ST upgrades

[Gunstar]

I'm planning on upgrading my 1040 as soon as possible. I intend to start with at least a 4meg memory upgrade, if I don't use that special card I heard about and go all the way to 14megs. I also intend to install a Blitter chip very soon too. But I was wondering if I can upgrade my ST to STE equivelency, with the extended color pallette and such? Can this be done by installing an STE video chip (that thingy under the sheilding in the middle of the computer)?

What other cool upgrades are available? I seem to recall upgrades with newer 68000 series chips like the 020's or 030's and I also seem to recall some other graphic/math-coproccessor, etc. upgrade boards from companies like 'Upgrades by Small' or some similiar name...any suggestions?

I want to max this puppy out and make it a Super ST! And how about external drives?-Zip drives, HD's, other floppies, etc. Any 1.44 3.5 external floppies? What was the largest Supra or ICD Hard drives? I have a 175meg PC HD, can I get a controller board (SCSSI/IDE) to make use of this?

[atarian1]

Most of those cool upgrades are really hard to find unfortunately. That's life on the ST.

 

BUT, if you're willing to pay the original MSRP, I think Best and B&C still have some of those upgrades in stock. The PAK030 board is the only widely available 68030 upgrade board I can remember. I remember Gadgets by Small and Fast Technologies released 030 upgrade board only in limited quantities. Math coprocessor upgrades aren't worth it since so little software took advantage of it. Graphics boards are probably the hardest to find because people won't sell them! Besides, they usually require an ST with a expansion slot.(MegaST/MegaSTe/TT/Falcon)

There are several 1.44MB floppy upgrades, most are DIY hacks floating around the internet.

 

I wish I could upgrade STs to become STes, but it's not possible.

[Noeljb]

Might consider upgrading the power supply also

 

Noel B

[V.R]

Actaully it is possible to upgrade your ST to an STe. However you must be extremely good at electronics, if your not good at soldereing and reading schematics, then I wouldn't bother.

Its quite easy to overclock the cpu (would be faster than STe), add cache, a fpu and even a DSP!!!. But it all takes time and money, and probably isn't worth going all the way.

However I have attempted a few of these things and I must say the performance is worth it. Cheers!

[Gunstar]

Man! Your digging up old topics... I'm quite proficient with soldering and reading schematics, for some strange reason this is a requirement of my electronics degree, go figure...

But your too LATE! I decided not to settle for upgradeing to a mere STE and have upgraded my 1040 to FULL Falcon compatibility!...J/K

Since you've mentioned it, care to direct me to these schematics or any other info I'd need for some of these upgrades? Thanks!

although I posted this almost a year ago, I haven't actually gotten around to upgrading my 1040 much yet, I did install an RCA audio output jack pretty quickly though, I got sick of the 1224 monitor's tinny sound very quickly, now I have some good PC speakers hooked up to it and it's made a world of difference sound-wise, with much better bass and treble, just all around better quality sound from the yamaha chip with some proper speakers hooked up. i Highly reccomend this VERY simple upgrade to ALL ST owners.

[V.R]

Sorry Gunstar, wasn't having a go at your abilities! Anyway you'll need the STe and maybe the Mega STe + Falcon schematics, get them at- http://atari.greatnow.com/. Also check out- http://atari4ever.free.fr/hardware/ for hardware hacks.

 

If you study the schematcs carefully (especially Mega STe). You will be able to see how things like the FPU are linked to the cpu. Changing your ram to SIMMS, adding a blitter and attaching cache. Upgrading to a MC68030 would be costly but worth it, would take some effort, but easily reachable. Cheers

[Atari Smeghead]

The one upgrade that I was happy I did, at the time, was the external PC XT keyboard upgrade. I never cared for the ST keyboard, plus one of the keys went bad. I had access to a bunch of XT keyboards. Now, I have like 3 keyboards sitting in the garage.