The Atari ST

[Lindopski]

Hello again all, it was my birthday on the 1st and I have squandered some of my funds yet again on Ebay, this time winning :O an Atari ST.
I have bid on St's about 30 times on the bay and always been outbid even when I go up to £50 so I was very chuffed to get this one for £19 odd
The actual machine is an Atari 1040 STE with Steinberg Pro 24 III Dongle
sounds like something to do with midi which will be cool as my current serial cable based pc to dx-7 setup is unresponsive. I hear the ST is good at midi.

Anyway I am an Amiga boy so I know little about the ST , heck I know more about the Dragon 32 than I do about the ST so what have I bought here.
What games are good , What software is good,What peripherals do I need and what are its main good/bad points.
Is a 1040 STE ok? or an old heap lol.

[revgiblet]

The STE is a solid machine. Defender of the Crown is better on the ST than the Amiga so get that.

[paranoid marvin]

be careful as a number of games don't work on STE

Not many games to reccomend buying for ST which aren't available/better on Amiga .

DOTC is one ,as already mentioned,and I think Fernandez Must Die is another (a bit like Commando with vehicles)

[SirClive]

Kick off 2, though you probably played it on the Miga.

[deano7649]

Dogs Of War, brilliant game, although a total rip off of Ikari Warriors.

Spent hours playin this game back in the 90's. You can't beat a bit of mindless violence !

[Antiriad2097]

The 1040 STE is a good buy. As mentioned, there are a few of the older games that won't run on it, but there are also some STE only ones (I forget off the top of my head - Zero 5 is one I think).

STE has DMA stereo sound ability and a hardware blitter, so its much closer to the Amiga spec. In real terms, that means much better sampled sound playback and smooth hardware scrolling.

It also has standard SIMM slots for memory, so its easy to upgrade (max 4Mb iirc).

A second external floppy is useful. Not sure about hard drives as they were too expensive for me at the time.

I'd need to have a think about ST only games, I've forgotten so many.

[mel the bell]

as for midi

yeah the st was the best for midi, with an st, monitor and stienberg cubase you had the basic setup, just add a couple of keyboards and off you go

my mate used to make acid techno tracks on his St in the early 90s, and half the pop charts used em i believe, in the 80s and very early 90s

[Lindopski]

fantastic , I wasnt sure of the whole STE STFM thing or what it meant.
I have loads of old simms taken out of an amiga 1500 that died on me a few years back wonder if they will work , ill not mess till I learn a bit more though first.
Ill have to browse that Atari World or whatever its called to learn a bit more.
I currently use an old serial cable midi device on my pc and it is unresponsive and rubbish , though My DX-7 keyboard should link in nice to the ST , I think its coming with some software and one of the titles looks like Cubase so that'll be good.
as for games , I am sure the ST is very similar to the Amiga so Ill be pleased anyway. Were there any ST specific games that didnt make the Amy that I should look out for , as long as they work on STE that is

[mel the bell]

fantastic , I wasnt sure of the whole STE STFM thing or what it meant.
I have loads of old simms taken out of an amiga 1500 that died on me a few years back wonder if they will work , ill not mess till I learn a bit more though first.
Ill have to browse that Atari World or whatever its called to learn a bit more.
I currently use an old serial cable midi device on my pc and it is unresponsive and rubbish , though My DX-7 keyboard should link in nice to the ST , I think its coming with some software and one of the titles looks like Cubase so that'll be good.
as for games , I am sure the ST is very similar to the Amiga so Ill be pleased anyway. Were there any ST specific games that didnt make the Amy that I should look out for , as long as they work on STE that is

yeah the ST and amiga are very similer
as in their both 16 bit
and have the same sort of games released for em, with the odd differences

dungeon masters one game you need (if it plays on the ste)
thats the only problem, stfms were the earlier versions, that played everything, stes were later, trouble is not all older games ran on it, but it did have exclusives just for it too i believe

tbh my brains all rusty on the names of atari st games, i aint had mine out of the loft for years, and only have a few games i managed to get back after selling my original one back in the day

[revgiblet]

Towards the end of its life there was an ST only FPS that was supposed to be pretty good but I can't remember what it was called. I want to say 'Marathon' but I think that was actually a Mac only FPS. Anyone remember it? In fact, was it set in an undersea base? That rings some bells.

[Antiriad2097]

Substation. I have a demo of it kicking about from a coverdisk, though I never did get the full game as it was mail order. I bought a PS1 shortly after so the ST wasn't used for gaming any more, just work stuff.

[mel the bell]

check out
http://www.atari.st/

[william]

OIDS -damn fine game!,a bit like thrust but better

[Lentini2001]

Rainbow Islands on the ST was a brilliant conversion.

Falcon was pretty good too.

Plus any of the Magnetic Scrolls adventure games if you like that sort of thing.

[TMR]

One that springs to mind as a great ST game is Wings Of Death by Thalion, in fact any of theirs is worth a look since they specialised in ST software for much of their lifespan. Another of theirs, Enchanted Land, came highly recommended by the ST afficionados i hung around with back in the day and was written by the Care Bears, a major name in the ST demo scene.