Atari ST

Nov 21, 2022
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Current Notes, Redux
Switching gears from the Atari 8-bit, I thought I might start mixing in some Atari ST content. Back in early 1994, I took over as ST Editor for Current Notes magazine, a 65-80 page magazine that covered Atari in all its forms. The magazine only lasted another year or so before it folded in…
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3 years ago · 2 likes · 12 comments · Paul Lefebvre
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Programming in Pascal on the Atari ST
Sticking with the Atari ST for another week, I’d like to talk about the first program I actually made available to the world. I had written a lot of stuff for my Atari ST by 1991, primarily using Personal Pascal and GFA BASIC. One app that I liked enough to actually polish and finish was JumpSTART, an app launcher. Here you can see it in monochrome…
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3 years ago · 5 likes · 12 comments · Paul Lefebvre
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Removing Protective Film from SM124 Monitor
Watch now (14 sec) | Everyone loves to pull off the protective film that covers hardware labels. It’s just so satisfying! Well, it turned out the Atari SM124 monochrome monitor I acquired last fall still had its film over the label! So here is its removal for your viewing pleasure…
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2 years ago · 4 likes · 1 comment · Paul Lefebvre
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The Computer Chronicles: Atari ST
Back in the 80s, The Computer Chronicles was a great computer show on PBS hosted by Stewart Cheifet and Gary Kildall. They covered a wide variety of topics in the blossoming computer world and had a few episodes where they talked about Atari. Here are the ones I could find…
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2 years ago · 1 like · Paul Lefebvre
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From Atari 8-bit to Atari ST
When I started college as a Computer Science major in the late 80s, I was still using our Atari 800XL. I remember the first time I turned in a Pascal assignment using it and the professor wrote on the printout “what computer is this?” for an example that was supposed to show a division by 0 error, but in Kyan Pascal instead just showed 0…
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2 years ago · 8 likes · 4 comments · Paul Lefebvre
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A Brief History of Atari, Part 2
Be sure to read A Brief History of Atari, Part 1 if you haven’t already. It covers the inception of Atari, including the creation of the VCS and 8-bit computers. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the final installment of A Brief History of Atari next week…
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2 years ago · 2 likes · 2 comments · Paul Lefebvre
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A Brief History of Atari, Part 3
Be sure to read A Brief History of Atari, Part 1 and A Brief History of Atari, Part 2 if you haven’t already. They cover the inception of Atari, including the creation of the VCS and 8-bit computers and then the arrival of the Tramiels and the ST computers. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t other great articles like this…
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2 years ago · 5 likes · 3 comments · Paul Lefebvre
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The Delphi Forum
When I started as the ST Editor for Current Notes in March 1994, one of the columns I started was called “The Delphi Forum”. As I was pretty active in the Delphi Atari community back then, it made sense to write about it. One of the cool things about Delphi was that it was providing access to the wider internet. Back then online services were largely islands and could not talk to each other. Although the world wide web had been invented a few years earlier it was not in common use, mostly because there were so few ways to get access to the internet itself. This would change rapidly in the coming years…
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2 years ago · 1 like · Paul Lefebvre
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STatus: Atari (from Current Notes April 1994)
This is my column from Current Notes, April 1994. In this issue I talk about UNIX, Windows, Falcons, Shareware and more. Monday posts such as this one are available to paid subscribers. Friday posts are available to everyone. If you’d like to get access to the Monday posts and other cool things…
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2 years ago · 1 like · Paul Lefebvre
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Houston Area Atari Computer Enthusiasts Newsletter
While digging through a box of my Current Notes stuff, I came across a newsletter sent to me from the Houston Area Atari Computer Enthusiasts (HACE) back in 1995. They sent me the September 1994 issue of Update Atari, a 12-page newsletter which has topics on MIDI, EditTrack Platinum, LDW Power, and the XSRAM column with news, rumors and opinions…
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2 years ago · 4 likes · Paul Lefebvre
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Atari ST Magazine Advertisements
Some of these early Atari ST ads are a bit over the top in their not-so-subtle patriotism angle. This ended up being ironic when the Atari ST became much more successful outside the US, particularly in Europe. Many of these ads show off the advertising style of the 80s, which tended to be a bit wordy, especially compared to today…
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2 years ago · 2 likes · Paul Lefebvre
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Atari ST PC Emulation
When the Atari ST was first introduced in 1985, it was pretty groundbreaking. It was the first computer with a color graphical user interface, it had a lot of memory for the time (512K) and was speedy, running at 8Mhz. Eventually the 1040ST model appeared which upped the RAM to a full 1MB. Because of the speed and RAM, people soon realized it was possibl…
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2 years ago · 7 likes · Paul Lefebvre
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Squish II Review (Current Notes)
This is my April 1994 review of Trace Technologies’ Software’s Squish II app, which compresses executables to save space on drives. This mattered more in the early 1990s when hard drive space was limited. I remember I only had a 105MB hard drive and it had cost hundreds of dollars ($400…
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2 years ago · 2 likes · 3 comments · Paul Lefebvre
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Atari ST Multitasking
This article is from Current Notes, May 1994 (Volume 14, Number 4). This was my second issue as ST editor. At this time I was using an Atari Mega STe, loaded up with 4MB RAM. I used it for lots of things, including schoolwork and was familiar with the various multitasking operating systems available at the time. This article was an attempt at a new column, called First STeps that was to introduce new topics. In this first (and only!) column of this type I covered Geneva, which I had been beta testing since the previous summer, MultiTOS and MiNT…
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2 years ago · 3 likes · Paul Lefebvre
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Missing the Atari Mega STe
In 1991 I added an external hard drive to my 1040ST, but after doing so I was really starting to hit the ceiling of the 1 MB of RAM. Because my 1040ST already had the pc-ditto II board in it there was no way for me to also install a RAM upgrade. By the summer of 1992 I had decided I really…
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2 years ago · 7 likes · 2 comments · Paul Lefebvre
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STatus Atari (May 1994)
This is my STatus: Atari column from the May 1994 issue of Current Notes. In it I talk about the HACE newsletter, Commodore, Falcon030, New Purchases and more.This is a Monday paid post. Become a paid subscriber to read this and get other perks. Friday posts are free…
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2 years ago · 1 like · Paul Lefebvre
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STatus: Atari (Aug/Sep 1994)
After not having a column in the June/July issue, I returned in the August/September issue with more news. One that Commodore had just filed for bankruptcy and the other that Current Notes was now going bimonthly. Plus a notable resignation from Atari…
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2 years ago · 1 like · Paul Lefebvre
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Going Online in the Early 90s, Part 1
Back in 1991, the internet was not the thing you know it as today. There was no world wide web (and thus no web sites). There was email, remote connections, file transfer “forums”, but they were all different things and not really connected to one another. To go online then you either connected to a local bulletin board system (BBS) or used a national o…
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2 years ago · 5 likes · 3 comments · Paul Lefebvre
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STatus Atari (Oct/Nov 1994)
In this column I write about the 1994 Connecticut AtariFest. I according to the writeup below, this was the 2nd AtariFest I attended.This is a Monday paid post. Become a paid subscriber to read this and get other perks. Friday posts are free. Support Goto 10…
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2 years ago · 1 like · Paul Lefebvre
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Going Online in the Early 90s, Part 2
Last time I talked about first going online using Delphi and GEnie. The story continues… Remote to School Unix Terminals using VT-52 I was still in university at this time, slowly working towards a Computer Science degree I would never quite reach. I lived off-campus and didn’t have a car, so sometimes getting to the computer lab to do assignments on the …
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2 years ago · 5 likes · Paul Lefebvre
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STatus: Atari (March/April 1995)
This was my last Current Notes column. Current Notes would cease publishing in the next issue (May/June 1995) and Joe decided to make it a retrospective, bringing back lots of prior writers for the finale. Someone else was supposed to “take over” Current Notes (one of the writers, Howard Carson), but I was not a part of that. I was never contacted about the new version and from what I could see, only a single subsequent issue was published (and it had the wrong volume information…
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2 years ago · 1 like · Paul Lefebvre
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Finding an Atari 1040ST
After slowly getting back into retrocomputing with my Atari 800XL (and now 130XE), I decided I also wanted to re-acquire an Atari ST. In early 2021 I started by first looking where anyone might: eBay. This is a free post. For even more posts and special perks…
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2 years ago · 1 like · 3 comments · Paul Lefebvre
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Collecting C Compilers
I was in college for most of my Atari ST days. Since I used C a lot at school for many projects (Unix with gcc typically), I naturally started collected C compilers for the ST. In the ST world, Laser C was probably the most popular C compiler, at least in the late 80s. This was a newer version of the Megamax C compiler that came to the ST from the Macintosh back in 1986 or so…
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2 years ago · 3 likes · 3 comments · Paul Lefebvre
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Returning to Retro Computing
End of an Era By 1995 I had been working professionally as a software developer for about a year, mostly doing DOS development, but using Microsoft Windows (and OS/2). In 1995, my poor Mega STe was showing its age. Although it was maxed out with 4MB RAM, its 16Mhz CPU was falling way behind current computers. At this point I primarily used it with Usenet to sell (manually, auction-style, pre-eBay) retro video game stuff I would buy at local flea markets and pawn shops…
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2 years ago · 1 like · Paul Lefebvre
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Computing Costs in the Day
Believe it or not, the cost of computing has dropped dramatically since the early days. It’s fun to look back at early computing to see how things were done back then, but one thing that is often overlooked is what things actually cost. You’ll see people complain today about how expensive a Mac Pro ($6,000) or some software is today but let’s take a look…
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2 years ago · 6 likes · 4 comments · Paul Lefebvre
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Annotated Commentary about the 1986 Byte Atari 1040ST Product Preview
In March 1986, Byte devoted its cover to the Atari 1040ST and included a rather lengthy article about it, which they called a product preview. I have this physical magazine and I’ve re-read this article countless times. It was my go-to reference for the Atari ST before I was finally able to purchase my own…
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2 years ago · 4 likes · Paul Lefebvre
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LCDs vs. CRTs
These days most computer displays (and TVs) are LCDs. But not too long ago, everything was a CRT. Let’s talk a bit about the difference and what the pros/cons are for using with retrocomputing. This is a Monday paid post. Friday posts are free. If you’d like access to this post and many others (plus…
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2 years ago · 1 like · 2 comments · Paul Lefebvre
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Tower of Atari
Squeezed into my tiny office is my collection of Atari computers. At the bottom is an Atari 1040ST, above it an 800XL, above that a 130XE and then finally at the top is my Atari CC1010 calculator. Don’t miss out on the Goto 10 Year-End Sale! Save 20% on a paid yearly subscription to get access to extra posts and…
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2 years ago · 5 likes · Paul Lefebvre

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