Atari 1040ST Newb Teardown

[Airshack]

Just picked up a 1040ST and...

 

1. Planned to see if it works — CHECK!

 

100% functioning to include good video/sound and formatting a floppy drive. 

 

 

   I didn’t get any diskettes with the system so testing was limited. Where can I find that BASIC program language disk? Is there a modern replacement? 

 

2. Started tearing it down for retro-bringing the sun damage — CHECK!

 

 

 

   Case damaged reduced but back out for now because I detect a slight amount of oxidation remaining. 

 

3. Tore it down to clean the system...

 

 

Anything revealing here about the revision?

 

 

Epson floppy 720k (?)  seems fine — common?

 

4. Thinking I need that OLED GoTek in place of this floppy drive. Agree? How do I prep a thumb drive for the ST+GoTek? How about the UltraSatan device? Any one better than the other?

 

5. Noticed 256k memory modules. Will this system support 1GB modules? If so where do I find them online?

 

6. What does the handwriting on these labels mean? 

 

 

   Are these some sort of upgradable ROMs? Atari socketed them! 

 

   Your help with my restore/upgrade project is appreciated.

 

   - James (from the TI-99/4 Group)

 

Edited June 19, 2019 by Airshack
All thumbs typos

[Airshack]

This has the video modulator output and joy ports on the bottom so are we looking at the 1040 STFM model?

[Zogging Hell]

21 minutes ago, Airshack said:

This has the video modulator output and joy ports on the bottom so are we looking at the 1040 STFM model?

That labelling might give it away as an 1040 STe (that is a good thing!)

 

You could upgrade the ROM to TOS 2.06, but if you want to play games then it is probably best to stick with what you have (presuming it is TOS 1.62)

 

Ebay should supply the simms, you want 4mb of them at 120ns + for a maxed out computer, but for most games you will probably not need that much.

 

Really don't bother with the language disk, the only thing of any real use on it is the control panel - and there are better control panel apps out there, ST Basic itself on the language disk is renowned for being garbage. Nothing on the disk is essential to using the ST. If you want a decent basic try either GFA or Hisoft Basic.

[Airshack]

8 minutes ago, Zogging Hell said:

That labelling might give it away as an 1040 STe (that is a good thing!)

 

You could upgrade the ROM to TOS 2.06, but if you want to play games then it is probably best to stick with what you have (presuming it is TOS 1.62)

 

Ebay should supply the simms, you want 4mb of them at 120ns + for a maxed out computer, but for most games you will probably not need that much.

 

Really don't bother with the language disk, the only thing of any real use on it is the control panel - and there are better control panel apps out there, ST Basic itself on the language disk is renowned for being garbage. Nothing on the disk is essential to using the ST. If you want a decent basic try either GFA or Hisoft Basic.

HAHA! I've been working on this thing all day and didn't even notice the little "E" next to the ST badge. I'm 20-10 vision so no excuse there!

 

Discovered: 

STFm = 3 channel sound, 512 colours, little or no hardware.
STe = 4 channel sound, 4096 colours, extra hardware in the form of a barrel shifter (what we would call a blitter, only the Atari version is a joke! It can only scroll on 16pixel boundaries!!!)

 

Thanks for solving that mystery for me....gosh! Newb.

 

Looks like this may work out for me: 4MB (4x1MB) 30 Pin RAM Matched Set Non-Parity 8 Chip 100ns 

Edited June 19, 2019 by Airshack

[bfollowell]

Where, and how, did you find an STe here in the U.S.?!

 

I've been looking for the better part of a year and they seem to be more rare than hen's teeth over here, while they're all over the place in the U.K.

 

Congrats on your good find. It looks like a nice, clean unit. Enjoy!

[Airshack]

13 minutes ago, bfollowell said:

Where, and how, did you find an STe here in the U.S.?!

 

I've been looking for the better part of a year and they seem to be more rare than hen's teeth over here, while they're all over the place in the U.K.

 

Congrats on your good find. It looks like a nice, clean unit. Enjoy!

Thanks! 

On www.shopgoodwill.com ($62) with a local pick-up requirement in Los Angeles: https://www.shopgoodwill.com/Item/69797491

 

[towmater]

That Atwater Goodwill's been on a roll lately, they just had two TI/99-4's (not 4A's) for auction. Basically this tells me not to bother going to the store, because they know what is profitable when auctioned, although at this point probably every Goodwill is aware of that.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

9 hours ago, Airshack said:

 

 

 

 

   I didn’t get any diskettes with the system so testing was limited. Where can I find that BASIC program language disk? Is there a modern replacement? 

 

 ... floppy 720k

 

4. Thinking I need that OLED GoTek in place of this floppy drive. Agree? How do I prep a thumb drive for the ST+GoTek? How about the UltraSatan device? Any one better than the other?

 

5. Noticed 256k memory modules. Will this system support 1GB modules? If so where do I find them online?

 

6. What does the handwriting on these labels mean? 

 

 

   Are these some sort of upgradable ROMs? Atari socketed them! 

 

   Your help with my restore/upgrade project is appreciated.

 

   - James (from the TI-99/4 Group)

 

Forget Atari Basic - that was never used, because there are much better Basics for Atari ST line.

Look at atarimania.com for them .

Floppy model is not relevant - if it works, fine. If not then you have diverse options.

Mentioned self couple. I would go on UltraSatan by Lotharek. That's most used storage latest years. Gotek is cheap, but may need extra work with firmware upgrades.  Basically, what is best depends from what you want to do with it. But even for gaming UltraSatan is very usable, thanx to people who made games runnable from mass storage.

Atari STE supports (works with) 1MB SIM, 30 pin RAM modules. Well, I guess some googling will help to find. I don't like to recommend some expensive sources.

I'm so sorry that you can not use 1GB modules, even it it sounds this days as not much big RAM size ?

 

Good question about handwriting on EPROMs. Above one seems as original one - and again, use google.

Lower one is confusing - writes 163 - and no such TOS version, at least not official. And if they changed to some hacked 1.63, should replace both chips.

Maybe just person who replaced bad ROM chip was stoned .  There is SW what will outprint relevant parameters: SYSINFO . Or some game from here:

http://atari.8bitchip.info/fromhd2.php

 

Now must be less nice, after reading this:

"Discovered: 

STFm = 3 channel sound, 512 colours, little or no hardware.
STe = 4 channel sound, 4096 colours, extra hardware in the form of a barrel shifter (what we would call a blitter, only the Atari version is a joke! It can only scroll on 16pixel boundaries!!!)"

I really see lot of incorrect, shallow opinions all time, but this was really something too much. 3 channel sound ? It's sound chip, not STFm. It is mono sound at output.

512 colors - that's correct, but only if you know details.  "... no hardware" - best part ! LOL. So, DMA chip, IKBD, Midi ports ... is "no hardware" ?

STE - 4 channel sound - uf ... If you said 5, that would even make little sense, since 3+2 is 5. But where you get that 4 channels ?

Barrel shifter is something simple, and stays for shifter (for instance as part of some CPU), where can perform multi bit shifts in single step. FYI - 68000 CPU is not such, 68030 is, therefore later will perform some 7 bit shift, rotate much faster. And if CPU is 32 MHz, you don't need really blitter - case of TT.

There is blitter chip in ST machines since 1987. And that chip is at least 100x more complex than some barrel shifter, and for sure, they are in it, in multiple instances, to say so.

Extra STE HW is:  horizontal scroll support in video circuits. OMG, it can do 1px shift, without much CPU load ! Blitter as standard component - and OMG #2 - it can do well 1px shift too !  And much more. DMA audio - 2 channels, stereo output (2 RCA) . Advanced joystick ports. There is more, but I already spent 20 minutes in this ....

Just to add that there are games, demos, which perform smooth, fast scroll even on basic 520 ST models, without blitter chip. Yes, fast CPU and good programmer can do it.   I recommend that first run at least 100 games before come here with some great discoveries. This above was even worse than usual Amiga people spitting on Atari ST(E) .

 

 

 

[Airshack]

6 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

Now must be less nice, after reading this:

"Discovered: 

STFm = 3 channel sound, 512 colours, little or no hardware.
STe = 4 channel sound, 4096 colours, extra hardware in the form of a barrel shifter (what we would ...  I recommend that first run at least 100 games before come here with some great discoveries. This above was even worse than usual Amiga people spitting on Atari ST(E) .

 

 

 

   Thank you PLM for the excellent feedback. My experience with the ST line consists of two hours I’ve put into this tear down. 

 

   I believe you misunderstood my post. I was simply asking questions about the STE model, of which I know absolutely nothing.

 

   Those specs which apparently set you off and made you “less nice” were nothing more than a cut-and-paste from a google search. Wikipedia I believe? I was asking questions — not bragging. I’m a newb here. Now I understand my source was inaccurate. 

 

   Thank you for your thoughtful inputs regarding my new system. Hopefully, you will see I’m much nicer than the Amiga people. 

 

   I’m a Ti-99/4 guy who is probably a little bit to excited about his recent find. That’s all. We 99ers are a humble bunch.

 

   Trust me — I want to play 100 games on this system! That’s the motivation behind my line of questions.

[Airshack]

How does one determine the TOS version in his system? 

 

I clicked around yet didn’t find any version numbers?

 

I've torn down many different systems, and this one does not look tampered with or modified at all.

 

The bottom of the console still had the complete warrantee sticker covering one screw hole.

 

I did find peculiar handwritten labels on two modules:

 

 

Assuming C113 is TOS...can there be a version 1.63? Then again, maybe C113 is something else?

Edited June 20, 2019 by Airshack

[ParanoidLittleMan]

As said, use google. Typing there 'c301164 atari' will give some usable pages, and of course, there are stupid errors like "TOS 1.60" at Best, which is best only with prices (for them). It's TOS 1.06, still.

 

This page is much better: http://tho-otto.de/hypview/hypview.cgi?url=%2Fhyp%2Fchips350.hyp&charset=UTF-8&index=138http://tho-otto.de/hypview/hypview.cgi?url=%2Fhyp%2Fchips350.hyp&charset=UTF-8&index=138

 

And, since this is 16 bit computer, and ROM chips are 8 bit, it needs 2 of them to work parallel.  Marked usually as Lo and Hi. Or E (even) O (odd) . Mystery resolved. Look self at link which exact TOS version is it.

 

Now some heavy manufacturer critic: Yep, they decided that no need to include version number in that Desktop Info. Year indicates it - but not in case of STE.

It may be 1.06 or 1.62 (actually just fixed couple bugs) . Official versions. For more, again: SYSINFO .

Really stupid to write there all those years, but not version #, maybe region/language too. And I just found another errors in TOS docs. In other thread ...

 

But I feel need to bash here TI too. I remember TI-99 - nice keyboard, was expensive in Germany around 1984 . Too bad that it was in years when TI made some very bad designs. They advertised TI-99 as first home computer with 16 bit CPU. And that was true. But that CPU was slower than 5x cheaper Z80 . Just bad idea to put registers in RAM - made it slow. Can say that it was exactly opposite concept than later winner RISC. Where they went on plenty of internal registers to decrease slow RAM access (more things can be done without any extra RAM access) + optimized instructions for speed.

 

 

[Airshack]

42 minutes ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

As said, use google. Typing there 'c301164 atari' will give some usable pages, and of course, there are stupid errors like "TOS 1.60" at Best, which is best only with prices (for them). It's TOS 1.06, still.

 

This page is much better: http://tho-otto.de/hypview/hypview.cgi?url=%2Fhyp%2Fchips350.hyp&charset=UTF-8&index=138http://tho-otto.de/hypview/hypview.cgi?url=%2Fhyp%2Fchips350.hyp&charset=UTF-8&index=138

 

And, since this is 16 bit computer, and ROM chips are 8 bit, it needs 2 of them to work parallel.  Marked usually as Lo and Hi. Or E (even) O (odd) . Mystery resolved. Look self at link which exact TOS version is it.

 

Now some heavy manufacturer critic: Yep, they decided that no need to include version number in that Desktop Info. Year indicates it - but not in case of STE.

It may be 1.06 or 1.62 (actually just fixed couple bugs) . Official versions. For more, again: SYSINFO .

Really stupid to write there all those years, but not version #, maybe region/language too. And I just found another errors in TOS docs. In other thread ...

 

But I feel need to bash here TI too. I remember TI-99 - nice keyboard, was expensive in Germany around 1984 . Too bad that it was in years when TI made some very bad designs. They advertised TI-99 as first home computer with 16 bit CPU. And that was true. But that CPU was slower than 5x cheaper Z80 . Just bad idea to put registers in RAM - made it slow. Can say that it was exactly opposite concept than later winner RISC. Where they went on plenty of internal registers to decrease slow RAM access (more things can be done without any extra RAM access) + optimized instructions for speed.

 

 

Thanks again! Your link is helpful!

 

Of course the lists do not include “C301164-002A,” which I what I have.

 

Perhaps it’s the same as C301164 ??

 

For now I’ll assume TOS 1.62

 

Wondering why all the photos of motherboards I’m finding on the net have ROMs installed when mine look very much like EPROMS? 

 

Possibly this was was a test bed machine? 

 

Possibly C301164-002A was a beta of TOS 1.63? I know that’s a stretch yet the second module is labeled “163.” Why?

 

Based on your link’s omission of C301164-002A I’d have to say there’s some possibility this thing is unique.

 

 

 

 

[ParanoidLittleMan]

No TOS 1.63 . And I never seen STE where ROMs where not EPROMs .  No  .... 2A in list - not relevant.

Still my answer is that someone was stoned, and wrote wrong number there.

Here is how to check it 100% :TOSDUMP1.ZIP

You have there program what will read whole TOS and write it to disk. Then you can post it, so I can check what exact version is it, and is it 100% original, or some changes are in it. Need to copy it on floppy disk with some 300 KB free space, and run on STE . Or you can use UltraSatan ? But would be better do to it before Xmas ?  TOS dump file size must be exactly :  262144 bytes .

 

 

 

[Ute]

I second what Peter said - Go with the UltraSatan Vs. Gotek.

 

Goteks are cheaper, but UltraSatan is SO much faster and much more convenient, plus boot time seems instant compared to the Gotek. Gotek is also a pain to change disks, although it is easier with with the OLED.

For speed alone the UltraSatan is worth the extra money.

[Ute]

8 hours ago, Airshack said:

How does one determine the TOS version in his system? 

 

I clicked around yet didn’t find any version numbers?

 

I've torn down many different systems, and this one does not look tampered with or modified at all.

 

The bottom of the console still had the complete warrantee sticker covering one screw hole.

 

I did find peculiar handwritten labels on two modules:

 

Screen shows the Rainbow Atari logo - Wouldn't that be TOS 1.04 or at least a custom made version of it?

[Airshack]

10 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

No TOS 1.63 . And I never seen STE where ROMs where not EPROMs .  No  .... 2A in list - not relevant.

Still my answer is that someone was stoned, and wrote wrong number there.

Here is how to check it 100% :TOSDUMP1.ZIP

You have there program what will read whole TOS and write it to disk. Then you can post it, so I can check what exact version is it, and is it 100% original, or some changes are in it. Need to copy it on floppy disk with some 300 KB free space, and run on STE . Or you can use UltraSatan ? But would be better do to it before Xmas ?  TOS dump file size must be exactly :  262144 bytes .

 

 

 

Thanks for the file! I need help figuring out how to get it written to an Atari floppy? I have an old PC so maybe that way? I’m new at this STE deal.

 

  You are correct that a ROM dump is the only way to know for sure. Thank you again for your valuable inputs. 

 

   As soon as I copy this to floppy I’ll give it a whirl. A friend offered up his GoTek which I should have by months end. 

[Airshack]

5 hours ago, Ute said:

Screen shows the Rainbow Atari logo - Wouldn't that be TOS 1.04 or at least a custom made version of it?

Since it’s in an STE I’m guessing a variant of 1.62. Too much unexplained info regarding the serial numbers: the number “163” on one EPROM label, and an undocumented serial number on the other.  Perhaps something unfinished or someone’s lone project? I don’t know enough. Hope to figure it out with that TOSDUMP program.

 

 

Edited June 21, 2019 by Airshack

[ParanoidLittleMan]

TOS 1.06, 1.62 are almost same as 1.04 , and rainbow logo is same. It was done parallel in 1989. *6 is just expanded with extra STE HW support.

 

Considering floppy for dumping TOS ROM content. PC with drive will serve. You need 720K (SD) floppy. If have only HD must cover it's density sense hole, so it will be seen as SD . Then format it to 720 K on PC with :     format a: /t:80 /n:9 . It will produce 720KB floppy, usable on all Ataris.

And of course copy there that program too ?

[tjlazer]

Those two EPROMs are the TOS OS ROM chips.  You can upgrade to the latest TOS 2.06, very easy upgrade!  Has a memory test built in.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Atari-520STE-1040STE-Mega-STE-TOS-2-06-ROM-chip-firmware-upgrade/133088794459?hash=item1efcb5d75b:g:STIAAOSw2~NcAmu7

Edited June 22, 2019 by tjlazer

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I don't think that TOS 2.06 will help in gaming - it is well known fact. And those who read this thread little better can see that gaming is in plan.

So, no please don't order that 2.06 . Especially not as single TOS. I can deliver you quad TOS - still in 2 32 pin chips, and you can have in machine 4, switchable TOS versions:  like 1.62, 2.06, 1.62i, 2.16i ....

[Airshack]

On 6/20/2019 at 10:31 AM, ParanoidLittleMan said:

Here is how to check it 100% :TOSDUMP1.ZIP

You have there program what will read whole TOS and write it to disk. Then you can post it, so I can check what exact version is it, and is it 100% original, or some changes are in it. Need to copy it on floppy disk with some 300 KB free space, and run on STE . Or you can use UltraSatan ? But would be better do to it before Xmas ?  TOS dump file size must be exactly :  262144 bytes .

I finally go around to this after nearly two years. My chip has "163" hand written on it so I wanted to check and see if I had a modified 1.62 ROM. Perhaps an unknown 1.63?

 

Will you please examine to see if I have any changes in my ROMs? It appears 1.62 by the image name?

 

162L00.IMG

[ParanoidLittleMan]

It is 1.62 US TOS ROM, 100% unchanged content.  Btw. that L00 is for language/region, and US code is 00 .

[calimero]

Btw @Airshack you could add yours images and serial numbers of your Atari to Atari database: 

http://milan.kovac.cc/atari/chipmunk/