new to the st group

[Scooter83]

Just picked up an atari 520st with an sc1224 monitor for 25 plus shipping. Should be ready for me when I get home in april. I made note to a friend I never got into the st line cause it was disk only software and my friend said no it has a cartridge port on the side. Was the st compatabile with the atari 8 bit line? Did the st have some cart based programs games and such?

[pixelmischief]

Welcome!

 

The ST is, in fact, disk only. The system has a cartridge port, but almost nothing was made for it. The good news, however, is that there are a few reasonably-priced devices that will allow you to load disk images from SD cards; UltraSatan, CosmosEx, HxC FLoppy Emulator. Disk images are quite easy to find; Google is your friend. Search the forum for "best games" and you'll get plenty of opinions on what to try first.

 

Again, happy to have you here.

Edited March 7, 2016 by pixelmischief

[+DarkLord]

Many of those options (such as the Ultrasatan and CosmoEx) are not devices that read disk images only.

 

They are in fact, fully functioning mass storage devices (hard drives). Mass storage is the way to go with

so many options available for the ST these days.

 

HTHs.

[ataricrypt]

Welcome:-)

8-bit Atari games aren't the same as the 16-bit ST games. You will certainly find lots online - try Old Games Finder (( http://ataricrypt.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/pirate-booty.html)) Also, the Ultrasatan is an awesome choice and I certainly love mine, it's a beauty. Thanks to a certain PP we have a humungous selection of games which are adapted for devices like this (( http://atari.8bitchip.info/fromhd.php)). HTH

Edited March 7, 2016 by ataricrypt

[galax]

Yes the ST's cartridge port didn't get used much outside of diagnostic carts, sound samplers, scanners, dongles, and a few other niche uses. The games load pretty quickly from disks though.

 

Ultrasatan isn't a great option for games unless you expand the ST's RAM - most hard disk adapted games need more than 1/2 a MB.

 

The cheapest floppy replacement for the ST is a Gotek, you can buy and install the HxC firmware yourself (cheapest option) or buy a Gotek HxC with it pre-installed. The build quality of the HxC (can get it internal or external cased) is hard to beat though: http://lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=18

 

If you can get hold of a bunch of DD floppy disks and an PC with a built-in (non-USB) floppy disk you can make your own game disks; compact menus are a good option because they generally have no protection and several games per disk.

 

You can of course buy ST games on eBay etc. if you don't mind spending the money and/or you want boxes.

[+DarkLord]

Does a significant number of ST users still operate with only 512k of RAM?

 

I personally don't have an ST with less than 4 megs...

[galax]

Does a significant number of ST users still operate with only 512k of RAM?

 

I personally don't have an ST with less than 4 megs...

 

Me too, but if they just buy an old $25 machine to try out some games from floppy disks there's a good chance that they will just leave the memory unexpanded. The majority of used machines that I see around here are 520s and 1040s with no RAM upgrades.