for that. And they are still king of the console market, even today. The only other console which can compete, money wise, is the Xbox, thanks to the rich Microsoft.

 

In the 90s even the strong contender Sega had to give up making consoles. It's only Nintendo which is still making consoles, although they aren't able to directly compete with either PlayStation or Xbox, but are aiming at younger kids instead or in the case of the Wii, non-gamers (people who usually don't play video games).

 

Another thing, the console market usually only have room for two consoles, where the third console manufacturer, selling the least usually disappears at a point, as did with Sega, as a console manufacturer that is. The only exception till now is Nintendo, but they are not doing it too well though, with their latest Wii U. Although they are doing it good on handheld consoles.

Edited December 26, 2015 by Amimitl2

[leech]

Ha, I had just brought this up last night with my younger brother, about how when the first playstation was announced, there were a lot of magazines that were doubtful Sony could pull it off because they had to compete against the well established Sega and Nintendo. But I would always tell people, "The reason they'll succeed is because Sony has a ton of money to do so." And that's still true today. Granted recently they've been having some financial issues, but they still make a ton from the Playstation portion of sales. It's also funny to think the original Playstation hardware was mostly created by what used to be Psygnosis, who made some of the best looking games around for the Amiga/ST. I kind of think of the PSX as the replacement of the Amiga CD32, and what it really should have been anyhow.

 

It would have been interesting had Jay Miner still had some influence or caused some inspiration in Atari, and they could have had the Jaguar be initially designed as a console, then released as a Computer, like the Amiga chipset did. Granted I don't know if it would have sold by then, so many people had asked me around that time 'What is an Atari?' I was floored whenever I'd hear that, it was pretty sad in the mid-late 90s. They just sort of fizzled out.

[Lynxpro]

 

Wasn't you playing Hunter like weeks/months ago ?? lol

 

The ST as it was is fine by me. We didn't know there "was" anything else until later when it had been produced. Maybe the next motorola CPU 020 perhaps, larger memory, 1.44 floppies. I wish my first 286SX25 have a 4ghz quadcore in it, oh well The STE came out with easier to upgrade RAM, better sound, blitter etc etc. The STE would have made a awesome first Atari but things don't happen like that in the real world. You can imagine the very first ST's about, separate disk drives, PSU etc. People saying back then, oh I wish it was a "all in one" machine. Then the new kids on the block brought a STF and thought, oh I wish it had a double density drive built in.. and on it goes. Lets all go build a 20 core STFM make the most awesome machine ever and then go wonder why nobody ever brought one.

 

If only I had £1 everytime one of these threads started.. I could have designed a "Super ST" by now...

 

Your analogy is flawed. I'm not talking about expecting modern tech made standard to the STE when it debuted. I'm discussing hardware that was available and used in 1984 in the arcades which could've easily been used in an Atari Corp computer in 1989.

 

Had Corp been able to get the AMY working, it could've been in the original Atari ST in 1985. It was projected by Atari Inc to only cost about $3 per chip in late 1984. But then again, Atari Inc probably had much better economies of scale to drive such vendor component prices down than Atari Corp was able to accomplish later.

[Lynxpro]

It would be awesome if someone would patch games to work with multi-button controllers, games like Gauntlet and Gauntlet II come to mind, to use a potion I wouldn't have to use the keyboard on the STe which can be a pain at times.

 

Isn't there a project out there involving wrappers to "patch" the older games so they work with different TOS versions, different CPUs [68010, 68020, 68030, etc], FPUs, hard drive installations, and support for STE/Falcon/Jaguar Pads? Isn't that one of CyranoJ's projects outside his stellar ST-to-Jaguar conversions?

 

The Gauntlet games would be ideal candidates for ST/JagPad support. Even better, in theory, you could get it to support the Jaguar TeamTap adapter so you could use 4 JagPads instead of relying upon the standard DB9s, a parallel port-to-DB9 adapter, and/or the Enhanced Joystick Ports.

 

Interesting to note, CyranoJ has ST Gauntlet II running on the Jaguar, supporting multi-fire buttons, and also using the TeamTap for 4-player goodness.

 

That's it…can't post in here for awhile since I don't want to earn a comment Klax.

Edited January 19, 2016 by Lynxpro

[ParanoidLittleMan]

 

Isn't there a project out there involving wrappers to "patch" the older games so they work with different TOS versions, different CPUs [68010, 68020, 68030, etc], FPUs, hard drive installations, and support for STE/Falcon/Jaguar Pads? Isn't that one of CyranoJ's projects outside his stellar ST-to-Jaguar conversions?

 

You can not solve full 68030 compatibility with some wrapper. It is possible only by changing problematic parts of code. And I'm who did most of such fixes. I'm who solved work on different TOS versions. And of course, can not solve work with Jagpad or other similar controller with wrapper. Again code changing is only solution. All it is slow and boring work in fact. Maybe less boring for someone new in it

 

Back to topic: I think that Atari did pretty good with extra joystick ports on Atari STE.

[Lynxpro]

 

You can not solve full 68030 compatibility with some wrapper. It is possible only by changing problematic parts of code. And I'm who did most of such fixes. I'm who solved work on different TOS versions. And of course, can not solve work with Jagpad or other similar controller with wrapper. Again code changing is only solution. All it is slow and boring work in fact. Maybe less boring for someone new in it

 

Back to topic: I think that Atari did pretty good with extra joystick ports on Atari STE.

 

Thank you for your hard work.

 

Yes, Atari Corp did great work with the EJPs on the Atari STE. Shame the software publishers didn't do a good job of supporting them. And before that, it's a shame Atari Inc ended up botching the first attempt at enhanced [analog] joystick ports the first time around, with the 5200! Granted, Dan Kramer's CX53 Trak-Ball Controller is a thing of beauty for them.

 

 

I want to correct my post from above. The AMY was estimated to cost a little bit more than $8 per chip in late 1984. So it would've been around the same price as the 68000…re-discovered a link on the subject later last night.

Edited January 19, 2016 by Lynxpro

[Foebane]

Keep custom chips at minimum.

CUSTOM CHIPS ALL THE WAY, BABY! The Amiga BURIED the Atari ST for that reason alone!

[Foebane]

I grew up with Atari XL machines, and naturally wanted to go to the next Atari machine, but I would never have gotten the ST (I did) had I known that the true successor to the A8 was the Amiga (I got an A500 soon after I found out). And then ironically had to put up with a friend's constant gloating that his ST was better than my "crappy Amiga" (I'm astounded by the sheer ignorance there).

[ParanoidLittleMan]

And here we go again with Amiga vs Atari stoopid discussion

You are right that Amiga was true successor of Atari XL - but that project was stolen from Atari. Irony increased by fact that former Commodore boss became Atari boss

But Atari ST had pretty much custom chips, and STE even more. There is even FDC chip - not present in Amiga Amiga's floppy solution is just slow .

For someone not interested in gaming Amiga may be really crappy. I never liked C64 exactly from that reason - was good mostly for gaming. CPU was slow, Basic was primitive ... + it liked to broke like glass (failures all the way).

But it had custom chips all the way

[Foebane]

And here we go again with Amiga vs Atari stoopid discussion

You are right that Amiga was true successor of Atari XL - but that project was stolen from Atari. Irony increased by fact that former Commodore boss became Atari boss

But Atari ST had pretty much custom chips, and STE even more. There is even FDC chip - not present in Amiga Amiga's floppy solution is just slow .

For someone not interested in gaming Amiga may be really crappy. I never liked C64 exactly from that reason - was good mostly for gaming. CPU was slow, Basic was primitive ... + it liked to broke like glass (failures all the way).

But it had custom chips all the way

 

I wasn't the first one to mention Amiga in this thread.

 

How was it stolen from Atari? Amiga was a separate hardware developer. And Tramiel would've sacked the development team and thrown away the OS materials, not known how to properly implement the custom chipset and discarded them. Please elaborate if I've got that wrong.

 

What custom chips does the ST have? Off-the-shelf parts is what I've heard time and time again. The STE was just to try to copy the Amiga, with the Blitter and everything. Again, please elaborate.

 

I think the Amiga floppy controller is more versatile, even if slower.

 

The Amiga really shines in the Demoscene, and so does the ST and C64 - gaming's not bad, but I prefer the Scene for more innovative uses of computer hardware.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I really will not waste time to talk about early Amiga (of course, it was not called so then) development, what was initiated by Atari, and done by independent team. Just that Commodore jumped in with some millions ...

ST custom chips: Glue, Shifter, MMU, DMA and imagine: blitter - planned from start and released in 1987 in Mega ST.

STE added pretty different audio DMA and HW scroll than Amiga solutions. Nothing from that was invented by Amiga team. You really should have more knowledge before jumping in discussion.

[Foebane]

I really will not waste time to talk about early Amiga (of course, it was not called so then) development, what was initiated by Atari, and done by independent team. Just that Commodore jumped in with some millions ...

 

I decided back then that my allegiance was not to Atari (unlike you, it seems) or Commodore, but to Jay Miner and his revolutionary hardware. It was a sad day for me indeed when he passed away, we would never see such hardware again.

[Foebane]

ST custom chips: Glue, Shifter, MMU, DMA and imagine: blitter - planned from start and released in 1987 in Mega ST.

STE added pretty different audio DMA and HW scroll than Amiga solutions. Nothing from that was invented by Amiga team. You really should have more knowledge before jumping in discussion.

 

I've seen dozens of ST Demoscene productions over the last few weeks, and I've come to realise that the ST can pull off its own amazing graphical tricks and give the platform its own unique feel, but then every platform has its own pluses.

 

I don't want to squabble about what is better, I was just posting what my personal experience of the two platforms was, and you jumped in with "and here we go again".

[+rdemming]

 

How was it stolen from Atari? Amiga was a separate hardware developer. And Tramiel would've sacked the development team and thrown away the OS materials, not known how to properly implement the custom chipset and discarded them. Please elaborate if I've got that wrong.

 

 

In short:

• Jay Miner left Atari to setup his own company to develop his next chipset (Amiga)
• Atari financed Amiga to design the new chipset in exchange for the resulting chipset to be used in an Atari game console.
• Atari was suddenly taken over by Jack Tramiel. Jack Tramiel did not know about Atari's agreement with Amiga.
• In the weeks around Atari's takeover, Amiga talked with Commodore.
• Commodore took over Amiga and paid the money Atari gave to Amiga back thinking the agreement they had would be void now.
• Jack Tramiel found out about the agreement between Atari and Amiga, was angry and sued Commodore.
• Long time later the case was settled.

 

Robert

[leech]

And that was that... actually that's been one of my crazy 'what if' scenarios that I like to think about. If Atari had been able to keep the Amiga technology, would they have really done any better than Commodore? I tend to think that Atari was all about their engineers, where Commodore was all about the bottom line and trying to sell the same system for as long as they could.

 

I do agree with being a fan of Jay Miner, and doing the same thing, buying an ST (actually mine was a Mega STe) instead of an Amiga as my step up from the Atari 800XL.

 

I've thought about this long and hard. Even if Atari had done what the original poster had suggested, and the STe line was built off their arcade hardware, while it would have been awesome, and may have given Atari a year or two more, we would still have ended up in the same situation we are in now. I do believe that where Atari failed is the same place they always failed, they couldn't keep developers for one reason or another. I mean most people barely even knew the Atari Jaguar was their last video game console, and barely knew it was available at the time it was released. Not many companies were stating that they were making their games for the Jag, and there wasn't a whole lot of advertising for it. Even the ads that were released were cheesy, granted any advertising I'd ever seen on TV for anything Atari were pretty cheesy.

 

For me, getting back into the Atari world of things is pretty interesting, because I was an Atari guy up until about '95, when it seemed my beloved machine was just being passed by, granted my monitor broke so I had to stop using the Mega STe, and then I got a TT030, but ended up not using it a lot due to having a Windows machine at the time (which I hated, and eventually got into Linux). But then many years later, I got an Amiga A4000D, and jumped into the Amiga community and upgraded it as much as I could, but I still had always wanted a Falcon, and now I have one, it's interesting to see how both the Amiga and Atari communities have evolved since the death of their respective owners. One of these days I'll write an article about it.

 

But to sum things up, it almost seems to me that the Atari community is a bit more alive than the Amiga one. I think the reasoning behind that is the split in Amiga-land between Aros, MorphOS, AmigaOS and OS4. So software development seems to have just choked, with the exception of getting Linux ports. Atari-land seems to get a lot more new software projects happening. Hardware projects seem to be about equal, though most of the Amiga ones seem to be for accelerators rather than memory upgrades.

 

Anyhow, sorry for trailing off topic so much. Just some thoughts.