If you could change one thing about the 520ST/STM/STFM......

[+DarkLord]

If I was to add anything to my original post it would be that all the major

chips be socketed for fast and easy upgrades...

 

[Chinese Cake]

I don't think there was anything wrong with the 530ST.

 

i think the issue was their other revisions during the 80's which barely added anything. The 520ST as the entry level should have been replaced by 88 or 89 with something more capable. 

 

The only things about the 520ST that I would actually change are the same things I would have changed for every other non-IBM computer of the time and that would be adding better general compatibility, more ports, and allowing for expansions and having wide compatibility with accessories. This is what gave PC it's advantage and how the clones were formed in the first place and took over so fast.

 

 

[Megalomaniac]

You obviously disagree with Atari about the sound hardware then - they didn't intend for it to be the main device. To me that's the big weak link with the ST when compared to its immediate competition (not counting the much more expensive A1000 or the much later A500).

 

Expandability is an interesting one, because home computers pre-ST weren't expected to be expandable, beyond memory upgrades in some cases. It was only later that more expandable systems like PCs, Macs and (to a lesser extent) Amigas started to enter the home. 

Edited October 25, 2022 by Megalomaniac

[Xavier Louis Tardy]

21 hours ago, Megalomaniac said:

I think the performance gap between standard Amiga and standard ST is bigger than suggested by games released for both systems such as Lotus 2, much as its my favourite Outrun-style racer. If you look at Amiga-exclusive games like Brian the Lion, Elfmania, Apidya, ATR, the Digital Illusions pinball games, I'd say those are artistically well clear of what the ordinary ST could do.

 

Slightly off topic, but - question for particularly oky2000 - why do you think the Archimedes made such a minimal impact on the market despite its power advantage over the ST and Amiga?

Well ... Maybe selling it only in the UK and a bit in New Zealand and only at the very end in Germany didn't really help ...

[Bikerbob]

The joystick/mouse port on the side.. Made the ST TOTALLY a crap machine.  IF your using a game machine ok.. but to have to unplug and plug in something under the machine itself.. WAS A JOKE.  MegaST MegaSTE and TT are the only machines worth a damm in the line. For expansion, upgrades, keyboard (megaST cherry keys)  The all in one ST was so.. 1984.

[+DarkLord]

Don't forget the STacy. Excellent keyboard and mouse/joystick ports

on the side - not underneath. Oh, and a built-in trackball. 

 

PS I always kept a couple of sets of those 6" mouse/joystick

extender cables for the other ST's. Fixed things right up...

 

[TGB1718]

33 minutes ago, DarkLord said:

PS I always kept a couple of sets of those 6" mouse/joystick

extender cables for the other ST's. Fixed things right up...

I used to make them using short lengths of ribbon cable just to protect the sockets on my 8 bit's

On the ST they were mandatory for the reasons stated above.

[zzip]

3 hours ago, Megalomaniac said:

Expandability is an interesting one, because home computers pre-ST weren't expected to be expandable, beyond memory upgrades in some cases. It was only later that more expandable systems like PCs, Macs and (to a lesser extent) Amigas started to enter the home. 

PC and Apple II predated the ST design.   Even the XL/XE line had an expansion port.  I think it was just a matter of keeping cost down. 

 

23 hours ago, Chinese Cake said:

The only things about the 520ST that I would actually change are the same things I would have changed for every other non-IBM computer of the time and that would be adding better general compatibility, more ports, and allowing for expansions and having wide compatibility with accessories.

ST is kind of maxed out on ports,  especially the STe model which has ports just about every place you could stick a port.   Maybe they could have shrunk RS-232 to DB9 to make room for something else.

[Chinese Cake]

The problem about the ST's design is that it was put together in short time with off-shelf parts aiming for a cheap price, and I don't think Jack was thinking about the long term, but instead the continuation of his 'undercut the competition' strategy.

 

I think the ST being as useful as it was for the first few years on sale was already remarkable as is. If Atari wasn't racing to release with the competition like the Amiga (which turned out be unnecessary in hindsight) and gave the ST more time to cook, i think things would have been different.

 

But when it comes to what you could change with the original 520ST design, there's really not much you could change while keeping it affordable, except maybe slightly better sound.

 

3 hours ago, Megalomaniac said:

You obviously disagree with Atari about the sound hardware then - they didn't intend for it to be the main device. To me that's the big weak link with the ST when compared to its immediate competition (not counting the much more expensive A1000 or the much later A500).

 

Expandability is an interesting one, because home computers pre-ST weren't expected to be expandable, beyond memory upgrades in some cases. It was only later that more expandable systems like PCs, Macs and (to a lesser extent) Amigas started to enter the home. 

 

I may be misremembering, but wasn't the peanut/ PC Jr. Expandable?

[Megalomaniac]

Being in the UK I'm only vaguely aware of the PCJr and the later Tandy 1000 line it inadvertently spawned, but it looks like that was reasonably expandable via third-party hardware, though still mostly memory upgrades and compatibility fixes. I think you could add a hard drive, which wasn't normal for the 8-bits before it, and a second floppy drive which I think some PC software needed then. Somehow a system with a launch price of $1250 like the PCJr just doesn't strike me as a 'home' system, we never spent that amount on home computers until the PC era took off in the mid-1990s. Even the $999 that an initial ST with a colour monitor cost would never have competed in Britain, it was the 520STFM that was the big seller here once it was £300-£500, we mostly plugged it into a TV rather than buying a dedicated monitor.

[Chinese Cake]

8 hours ago, Megalomaniac said:

Being in the UK I'm only vaguely aware of the PCJr and the later Tandy 1000 line it inadvertently spawned, but it looks like that was reasonably expandable via third-party hardware, though still mostly memory upgrades and compatibility fixes. I think you could add a hard drive, which wasn't normal for the 8-bits before it, and a second floppy drive which I think some PC software needed then. Somehow a system with a launch price of $1250 like the PCJr just doesn't strike me as a 'home' system, we never spent that amount on home computers until the PC era took off in the mid-1990s. Even the $999 that an initial ST with a colour monitor cost would never have competed in Britain, it was the 520STFM that was the big seller here once it was £300-£500, we mostly plugged it into a TV rather than buying a dedicated monitor.

The peanut was meant to compete with the cheaper Micros but even in the US the price was a problem. The C64 and later the Amiga just gave you more for less in the 80's. I think that it could have worked if it was marketed toward small businesses that needed a comparatively cheap IBM computer compared to the deep pockets of coporations or large organizations, and maybe some office workers or developers, but for general home use the price was pretty insane.

[TornadoTJ]

For me here were the big things that were missing from the ST:

Blitter from day 1

TOS on chip from day one - TOS on disk stinks

VGA port so that connecting an NEC MultiSync would be easier

DS/DD floppy from day 1

 

Other than that, I was very happy with all of my ST/STe/TT030/Falcon PCs. If any were disappointing at all, it was my Falcon. After owning the TT030 for so long, the Falcon felt like a huge step backwards.

[Zogging Hell]

10 hours ago, TornadoTJ said:

TOS on chip from day one - TOS on disk stinks

VGA port so that connecting an NEC MultiSync would be easier

 

Other than that, I was very happy with all of my ST/STe/TT030/Falcon PCs. If any were disappointing at all, it was my Falcon. After owning the TT030 for so long, the Falcon felt like a huge step backwards.

Problem with the VGA port thing is that VGA wasn't around in 1985 and wouldn't really become a standard until the 90s... probably we should be thankful Atari didn't use CGA and did use a port that is pretty simple to convert to VGA for the mono mode

The TOS on disk is an interesting one, I loved TOS in ROM, after starting to use early Macs and Amigas later I was horrified by the amount of disk swapping going on, even on a two drive system. Particularly the Amiga's multitasking, where yes you can change programs but then you will also probably need to change the disk if you want to do something on the desktop and then change it back afterwards. And the boot times were a bit objectionable as well. You really need hard disks on the Mac and Amiga to make them fun to use. Not a problem nowadays but back then... On the flip side bug fixes are a sinch on those sort of systems. We might have got some fixes like the force media change bug or the FolderXXX bugs earlier if we had the OS on disk and wouldn't have had to tear open the computer or have an auto folder loaded with fixes.

I'm sort of torn between the Falcon and the TT, the Falcon has all those graphic modes and the DSP which makes it super cool, but the TT has that raw power and seems to be a more rounded system.

[BydoEmpire]

Better, more tactile keyboard… but honestly that’s my main beef with a lot of computers from that era. It wouldn’t have helped to do better in the market but I would like it better.

[Megalomaniac]

The high front of an ST keyboard, coupled with the lack of sloping to it, definitely make it more awkward to type on than many others of the day, let alone even the cheapo keyboards bundled with today's PCs that gamers replace immediately. Orders of magnitude better than a rubber-keyed Spectrum keyboard though, which fortunately wasn't the type I had. The +2 was bad enough to type on using a casted wrist though, I can say that.

Edited October 30, 2022 by Megalomaniac

[Muzz73]

On 10/23/2022 at 1:17 PM, MrMaddog said:

I'd sell more ST's in America so they can be used as computers instead of 'always compared to Amiga' game machines...

 

 

Yes. This. 👍

[Muzz73]

A standard HDD interface (ANSI SCSI)!

[Keatah]

I wanted to see better software support from Atari and a few major publishers. I got spoiled with such things on Apple II and Atari VCS.

 

But I was alright with the hardware as it came out of the box.

 

On 10/25/2022 at 11:08 AM, Megalomaniac said:

Expandability is an interesting one, because home computers pre-ST weren't expected to be expandable, beyond memory upgrades in some cases. It was only later that more expandable systems like PCs, Macs and (to a lesser extent) Amigas started to enter the home. 

Apple II had 8 slots. Atari 400/800 had SIO BUS - the precursor to modern-day USB.

[Chri O.]

13 hours ago, Muzz73 said:

A standard HDD interface (ANSI SCSI)!

SCSI Its standardization started as a single ended 8-bit bus in 1986. Atari ACSI was developed in 1984 data may be transfered at a maximum rate of 2 MegaBytes/sec with short cables.

Atari Hard Disk Controller is off board and is sent commands using an ANSI X3T9.2 SCSI-like (Small Computer Systems Interface) command descriptor block protocol.

The Atari Hard Disk Interface (AHDI) supports a minimal subset of SCSI commands (Class 0 OpCodes).

[oky2000]

On 10/24/2022 at 7:28 PM, Megalomaniac said:

I think the performance gap between standard Amiga and standard ST is bigger than suggested by games released for both systems such as Lotus 2, much as its my favourite Outrun-style racer. If you look at Amiga-exclusive games like Brian the Lion, Elfmania, Apidya, ATR, the Digital Illusions pinball games, I'd say those are artistically well clear of what the ordinary ST could do.

 

Slightly off topic, but - question for particularly oky2000 - why do you think the Archimedes made such a minimal impact on the market despite its power advantage over the ST and Amiga?

As a pixel artist there is quite a difference between squeezing a 128 colour arcade down to 16 or 32 colours. It might not sound like much but it is quite a difference. 

 

The Archimedes was a cool machine, it was better than the Amiga 500 and therefore that 12 month period where Commodore did nothing with the A1000 in 1986-87 cost them the technical lead for sure. Problem is the only decent quality bitmap arcade style games on it were just Amiga port jobs (Lotus II, Chaos Engine etc) and the exclusive titles had something like PD quality pixel art/music too. It really didn't have the same quality of software as the ST or Amiga for music, video or art at all IMO. 3D games like Zarch are brilliant though but I wouldn't buy one just to play flat shaded polygon games in the 80s no matter how close to a 20mhz 68020 they are being shifted.

 

As a side note, the thing with computers of the 16bit era was it really depended where you were upgrading from. I have seen negativity from C64 and Atari 400/800 scene but not from Acorn/Sinclair/MSX/Amstrad owners upgrading to it. I think the £299.99 520STFM of 1987 was an absolute bargain though, it was ridiculously cheap and the RAM shortages really hurt the sales. I would never buy a 128k 8bit computer instead of the 520STFM at that sort of price, it makes no sense and a C128 or 130XE doesn't really offer much more in terms of exclusive games worth buying the 128k model for. Sure the ST is going to be a bit pants at doing Gradius/Salamander but looking at all the horrible ports on Amiga I wouldn't have been happy with those two arcade games I loved done via a slap-dash Ocean/Konami US conversion juddering along lol 

 

I never regretted getting my 520STM+SF354 bundle in 1986 though, I think it was £440 in summer 1986 via mail order. The reality is if you just wanted something to play games on then importing a PC Engine in 1987 was the way to go, and I say that as somebody who got an Amiga 1000 too  Japan just has better coders and artists and more respect for their customer's wages being spent on their developments. Specs are useless if the games are going to be done badly on a system most of the time. Luckily I spent half my time on Neochrome or Digi-view & Digi-paint on my 16bit computers. Never heard any decent music on Western Megadrive games so even if the ST had a better FM based chip you can guarantee they still would have made naff tunes at Domark and US Gold etc lol you should hear the rubbish they did for the quad DACs of Amiga most of the time

[zzip]

20 hours ago, Chri O. said:

SCSI Its standardization started as a single ended 8-bit bus in 1986. Atari ACSI was developed in 1984 data may be transfered at a maximum rate of 2 MegaBytes/sec with short cables.

Atari Hard Disk Controller is off board and is sent commands using an ANSI X3T9.2 SCSI-like (Small Computer Systems Interface) command descriptor block protocol.

The Atari Hard Disk Interface (AHDI) supports a minimal subset of SCSI commands (Class 0 OpCodes).

Yeah ACSI was supposedly based off a draft SCSI proposal.   Unfortunately it still required an extra $100-200 hardware interface to allow you to hook up a true SCSI disk.

 

 

[Muzz73]

On 12/18/2022 at 11:55 AM, Chri O. said:

SCSI Its standardization started as a single ended 8-bit bus in 1986. Atari ACSI was developed in 1984 data may be transfered at a maximum rate of 2 MegaBytes/sec with short cables.

Atari Hard Disk Controller is off board and is sent commands using an ANSI X3T9.2 SCSI-like (Small Computer Systems Interface) command descriptor block protocol.

The Atari Hard Disk Interface (AHDI) supports a minimal subset of SCSI commands (Class 0 OpCodes).

Yikes! I thought SCSI was around commercially a year or two before that. My mistake. At that time I had a C=64 w/datasette, so even a cruddy 1541 was a dream.

[oracle_jedi]

On 12/18/2022 at 2:08 AM, Keatah said:

 

Apple II had 8 slots. Atari 400/800 had SIO BUS - the precursor to modern-day USB.

 

Right!?   The TI99/4A had a whole expansion box with slots.  So did the Spectravideo.  The Coleco Adam had expansion slots inside the unit.  Atari promised us the 1090XL Expansion System although they never delivered...

 

There's been something of a consensus that the one feature of the original 520ST that should have been changed was the weak sound processor.  I get that.  It was the key weakness that the Amiga excelled at, and with both machines becoming defacto games machines in the late 80s, the weak sound was a serious obstacle.

 

But the Amiga didn't exist when the ST was being developed.  It seems to me the reference point for the ST was the Apple Macintosh - a machine with intentionally no expansion options - and here I find myself wondering how well the ST's sound capabilities stack up against the original Mac.  If any Mac experts want to enlighten me....

 

But back to the original question.  The one thing I would change?   The lifespan.

 

We are expected to believe that Jack and his hand picked team went from a blank page to a fully finished, mostly debugged system replete with a functional DOS, GUI, two choices of floppy disk drive, two monitor choices and a smattering of software in just 9 months.   I've always been dubious of that claim, suspecting that the ST started as an off-the-books skunk works project at Commodore, but I have no evidence to support my crazy conspiracy claims.  All that said, the original ST standard should have been retired and replaced with the STE in 1987, not 1989.

 

Had the 520STFM never come to market.  If instead the next machine released after the 1040STf was the 520STE, coinciding with Commodore's Amiga 500, then the smaller install base of the older standard might not have been the drag on developers embracing the superior audio and graphics of the STE standard.  The "new" Atari STE would have been in a far more equal fight with the cost reduced Amiga, and with its TOS-in-ROM and easier RAM expansion to 4MB, there would have been many areas where the Amiga would have struggled to compete.

 

 

 

[Zogging Hell]

6 hours ago, oracle_jedi said:

 

But the Amiga didn't exist when the ST was being developed.  It seems to me the reference point for the ST was the Apple Macintosh - a machine with intentionally no expansion options - and here I find myself wondering how well the ST's sound capabilities stack up against the original Mac.  If any Mac experts want to enlighten me....

 

But back to the original question.  The one thing I would change?   The lifespan.

It uses four voice pcm sampled sound, which on paper sounds great, but in reality only one voice can be played for 'free' at a time due to the weird way it was intergrated into the video chip. Any more and you start eating into the CPU time, and the Mac has enough stuff doing that anyway. So three voices of chip sounds isn't that bad comparitively. I'd agree the ST hardware is absolutely designed at first to best both the Mac and the PC, which it does do on all counts really, better resolution and a all round faster machine than the mac, and the ST video modes were superior to CGA on the PC, while overpowering both the grunt of the PC CPU in most ways.

 

I think the ST lifespan was fine.. it lasted as a decent bit of kit for four to five years from launch, which is about the same as a modern console lasts, the problem was the lack of a timely successor, with decent enough specs.

[oky2000]

The Mac multiplexes a single DAC at 3 points on the vertical blank I think, the engineers wanted more DACs but Steve Jobs didn't even want sound in the first place so that was the compromise. Read it in some engineer/designer's blog about Mac audio. 

 

You can't decide the lifespan of a machine, nobody designed the C64 to last a decade, that only really happened because so many pioneers from 1982 to 1987 sort of time frame constantly pushed the machine to its limits. The ST was rarely pushed to its limits outside the demoscene. Ultimately though the ST suffered from a double knock-out punch of Atari having to raise ST prices due to the DRAM price hikes of early-mid 1988 when Commodore didn't and just as the prices were about to come back down the £525 Amiga 500+modulator turned into the identically priced £400 A500 RRP. It never really recovered from that. 

 

The ST was better than the crapfest IBM PC EGA spec of home machine yanks kept buying in the mid 80s for a hell of a lot more money. Everything about the ST is superior to the EGA PC XT spec those idiots went ga-ga for. Leonard Tramiel talks about this 'sickness' affecting the US consumers in that time frame post video games crash of USA. 

 

If this crap is what I had to play in 1987 I would have slit my wrists lol

Don't have a heart attack laughing at this pathetic machine that conquered mid 80s USA for home consumers.