Atari ST 40th Anniversary

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The Atari ST was announced at the 1985 Winter Consumer Electronics show in the first week of January, making this month the 40th anniversary of its introduction to the world.

There had been rumors circulating that Atari was going to announce a 16-bit computer at CES, but the specifics were not widely known. All Atari would say is “wait for CES”.

For CES, Atari spared no expense with the ST’s introduction. As describe in the April 1985 issue of Compute! magazine, Atari even had an impressive display for those on their way to CES from the airport:

Atari boss Jack Tramiel set the tone for this trade show even before visitors arrived at their Las Vegas hotels. On desert land rented from the Howard Hughes estate along the route from the airport. Atari erected a series of huge Burma Shave-style billboards that declared:

PCjr, $599: IBM, Is This Price Right?

Macintosh, $2195: Does Apple Need This Big A Bite?

Atari Thinks They're Out Of Sight

Welcome To Atari Country

— Regards, Jack.

This was a remarkable turnaround as just one year earlier Jack was at CES touting the terrible Commodore 264/364 computers that would become the Plus/4 flop. And then a few days later he left Commodore (or was fired depending on the source).

He eventually acquired Atari in July 1984 and in just six short months had a prototype of a 16-bit computer ready to introduce at CES. Truly this was an impressive achievement by the engineering team!

Atari technically introduced two ST computers at CES: the 130ST and the 520ST¹. The 130ST was to be a lower-cost version with just 128K of RAM, compared to the 512K in the 520ST. But the 130ST never became a real product. It took longer to get the OS condensed down to fit on a 192K ROM and thus there was no practical way to even boot a 130ST with its piddling 128K of RAM. I think it also quickly became evident that 128K was not really a suitable amount of RAM for a 16-bit GUI computer, as proven by the Macintosh that shipped the prior year and was constantly dogged bits its measly 128K of RAM.

Atari’s new slogan was “Power Without the Price”, which is actually pretty clever and still resonates to this day. Reporting at the time also liked to refer to the ST as “Jackintosh”, which even then was a dumb, bad pun.

Atari ended up being the star of the Winter 1985 CES, at least when it came to computers, completely overshadowing Commodore and and Coleco, who had pulled out of the home computer business at the last minute. From ANALOG’s coverage:

Sure, Coleco was there with a huge exhibit, right across from the Atari booth. Coleco announced just a few days before the show that they were getting out of the home computer business. Seems as if the Adam has been chased out of the home computer Garden of Eden. Anyway, I guess somebody forgot to tell the unfortunate Coleco employees that their company was no longer in the computer business. They spent a lot of their time standing around and talking amongst themselves.

Commodore did announce the 128 at this CES, but the Amiga was only shown privately and would not be officially announced until July.

Also shown at the 1985 Winter CES was a little something called the Nintendo Advance Video System, which would go on to become the Nintendo Entertainment System and end up being slightly more popular that the Atari ST.

At CES, Atari claimed the ST would be available in the 2nd quarter of 1985 and they surprisingly did make that, if just barely.

Press Response

Shortly after CES Atari re-introduced its in-house magazine, Atari Connection, as Atari Explorer and the first issue had a big spread on the new Atari computers.

They actually used the 130ST case for the two-page photo! This being the home magazine, it was obviously very biased and little more than fancy advertising.

ANALOG also got an early scoop in their March 1985 issue:

In July they were able to give first impressions of their development system:

As mentioned above, Compute! covered CES in their April 1985 issue and focused mostly on the Atari and the ST. They wrote:

Some people are starting to refer to Tramiel as the Lee lacocca of the personal computer industry, but The New Atari still has a long way to go. Haunted by the biggest corporate losses since Chrysler's dim days — and without the safety net of government loans — Atari is betting everything on the success of its new machines.

Creative Computing had this to say:

When these prices became known, many computer experts said, "great, if he can do it." This is a disguised compliment to Tramiel; had anyone else in the industry announced machines with these capabilities at such prices, we would have heard a flat "it can't be done."

Antic had a first look at the new “Atari super computers” in the April 1985 issue:

I think press was mostly positive regarding the ST. I think people were hoping for another Commodore 64 situation with the ST selling many millions as a low-cost GUI computer.

Pricing

The Atari 520ST was announced with a price of $600 for just the computer itself. Display and a floppy drive were separately priced. Before the ST was actually released, it was instead (wisely) decided to sell it in two bundles because the computer was useless on its own:

• 520ST, 360K floppy, monochrome display: $800

• 520ST, 360K floppy, RGB display: $1000

Those prices were jaw-droppingly low in 1985 for a 16-bit GUI computer, but you also might find surprising when converted to 2024 dollars: $2300 and $2900, respectively. Even cheap computers were expensive in the 80s! For comparison, an equivalent Macintosh (without color) was about $2400 or about $7000 in 2024.

The ST started shipping in the US in late June and early July, beating the Amiga to market by a few months.

CES Footage

Here is a short video recording of an unknown announcer at CES (clearly reading from a spec sheet) highlighting the new ST computers:

The new Atari Corp this week establishes a revolutionary measure of price/performance for easy to use and affordable 16/32-bit personal computers. The new 130ST and 520ST are specifically engineered to deliver to the individual consumer incredible power without the price.

The powerful and affordable 130ST and 520ST personal computers utilize a 16/32-bit MC68000 microprocessor and are packed with 131,000 bytes or RAM and 524,000 bytes of RAM respectively.

They both have 512 available brilliant colors for excellent graphics -and to complement the ST family of computers, Atari Corp. is introducing a fulllbne of compatible 3.5” disk drives, printers, RGB and color monitors, and other peripherals designed to expand the ST family to meet the individual’s needs.

GEM from Digital Research is built into every ST. GEM is the special feature of the ST family which makes the Atari 130ST and 520ST personal computers easy to use and easy to learn.

GEM provides the desktop metaphor and eliminates the need to use operating system commands.

Software written for the GEM environment includes such features as overlapping windows, drop-down menus and icons along with along with support for pointing devices such as a mouse.

With GEM’s visual software-oriented user interface even computer novices can quickly become comfortable with using the powerful ST family of personal computers.

While all this being said, you can see video of GEM being used in the background, with random clicking on things. This GEM screen seems to be in color and also seems to be in much high resolution than the Atari color (medium) resolution. The actual icons and GUI elements also don’t look exactly like the ST. It almost seems like this might be the PC version being shown.

The announcement continues:

But that’s not all! The ST’s MIDI, (M-I-D-I) the industry standard Music Instrument Digital Interface, controls up to 16 different electronic instruments. The intelligence of a computer combined with today’s electronic music opens up the world of automated music lessons, digital composition and storage, and computer printed scores for amateurs and professionals.

The ST computer turns a simple electronic keyboard into a recording studio at a price that is within the reach of millions. It is on display today in the Atari ST demo room connected to a very advanced keyboard.

The design of the keyboard, meaning the computer keyboard, makes the ST computer a natural for serious applications like word processing and spreadsheets. There is a typewriter keyboard, a numeric touchpad, editing and cursor control keys and 10 special function keys.

Atari has also included… a little bit of entertainment. Breakout. So while you’re toiling away the hours working hard to make sure that you’re successful, and you need a little break, you can just bring up this nice little desk accessory and take your mind off things a bit.

But when the boss comes around quickly change over, lay that other piece of paper on there, and go back to look like you’re getting something accomplished!

But of course, when he’s gone you can go right back to where the game was and proceed.

So enjoy yourselves this week. Atari is pleased to have you as a guest in our booth. And please meet with all our demonstrators: the Atari 130XEs are off to my right demonstrating the fabulous Infinity, Silent Butler and other application packages.

Off to my far left is the 65XE carousel. We’ve got the new learning phone which accesses the PLATO database on the most affordable computer and replaces the $10,000 expensive PLATO terminals.

We have many other examples of good education software there.

In the center kiosk you’ll find the 130ST and 520ST. Please take the time to talk to the gentlemen that are there — they have worked many long, hard hours to bring this product to you.

The segment about Breakout was really strange!

The ST would of course go on to become pivotal to my career in software. It’s hard to believe 40 years have passed!

Happy 40th Anniversary, Atari ST!

1. They also introduced the 8-bit 65XE and 130XE as well as announced the 65XEM (XE Music computer)which never was released.