ST Game cartridge?

[ParanoidLittleMan]

16 hours ago, Cuzuco said:

...

I am about to buy a 520st and I’m interested on the easiest way to get games and other programs for that machine. How would I transfert any game from the internet to a floppy disk?

Today, in 2021 easiest way is to use some Flash card based storage. What can be HW floppy emulator (HxC, Gotek ...). Or better some hard disk compatible one - UltraSatan, PeraSAN ...   There are over 1400 games ready for hard disk run. That's fastest, most reliable and easiest to use.

'Easiest way to get games' ? Internet DL. And it may look that DL floppy images is easiest, straight way. But then appears that you can not write those images to floppy disks - because no floppy drive in modern computer. External USB floppy drive ? Forget it - can not write most of images because format limits. And even if have internal floppy drive in PC, that's pain in the ass - I talk from own experience. In later time I need to write 3-4 floppies (for 1 game on 1 floppy) that it work, just so unreliable with old drives and disks. I do it only for test purposed - when making new release of some game.

Like this:  http://atari.8bitchip.info/ASTGA/P/pang.php

Otherwise, I even don't have attached floppy drive to my Atari normally.

 

Cartridges: no games were distributed on ST cartridges. There was talk about reasons here many times.  Low capacity (128 KB), high price in compare to floppies. Cartridge port was designed mostly for diagnostic purpose, for servicing (fixing) people.

There were manufactured diverse things, even video digitizer. Myself made some things too, like EPROM programmer, fast mass storage  adapter.

And some shorter games can be run from cartridge too. http://atari.8bitchip.info/cartST.html

But that's not easiest way, only easy to start game when it is already on cartridge. In case of wanting to play lot of games, some  mass storage adapter is better and cheaper solution - prices of Flash cards are really low now, and even with price of adapter it is cheaper than some 4-5 cartridges. And you don't need EPROM programmer.

And to add a bit more: with hard disk adaptations of games goes usually state save option - saving game state possible in every moment (in couple seconds), and can play from that position whenever want. + simple exit to Desktop instead reset. It needs min 1 MB RAM, what is anyway recommended today, and if can find and afford STE even better.

 

[Cuzuco]

12 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

Today, in 2021 easiest way is to use some Flash card based storage. What can be HW floppy emulator (HxC, Gotek ...). Or better some hard disk compatible one - UltraSatan, PeraSAN ...   There are over 1400 games ready for hard disk run. That's fastest, most reliable and easiest to use.

'Easiest way to get games' ? Internet DL. And it may look that DL floppy images is easiest, straight way. But then appears that you can not write those images to floppy disks - because no floppy drive in modern computer. External USB floppy drive ? Forget it - can not write most of images because format limits. And even if have internal floppy drive in PC, that's pain in the ass - I talk from own experience. In later time I need to write 3-4 floppies (for 1 game on 1 floppy) that it work, just so unreliable with old drives and disks. I do it only for test purposed - when making new release of some game.

Like this:  http://atari.8bitchip.info/ASTGA/P/pang.php

Otherwise, I even don't have attached floppy drive to my Atari normally.

 

Cartridges: no games were distributed on ST cartridges. There was talk about reasons here many times.  Low capacity (128 KB), high price in compare to floppies. Cartridge port was designed mostly for diagnostic purpose, for servicing (fixing) people.

There were manufactured diverse things, even video digitizer. Myself made some things too, like EPROM programmer, fast mass storage  adapter.

And some shorter games can be run from cartridge too. http://atari.8bitchip.info/cartST.html

But that's not easiest way, only easy to start game when it is already on cartridge. In case of wanting to play lot of games, some  mass storage adapter is better and cheaper solution - prices of Flash cards are really low now, and even with price of adapter it is cheaper than some 4-5 cartridges. And you don't need EPROM programmer.

And to add a bit more: with hard disk adaptations of games goes usually state save option - saving game state possible in every moment (in couple seconds), and can play from that position whenever want. + simple exit to Desktop instead reset. It needs min 1 MB RAM, what is anyway recommended today, and if can find and afford STE even better.

 

Thanks so much for that thoroughly explanation!!! How would you then attach such external drive to the st? Would you have to open the st to achieve this? Or will you connect it to the floppy disk connector somehow?

[ParanoidLittleMan]

There is special connector for hard disks (in first place) on every ST(E), TT - 19 pin ACSI connector. And it is pretty fast for it's time - max speed is 2 MBytes/sec . There are solutions with cartridge port too. Opening ST is needed for IDE hard disk adapters.

[Cuzuco]

40 minutes ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

There is special connector for hard disks (in first place) on every ST(E), TT - 19 pin ACSI connector. And it is pretty fast for it's time - max speed is 2 MBytes/sec . There are solutions with cartridge port too. Opening ST is needed for IDE hard disk adapters.

Thanks so much again. I didn’t see that connector first. But then digging on the Internet I saw that and also some solutions using ultraSatan cases ( https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=48) I guess this could be interesting. 
Thanks again for taking the time to answer my questions. 

[zzip]

On 3/6/2021 at 7:20 PM, Cuzuco said:

So now I am wondering if the 520st did also have some games produced as cartridges or no one used this way os distributing games for that machine?

I've never encountered a game cartridge for ST.   Every ST came with a floppy drive, so it was cheaper and easier to distribute games that way.  The carts I've encountered were usually hardware related--  digitizers, hw clocks, etc.