Advice on Atari ST and Amiga

[akator]

Years ago, I was impressed by both the ST and Amiga systems -- but I already had a Mac and was invested in that platform. Back then, a had a few friends with the ST and Amiga and those systems were pretty amazing.

 

I would now like to buy both an ST and an Amiga. After reading a ton of stuff on the web, I still need some feedback.

 

My requirements are the "all-in-one" systems because I love those best.

 

(a) Which of the Atari STs? With my limited knowledge, it seems to me that the 520ST with built-in floppy would be a good choice... or am I wrong? What peripherals do I really need to make it worthwhile? Are there SD card or other multicard solutions readily available?

 

(b) An old friend has recommended the Amiga 1200. That looks cool... but is there anything I would be missing by having a 1992 Amiga instead of an earlier model? Like the STs, I would love more detailed explanation about SD card storage and other options. What is the best modern monitor solution?

 

I never had much experience with either of these systems, and would love to explore them. As mentioned, I've researched the web and old magazines but a lot of understanding requires previous knowledge of the systems and therefore makes it somewhat foreign to me.

 

Thanks in advance for the advice...

[The_Laird]

You really do want a 1040 ST because there are alot of games and other programs that need 1 meg of ram. The 1040 STFM will play pretty much everything except STE only games (of which there are only a few) but there are some older games that don't work on an STE so its really a bit of a coin flip situation.

[Midnight Synergy]

I'd also agree with the 1040STFM - it's a single unit that will do pretty much anything you want game-wise - the built in TV modulator also means you don't have to look for a heavy and potentially costly monitor (although the Colour SC1224 - and especially the B/W SM124 - monitors give a great picture).

 

Games recommendations (either great original titles or lovely conversions):

 

Dungeon Master

OIDS

Typhoon Thompson

Stunt Car Racer

Xenon II

Rainbow Islands

Star Wars The Arcade Game

Carrier Command

Wings of Death

... that's all I can think off right now.

[+wood_jl]

I agree with what everyone has said.

 

I'd say 1040ST.

 

1040STf - floppy built-in and 1MB RAM. Just what you need. No "RF" output though, so you *MUST* use Atari SC1224 monitor with it.

 

1040STfm - m for modulator for TV output but also includes composite video on the monitor jack. I thought this was important but eneded up getting SC1224 anyway, and a spare to boot! So maybe not so important to get composite video??? Nice to have anyway, but you'll find the 1040STfm goes for MUCH MORE because of higher demand than the 1040STf.

 

 

As an aside, the 520STfm was very very popular - with the TV/composite output but it's a real bitch to raise the RAM on any STm/STfm and these are "only" 512k. RAM upgrade will cost WAAAAY more than just buying 1040ST, unless you are a really handy and experienced techie. I have been using 520STm lately and surprised how much does work with 512k, but I would advise to get 1MB. The "HxC Floppy SD Card Floppy Emulator" is a very nice toy for use with the ST; you don't have to store/write a bunch of disks to play 100's of games!

 

The floppy drives on all of this old stuff are subject to failure at this age. Fortuately, you can get Ebay-sourced replacements that require case trimming. Or you can buy a known-working/tested system. Amiga subject to floppy failure as well, unfortunately.

 

As for Amiga, I have only had one - Amiga 1200 - and it had a few bad leaking electrolytic capacitors that ate up the motherboard in spots, so I parted it out, disgusted. This is a common problem with the A1200 and A4000, I have read. If I were to try Amiga again, I would definitely avoid that model. I think the Amiga 500 with 1MB and the floppy emulator (which I already have) might be the way to go. I keep that in the back of my mind. I can't help but like the vintage look of the A1000, either, and would [one day] not mind having one sit next to the old, original 520ST as a counterpart. I don't know how it compares to A500, but I'll bet a lot of people here do.

Edited July 1, 2010 by wood_jl

[TMR]

I think the Amiga 500 with 1MB and the floppy emulator (which I already have) might be the way to go. I keep that in the back of my mind.

 

i've never had that problem with any of my A1200s, so personally i'd go for one with a CF card mounted as a hard disk, at least 4Mb of fast RAM and WHDLoad installed along with lots of games - there aren't many A1200-specific titles, but Pinball Illusions, Slamtilt and Banshee that are pretty decent. i'll be replacing the hard drive in my 8Mb A1200 '030 with CF at some point and i already have a 2Mb A600HD with a CF but WHDLoad isn't officially supported so i've found that lots of titles will just crash and burn on it.

 

I can't help but like the vintage look of the A1000, either, and would [one day] not mind having one sit next to the old, original 520ST as a counterpart. I don't know how it compares to A500, but I'll bet a lot of people here do.

 

From memory, there are some compatibility issues with the A1000 and the last time i used one it almost felt like a prototype machine in some respects. Again for personal preference as far as OCS/ECS machines go, i'd probably plump for an A600 (if you don't want to play anything that needs a numeric keypad they're good and there's the internal IDE for future expansion) with 2Mb of RAM and ReloKick on standby for better compatibility with older games.

[Goochman]

Im going to make a different suggestion and go for a Mega 2 ST. The keyboard and small footprint make it a better system IMHO - plus 2 meg of RAM. The modulator in the 1040STFm is nice with the TV modulator - maybe look for one with 2 meg of RAM.

[+wood_jl]

I think the Amiga 500 with 1MB and the floppy emulator (which I already have) might be the way to go. I keep that in the back of my mind.

 

i've never had that problem with any of my A1200s, so personally i'd go for one with a CF card mounted as a hard disk, at least 4Mb of fast RAM and WHDLoad installed along with lots of games - there aren't many A1200-specific titles, but Pinball Illusions, Slamtilt and Banshee that are pretty decent. i'll be replacing the hard drive in my 8Mb A1200 '030 with CF at some point and i already have a 2Mb A600HD with a CF but WHDLoad isn't officially supported so i've found that lots of titles will just crash and burn on it.

 

You may be lucky enough to have randomly received "good" caps....or maybe they just haven't ruptured yet, and should be changed before they do. This was my first foray into Amiga, and needless to say, left a bad taste in my mouth. Of course, there are many websites documenting this problem, so it's not just my anecdotal experience with this issue..... The surface-mount technology is too delicate for a real amateur to work on, but I'm guessing a man of your experience could fix it in a jiffy. It would be very expensive for me to buy the A1200, find someone (who??) to change the caps and pay them to do it, as well as shipping both ways. These links address the problem:

 

http://joj.home.texas.net/amigacap.html

 

http://eabmobile.abime.net/showthread.php?t=41860

 

So this problem is indeed real. I feel it is real enough for a prospective Amiga buyer to be aware of. In my case, it corroded the mainboard very badly where the surrounding components were attached.

 

I have never heard of this with A500, 2000, 1000. The Amiga 1200 WHDLoad setup was what I was after. Greatly expanding the RAM and adding a CF drive to A500 for an ideal WHDLoad setup is elaborate, and having a huge desktop full of stuff hanging off the "sidecar" port wasn't what I was after. The A1200 seemed so much more practical because of the built-in IDE but I never got that far. However, I thought with the A500 and the floppy emulator, WHDLoad wouldn't be necessary, nor any expansion for the A500 beyond the ubiquitous 1MB upgrade, which most A500s seem to have. A500s are cheap, too.... So that's why I wish I would have gone that route. I'm kind of gunshy of Amigas now, but when I get over it, I'll probably look for a nice 500 for cheap!

[Reptile]

I have been using the ST and Amiga for many years despite my relatively young age.

I have had most Amiga models, the A500, the A500+, the A600, the A1200, A1200T, CDTV...

However I have only ever used the Atari 520STFM.

 

I think unlike the Amiga, it is quite easy to get by with 512k on the ST. Most games from the ST's heyday will work fine on a 520 model.

I would recommend the 520STFM on that basis, it has everything you need, TV out, monitor port etc.

If you need to run 1Meg games then consider the 1040STFM though I have never used one of these I am sure they are good machines.

 

 

On the Amiga side of things, I have had several A1200s, and whilst they are nice machines, I would not recommend them for retro gaming.

They have compatibility issues with a lot of older games. Most games pre-1992 will have problems with an A1200.

 

The original A500 only has 512k memory and the graphics chip is inferior to later models, so I would avoid this model.

The Amiga 500+ has battery leaking issues and not quite as severe compatibility issues as the A1200.

 

I think for classic gaming your best bet is either then Amiga 600 or a 1Mb Amiga 500.

 

For 100% compatibility go for the 500. For a slightly better chipset and a smaller case look at the 600.

 

Hope this helps :-)

 

 

Reptile

Edited July 2, 2010 by Reptile

[+remowilliams]

If you are going for the basic retro experience a 1040STFM and an Amiga 500/600 will do the job. You will be mostly stuck with running stuff directly from floppies however unless you get a device like the HxC SD Floppy Emulator. It's a fantastic device but on the Amiga does not support writing.

 

If you want the deluxe retro gaming experience go with an STE and an Amiga 1200. With the addition of memory and hard drives (or hard drive replacement devices such as the UltraSatan for the STs, and CF cards for the Amiga) and WHDload for the Amiga you can have tons of floppy hassle free gaming. WHDload also solves tons of compatibility issues. I would imagine that getting an Escom Amiga 1200 (like the one I have) would negate the issues wood_jl mentioned above.

 

For the Atari side, check out D-Bug and Klaz's fantastic work on patching titles to run from HD.

[desiv]

I haven't had any cap problems with my Amiga's (knock on wood)..

Or any of my other stuff yet.

 

But I have friends who have, on their Amigas, Arcade Machines, Apples (old and Macs).. Sometimes, CAPs leak.

 

As for models..

For 90% of the games in your country, all you would need would be an Amiga 500 and a 512k card. (Now, on the 512k cards, watch for battery damage. Those leak frequently.)

 

I'd also recommend an s-video adapter. The Amiga 500 composite output is monochrome. You can get an A520 adapter, which will do color, but the external homebrew adapters (amigamaniac's or others) are MUCH NICER for color composite AND have s-video..

 

Note: earlier I said "in your country" as there is a major issue with PAL/NTSC compatibility.

 

Now, if you want near FULL compatibility, be prepared to spend a bit more... For that, you need an Amiga 1200 with a hard drive (it has an IDE controller built in, so most come with them) AND memory expansion.

The issue here is that the memory expanders can be a bit pricey and hard to find. An 8M card just went on e-bay for around $100. Or you can get an accelerator w/RAM, but those go for at least $170 or so.

(These are USD, and of course, you can always get lucky and get better prices.)

The reason for this is that there is a program called WHDLOAD that allows you to run floppy based games from your HD and it can take care of compatibility problems (different versions of kickstart, etc), but it frequently requires more RAM.

 

Also, you still have the PAL/NTSC issue. Good thing about the 1200 is that it's pretty easily switchable between the modes (and WHDLOAD can do that for you as ell), IF you have a device that can handle both modes.

An RGB monitor (1084 series, etc) can. The amigamaniac adapter allows you to switch, but your s-video device has to support it. Neither of my TVs support PAL. I did get a cheapo s-video to VGA adapter that allows me to use my computer monitor, but it doesn't work well. However, I've found a model that does work well since, that I haven't picked up yet..

 

So, if you want to play almost all of the games, a 1200 is the best bet, but you'll have to spend a bit to get it where you need it..

(Note: you can deck out a 500 with more memory and a HD and use WHDLOAD (You'll need a CPU change to handle the "quitting" of the games), but it's even more expensive than the 1200 route.. But you won't be able to play AGA games, which require a 1200.)

 

Good luck..

 

desiv

 

p.s. The ST has it's own video compatibility issues that people have hinted at... You'll want an ST with a modulator (STfm instead of STf for example). And there's the hires mode to work with... But I'm not as up on the ST stuff...

Edited July 2, 2010 by desiv

[TMR]

You may be lucky enough to have randomly received "good" caps....or maybe they just haven't ruptured yet, and should be changed before they do.

 

Possibly, but i also sold several hundred new A1200s back in the day as well as opening a fair few for customers to install hard disks and it's not something i've ever seen personally.

 

The surface-mount technology is too delicate for a real amateur to work on, but I'm guessing a man of your experience could fix it in a jiffy.

 

Don't look at me, i drink far too much caffeine to have the hand/eye co-ordination to solder! i'm totally a software bunny.

 

The Amiga 1200 WHDLoad setup was what I was after. Greatly expanding the RAM and adding a CF drive to A500 for an ideal WHDLoad setup is elaborate, and having a huge desktop full of stuff hanging off the "sidecar" port wasn't what I was after.

 

If the results i got from using WHDLoad on the A600 are anything to go by, a lot of WHDLoaded games won't work on the A500 either, so the floppy emulator would be a far better solution if that's the case.

[Curt Vendel]

I'd rather go with a Mega ST4 for the memory and the detachable keyboard. I agree - an Amiga 600 or 1200 would be the best all in one route.

 

 

Curt

 

You really do want a 1040 ST because there are alot of games and other programs that need 1 meg of ram. The 1040 STFM will play pretty much everything except STE only games (of which there are only a few) but there are some older games that don't work on an STE so its really a bit of a coin flip situation.

[akator]

Based on recommendations here, I picked up an Amiga 1200. Unfortunately, I need a power supply. The 500/1200 ones I've seen on eBay are too expensive for their condition. For that kind of money, I can buy a brand new PSU from Amigakit.

 

Does anyone know of other sources? Or maybe someone has a decent spare they're willing to sell?

[+wood_jl]

Based on recommendations here, I picked up an Amiga 1200. Unfortunately, I need a power supply. The 500/1200 ones I've seen on eBay are too expensive for their condition. For that kind of money, I can buy a brand new PSU from Amigakit.

 

Does anyone know of other sources? Or maybe someone has a decent spare they're willing to sell?

 

I just sold mine a couple of weeks ago! It was left over from my parted-out 1200. Woulda sold it to you! They should be cheap, as I sold this one for $15 and it was seriously MINT condition.

 

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 280521263002

 

If you're going to have to buy one, I think I'd shoot for an Amiga 500 power supply, as it's more robust. The 1200 has a lesser power requirement. As well, with internal CF drive it will use much less juice than a real hard drive.

[Princess-Isabela]

Go Amiga - all the way.

put extra money for A1200 model with accelerator should do beautifully or highly underrated Amiga CD-32 Console with cd-rom drive.

Amiga 500 was very popular but it just doesn't stack up to higher end models and it takes a lot of space.

Edited July 12, 2010 by Princess-Isabela

[desiv]

Based on recommendations here, I picked up an Amiga 1200. Unfortunately, I need a power supply.

If you can find a broken PSU for a few bucks, you can easily mod a PC PSU to work with the Amiga.

Just a thought..

 

Don't get an Amiga 1200 PSU btw. They decreased the Amps. Get an A500 PSU.

(Not sure about A600s???)

 

desiv

[scotty]

I have to add my 2c. I have 2 Amiga 500's (each with 1 gig) sitting in a storage locker. Back in the 80s, I owned a 520, 520STFM and a Mega 2 before switching to Amiga.

 

I use emulation for both platforms now for a couple of reasons.

 

A) I live in a small apartment and do not have the space.

B) Emulation of both systems is damn near perfect (WinUAE for Amiga and STeam for the ST)

C) Compatibility is NOT an issue as you can adjust TOS/Kickstart version, memory, CPU type etc to run any game/demo ever made.

D) Hard drives can be emulated for each system

E) No need to worry about PAL/NTSC issues

F) No worries about monochrome only games on Atari ST if using a color monitor

G) I have a NEW MultiSync 21" Monitor that looks way better, and is way bigger than a 1084-S or either Atari monitor (I own(ed) all 3)

 

In short, about the on only thing you CAN'T do on the emulator is run a video toaster. Get yourself 2 Steeladapters or Curt's Atari Joystick with the USB interface, and you are good to go.

 

PS - Deluxe Galaga (AGA Version) and Footman are MUSTS on the Amiga.

Edited July 12, 2010 by scotty

[+wood_jl]

I use emulation for both platforms now for a couple of reasons.

 

A) I live in a small apartment and do not have the space.

B) Emulation of both systems is damn near perfect (WinUAE for Amiga and STeam for the ST)

C) Compatibility is NOT an issue as you can adjust TOS/Kickstart version, memory, CPU type etc to run any game/demo ever made.

D) Hard drives can be emulated for each system

E) No need to worry about PAL/NTSC issues

F) No worries about monochrome only games on Atari ST if using a color monitor

G) I have a NEW MultiSync 21" Monitor that looks way better, and is way bigger than a 1084-S or either Atari monitor (I own(ed) all 3)

 

In short, about the on only thing you CAN'T do on the emulator is run a video toaster. Get yourself 2 Steeladapters or Curt's Atari Joystick with the USB interface, and you are good to go.

 

PS - Deluxe Galaga (AGA Version) and Footman are MUSTS on the Amiga.

 

This is actually very good advice. I am surprised at how good the emulation is. After my Amiga 1200, TI-99/4A, Vic-20, and Commodore 64 all took a sh*t on me in short order, I decided a few mouse clicks on a Walmart PC running the emulator is a pretty good way to go; it's so much easier and more reliable than actual hardware. The only actual hardware I'm interested in having is that which I grew up with, purely for nostalgia. Coincidentally, I haven't had any failures with it yet....knock on wood....but I don't use it too heavily either.

[scotty]

Add to that the fact that I have 37,602 disk images consisting of 15.7GB for the ST and 60,121 disc images weighing in at 29.1 GB for the Amiga, and even more for the CD32 and Amiga CD, and you get the idea...... I actually have 22 Coca Cola crates of Amiga/ST/PC 3 1/2 and 5 1/4 in a storage locker, each holding 300-400 discs each because I do not have the space. However 50GB of discs fit very nicely on my hard drive.

[Reptile]

Based on recommendations here, I picked up an Amiga 1200. Unfortunately, I need a power supply. The 500/1200 ones I've seen on eBay are too expensive for their condition. For that kind of money, I can buy a brand new PSU from Amigakit.

 

Does anyone know of other sources? Or maybe someone has a decent spare they're willing to sell?

 

I have several including an Amiga 500 power supply with the higher wattage.

Where are you based?

 

I would be willing to sell or exchange for something Atari ST related.

 

 

Reptile

Edited July 13, 2010 by Reptile

[akator]

I have several including an Amiga 500 power supply with the higher wattage.

 

PM sent

[atarian63]

I think the Amiga 500 with 1MB and the floppy emulator (which I already have) might be the way to go. I keep that in the back of my mind.

 

i've never had that problem with any of my A1200s, so personally i'd go for one with a CF card mounted as a hard disk, at least 4Mb of fast RAM and WHDLoad installed along with lots of games - there aren't many A1200-specific titles, but Pinball Illusions, Slamtilt and Banshee that are pretty decent. i'll be replacing the hard drive in my 8Mb A1200 '030 with CF at some point and i already have a 2Mb A600HD with a CF but WHDLoad isn't officially supported so i've found that lots of titles will just crash and burn on it.

 

You may be lucky enough to have randomly received "good" caps....or maybe they just haven't ruptured yet, and should be changed before they do. This was my first foray into Amiga, and needless to say, left a bad taste in my mouth. Of course, there are many websites documenting this problem, so it's not just my anecdotal experience with this issue..... The surface-mount technology is too delicate for a real amateur to work on, but I'm guessing a man of your experience could fix it in a jiffy. It would be very expensive for me to buy the A1200, find someone (who??) to change the caps and pay them to do it, as well as shipping both ways. These links address the problem:

 

http://joj.home.texas.net/amigacap.html

 

http://eabmobile.abime.net/showthread.php?t=41860

 

So this problem is indeed real. I feel it is real enough for a prospective Amiga buyer to be aware of. In my case, it corroded the mainboard very badly where the surrounding components were attached.

 

I have never heard of this with A500, 2000, 1000. The Amiga 1200 WHDLoad setup was what I was after. Greatly expanding the RAM and adding a CF drive to A500 for an ideal WHDLoad setup is elaborate, and having a huge desktop full of stuff hanging off the "sidecar" port wasn't what I was after. The A1200 seemed so much more practical because of the built-in IDE but I never got that far. However, I thought with the A500 and the floppy emulator, WHDLoad wouldn't be necessary, nor any expansion for the A500 beyond the ubiquitous 1MB upgrade, which most A500s seem to have. A500s are cheap, too.... So that's why I wish I would have gone that route. I'm kind of gunshy of Amigas now, but when I get over it, I'll probably look for a nice 500 for cheap!

I had a few a600 and A1200, never could get everything to work. the A500 is the better choise if you have to have an amiga.CD32 did not work out well either. BIG but an a2000 works well for gaming also.

[TMR]

I had a few a600 and A1200, never could get everything to work. the A500 is the better choise if you have to have an amiga.CD32 did not work out well either. BIG but an a2000 works well for gaming also.

 

The only issue is with the Kickstarts, so an A500 Plus will have almost identical compatibility issues out of the box that the A600 has and all three machines can be "persuaded" to run games with 2Mb of RAM and a degrader like Relokick (which loads Kickstart 1.3 on a 2.04 or higher machine and repoints things to use it) - in fact a lot of A1200 issues can be solved merely by powering up with both mouse buttons down and disabling the CPU caches or whatever. i used to have a list that a few work colleagues and i compiled between us that had hundreds of games and the tweak required to get them going on an A1200, we had well over 90% compatibility...

 

If an A1200 running WHDLoad is used as recommended here, those compatibility issues go away entirely because WHDLoad is targeted at the A1200 (some games have stopped working on an A600 that would have previously) and all the converted games are patched to make them compatible.

[akator]

I finally got an Amiga 500 power supply for my 1200. Problem is, I've only been able to get the 1200 to fully boot a few times after days of attempts.

 

Each time it booted properly, you could hear the floppy spin. When it doesn't boot properly, the floppy makes a tiny noise but that's it. The screen is black. Holding both mouse buttons down during boot doesn't bring up the setup screen.

 

I read somewhere that booting problems could be a weak power supply, but the information wasn't clear enough for an Amiga newbie like me to understand fully.

 

Advice would be greatly appreciated