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atari 260 ST


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today i've tested my 260st, which i had bought about 2 years ago on a fleamarket, and now it is saying to me: put the system disk into you disk drive. now i want a system disk...

 

does somebody know a system disk on the net ? or does someone have an image of the disk and wants to mail it to me ?

 

are there any games/programs for it ?

 

thanks, thelen

 

thelen2000@hotmail.com

 

[ 05-24-2002: Message edited by: thelen ]

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260ST? Did they even sell those in the US? Wow! Anyway, I believe that the early model ST's didn't come with TOS installed, so you had to supply it on disk. Just look on the web for TOS and you'll find a site that has it I'm sure.

 

Ahh... I just looked at your stats. They did sell them briefly in Europe, which would explain why you found one. Here's a bit more info about your 260ST:

http://www.atari-history.com/computers/16b...atari260st.html

 

Tempest

 

[ 05-24-2002: Message edited by: Tempest ]

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yes replacing the bootrom with tos is a good idea, but i don't need the 260st that much, i have 2 atari 1040st's but i thought it would be fun if the 260st could do something.

 

i searched the net, but i could only find a boot disk image for the 520st, will this also work on the 260 ? (i will test it)

 

thanks,

Thelen

 

(..typing errors )

 

[ 05-25-2002: Message edited by: thelen ]

 

[ 05-25-2002: Message edited by: thelen ]

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quote:

Originally posted by AtariDude:

There was no 260ST. Atari created a demo model but then decided that it did not have adequate memory so instead it released the ST series with a 520ST.

 

Huh? It was sold in Europe for a while, I have several of them and they did in fact exist. The 520ST series didn't hit Europe for a short while later and they were the STfm models which came in some pretty nice packaging with an assortment of various games on diskette.

 

Curt

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  • 1 month later...
  • 15 years later...

post-31554-0-24494800-1525517867.png

 

post-31554-0-67965300-1525517880.png

 

First pic. is generated by 16KB TOS boot ROM, second is disk TOS 1.00 in action. May see that TOS image file size is over 192 KB (what is capacity of ROM TOS 1.00-4) .

 

Atari 260 ST with only 256KB RAM, and no TOS in ROM is pretty much useless - there is no space in RAM after TOS is loaded (add to it 32KB for screen + space for buffers, etc.) . So, I guess that it was sold with TOS in ROM, or maybe with some shorter TOS on floppy ? Still, when we sub used RAM space by ROM TOS, what is about 60-70KB + screen, there is only 150 KB left for GEM SW, and that is just not enough, only for simple SW .

The reason why it was sold at all may be following: initial idea was to make ST with 128KB ROM and 256 KB RAM. That was big misjudgement, considering ambitions:

disk based OS, with GUI , full RS 232, parallel port printing support, etc. They had no experience with 68000 programming - it needs more space for code, And on top of it, big part of TOS was coded in C, not efficient early C compiler. When they realized it, expanded ROM space to 192KB, but that was still short. What was main reason to launch machines with TOS on floppy. It took more than half year until they managed to squize TOS 1.00 in 192 KB ROM space . Using some tricks like Line-F emulator.

But some machines with 256 KB were done, so needed to save investments (?) .

All it show how SW is much harder and slower in development than HW.

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It was on the market for a while - Atari advertised the 260ST twice in Germany:

 

https://forum.atari-home.de/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;pic=165

https://forum.atari-home.de/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;pic=166

 

There's also a review of the 260ST: http://stcarchiv.de/hc1985/12/atari-260-st

 

All STs had at least 512 KB RAM, although there were plans for 128KB and 256KB STs at one point. Hatari supports both memory configurations.

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Danke schoen fuer Linken :grin:

Must be written by some extra expert: "Zwar ohne Scart-Anschluß wurde sein Hauptspeicher jedoch kurzerhand verdoppelt und beträgt jetzt ein Megabyte (1048576 Byte!)."

Sure, Atari forgot to put Scart connector on Atari ST :) There is actually all what is needed for TV's with Scard conn, , and work in RGB mode with sharp pic. Scart connectors were present on TVs, where space is not problem,

'Kurzerhand verdoppelt' - not sure I understand it right, seems for me as they talk like RAM expansion was simple, what certainly was not it.

Any picture of inside, motherboard, perhaps ?

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Lots of early articles about the ST contain errors and I guess the author had little time to write a good review (or didn't have a review unit at all). Of course the 260ST had the same connectors as the 520ST, so the difference is just the memory and price. "Kurzerhand verdoppelt" just means that Atari doubled the RAM capacity, not that it's any easier for users to upgrade.

 

Other sources indicate that the 520ST was sold in Germany along with the 260ST, but the 520ST was sold together with disk drive and monitor while the 260ST was sold without either. I can't confirm this, my first ST was the 520STM (connected to a SCART TV :-D )- by that time the ST lineup made more sense ;)

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

attachicon.gifdiskTOSboot.png

 

attachicon.gifdiskTOSwork.png

 

First pic. is generated by 16KB TOS boot ROM, second is disk TOS 1.00 in action. May see that TOS image file size is over 192 KB (what is capacity of ROM TOS 1.00-4) .

 

Atari 260 ST with only 256KB RAM, and no TOS in ROM is pretty much useless - there is no space in RAM after TOS is loaded (add to it 32KB for screen + space for buffers, etc.) . So, I guess that it was sold with TOS in ROM, or maybe with some shorter TOS on floppy ? Still, when we sub used RAM space by ROM TOS, what is about 60-70KB + screen, there is only 150 KB left for GEM SW, and that is just not enough, only for simple SW .

The reason why it was sold at all may be following: initial idea was to make ST with 128KB ROM and 256 KB RAM. That was big misjudgement, considering ambitions:

disk based OS, with GUI , full RS 232, parallel port printing support, etc. They had no experience with 68000 programming - it needs more space for code, And on top of it, big part of TOS was coded in C, not efficient early C compiler. When they realized it, expanded ROM space to 192KB, but that was still short. What was main reason to launch machines with TOS on floppy. It took more than half year until they managed to squize TOS 1.00 in 192 KB ROM space . Using some tricks like Line-F emulator.

But some machines with 256 KB were done, so needed to save investments (?) .

All it show how SW is much harder and slower in development than HW.

 

 

*NECROBUMP!*

 

So Paranoid, do you think if you had the source code, you could recompile the C portions of GEM/TOS with a modern compiler and not only dramatically shrink it down but also still have it be able to run on a stock ST?

 

Reminds me of the assertion that if AndroidOS is compiled using C#, it increases real world performance by 30%.

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All what is available is source for German TOS 2.06 and 3.06 . And yes, it is recompiled with success. But in that case, shrinking size us not so relevant. It runs little faster too, when is compiled with better compiler. Of course, it would run on stock C, if all is done properly - and that's the hard part. You need to perform lot of manual corrections in source to achieve that.

Must say that my optimizations result in slightly faster run too, but that's just side result. I don't think that is possible to get 30% faster work. TOS is not done by beginners. Speed crucial parts are done often in assembler, or at least C code is optimized somehow.

But I doubt that we will see sources for 1.04 and 1.62 , so let's focus on what is done so far with them - without using C-compiler.

New thread will be open in minutes ...

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