Games - Atari ST

	Games - Atari ST

The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was commercially popular from 1985 to the early 1990s. It was released by Atari in 1985. The "ST" allegedly stood for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals.

Overview

The Atari ST was a notable home computer, based on the Motorola 68000 CPU, with 512 kB of RAM or more, and 3½" floppy disks as storage. It was similar to other contemporary machines which used the Motorola 68000, the Apple Macintosh and the Commodore Amiga. Although the Macintosh was the first widely available computer with a graphical user interface (GUI), it was however limited to a lower-resolution monochromatic display on a smaller built-in monitor. The Atari ST was the first computer with a fully bit-mapped color GUI. It had an innovative single-chip graphics subsystem (designed by Shiraz Shivji) which shared the full amount of system memory, in alternating clock cycles, with the processor, similar to the earlier BBC Micro and the Unified Memory systems that have become common today. It was also the first home computer with integral MIDI support.

The ST was primarily a competitor to the Commodore Amiga systems. This platform rivalry was often reflected by the owners and was most prominent in the Demo Scene. Where the Amiga had custom hardware which gave it the edge in the games and videowork market, the ST was generally cheaper and slightly faster at basic operation. Thanks to its built-in MIDI ports it enjoyed success as a music sequencer and controller of musical instruments among amateurs and professionals alike, being used in concert by bands such as Tangerine Dream and 90's UK dance act 808 State. In some markets, particularly Germany, the machine gained a strong foothold as a small business machine for CAD and Desktop publishing work.

The ST was later superseded by the Atari TT and Falcon computers, and ST technology was used in the creation of the Atari Jaguar video game console.

Since Atari pulled out of the computer market there has been a market for powerful TOS-based machines (clones). Like most "retro" computers the Atari enjoys support in the emulator scene.

Origins

Atari had created two released machines in the form of the Atari 2600 console (also known as VCS) and the various Atari 8-bit based home computers. Both of these lines were created around the 6502 CPU and included a number of additional chips assisting this rather basic, but cost-effective CPU in providing graphics and sound. In fact the 8-bit machines had originally intended to be the replacement for the 2600, but they were later reengineered as home computers.

As Atari grew and the management was shuffled by Warner (their parent company), the creators of the 2600 and 8-bit machines eventually got fed up and left. A group of them led by Jay Miner formed a small think tank called Amiga in 1982 and set about creating the third generation machine, this time based on the much more powerful 68000 CPU.

During this time, the home computer market started to slow down, and the video game market underwent the great video game crash of 1983. Warner management decided to "get out" and started looking to sell Atari outright. Meanwhile many of the same effects were in the process of decimating Commodore International. An argument involving Commodore's chairman and largest shareholder Irving Gould, and Jack Tramiel ensued over development of a new 68000 system, resulting in Tramiel's immediate departure from Commodore in January of 1984.

Tramiel immediately formed a holding company, Tramiel Technology, and brought in a number of ex-Commodore staff to continue his project to develop a new, high-performance home computer. While this team, led by Shiraz Shivji, worked on the design, Tramiel discovered that Warner Communications wanted to sell Atari Corp. Tramiel purchased Atari Corp, mainly for the overseas manufacturing and dealer network. The design team considered "one-upping" the Macintosh by using a full 32-bit chip, namely the NS32032, but in talks, National Semiconductor couldn't supply the numbers, or price, the project needed. In retrospect this proved to be lucky, as a prototype built on the NS32032 benchmarked slower than the 16-bit 68000.

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Games - Atari ST

Overview

Origins

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