Poll: I primary use Atari ST/Mega/TT/Falcon for:

[calimero]

So, did you use 16/32 bit Atari computer, back in 80s and 90s, mainly for games or for serious work?

Please leave comments for what kind of serious work did you use it  

Or if you later switch focus from games to serious work... how and why that happened  
 

Edited March 8, 2021 by calimero

[calimero]

My father bought ST in 1986. He used it for making, not sure what english word is right, "plans and calculation for electrifying homes and buildings". He used GERMAN ProText, if you did not see that program: it allow to use Excel like formulas and variables inside text. So he had e.g. table with prices of light bulb, outlets, switches... and ProText will do calculation in main text. (I am not sure if there is similar program today. Papyrus is something closest to this ability of ProText)

He also used STAD for making drawings. He build library with technical pieces (parts) for blueprint of electrification of home/building and he copy and paste this parts to main blueprint. All that was printed on Commodore 9dot printer later Epson printer... He also use LDWpower calc since it was compatible with Lotus 1-2-3 (some colleagues did use PC).

He also use ScorePerfect to put many songs with text in computer and to later reprint them in booklet format. He also use lot of STeve for scanning documents (with hand scanner) and for building different database.

My grand father also use ST, mainly for writing in Signum and for making "family tree"

I started with games (e.g. Quadralien, Millenium 2.2, Captain Blood, Carrier Command...), but later shift my focus to CAD 3D and CyberPaint, CrackArt, Signum, Formula, Calamus (I did lot of typing and printing ads); later I use Falcon to make demo tapes of punk bands...  

...now, looking back and thinking, I would miss all that programs if father did bought PC instead of ST! 
What I would use? ChiWrite and WordPerfect?  maybe GEM based Ventura...  
btw although we did use lot of educational software from Mac using Aladin on ST.

btw2 all that software that I mention, you can find at http://milan.kovac.cc/atari/software/

[Cyprian]

I mostly use ST for coding and watching demoscene productions, just for fun. Should I choose "Serious work" then?

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I think that we should separate it for today usage and usage in 'Atari ST years'  - what Calimero actually did here.

So, in later 80-e, early 90-es I used ST pretty much for both, almost equal - gaming, and some programming, data base handling and like.

And actually did combination of two at once: game modding - like trainers, adapting it for hard disk run, or just packed 4 floppy data to single floppy (1.6 MB) .

In later 90-es focus was on floppy content presentation - making images of them, and saving to more reliable media.

Appearance of good Atari ST(E) emulators for modern computers renewed interest, combined with easy access to old SW via Internet, although there were diverse restrictions, side shut downs in beginning - even if all that SW was out of sale for many years.

Currently Atari STs serve mostly for testing purposes. I don't think that 30 years old machines should serve everyday work or fun. And in my case it is much worse because doing diverse HW upgrades, mods, and testings of it, testings of programmed TOS EPROM chips ... So, I just reduced usage time, in purpose that it last longer. And there are some things what can do much better with Steem Debugger .

[TGB1718]

Both for me, I bought one for work where it was used to do all our technical drawing, circuit diagrams etc. outputting

to 10 pen plotters, also creating test data files for an Automated Test System, Word Processing for technical documentation.

 

At home some games, but also used it to program in Assembler and C (which eventually led me to a career in Programming).

I designed and built a battery backed Real Time Clock module that plugged into the cartridge port.

[calimero]

I do believe that you should put "Serious work"...

[Goochman]

I put serious work but it was 50/50 for me.  I used my ST for all my college coursework - connecting to the Vax, writing Pascal programs in Alice Pascal, Word Perfect for writing assignments, Pagestream for some flyers I created for on campus.  I had a Spectre 128 to mess around with Mac stuff and the 80286 board for IBM stuff.  The ST was awesome.

 

Having said that I played plenty of games.

 

After graduating I used my ST to remote connect to my work Mainframe, however the VT100 or VT102 emulation wasnt great so I ended up buying my first 386 PC with Procomm plus.

Edited March 8, 2021 by Goochman

[jblenkle]

I used my ST mostly for games, midi and word processing, although now just mostly for games and midi. I also wrote a game in GFA Basic that could be played on Atari ST BBS' - not 100% - I used the framework from another game to write it because all the BBS routines, etc were beyond me (and still are).

[Atari8guy]

I wasn't fortunate enough to have my own ST in the 80s/90s, so I gamed at a buddy's house, then he lent it to me for a while...but still mostly gamed.  These days I do use it for "other" stuff.  I use Texel for spreadsheet functionality, AIRC for exactly that, and I hit up Darkforce on a regular basis using terminal programs.  I also just pulled the actual STE out of the closet and got it setup, so now I have a MiST and my STE on the desk.  Still even with all that, I'd say 70% gaming.

 

 

[youxia]

I voted after only reading the title, which is in Present Tense :) So, I only use my ST for games, never had one back in the day.

[+DarkLord]

4 hours ago, jblenkle said:

I used my ST mostly for games, midi and word processing, although now just mostly for games and midi. I also wrote a game in GFA Basic that could be played on Atari ST BBS' - not 100% - I used the framework from another game to write it because all the BBS routines, etc were beyond me (and still are).

 

Just curious...what game was that? Thanks.

 

[+DarkLord]

Not sure how to vote...

 

From 85' through '89, I'd definitely say it was mostly games.

 

From the 90's through today, a whole lot of BBS stuff (obviously) plus

other things, although I still do play games quite a bit...

 

[jblenkle]

2 hours ago, DarkLord said:

 

Just curious...what game was that? Thanks.

 

COWS

[MrMaddog]

 

Seriously, I've used my STe both for gaming and serious work equally and even now I use my PC for both banking & first person shooters. 

 

In college I used a word processor (British Protext) for term papers and programming courses, terminal emulators (STalker) for going online, a drawing program (HyperPaint) for basic diagrams, Sound Lab for playing with downloaded samples and STOS Basic for personal coding projects.  And after all that work it's nice to have some games to unwind with...

 

With ST emulators though, it's strictly gaming unless I need to use a text editor to change the readme files.  All my non-gaming stuff can be done on Windows (with occasions in Linux) because of multitasking.  I'd love to try out FreeMiNT on Aranym but who knows when I'll get around to that.

 

 

[+DarkLord]

19 hours ago, jblenkle said:

COWS

 

Hmm, don't think I ever ran that one on DarkForce.  

 

Thanks.

 

[jblenkle]

1 hour ago, DarkLord said:

 

Hmm, don't think I ever ran that one on DarkForce.  

 

Thanks.

 

It could be said it had a "cult" following. It was originally just done as a joke game for some BBS' in my area to spoof a guy known as "Mr. Moo," but I kept adding stuff to it and it grew into a monster. I finally quit doing it because it grew too large to run on a stock Atari ST. I printed out the GFA Basic source code one time and it was about an inch and a half thick on fanfold paper. I had a "regular" version which was shorter and then a "registered" version which unlocked everything and I charged $5 or $10 to register it. I think I sold about 30 copies that way. I keep meaning to go in and fix a few things on the title screen and just put it out there for people to play, but it will only work on real hardware and I've only found one emulator it will run on (Hatari, I think). I think it locks up the emulators because of the modem routines.

[jblenkle]

14 minutes ago, jblenkle said:

It could be said it had a "cult" following. It was originally just done as a joke game for some BBS' in my area to spoof a guy known as "Mr. Moo," but I kept adding stuff to it and it grew into a monster. I finally quit doing it because it grew too large to run on a stock Atari ST. I printed out the GFA Basic source code one time and it was about an inch and a half thick on fanfold paper. I had a "regular" version which was shorter and then a "registered" version which unlocked everything and I charged $5 or $10 to register it. I think I sold about 30 copies that way. I keep meaning to go in and fix a few things on the title screen and just put it out there for people to play, but it will only work on real hardware and I've only found one emulator it will run on (Hatari, I think). I think it locks up the emulators because of the modem routines.

We're probably getting a little off-topic here, but here are some COWS screen shots (it runs on STEEM, not Hatari as I previously stated):

 

 

 

 

 

 

[+DarkLord]

Nice. Thanks for the info! 

 

[Clint Thompson]

Never really used an ST to play games though I did try to play all available for the Falcon but even that was used more for audio stuff when I owned one. Now I have a dedicated STe for Hotz Translator software alone and am deciding my route for a dedicated Cubase machine.

[Cubeast]

For me it has always been a music machine. My grandfather was a music teacher and introduced me to it.

[Atari74user]

Like many here, I evolved to an ST from an 800XL around '88.  It was purely a games machine for a few years, I was captivated by any Bitmap Brothers title.  I started swapping menu disks at school, collected magazines with cover disks which opened up other software.  I was getting into music, and stared messing around with ST samplers and trackers in the early 90s.  Similarly, along the same timeline as my music interest during the early to mid 90s, I purchased a hard drive, SyQuest drives, DTP and word processing software, namely Atari Works, Papyrus and Calamus, as well as utility software such as XBoot 3 and NVDI, along with upgrades like a TOS switcher, OverScan and more memory.  These applications saw me through my education, producing school and college work.  I also purchased various music and MIDI based software for my music interest, from Breakthru to Cubase, Replay 16, Squash it! and so on.

 

My ST remained my main computer until about 2003 / 2004.  After this date to now, it remains set up in my MIDI studio, along with my Falcon.  It's actually never been in storage.  Like all old equipment, music equipment included, they happily remain stable and legitimate for modern day use, providing they are maintained (hiccups along the way), alongside modern day equipment.

Edited March 15, 2021 by Atari74user