The Atari ST Story | Nostalgia Nerd

The Atari ST is a machine which emerged in 1985 and immediately went head to head with the Amiga 1000. The Atari ST is known for Games, music, desktop publishing and in a lot of cases, being a poorer version of the Amiga, but that's not always the case, and to begin with the ST outsold the Amiga by a fair margin. It comes in many forms, The Atari STFM, Atari STE, even the follow up, the Atari Falcon. In this video we'll explore them all, along with Atari ST Games, Atari ST Music and the story of Commodore, Atari, Tramel Technology and the man himself, Jack Tramiel, who left Commodore, bought Atari and went head to head with his former company in the epic 80s battle of the first 16 bit home computers.

Reasons to watch;
80s Computers, Atari and Amiga, the 16 bit era, if you want to learn more about Atari or Amiga in the 80s, if you want some Atari ST demos, if you're looking for an Atari documentary or just an Atari ST review. It's all here, on Nostalgia Nerd.

☟Sharing☟
If you wish to share this video in forums, social media, on your website, *please do so*! It helps tremendously with the channel!

☟Subcribe☟

✊Support Me! ✊

★Join me on Social Media★

★Equipment★
Lumix G6 with Vario 14-42mm Lens
Nikon D3200 with 40mm Macro
Corel Video Studio Ultimate X9
Corel Paint Shop Pro X6
Blue Snowball Microphone

♜Resources♜
Certain images sourced from Wikimedia/Wikipedia

Some images and information obtained from;

Youtube videos used for information or within video under CC eudcational licence;

If you believe I have forgotten to attribute anything in this video, please let me know, so I can add the source in. It takes time to make these videos and therefore it can be easy to forget things or make a mistake.

[JyotiMishra]

THANK YOU for the mention (I'm White Town) and representing the almighty ST! I currently have four in a cupboard upstairs and Lotharek's FPGA version too. I can tell you, as of 2020, *nothing* comes close to touching the ST still in terms of MIDI timing tightness and usability. Maybe Reaper on a good day, if the wind's blowing right. WIthout the rock-solid timing of the ST (synced to my Tascam 688 via its built-in FSK), Your Woman would not have sounded like it sounds.

[Techmoan]

Brilliant job. It's important to have a video like this done from a UK perspective, and you're bang on about the ST being to the Amiga what the Speccy was to the C64, that's exactly how it felt to me too. I remember that I got a very early STFM, and it came with a single sided (360k?) floppy drive, which I later upgraded with a double sided one...which involved taking a hacksaw to the case...good old days.

[poeterritory]

The PC disk compatibility for the ST was a godsend. I was able to take 4 years of work and port them when I upgraded to PC in 1992. I still have those files. There is something cool about having something that old.

[MrSammotube]

I had an Atari STE 1040 STE and was the only machine I had from 1986-1996 and only stopped because I broke it by taking it apart! It was so awesome, had RCA stereo jacks, TV out, 4 controller ports and MIDI ports (we needed this and no other machine could offer this for the price). I doubt if I can ever again buy a machine that lasts a decade in terms of daily driver, so kudos to Atari!

[mrdonsmith]

Great video! Remember STart magazine? It was dedicated to the Atari ST platform and I was a columnist for that publication. I'll never forget stopping in Chicago and browsing a magazine rack and seeing the first edition. I was just thrilled to see my column inside. I was a national columnist! The column was called 'By the Numbers by Don Smith. I also ran a popular Atari ST BBS in my Houston (TX) apartment and I called it 'The AtariST'.

[mazthespaz]

flew to Atari a few months before the ST release to meet the Tramiels. The Atari offices were very depressing. I did see the room where they were studying the Lisa to see what they could learn. A couple months later I was developing on one of the first 520sts. lots of hand-wiring on motherboard and no rf shielding. I did finally sell off that system last year probably way cheaper than I should have. I really enjoyed working on the machine. things got a lot better once they had hard drives

[BlackburnBigdragon]

I miss the glory days of just being able to sit down at my computer, turn it on, and have it be a blank canvas where I could just write a program to make it do whatever the heck I wanted it to. A time when the computer came with the manual that actually gave you all the instructions for how to do just that and not only that, gave you the full schematic of the workings of the chips so you could get them to do what you wanted them to do. Nowadays, you don't get a manual with the computer. If you want to write a program, you need to get a separate program in order to even program the thing. Then you need to figure out what language you want to use because different languages are better for different types of purposes, then you need to get a big book or take a course to learn the big complex language. I used to write so many games and programs on my C64. I ran a C64 BBS back in the day. Times have really changed a LOT and have gotten a LOT more complicated since then.

[baronbokaj]

Atari has influenced my whole life. I truly enjoyed your amazing video, sent me on a trip down nostalgia road.
As a teenager, I was hooked by the Arcade-machines, spent a fortune on Defender and Pac-Man. Bought my first computer a second hand Atari 800 because of the games but soon found out that the best "game" was Atari Basic. Wrote a lot of simple games like slot-machines and mace-games before I stepped up to an Atari Mega 2 and Mark Williams C. Spent a lot of time creating a horse racing game which I eventually sold to Commodore (oh the irony) intended for their CD-TV. The game went into lengthy development to fit the hardware, but Commodore went bankrupt before it could be released.
My devotion for computers brought me into a career as a computer graphics designer, handling dedicated systems like the FCG Beacon and later the Dutch Aesthedes. Started my own design firm and got Atari Scandinavia as one of my clients, creating campaigns and packaging for the Atari 520 ST, and later the Atari TT desktop bundled with the revolutionary Calamus dtp-program. Glorious days, still got a couple of Atari computers including rarities as the Stacy4 and the Atari Portfolio. Speaking of irony, the game I’m most known for is a traditional board game called Dungeon Quest.

[boelwerkr]

The Atari ST has a special place in my heart because it was the first computer i owned and the first computer i bought from my own money . My parents gave us pocket money and we could it save or buy things with it. I saved it for years and had enough to by a used 520STFM at the age of 12. But with only a little bit of software and only two games after my father screened all of the disks. But GFA-Basic 2.0 was part of it. Also being the only one on the hole school with an ST, i got into software development. Primary to write games for my self. I realized back then that writing a game is much more fun than playing it. :-)

[simonp]

I've just discovered your videos. Being an old git at 50 I remember all these systems well. Really enjoying the channel. Keep up the good work.

[Heathcliff_hensel]

If it wasn't for the Atari ST, we wouldn't have Cubase and Logic Pro.

[trachu]

Thanx for the review however some of the information is missed but are essential to understand the position of this machine.1. Atari ST was designed as dual monitor machine, where each of those monitors have different graphics modes impossible to display on the other. Monochrome display intrudced highres stable 640x480 resolution ideal for some professional work, but you were almost unable to run any games on such monitor. On other side if you had colour monitor you could not run professional software.Such configuration seems expensive but it was the only way to provide stable high resolution in those Times. Monochrome display used 30kHz video frequency while colour operated on standard 15kHz.If you remember similar situation was on IBM PC when you need to run EGA emulator to play games on Hercules graphics adapter.2. Amiga 1000 was able to display 640x512 resolution (not 640x200) thanx to hardware assisted interlace mode. However this mode flickered like hell because it used standard 15kHz signal. It was good mode for some pictures but you would bleed your eyes out if you would run on it Calamus for example. In other ways Amiga was build up as a game console while atari st has dual nature with some professional appeal.3. Amiga can do everything ST can do (because they have the same CPU), while ST can not do some things amiga can(because does not have amiga coprocessors), however original Atari st and amiga price difference is so huge i would buy atari st at that time because the difference is smaller than the price suggest. It is also worth notice that Atari st has so brillant programmers they will find this or other way to prove you ST is better than Amiga and honestly speaking ST is alive while Amiga 500 is almost dead, so ST is benefitting from new programming algorythms while a500 is in the dust. For example there is workable Wolfenstein clone which works in plain ST, while there are only some demos which prooves standard A500 can do it also.4. STE provided bigger palette, however you can still display only 16 colours at once on it, compared to amiga 32/64. I mean normal hardware generated modes and I know both can do more, however software assisted modes are good only for static pictures, because there is almost impossible to manipulate colours in normal game environemnt where each object has different positions. Stardust was released on STE, however if you look closelly you would see it uses much less colours than amiga 500 version.5. STE provided 2 AD sample converter, but this is all what they can do. In order to hear some music CPU must prepare all the data and put it to them. Amiga Paula is much more sophisticated chip and can do almost everything in hardware what on STE CPU must do (remixing, resampling, arpeggio etc.). In reality to play typical protracker module STE must use 30% raster time, while Amiga only 1%, however the quality of analog output is much higher on STE. This means if you play protracker module on both machines (just for playing without caring for cpu power) STE can actually sound better!!!6. Atari STE blitter can access colour register directly which makes him very similar to Amiga Copper functionality if programmed correctly. I know Atari st folks are trying to downgrade STE by hiding this small letter, but this version is much better than original hardware and most impressive demoscene demos are not working on plain ST.7. I heard that in Europe many Times it turns out Amiga 500 costed the same like Atari st, so it all depended on time and place.8. From testimonies seen on web, when Tramiel bought Atari he fired all old stuff and bring his old Commodore Crew instead.  On the other hand the very people who designed ATARI XL, designed also Amiga 1000. That is why many people sees Atari ST as a continuation of C64, while Amiga as 3rd generation of ATARI VCS :)That would be all.

[Pablox]

30 minutes, this is a documentary. Well done!

[IshtJR]

As a die hard Amiga owner who always felt sorry for my neighbour who had an ST, I really enjoyed this vid. Subscribed ;-).

[IMDRanged]

My family took advantage of the Atari ST MIDI ports in the back and invested in a MIDI connectable Casio synthesizer keyboard. Helped us learn all about music.

[hrnekbezucha]

Knowing it was designed in super short time and on budget this is much more impressive machine than I thought.

[robintst]

This was very informative and entertaining, great work! Big shout out to the ST camp from myself, an Amiga guy. Those were just fun times for all of us. I sometimes miss the days of all the diverse system architectures and operating systems.

[ChristianBehnke]

Oh man, what a trip down memory lane. I remember my dad bringing home a 520ST with colour monitor in the late 80's, then we upgraded to a 1040STF a few years later. I learned so much of my computer fundamentals on those things, including graphics, music, gaming, BBS's, even some early programming. I wish we still had those old computers just so I could relive those early digital days! ♥️

[crunchychips]

One of my greatest regrets in life was chucking my ST in the bin when the floppy drive stopped working in the late-90's. Knowing what I know now, I probably could have repaired it or got an external floppy drive on ebay.

[JoyVisionStudio]

These are high quality and informative videos and I recognize the work that goes into them. Very nice work! :D