Purpose of the 520STE?

[leech]

Just now, TGB1718 said:

I wondered why they didn't do that too, when I bought my original 520ST, I was working with HP desktop systems

that already were available with 010,020 and 030 processors, so by the time the STE came out, the cost of those 

processors had fallen and could have been incorporated into the STE.

Yeah, even if they'd done 16mhz 68000 for the STe line, and an 010 or 020 for the Mega STe (as it was touted as the business computer, and the TT030's baby brother). 

 

I've been looking recently into more generic 68k based systems, curious about what HP systems you were using?

[oky2000]

AGA is fine when used as designed, i.e. never put into a machine that has no CPU exclusive "Fast RAM" but the problem is the quality of artists and coders writing Amiga 1200/CD32 games were well beneath those writing the best Amiga 1000 compatible games (Lionheart, Beast1 and Lotus II being great examples) but like I said I bought it specifically for creative use, desktop video etc.

 

I think the 520STE should have completely replaced the 520STFM at launch and been priced at £299.99 too. A bit like how Clive Sinclair discontinued the 16kb Spectrum and reduced the price of the 48k model to that of the 16kb by lowering the price by £50 in 1983. This would have meant the software publishers might have put a bit more effort into supporting the STE hardware as the market was no longer split between STFM units sold vs STE units sold in 1989/1990 etc. 

 

You have to wonder what Atari were thinking with the £399.99 STE in 1989/90. You don't need to have a Harvard Business Degree to work out that is going to end in tears.

[TGB1718]

17 minutes ago, leech said:

curious about what HP systems you were using?

HP9000, series 200 which had the 68000 processor but available at the time was the series 300

which had a 68010 through 68040 processor.

 

We used them to runs automatic test systems utilising the GPIB (IEEE) interface bus, to drive

connected instrumentation, although HP called it the HPIB bus.

It used HP BASIC, but it's not like any BASIC you've ever seen before as it's integrated into the

operating system and can handle low level interrupts etc.

 

I found photos of the system some time ago and posted them here as we also use a Mega STE to

create the test files that the HP system ran.

 

Here a link

 

 

Edited January 4, 2023 by TGB1718