Help / Misc questions with several STs

[walterg74]

 

Hi folks,

 

I had 2 ST machines and recently purchased a third one with the intention of selling one off and keeping two (local prices in my country are such that I can sell one and pay for all three pretty much...).

 

Anyway, the first two I had were:

 

Atari 520 STFM with 1MB RAM

Atari 520 STE with 4MB RAM

 

And this third one I got is:

 

Atari 1040 STFM with 1MB RAM

 

As with my ocd I wanted one with 1040 on the badge, my idea was to sell off the 520 STFM.

 

So here starts the questions:

 

- The 520STFM seems to have a nicer/whiter keyboard. Are all keyboards the same/compatible? Meaning, could I swap out the 1040's keyboard with the 520's?

 

- It seems the 1040's TOS version is actually older than the 520's. Would this be a bad thing and a bad choice?

 

- Any other comments/tips/advice you could give me on these?

 

Attaching screenshots of sysinfo screen of all three. Obviously the STE's is the one that says "ste" and the others the lower TOS version one is the 1040 and the higher one the 520.

 

Thanks!

[ggn]

- The 520STFM seems to have a nicer/whiter keyboard. Are all keyboards the same/compatible? Meaning, could I swap out the 1040's keyboard with the 520's?

Sure, no problem.

 

- It seems the 1040's TOS version is actually older than the 520's. Would this be a bad thing and a bad choice?

It mostly matters if you consider using a hard drive. If you just want to (for example) play games then it's no biggie!

[Zogging Hell]

Depending on whether it is a six chip or two chip version, the TOS might be fairly easy to swap as well.However, it depends on the TOS version, whether its worth it as ggn said, 1.04 will be generally better if you want to use a hard drive, but 1.02 will probably be better for running those earlier games that the STe can't handle. Most of 1.02's hard drive problems can be solved with a few patches like Fatspeed or BigDOS, so I wouldn't really worry about it too much (1.02 works fine with most hard drives, it is just sloooooowwww - the patches fix that).

[walterg74]

Sure, no problem.It mostly matters if you consider using a hard drive. If you just want to (for example) play games then it's no biggie!

Thanks, going for the keyboard swap now!

[walterg74]

Depending on whether it is a six chip or two chip version, the TOS might be fairly easy to swap as well.However, it depends on the TOS version, whether its worth it as ggn said, 1.04 will be generally better if you want to use a hard drive, but 1.02 will probably be better for running those earlier games that the STe can't handle. Most of 1.02's hard drive problems can be solved with a few patches like Fatspeed or BigDOS, so I wouldn't really worry about it too much (1.02 works fine with most hard drives, it is just sloooooowwww - the patches fix that).

Thanks for the reply. So while for someone handy with the iron it should be easy, it's not my case. Just opened them up and both seem to have a place for six chips but actually only have 2 installed.

The 1.04 ones are soldered though, while the 1.02 ones are socketed. So I guess I will leave them as is, but on the bright side should I want to upgrade them later they are socketed so it should be easy for me.

Is it correct to say then that while there is space for 6 since there are inly 2 installed that I should get the 2-chip version off ebay should I want to upgrade?

 

Regarding my *STE*, is that version ok?

 

One thing I'm noticing is that the 1040 was purchased from the owner while the 520 I *think* I had urchased it some time ago from atarifreakz. Latter seems to be a bit cleaner, and not sure if there's anything special about it maybe?

 

There's a space marked blitter on it, on the 1040 there are different chips and some seem to be fastened(?) motherboard revision are different, etc.

 

Do you guys make any important differences between these, or should I just be happy swapping the keyboard (and floppy seems cleaner too) abd maybe larer upgrade TOS and be done?

 

Attaching pics.

[Zogging Hell]

Two chip upgrade will be the one you need if you don't want to solder. Sounds like the 520 is one of those last ones where everything is surface mounted, they are a pain in the arse to upgrade (memory/ TOS) if you aren't very good with an iron, so it is better to keep the other one probably. The space for the blitter might not be for you if you don't like soldering. You can installl a socket in there, then put a blitter chip in, which is a nice upgrade, but not essential.

 

1.62 is the normal one for the STe, you can upgrade 2.06 fairly easily though if you wanted, but you will probably loose some game compatibility.

 

Honestly TOS 1.02 is fine for most things, I wouldn't bother upgrading it until you hit a problem with it that you can't solve with a patch. Search for Fatspeed, Maccel and Pinhead and puut them in a folder called 'auto' on your boot floppy/ hard drive. These three patches add most if not all of the functionality added in TOS 1.04 (Maccel is a mouse accelerator, but adds the control + alternate + delete soft reset from keyboard that 1.04 has. If you get a hard drive BigDOS might help as well.

 

The only major problem I find with TOS 1.02 is that for some bizarre reason you can't rename a folder (same for TOS 1.0). You can get round this by using something like Kobold or UIS III or just creating a new folder and copying things from the old to the new, but it is annoying.

[walterg74]

Two chip upgrade will be the one you need if you don't want to solder. Sounds like the 520 is one of those last ones where everything is surface mounted, they are a pain in the arse to upgrade (memory/ TOS) if you aren't very good with an iron, so it is better to keep the other one probably. The space for the blitter might not be for you if you don't like soldering. You can installl a socket in there, then put a blitter chip in, which is a nice upgrade, but not essential.

 

1.62 is the normal one for the STe, you can upgrade 2.06 fairly easily though if you wanted, but you will probably loose some game compatibility.

 

Honestly TOS 1.02 is fine for most things, I wouldn't bother upgrading it until you hit a problem with it that you can't solve with a patch. Search for Fatspeed, Maccel and Pinhead and puut them in a folder called 'auto' on your boot floppy/ hard drive. These three patches add most if not all of the functionality added in TOS 1.04 (Maccel is a mouse accelerator, but adds the control + alternate + delete soft reset from keyboard that 1.04 has. If you get a hard drive BigDOS might help as well.

 

The only major problem I find with TOS 1.02 is that for some bizarre reason you can't rename a folder (same for TOS 1.0). You can get round this by using something like Kobold or UIS III or just creating a new folder and copying things from the old to the new, but it is annoying.

Thanks so much for the info. Will definitely look into what you pointed out, although I guess I should first look into the boot disk and how to create/use it...

 

What about disks? I have a ton of disks, some work some don't. I would like to: 1) try to format them to see if they can be used or are trash, and 2) get some games on them... Don't know the nest way to do the former, and if the latter is possible with a PC or something?

[Zogging Hell]

If they (the disks) don't work there are really two options. First I would buy some isopropyl alcohol and some qtips and gently clean the surface of the disk (pull back the metal shield and rotate the disk as you clean). A lot of old disks get all sorts of crud on them, from mold to hairs and wotnot. This in a lot of cases may 'fix' the problem with the disks and you may well be able to at least read the data off or possibly reuse them (I would check to see whats on there before you format them). If you plan on doing a lot of formatting I would search for and download either Kobold or Fastcopy III to do that (well worth having anyway for any Atarian) as the ST's built in routine is pretty slow. If the disks still won't work after cleaning I would just chuck them (option 2), as even if they do format they are likely to be too dodgy to use in the long term. With all old disks it is worth pulling back the flap and having a squint at the surface of the disk anyway, as the crud is often obvious and putting them in your STs disk drive may leave the crap inside the drive, which will then either stop you disk drive reading other disks properly, or in the worse case scenario can then scratch the surface of other disks put in there. The disk drive can be cleaned with a floppy disk cleaner or you can dismantle and clean the head by hand using your isopropyl and q-tips.

 

You can use an old PC with a 'proper' (i.e. not USB) floppy drive to write disk images. If you are getting a hard drive, there are also hard disk adaptions as well (see other threads on here) which are likely to be nicer to use.