DarkLord

There were several upgrades released for the expansion port, including an internal hard drive and graphics cards. The keyboard is soooooo much better than a 1040's it's not even funny. I've owned a couple of Mega's over the years and none of them ever had a "noisy" fan. One big thing for me was getting away from the mouse/joystick ports being underneath, like the 1040. Very awkward, IMHO. I also just plain like the looks of a Mega over any of the "all in one designs". Personal preference, but there it is. But if you're really asking (as in the OP's first line) why I would have picked a Mega ST over a 1040 in 1987/88, it would have been for the "wow" factor, despite the increased price. For others, the increased memory out of the box would have been needed for productivity, like DTP... Running a Mega ST4, with a Mega Drive, Atari laser printer, and one of those gosh awfully big monochrome monitors had to be heaven for those in the industry.

Here is the lucky winner for June 2020 at The DarkForce! BBS: June 2020 1. Obuing wins The Bards Tale (Atari ST) ! -------------------------------------------------------------- Congratulations to our winner, and thanks to all our callers! PS Obuing, I need your actual/physical address.

Hey gang - meant to get things squared away for this month/next month but wound up (for lack of time) going on vacation first. Hotel's 'net service is okay, but for some reason telnet sucks. Timed out after 30 seconds on my first try, literally would enter text and things would set there a while before sending. Anyway, will be home this weekend and will get everything taken care of. Thanks for being patient!

Grab Hextracker. It's recent, supported still and the author is great. He even worked his butt off getting it to work on my Pak 68 equipped STacy. Hextracker_0.849.zip Not sure which version this is (have several lying around) so you might need to grab a different one. Another fun (read visual!) one is CD Player: CDPLAY_E.ZIP Hope this helps!

What? Lower the intensity? Blasphemy! Why, when I power on my Mega STe now, I can hear "Blinded by the light" playing in the background.

We get a lot of "my wife is going to kill me" around here. There are still several things you can do, but they are part of the "major involvement" list. If you can find a Tweety board (stereo enhancement), or one of Exxos's HD 1.44 meg floppy drive upgrades, or...if you're really lucky, find an accelerator board that's in really good shape, ect. Oh, you could install a TOS switcher as well. Note that, these upgrades involve soldering, tinkering, re-arranging the STacy's internals, and more. None of the above are essential, or really necessary, mind you, more like deluxe options. IMHO, maxing out your RAM and getting the US installed will cover a lot of things. PS Oh! Since you're ordering from Best Electronics anyway, grab one of their TrueMouse replacements. A bit expensive but so much better than the original mouse.... http://www.best-electronics-ca.com/accesori.htm

I'd highly recommend that every ST owner upgrade to 4 megs. If you do much with the machine at all, you'll need it, sooner or later. For example, some hard drive adapted games require more than 1 meg. And...since you're going to have a US, you know you'll want to have some HD adapted games. A tray accessible US - that sounds really cool!

Ah.....

Oops - missed the part about it being a STacy 1. I did the same. I had a STacy 2, got a 4 meg board from Best Electronics, all fixed. Oh, don't know if they are still doing it or not but in my case they wanted my old board as a trade in. Reckon, they are getting in short supply and they are re-doing the old boards, upgrading them, 'n stuff.

Huh. Still not showing up here.

Okay, I logged in just now and it seemed to be working okay, but... Where's the new posts button? Can't find it anywhere....

With everything you mentioned in good shape, then just go for one of Lotharek's internal US kits. Grab the US itself plus the internal adapter and you'll be good to go. https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=47 https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=49 Also, check out this thread - lots of pictures showing that internal US and cable in a Mega STe. The hard drive setup for the Mega STe and the STacy are identical, AFAIK. https://atariage.com/forums/topic/300934-mega-stett-led-replacements/ You can see several ways that some of us installed these units with lots of helpful information there... As far as the RTC goes, I left everything stock in my STacy and just used Jookie's software which accesses the US RTC and it's always worked fine. Keep us updated - we love STacy stories and pictures!

Not sure what the STacy has, but its an awesome keyboard.

Thanks as always Peter, for your continued hard work supporting the Atari community.

Understood - thanks.

Yep. If I had already committed to upgrading this far, I'd go ahead and spring for one of Lotharek's internal adapters: https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=49 https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=47 Or one of Alan H.'s internal adapters, if you can find one. I've got Alan's in my STacy and Lotharek's in my Mega STe. No more 1 gig limit.

Well, I don't have one of those Wizztronics boards, but that sounds promising.

So my take from this reply is I'd have to buy it and try it to see? Thanks.

A lot of colorful endings there...

Quick question regarding the TOS switcher for the Mega ST... As this has come up countless times - will it work with an accelerator board such as the AdSpeed or T-boards? In the past, there's always been a conflict which will not let them work together. It's why I don't have TOS v2.06 on the Mega ST that I use to run DarkForce. Oh, before anyone mentions it, I won't give up the accelerator for this computer, it makes the BBS so much "snappier" that I wouldn't give it up. Thanks (and thanks for supporting the Atari community)!

At the top of the message thread I'd started to say, just ask PP.

Okay, "Bombs Away" week is officially over at the DarkForce! BBS. I hope everyone had fun with it. At best, it's a light hearted attempt at humor for our callers. At worst, it can drive you crazy. I'd like to thank everyone who (willingly or UN-willingly) participated. Until next year, "ka-boom". PS Oh, here's a screenshot showing the obituary and what happened to those who failed to defuse their bombs.

Okay, "Bombs Away" week is officially over at the DarkForce! BBS. I hope everyone had fun with it. At best, it's a light hearted attempt at humor for our callers. At worst, it can drive you crazy. I'd like to thank everyone who (willingly or UN-willingly) participated. Until next year, "ka-boom". PS Oh, here's a screenshot showing the obituary and what happened to those who failed to defuse their bombs.

Forgot to announce this yesterday but yes, we're going to do a "Bombs away" week here at DarkForce, commencing today and lasting until this next Saturday, June 6th (D-Day, what a coincidence!). Just pick "D" for Deliver E-mail Bomb from the main menu. The menu is pretty self explanatory, but basically you pick users from the DarkForce BBS you want to "bomb" and up to your bomb limit, you do so. They are given an opportunity to guess who sent the bomb. If they are wrong, they are then terminated (disconnect). If they guess right, they are shown who sent the bomb so they can retaliate. Users have a limited amount of bombs and only so many bombs can be stacked on any 1 caller. Good luck, have fun and B O O M ! PS Oh, don't forget to check the Obituary for funny user "deaths".

Forgot to announce this yesterday but yes, we're going to do a "Bombs away" week here at DarkForce, commencing today and lasting until this next Saturday, June 6th (D-Day, what a coincidence!). Just pick "D" for Deliver E-mail Bomb from the main menu. The menu is pretty self explanatory, but basically you pick users from the DarkForce BBS you want to "bomb" and up to your bomb limit, you do so. They are given an opportunity to guess who sent the bomb. If they are wrong, they are then terminated (disconnect). If they guess right, they are shown who sent the bomb so they can retaliate. Users have a limited amount of bombs and only so many bombs can be stacked on any 1 caller. Good luck, have fun and B O O M ! PS Oh, don't forget to check the Obituary for funny user "deaths".