Atari ST

Atari, Atari ST, Computers

I received my first Atari ST in the 1989; a surplus unit from my father’s business. It was a luxury (at the time!) 1MB model — the 1040 STFM, complete with Professional software pack.

Hooking it up to a colour television, I was captivated by the lime green GUI. I had never used a computer mouse before, and it felt like a huge leap from the terminal interfaces on the ZX Spectrum and school BBC Micro.

After clicking through every pack-in disk, I was (only very slightly) disappointed to find very few games.

But luckily for me, a friend had the more gaming oriented Atari ST Power Pack, and I was quickly able to borrow and acquire some great ports:

  • Afterburner
  • Black Lamp
  • Bomb Jack
  • Bombuzal
  • Double Dragon
  • Eliminator
  • Gauntlet II
  • Nebulus
  • Outrun
  • Overlander
  • Pacmania
  • Predator
  • R-Type
  • Space Harrier
  • Star Goose
  • Star Ray
  • Starglider
  • Super Hang-On
  • Super Huey
  • Xenon

From Wikipedia:

The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the company’s 8-bit home computers. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985, and was widely available in July.

It was the first personal computer with a bitmapped color graphical user interface, using a version of Digital Research’s GEM interface / operating system from February 1985.

The Atari 1040ST, released in 1986 with 1 MB of memory, was the first home computer with a cost per kilobyte of RAM under US$1/KB.

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