What's so great about the Atari ST?

This article by William Blair appeared in several magazines and newsletters in early 1986¹. I really thought it captured the vibes of Atari at the time. The ST was well-received and Atari was really starting to turn things around in 1986, which might have been the most positive year for news, sales and the overall Atari experience.

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What’s so great about the Atari ST?

SO WHAT'S SO GREAT ABOUT AN ATARI?

By WIliam Blair

[Mr. Blair, an avid Atari fan, has compiled an impress/ve brochure on the ST, almed primarily at 8-bit computer users thinking about ugrading to a more powerful machine. I found the report very interesting and thought our readers would enjoy it as well. By the way, I have added some excerpts from the BYTE magazine reviews which were not available when Mr. Blair sent in his report. Ed.]

520ST PUBLICITY

CreatIve Computing's October 1985 issue featured the 520ST in its cover story with the first review of this system in a major independent computer publication. Their reaction? Here are a few excerpts: "Without question, the most advanced, most powerful microcomputer your money can buy... designed to move the power of machines costing thousands of dollars into the range a middle class consumer can afford... fairly positioned to blow the Amiga right out of the water... The Atari ST delivers 75% of the splendor of the desktop interface at 25% of the price of a 512K MacIntosh."

Computel magazine, also in the October 1985 issue, said: "The [disk] drive is very impressive...and is the fastest floppy we've ever seen. In It appears to be faster than hard disks on the Macintosh. The monitor, too, is stunning. It refreshes the screen at 70 hertz instead of 60 hertz, displaying a super-sharp image that looks like a sheet of paper with crisp lettering."

From Infoworld²: "Our [1985] Hardware Value of the Year [award] goes to the 520ST, a product whose makers pride themselves on providing quality for a low price. Indeed, what last year was available only on machines costing $2500 and up can now be had for less than $1000. The power of a 68000 microprocessor, the ease of an Icon-based graphic user interface, and the ability to do serious work is available this year for the cost of last year's toy...Atari 520ST, an amazing machine for the price."

John Dvorak in InfoWorld: "I recently got to play with an Atari 520ST and found it to be a super little machine for the money. The keyboard felt good and the new teflon lubricated mouse felt great. If I were to look at the Atari 520ST and the Amiga and choose the winner in a head-on battle, I'd have to pick the Atari. The Amiga simply doesn't offer that much more performance or features. Also, the techies seem to be headed toward the Atari."

More John Dvorak in the San Francisco Examiner: "A battle is brewing between the Amiga computer... and the Atari 520ST. I pick the Atarl as the winner in this fight...The primary influence peddlers are voting against . I know at least three people who have quit their jobs to work on software for the Atari, One person I know folded his newsletter so he could concentrate on software for the Atarl... I'm voting with him.”

Steve Panak of ANALOG Computing magazine: "The 520ST. Saw my first game on it, and the graphics are spectacular. That's an understatement; it yields true arcade quality...The Amiga. After months of publicity, I finally saw one. First impression: I'm not the least bit worried for Atari."

Byte's Editor-in-Chief, Phil Lemmons, visited Atari’s engineering and software departments in August and had this to say afterword:

"I visited Atari yesterday and got my first really good look at the ST520. I'm extremely impressed. Graphics are fast and first-rate. The most important thing is that all of the I/O happens so fast. It's hard to believe that this is a low-end machine... Got a pretty good tour through the development labs, and can tell you that the 32-bit workstation is not a myth. Also saw some clever refinements of the desktop on the ST520. Atari is really trying to deliver on its promise of “power without the price” and I think they’re going to pull it off… the ST520 is going to invigorate the drowsy marketplace."

According to Byte reporter Jerry Pournelle at COMDEX, the "story" of the giant computer show was the 520ST. Bruce Webster, Byte columnist, said on the Byte Information Exchange network (BIX): “In my January [1986] column, I picked the 520ST to be the big winner of 1986 because of its price/performance ratio.”

In the January, 1986, issue of Byte, Ion Edwards, PhiIlip Robinson, and Brenda McLaughin gave us their first impressions of the new 520ST: "For many years the public has equated the Atari name with arcade games and joysticks. In truth, the Atari 400/800/XL computer line is technically at least comparable if not better than other 8-bit machines, so it should not be a surprise that the company’s latest venture, the 520ST, is a competitive 68000 system. Indeed, we are most impressed with the clarity of the graphics, with the speed of the disk I/O (input/output), and with the 520ST’s value.”

Two months later, Byte magazine featured the new 1040ST on its cover. In his editorial, Phil Lemmons comments:

"The Atari 1040ST is one of the great milestones in personal computing. For the first time, we can buy a 16-bit machine with 1 megabyte of RAM, 720K bytes of floppy-disk storage, a good monitor, and a mouse, all for less than $1000. The operating system, TOS, is fully in ROM. though screen memory and systems software make some demands on RAM, most of the megabyte really does belong to the programmer, and therefore to the user. Given its price and power, the Atari 1040ST is the first personal computer that offers programmers the hardware resources needed to make the computer accessible, responsive, and useful to millions of nontechnical people who have yet to use computers."

Personal Computing says: "The 520ST is noticeably faster than the Macintosh, not only because of the faster clock rate, but also because it has a faster disk drive... The ST tops the Mac in screen resolution... The difference is noticeable and allows for more data to be neatly displayed on the screen... The molded plastic mouse works well… It's very smooth and just as easy to use as the Macintosh's mouse — and better than the Amiga's."

The Jeffrles Recont, a respected industry newsletter, chose the ST over the Amiga and even the IBM PC in a head-to-head comparison:

"The big difference between the AtarI ST and the Amiga are price and availability. A 512K Atari color ST at $995 costs about $1000 less than a similar Amiga configuration.”

“If you study the Amiga chip design, It Is obvious that they Intended this to be a super fancy video game machine… That's the nub of the Amiga vs. Atari confronta-tion: Amiga was designed three years ago as a $700 hot video game computer. When the market went south, they scratched their heads and decided to “reposition” their video game computer as a serious business computer. Good luck.”

“An Atari ST with a fast 68000 processor, a whopping 512KB of RAM, a cute little 3.5 inch disk, excellent bit-mapped display, friendly GEM user interface, and CD-ROM 550 megabyte optical disk with an interactive encyclopedia sounds lIke exactly what the market needs. Contrast this to the Amiga, which costs about twice as much! sure, upscale Yupple types may not care about the price difference of $1000 (If It costs more, It must be better, right?) but the vast majority of Individuals and small businesses do care about price.”

Jeff Markoff of the San Franc/sco Examiner: “The 520ST’s readily apparent strong point is speed. Compared to the Macintosh, working with the ST is extraordinary.”

And FamIly Computing adds: "With the impressIve 520ST, Atari has delivered on Its promise of "power without the price."

ST CONSUMER NOTES

What do consumers think of the ST? Here is a letter to Atarl Explorer Magazine from Joseph D. Calo:

"As a soon to be orner of an Atarl 520ST, I thought that I'd write and say that It's about time someone - Jack Tramiel et al - came out with a state of the art computer at an affordable price. I've already sold my Commodore 64 system and can't wait to get the 520 home early next year. It's a fantastic machine! I'm looking forward to using It as a word processor-- the major reason why I purchased a computer in the first place… Also, some of my friends have already sold or are selling their systems to purchase this unit. In fact, many that had planed to purchase the new Commodore 128 have changed their minds and have either already purchased or will be purchasing the 520 in the future. Thanks again to Jack and to all those who helped develop this excellent computer.”

Here Is a note from Steven Bubulsky that was posted on CompuServe:

“Well, I’ve had my ST for a month now, and was beginning to think that I might have made an error in not waiting for and buying an Amiga. Ah, victim of HYPE… I had a couple of hours with the Amiga today, and while the Amiga was good: nice graphics and all... It sure was not worth the price difference between it and a similar ST. thought the Intuition system screens were 'messy' to look at; GEM on the ST is much more pleasant to look at and work with. The monitor output on the ST seems cleaner to me. The fabled Mandrill picture on the Amiga was impressive, but the flicker was distracting. All of the sudden, this AtarI ST looks awfully nice to me. I think I'll take the extra $1100 I just reallzed that I saved and buy some nice software...and maybe a nice MIDI instrument to play with the ST. Nice work, Jack and Atari! I won't have to sleep with an inferiority complex."

What sort of people buy the ST? According to InfoWorId's research "its typical buyer is a veteran computer user… Typical buyers have also been small business men and writers... most of whom are trading up from a Commodore 84, Apple II, or even an IBM PC.”

NO HOLDS BARRED COMPARISON

We are constantly asked to give a comparison between the ST and the competition. You asked for it, you've got

CPU SPEED: The ST uses the same 68000 microprocessor that is used in the Macintosh and Amiga computers, a far more powerful processor than the old 8-bit 6502 family of chips used in the Apple Il series and the Commodore 64 and 128. In the ST, the 68000 processor runs at 8.01 million cycles per second (8.01 MHz). The Macintosh is second at 7.83 MHz, the Amiga next at 7.16 MHz, and the IBM PC/AT dead last at only 6.00 MHz. 8-bit computers like the Commodore 128 run at a only 2 MHz, the C64 at a mere 1 MHz³.

MONOCHROME VIDEO DISPLAY: The ST can display 640 pixels per line and 400 Fines in high resolution monochrome. The Macintosh displays 540 by 340, roughly two-thirds the number of pixels. The IBM PC/AT has a 640 by 200 display, only half the ST's resolution. The Amiga has no monochrome mode, nor does the Commodore 128. Because monochrome monitors do not have something called a shadow mask, a necessary evil in all color monitors, they produce a much sharper display that is far easier on the eyes.

COLOR VIDEO DISPLAY: The ST has two color modes, 640 by 200 resolution with four colors and 320 by 200 with 16 colors — colors may be selected from the 512 that the ST can generate. Using a built-In feature called horizontal blank Interrupts, all 512 colors can be displayed simultaneously in either mode. The Macintosh has no color capability. The IBM PC/AT has a 320 by 200 16 color mode (actually two shades of elght colors). The Amiga can go up to 640 by 400 with 16 colors using a flickering interlaced display, or 640 by 200 to get a stable picture with 32 colors.

SOUND AND MUSIC: The ST Includes a 3-voice sound chip with a frequency range from 30Hz to beyond the 20kHz audible limit. It features an Independent volume control for each channel, programmable envelope shaping (ADSR), and phasing capabilities similar to those of the SID chip in the Comnodore 64 and 128. Although the ST's sound chip is not as capable as the sound chip in the Amiga, the extremely low prIce of the ST allows one to purchase It and an extremely sophisticated synthesizer (such as the Casio CZ101) for much less than the cost of an Amiga alone. Simply plug the synthesizer into the MIDI port on the ST and you've got sound that puts the sound capabilitles of the Amiga or any other personal computer to shame.

FLOPPY DISK ACCESS: The ST's 3.5 Inch disk drives transfer data to or from the 520ST at 31K bytes per second (over one hundred times faster than the Commodore 64's 300 bytes per second). The ST has been measured to access the disk between 40% and 50% faster than the IBM PC/AT. The disk speed is several times faster than the Amiga or the Macintosh. Both SS/DD and DS/DD drives are available for the ST with formatted storage capacities of 360K and 720K respectively⁴.

HARD DISK ACCESS: The ST DMA port is capable of moving up to 1.33 million bytes of data per second -- this is so fast that there are currently no hard disks available that will transfer data at that rate! No other computer has a comparable port.

PRICE: The 520ST system retails for $795 with monochrome monitor or $995 with RGB color monitor. This price includes, a 3.5 inch SS/DD disk drive (DS/DD optional), RGB monitor, 512K RAM, 192K ROM, Centronics parallel and RS232C serial ports, floppy disk controller, and MIDI interface. A comparable Amiga color system is $1995, including an extra 256K of RAM (to bring the RAM up to 512K) and an RGB color monitor, without any MIDI or cartridge ports. The Macintosh system (without color, of course) is over $2000, also without MIDI or cartridge ports. The IBM PC/AT system with bit-mapped color graphics and I/0 ports is well over $3000. And a Commodore 128, while not even close in any respect to being in the 520ST's performance category, costs exactly the same amount as an ST; $899 with keyboard, 1902 monitor, and 1571 disk drive.

The 520ST system components can also be purchased separately. The 520ST keyboard, CPU, and mouse cost $299.

The keyboard unit has both composite and RF modulated video outputs In addition to its RGB output, so it can use a normal TV set or composite monitor as a display. The SS/DD 3.5 inch disk drive costs an additional $199 and the RGB color and monochrome monitors — not required if a TV set or composite monitor is to be used — cost $399 and $199, respectIvely.

ST TECHNICAL FACTS

THE BEST TEXT DISPLAY ON ANY PERSONAL COMPUTER for practical applications is found on Atari's SM124 monitor. This high resolution monochrome nonitor provides true 640 by 400 pixel resolution with astounding clarIty using an Atari exclusive video signal that refreshes the screen 70 times per second with a broader bandwidth signal than other system. Other computers have to “cheat” to get that kind of resolution, cutting down the screen refresh to only 30 times per second and delIvering a picture with noticeable flicker. The ST's crisp Image provides hours of comfortable viewing.

THE FASTEST INTERFACE ON ANY PERSONAL COMPUTER is the ST's hard disk port. This is actually a direct-memory-access (DMA) Interface that provides data transfer rates at an unprecedented 1.33 million bytes per second for a varIety of devices. In addition to the ST's optional 20 megabyte hard disk ($699), this port will simultaneously accommodate high performance add-ons like the CD-ROM, the planned 32-bit coprocessor, the IBM PC emulator, high-speed hard copy peripherals, and local area networks⁵.

DESIGNED TO BRING THE FULL POWER OF THE CPU TO YOU. Of the major 68000 based systems (and we include Apple's Macintosh and Commodore's Amiga), the ST personal computer system is the only one that runs the cpu at its full 8 MHz. In addition, the system architecture of the ST ensures that the cpu can run constantly and is not bogged down by graphics, sound, or I/0 processing. While it is claimed that the Amiga's CPU does not have to intervene when the machine manipulates graphics, what they don't tell you is that many graphics and bait operations effectively turn the CPU off — the CPU doesn’t intervene, it just goes to sleep! Technically this is known as putting the CPU into a wait state. On the ST, the special video and I/O circuits give the CPU the ability to work during other operations⁶. After all, what is a computer really used for — processing (by the CPU) and communications with other devices (I/O), which his precisely where the ST’s hardware shines — it is much faster than even much more expensive machines like Apple’s Lisa and IBM’s PCs.

FOUR CUSTOM CHIPS ENHANCE THE ST'S CPU POWER. The DMA chip makes disk access to both floppy disk and hard disk port instantaneous as far as the CPU is concerned. The video shifter, memory manager, and "glue" chip work in concert to make sure the system timing is synchronized so that the graphics operations take no time from the CPU — in fact, the ST RAM chips are operated twice as fast as the CPU can access them, so the video chips can access them between CPU accesses⁷.

FINAL COMMENTS

Perhaps the best confirmation of the superior price/performance ratio of the 520ST comes from a major Commodore dealer. The following was downloaded from CompuServe's OnLIne Today section on December 12, 1985: "In a letter to midwestern computer owners, a well-known Commodore retailer has blasted the manufacturer's marketing strategy. The retailer, Paul Orme of DigitalWorld, has decided to go on the offensive in explaining his firm's decision not to market the Amiga. According to Orme, Commodore Is "afraid of letting us demonstrate it [the Amiga] next to the Atari 520ST." The president of the suburban Chicago store went on to explain that he wasn't all that impressed with the Amiga… Orme said that the Amiga compares poorly with the Atari and the new Epson Equality computer "dollar for dollar and feature for feature." To prove his point, Orme is setting up an Amiga machine "not to sell" but so that potential buyers can see what "Commodore Itself, knew - the Amiga Is no match for the Atari.”

There is certainly a lot of hype in these quotes and summaries, but seeing that a lot of it came from the computing press at the time, it certainly demonstrates that in 1986, Atari was flying high!

1. Looks to me like it was in Current Notes and ST World.

2. I don’t have an issues of InfoWorld and don’t really remember reading it back in the 80s.

3. The Atari 8-bit computers used a 6502 running at 1.8Mhz.

4. Not commonly known at the time was that the ST disk format was also compatible with 3.5 PC DOS disks.

5. None of these really appeared as promised.

6. I’m not so sure that this accurately describes how the Amiga worked.

7. I believe this interleaved memory access is also similar to how the C64 worked.