• Tag Archives Atari ST

  • The One (October 1990)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: The One – Issue Number 27 – October 1990

    The One was a U.K. published magazine that would eventually become exclusively an Amiga games magazine. However, in 1990 it was covering the PC and Atari ST in addition to the Amiga. The October 1990 issue includes:

    Regulars

    • Letters – Letters from readers about consoles vs. the Amiga and Atari ST, future games, Super Mario III, and more.
    • Disk – The cover disk includes a playable preview of Cybercon III for the Amiga and Atari ST.
    • News – A look at upcoming games including Prince of Persia, Rogue Trooper, Helter Skelter, F1 Manager, Big Game Fishing, The Basket Manager, and more.
    • Work In Progress – Previews of games in progress, including Deuteros (Amiga, Atari ST, PC), SWIV (Amiga, Atari ST), The First Samurai (Amiga, Atari ST), Midwinter II (Amiga, Atari ST, PC), Hunter (Amiga, Atari ST), and Predator 2 (Amiga, Atari ST, PC).
    • Reviews – Reviews of Golden Axe (Amiga), Z-Out (Amiga), Narc (Amiga), Chip’s Challenge (Amiga), Car-Vup (Amiga), Death Trap (Amiga), Masterblazer (Amiga), and Robocop 2 (Amiga).
    • Tips – Tips, tricks and cheats for Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Shadow of the Beast 2, Operation Stealth, Corporation, Cadaver, Rick Dangerous II, Awesome (Amiga), Sim Earth (PC), and 9 Lives (Atari ST).
    • The One on One – An interview with Stan Lee with Spider-Man as the main topic.

    Features

    • Game for a Boy – A detailed look at the Game Boy and some of the games available for it.
    • Stocking Fillers – A look at some of the latest gaming hardware, with an emphasis on joysticks.
    • A Web of Intrigue – The history of Spider-Man and the making of The Amazing Spider-Man for the Amiga, Atari ST, and PC.

    …and more!


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  • Atari STacy Portable Computer

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    You could be forgiven for thinking this product is vaporware. Atari announced the Atari STacy, a portable Atari ST, years before it actually hit the streets. Only about 35,000 were shipped so they are pretty rare. While the price of $2,299 ($5,427 in today’s dollars) may seem high by today’s standards, it was a downright bargain compared to the similarly featured Macintosh Portable which cost $7,300 ($17,200 in today’s dollars). The STacy also looked much nicer than the Macintosh Portable.

    There were four models of the Stacy:

    • Stacy: 1MB RAM
    • Stacy 2: 2 MB RAM, 20 MB hard drive
    • Stacy 2: 2 MB RAM
    • Stacy 4: 4 MB RAM, 40 MB hard drive

    As you can see, the number referred to the amount of RAM that came standard. All versions included a 3.5″ disk drive, 68HC00 CPU @ 8 MHz, and were expandable to 4 MB of RAM. The screen was a 10.4″ passive matrix LCD.

    While the Atari STacy was portable, you can’t really think of it as a laptop. It could run on batteries but it needed 12 C cells and they would only last about 15 minutes…if you were lucky. So while it was relatively easy to transport, you really needed to plug it in wherever you went. Except for thickness, the dimensions weren’t terribly different from laptops today. However, it weighed over 15 pounds so lugging it around was certainly a chore compared to modern laptops.

    Other than gaming, the Atari ST was most used for its MIDI capabilities. The STacy featured MIDI input and output so could be quite useful for musicians…if they could afford it. But then again, professional MIDI equipment wasn’t cheap in whatever form it took. Other than the occasional hobbyist, I would imagine that most of the 35,000 STacys (STacies?) sold went to musicians. A professional MIDI extension was one of the few peripherals designed specifically for the STacy.

    Although the STacy may have mostly been used by musicians, it had a standard array of ports, including parallel, serial and FDD ports, an optional modem, and could run most software the standard Atari ST could run so it compared favorably to other portables at the time for general purpose computing. There was plenty of software available including word processing, spreadsheet, database, and of course games. You could get portable 386 computers by 1989 but they were more expensive and almost always had a black and white display. Certainly, for fans of the Atari ST, this would have been a great machine to have to complement your desktop setup. It’s just that most people couldn’t afford it or at least justify the price.


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  • Antic: The Atari Resource (April 1987)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: Antic: The Atari Resource – Volume 5, Number 12 – April 1987

    Antic was primarily an Atari 8-bit magazine though it did also cover the Atari ST. In 1987 it was nearing the end of its life. The April 1987 issue includes:

    Features

    • Designer Labels – A type-in program that lets you combine Print Shop graphics with your text to create custom labels.
    • Page 6 Grab-Bag, Part 2 – Two short and useful type-in programs. The first gives you the ability to pause or slow down program listings with the press of a button and the second makes it easy to insert sounds into your own programs.
    • All About [Break] Disabling – Pressing the break key normally interrupts whatever program you are running. If you do it accidentally, it can be a real time waster as well as cause you to lose data. This type-in program provides a way to disable this functionality.
    • ICD Boosts 8-Bit Atari Power – ICD is a company that produced high powered upgrades for the Atari 8-bit. Some of these include the 1MB Multi I/O Board, 256K RAMBO XL memory upgrade, R-Time 8 Cartridge (real-time clock/calendar), SpartaDOS 3.2, hard drive interface and more.
    • BTL Hard Disk System – Connect up to two hard drives to your Atari 800XL or Atari 130Xe for up to a total of 128MB of storage.
    • ’86 Federal Income Tax Spreadsheet – A template for SynCalc to make completing your 1986 tax return easy.

    Departments

    • Starting Out: New Owners Column – Part 13 of a BASIC programming tutorial. This part goes over the various ways to use color.
    • Game of the Month: Taxman – Keeping with the April income tax theme, this type-in game is a maze game in which you must collect interest from your accounts while evading the IRS agents. If they catch you, you must declare the interest. If they catch you 10 times, you get audited and the game is over.
    • I/O Board – Letters from readers about Son of Infobits database, the Star NX-10 printer, Bumblebee high scores, modems and the hearing impaired, the Atari 800 attract mode, databases that work with the 10MB SupraDrive, and more.
    • Product Reviews – Reviews of video Vegas from Baudville, Mercenary from Datasoft, Wizard’s Crown (an RPG from SSI), Fight Night from Accolade, and Gettysburg from SSI.
    • New Products – New products this month include News Station desktop publishing software, Rambo: First Blood part II from Mindscape, Hollywood Hijinx from Infocom, the Tac5 joystick and Print N Stack paper tray/stand from Suncom, Mail Order Monsters from Electronic Arts, the Midwest Computer Camp, and InSyst! Version 3.0 business software.
    • Tech Tips – Short BASIC program routines to return 18 possible values from the joystick port, generate the famous Atari Rainbow effect, and a software driver for the Hardware Key project from the August 1986 issue.

    ST Resource

    • Pathways Uncovered – File handling on the Atari ST, including creating folders or sub-directories.
    • ST Reviews – Reviews of The Pinball Factory from Michtron, Silent Service from MicroProse, Black Cauldron from Sierra On-Line, and Universe II from Omnitrend Software.
    • ST Product News – New products this month include Trivia Challenge, Backup!, and Pinball Factory from Michtron; HiSoft BASIC Compiler, DevPacST macroassembler and Saved! file utility/desk accessory from HiSoft; Accounts, Invoice/Order Processing, and Inventory Control System from Execon; and more.
    • Typesetter Elite – Software that enables you to create and print high resolution pages.

    …and more!


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