Never had an ST. I want one now

[+DarkLord]

Opinions vary obviously. I'm sure I'm not the only one that thinks the

Mega's, TT's and STacy's keyboards are quite good.

 

I've got a $195 Corsair gaming keyboard on my WinBox (for games

that won't play under Wine/Linux) and while I like it, I would never

say it is better.  

 

[zzip]

19 hours ago, TGB1718 said:

Recently did mine and was a straight swap, maybe there are different ROM type available

 

I remember that the 2.06 ROMS had more pins than the 1.62 ROMS,  but the sockets on the MB were big enough to accommodate that.

 

It's possible that I never found out about the jumper..   We didn't really have the internet back then to research these things endlessly.  I wonder what the jumper does?

[zzip]

16 hours ago, DarkLord said:

Makes me wonder if you've ever used a Mega ST, Mega STe, TT030,

or best of all...the STacy.   

 

The Mega's did have much nicer keyboards.   But for the 520/1040 ST models, "typing on used chewing gum" isn't far off the mark.  :)

[zzip]

17 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

Yeah, I was going by what this guy had to go through: 

I was hoping it was plug and play. We'll see.

I definitely would not have soldered resistors by myself.   It's possible I gave it to a friend who soldered.   He upgraded a 520STfm to 1mb for me.   But I don't remember him doing this either.   I remember it being plug and play.   Weird.

 

I wonder if that's a UK Rom thing, or certain mobo revisions needed it?

 

The other thing he said that one of the jumpers would enable 1.44 floppy support?   Can the STe's take a 1.44 floppy by changing a jumper?   I thought the 1.44 upgrade was more involved than that?

[snarkdluG]

TOS 1.62 and TOS 2.06 is the same size and fits in same EEPROMs. So no difference in pin count. Atari shipped the STe with different mask roms. Some had 28 pins and some had 32 pins. So the jumpers made different type of roms work. Depending on what you got on the board to start with, you might have to change jumpers.

 

 

[+DarkLord]

4 hours ago, zzip said:

The Mega's did have much nicer keyboards.   But for the 520/1040 ST models, "typing on used chewing gum" isn't far off the mark. 

 

The original 520's, 1040's and 1040 STe's did leave something to be desired. A TT-Touch upgrade made a world of difference though. I

put them in every one of those models I ever owned. 

 

It was the "one size fits all" aspect of that comment that got to me, because you really can't compare the keyboards from the first group

with the second group.  

 

[zzip]

2 hours ago, DarkLord said:

 

The original 520's, 1040's and 1040 STe's did leave something to be desired. A TT-Touch upgrade made a world of difference though. I

put them in every one of those models I ever owned. 

 

It was the "one size fits all" aspect of that comment that got to me, because you really can't compare the keyboards from the first group

with the second group.  

 

Yeah I bought some kind of spring replacement kit too.   They improved the feel a bit, but not enough that I would call 'good'.   My friend had a Mega 2, and I always envied the keyboard on that thing, even though I preferred my STe for everything else :)

[manterola]

Thanks for all your the excellent input. I was about to get a 1040stm but I guess I'll wait until an 1040 or 520 STe shows up here in USA or in Europe. I have some experience with the soldering iron (but I am still bad at it) and I have a eprom programmer : TL866, so I'd be able to replace, fix and maybe build some stuff, like video cable, TOS, etc.

One of the important aspects for my hobby is to have the computer look as much as new: and to experience the real thing with the shapes, design and keyboard feel, but I open to accept some of the convenient new developments, like flat screen monitors, or SD and CF cards. 

Anyway, I will keep waiting, until I got a decent deal for an Okay looking STe.

 

 

 

[Fyrebird]

I bought a 1040STf at the beginning of the pandemic, give me something to do if I had lost my job (Luckily I was considered essential) have had a lot of fun with it, mostly bought it to play the old Sierra games on (Have most of them now) and got a little carried away with it, had to buy an upscaler, the original mouse and got 2 other mice too, one is a Logitech with an adapter, and the other is a moue with a amiga/ST switch.  All 3 work, but mostly use the original since it looks like the rest of the PC.

 

Have over 200 floppy disks for it now, drive works great and only about 10  have been bad so far, have 5 NOS boxes that haven't even opened yet.  I looked at the STE when I was looking to buy one, but for the money they were going for, I should have bought one, would have saved me on the upscaler.

 

Here is a picture of it, has grown a lot since this was taken.

[AtariNostalgia]

On 11/26/2020 at 1:05 AM, DarkLord said:

Makes me wonder if you've ever used a Mega ST, Mega STe, TT030,

or best of all...the STacy.   

 

The Mega came in both ST and STE configs? I keep remembering it was the Mega STE only.

But then again, it's been so long...

Edited November 29, 2020 by AtariNostalgia

[bfollowell]

29 minutes ago, AtariNostalgia said:

The Mega came in both ST and STE configs? I keep remembering it was the Mega STE only.

But then again, it's been so long...

 

Yes, there was an earlier Mega ST, before the Mega STe. It had a much different case.

 

[Hwlngmad]

Throwing my two cents in, I would say go with an STfm or an STe if you wanting original hardware.  However, if you are wanting to go the emulation route, a MiST, MiSTer, or even the new Raspberry Pi 400 could be some good solutions too.

[manterola]

1 minute ago, Hwlngmad said:

Throwing my two cents in, I would say go with an STfm or an STe if you wanting original hardware.

 

On 11/28/2020 at 5:53 PM, Fyrebird said:

I bought a 1040STf at the beginning of the pandemic

I was considering an easier to find ST , but I got convinced (I was easy to convince) that I "need" a STe. It would be a great project to upgrade memory, build a video cable and find a monitor that take the video signal. 

I'll see if I can get one in Europe. I guess the internal psu can also be modified or replaced with a modern one that supports 120VAC.

Thanks!

[Hwlngmad]

26 minutes ago, manterola said:

 

I was considering an easier to find ST , but I got convinced (I was easy to convince) that I "need" a STe. It would be a great project to upgrade memory, build a video cable and find a monitor that take the video signal. 

I'll see if I can get one in Europe. I guess the internal psu can also be modified or replaced with a modern one that supports 120VAC.

Thanks!

STe is a good choice.  I don't think you will regret it if that is the model you go with.  Take care and happy hunting!

[rcamp48]

Question: Which Chip ID do I use for the RP23256 chip from TOS 1.0 ? I have a T48 burner but have no idea on how to read that chip.

 

 

[TZJB]

On 2/26/2023 at 12:14 AM, rcamp48 said:

Question: Which Chip ID do I use for the RP23256 chip from TOS 1.0 ? I have a T48 burner but have no idea on how to read that chip.

 

 

The 23256 is not supported by T48, but is EPROM pin compatible according to the datasheet, so try a 27256. Not sure why you would want to read it though as Rainbow TOS, TOS 1.04, is the better version available at most Atari repositories together with all the other versions.