1040STf questions

[kevin242]

Im thinking of purchasing a 1040STf system. It comes with the main keyboard only.

Can I use a 520ST power supply with this unit? Will it likely have a blitter chip in it?

 

Why was there a STf and a STfm series, did one come first? While we are at it what

excactly is a Mega ST? Are the TT and Falcon basically a different platform then the

orig ST's ? Do all the original ST's come in STE versions?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

damn this is a mysterious computer platform

[+Mitch]

Im thinking of purchasing a 1040STf system.  It comes with the main keyboard only.

Can I use a 520ST power supply with this unit?  Will it likely have a blitter chip in it?

 

Why was there a STf and a STfm series, did one come first?  While we are at it what

excactly is a Mega ST?  Are the TT and Falcon basically a different platform then the

orig ST's ?  Do all the original ST's come in STE versions? 

 

 

 

damn this is a mysterious computer platform

863342[/snapback]

 

The 1040STf doesn't use an external power supply, it just needs the standard computer cord that all modern PCs use.

The extra "m" at the end stood for the RF modulator, which meant you could hook it up to your TV via RF or composite connection in addition to the standard RGB Atari monitor connection.

 

Mitch

[Gunstar]

Adding to Mitch's answer, the "f" stands for the internal FLOPPYdrive instead of the external floppy disk drives, and since they had the extra room do to the deeper rear-end of the STf to fit in a floppy drive, they put the power supply inside as well. Though, I suppose (never thought of it before), if you wanted to make more room internally for something like an internal IDE HD upgrade, it would be possible to remove the internal power supply, and add the old power jack back to the ST for use with a 520/1040ST external power supply.

 

The STE came in every version as the ST's; 520. 1040 and mega's. The Megas have the redesigned case, which is basically similar to the original Amiga 1000 with an external keyboard. They also came with 2 or 4 megabytes of memory, hence "mega." The mega STE's were to the mega St's as the STE's were to the ST's, but they came in a redesigned two piece case that matched the newer 32-bit TT line. I think the mega STE's also came standard with harddrives and the mega ST's did not, but I could be mistaken about that. Then, for some strange reason, when Atari came out with the Falcon, they chose to return to the design of the original ST(f) cases. I never understood why they didn't use a case similair to the mega STE/TT's or even the original mega ST's all of which are better looking and more user friendly in design (front floppy access, detachable keyboards).

 

The TT Falcon are just the natural evolution of the Atari 16-bit line as the 32-bit pentium PC's were to the 16-bit 386/486 PC's before them(actually, the more I think about it, IIRC, the 386 and 486's may have been 8-bit still(?) maybe just the 386's were 8-bit), or the 16-bit Macintosh computers compared to the 32-bit Mac PowerPC line. They are mostly incompatible with most ST/STE software except for maybe some application/productivity software, but continued the TOS/GEM operating system evolution just like the Mac's and Pc's did with Mac OS and MS-dos/windows. Just a very natural evolution of the Atari computer line just like Apple's, PC's and Amiga's had. If Atari were still around and still making computers, we'd probably have seen 64-bit TOS machines by now, probably even before other brands that are basically still 32-bit. but only becuase it would probably have evolved from both the Falcon/TT's and Jaguar technologies. Though it's 64-bitness would still be argued as it would probably still have a 32-bit CPU, but 64-bit graphics and blitter chips aas the Jaguar had (though much more advanced versions by now) and a 64-bit system buss, but this would still have been ahead of other current systems that are still using 32-bit system busses like the Mac and PC of today. Ok, now that I've answered all you asked and more than you wanted to know with speculation, i'll leave it at that...

Edited May 28, 2005 by Gunstar

[kevin242]

Interesting info, it seems Atari must have been constantly redesigning the ST computers.

From what I gather, it doesnt sound like a smooth transition from the ST/mega to the

later designs (TT/Falcon) since you wouldnt be able to play the same games. Even

the Amiga and Mac had the ability to support the previous generation when they moved

on to new hardware (altho the Mac did this partly thru software emulation). I see that I

probably would have little use for the Falcon (altho it would be neat to have since it is

so rare).

 

Gunstar I have read about the concept of making a computer with Jaguar technology

and I always thought that would have been a good idea. It's too bad Atari didnt get

that out sooner... Imagine a 68030 based Jaguar computer back in 93 it could have

carved out niche for itself better then ttrying to compete with Nintendo/Sega and Sony,

but pehaps at that point it was too late for Atari to succeed in hardware.

 

If I win this 1040stf it will prob serve all my purposes. I just need to find some 720k

floppies and I should be all set. I really wish there was a SIO2PC like device of

some sort for the ST because I really hate floppies (infact I will need to install a

floppy drive in my computer, since I gave up on them years ago).

 

 

This is sort of confusing to me, since I have two 520ST's with tv modulators on

them and I assume the 1040stf came out after my 520, so why didnt it include

the modulator? Also is there a certain point when all ST's had blitters? Will

the 1040stf I buy have one?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kevin

Edited May 29, 2005 by kevin242

[ijor]

First ST computers were plain “ST”, no internal floppy, no RF modulator. Rather soon the 520ST was replaced with the STm (RF modulator and video composite). I don’t know in Europe, but in the US it took a while until STfm models appear. For quite some time your options were 520STm or 1040STf.

 

The Mega ST has a redesigned case, external keyboard, and RTC.

 

The Mega STe, besides having the STe additions, has a faster CPU at 16Mhz with cache (both can be switched off for compatibility). Plus optional internal hard disk, plus optional HD floppy.

 

Most ST (non STe) models don’t have a blitter.

 

I don’t know why the 1040ST didn’t include modulator. I guess Atari considered most buyers of the “bigger” model will buy a monitor as well.

 

If you are curious about all the models variants and their history, check Atari musem website. The webmaster (Curt) is a regular user in this forum and could give you detailed answers on these aspects.

 

(actually, the more I think about it, IIRC, the 386 and 486's may have been 8-bit still(?) maybe just the 386's were 8-bit)

 

The 386 was (is) 32-bit.

[Gunstar]

First ST computers were plain “ST”, no internal floppy, no RF modulator. Rather soon the 520ST was replaced with the STm (RF modulator and video composite). I don’t know in Europe, but in the US it took a while until STfm models appear. For quite some time your options were 520STm or 1040STf.

 

The Mega ST has a redesigned case, external keyboard, and RTC.

 

The Mega STe, besides having the STe additions, has a faster CPU at 16Mhz with cache (both can be switched off for compatibility). Plus optional internal hard disk, plus optional HD floppy.

 

Most ST (non STe) models don’t have a blitter.

 

I don’t know why the 1040ST didn’t include modulator. I guess Atari considered most buyers of the “bigger” model will buy a monitor as well.

 

If you are curious about all the models variants and their history, check Atari musem website. The webmaster (Curt) is a regular user in this forum and could give you detailed answers on these aspects.

 

(actually, the more I think about it, IIRC, the 386 and 486's may have been 8-bit still(?) maybe just the 386's were 8-bit)

 

The 386 was (is) 32-bit.

863419[/snapback]

Hmm, if the 386 is 32-bit then I guess I'd have to go further back for my comparison, but I'm not 100% convinced your totally right, I'm almost postive that they still used a 16-bit system buss on the 386, even if the 386 processor might have been internally 32-bit (like 68000's). I know that on the 386 and 486 models they still used 8-bit PCB cards (graphics, sound, modem, etc.). But whtever, it's not that important anyway, he gets the picture I was attempting to paint anyway it seems.

[Gunstar]

If you are getting a 1040STfm it will have the modulator, if it's just a 1040STf, like mine, it doesn't, a monitor like the SC1224 will be needed. As a matter of fact, the stereo upgrade board I just installed in my 1040STf is sitting right in the spot where the RF modulator WOULD have gone had it had one; they have the spot for them if you care to install an RF modulator yourself...though I highly recommend an ST montior anyway, it's 500% better than hooking your ST up to a TV or composite video output (which I guess, form posts by others, that is available on the 1040STfm's)

[kevin242]

 

Hmm, if the 386 is 32-bit then I guess I'd have to go further back for my comparison, but I'm not 100% convinced your totally right, I'm almost postive that they still used a 16-bit system buss on the 386.,..

863467[/snapback]

 

 

I believe you are right to some degree, infact 386's had 8bit ISA ports as well as

16 bit ones. Also there were stripped down versions of the 386 like the SX and the

DLC or something like that... Regardless of how many bits the 386 was processing

there were tons of bottlenecks in those early pc's. The Amiga & ST with their 8mhz

cpu's and better architecture may have been 16 bit but they were faster for most

non-computational tasks (games!!!) and they were more fun.

 

YOu dont see anyone playing around with their old 386 pc's do you?

[ijor]

I thought this was quite off-topic, so I replied to Gunstar by PM.

 

But as much as I love the Atari, most 386 PCs are way much faster than the ST or the Amiga. The problem was they were much more expensive when they were just released.

 

Yes, they had some bottlenecks, specially on graphics. But they weren't designed for games. Nobody was going to buy them for games. It wasn't until some years later, when (S)VGA and 386 was affordable that a real game market developed for the PC.

 

But you'll be suprised, there are some people that like "vintage PCs" and use a 386 or 486 for old games. Lot of old PC games don't run on modern computers.

[kevin242]

Yes, they had some bottlenecks, specially on graphics. But they weren't designed for games. Nobody was going to buy them for games. It wasn't until some years later, when (S)VGA and 386 was affordable that a real game market developed for the PC.

 

But you'll be suprised, there are some people that like "vintage PCs" and use a 386 or 486 for old games. Lot of old PC games don't run on modern computers.

863541[/snapback]

 

 

actually the 386/486 machines were still quite expensive compared to their Amiga/ST

counterparts, but it was the "killer" apps Wolfenstien and esp. Doom that were just

not possible on your average ST/Amiga that made the pc's the computer of choice

for games.

 

As far as comparing speed, it is like comparing Apple's to Oranges because the

architecture of the PC was so different then ST. In many ways an ST and esp. an

Amiga were quite a bit more capable and "faster" at many tasks (of course not

at pure computation) but when it came to throwing out pixels for fps games, the

pc was king and has remained that way to this day.

[techie_alison]

Ooh, gotta join in on this one :-) Was there in the 80's and 90's when it all kicked off in my gym skirt days. :-)

 

The PC was erm, mmmmmm, interesting. In the early days there were things like Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy which were text based and would run on a bog basic monochrome 8088 4.77Mhz PC. Leisure Suit Larry and the The Space Quest suites from Sierra started to branch into basic graphics, still on the 8088 but preferred on a 286. One of the real classics in the early days was Elite, the space trading game, and then games like Populous and Carrier started to enter onto the scene, Elite was then rewritten as Elite+ for the new hardware. It all kind of kicked off as VGA became widely available. Sound standards such as Adlib started to appear as did the first Sound Blaster card with an all amazing game port for joysticks. Whey-heyyy.

 

OK, not entering into the debate on what was and was not 16-bit, 32-bit etc.

 

The 32-bit Vesa Local Bus as fitted to some 486 motherboards was when the odds really started to widen. The Cirrus Logic 5428VLB was one graphics card, oooh Mortal Kombat, Doom. IDE Cache controllers named brands such as Promise started to enter onto the scene too. Windows was at about version 3.11 and things were starting to establish themselves with multimedia making an entry. The first mainstream CD rom drives were starting to appear about now too, there had been earlier attempts but nothing significant due to strange standards and specialist drivers etc.

 

Enter the Pentium. Command and Conquer, Red Alert. Things were moving now.

 

The turning point for the PC seemed to be around the early 90's with it taking the following 5 years for things to really catch on. Perhaps the big attraction was that the PC was so configurable with devices from many different manufacturers with just one thing in common, open standards. Equipment such as floppy drives and controller cards could be used on newer systems.

 

Probably the best way to sum up the PC in comparison to the overall Atari range is this. "Your old disk drive and cartidges from the Atari 800XL could be used on the Atari ST and beyond." IBM set the standard with the original PC, 8088 4.77Mhz and licenced out the rights resulting in an open market-place where manufacturers could freely do what they wanted, driven by the spending consumer. Mac's were still quite restricted, and in the big race back then, if Steve Jobs had licenced out the Mac architecture onto the open market then things could have been quite different. A single company such as Atari couldn't compete soley with such an open marketplace as that with the PC.

 

The attraction of the Atari here is nostalga. Even now the games and hardware have a certain playable and 'Atari' games feel to them. Xenon II on the Atari ST beats Gran Turismo 3 and Grand Theft Auto 3 hands down. It's a simplicity thing really, why play Solitare on a £2000 PC when you can buy a pack of cards for 50p. OK, don't answer that. :-)

 

Playability is the big asset of the Atari ST, it brings together everything that the 1980's represented into final refinement. For all the Atari 2600's, Commodore VIC-20's, the Commodore 64's, the 128's, the Sinclair Spectrums, the Oric Atmos's, the MSX's, the TANDY TRS-80, the Atari ST represents all of them as the final computing gift from the 1980's.

 

Or something like that.... :-)

[Alex H]

First ST computers were plain “ST”, no internal floppy, no RF modulator. Rather soon the 520ST was replaced with the STm (RF modulator and video composite). I don’t know in Europe, but in the US it took a while until STfm models appear. For quite some time your options were 520STm or 1040STf.

Yes, this was the same in Europe - al least in the UK.

 

The Mega ST has a redesigned case, external keyboard, and RTC.

And was also the first model to have the blitter. Although I understand that some later Megas don't have the blitter fitted? It also had room for an internal hard disk and an extra connector for graphic card.

 

The STe also had the blitter, expanded the colour palette from 512 to 4096 colours, added hardware scrolling, DMA digital audio and extra controller ports. (To bring it more in line with the Amiga specs.) Oh, and IIRC, SIMM sockets for RAM.

 

The 386 was (is) 32-bit.

Yes. The 386DX was the full 32-bit version with 32-bit data bus, the 386SX had a 16-bit data bus.

[Alex H]

Oh, forgot to say that I have some early Atari ST developer docs which say there were to be 2 models - 130ST and 260ST. I know some 260STs exist but was there ever really a 130ST? (I think GEM was too big to fit in 128K.)

[ijor]

Yes.  The 386DX was the full 32-bit version with 32-bit data bus, the 386SX had a 16-bit data bus.

 

The “category” of a CPU or MPU, 8-bits, 16, 32, or 64-bits, is one thing and the bus size is another. The bus size is only one of the components that define the category. There cases that are not clear or controversial, but most cases are not.

 

The 386 is a 32-bit processor. The fact that there is a smaller variant (38SX) with a smaller bus size doesn’t change this. The 68000 also had a little brother, the 68008 with an 8-bit bus size. That doesn’t make the 68000 an 8-bit (or 8/16) CPU.

 

Comparing the 386, even the SX, with the 68000 is pointless. If you want, it is comparable with the 68030, but not with the ST 68000.

 

Also, don’t confuse the processor with the computer. Many, perhaps most, PCs with an 386 had an ISA bus. The ISA bus is 16-bits but allows using older 8-bit cards. However there were 386 PCs with EISA bus which is 32-bits, and with 32-bits MCA bus. Anyway, that’s not the main system computer bus, it’s a peripheral I/O bus. The system bus, that connected the CPU to main memory and other system controllers, had the same size of the CPU. This means 32-bits for a 386DX.

 

Something similar happens with the ST. The main data bus is 16-bits. But most peripherals are 8-bit (ACIA’s, MFP, FDC, PSG). Besides main memory, only the graphics (MMU, Shifter, etc) and the hard disk interface is 16-bits. From the point of view of speed, the architectural design of using main memory for video display is what made the big difference with contemporaneous PCs.

[+DarkLord]

 

Hmm, if the 386 is 32-bit then I guess I'd have to go further back for my comparison, but I'm not 100% convinced your totally right, I'm almost postive that they still used a 16-bit system buss on the 386.,..

863467[/snapback]

 

 

I believe you are right to some degree, infact 386's had 8bit ISA ports as well as

16 bit ones. Also there were stripped down versions of the 386 like the SX and the

DLC or something like that... Regardless of how many bits the 386 was processing

there were tons of bottlenecks in those early pc's. The Amiga & ST with their 8mhz

cpu's and better architecture may have been 16 bit but they were faster for most

non-computational tasks (games!!!) and they were more fun.

 

YOu dont see anyone playing around with their old 386 pc's do you?

863509[/snapback]

 

I'm with you. I owned a couple of 386 variants that my workplace discarded and while you certainly could play Doom on it, most games, IMO were definitely inferior to Amiga and Atari ST offerings of the same era.

 

Just my 2 cents worth. :-)

[Alex H]

Yes.  The 386DX was the full 32-bit version with 32-bit data bus, the 386SX had a 16-bit data bus.

 

The “category” of a CPU or MPU, 8-bits, 16, 32, or 64-bits, is one thing and the bus size is another. The bus size is only one of the components that define the category. There cases that are not clear or controversial, but most cases are not.

 

The 386 is a 32-bit processor. The fact that there is a smaller variant (38SX) with a smaller bus size doesn’t change this. The 68000 also had a little brother, the 68008 with an 8-bit bus size. That doesn’t make the 68000 an 8-bit (or 8/16) CPU.

 

Comparing the 386, even the SX, with the 68000 is pointless. If you want, it is comparable with the 68030, but not with the ST 68000.

 

Also, don’t confuse the processor with the computer. Many, perhaps most, PCs with an 386 had an ISA bus. The ISA bus is 16-bits but allows using older 8-bit cards. However there were 386 PCs with EISA bus which is 32-bits, and with 32-bits MCA bus. Anyway, that’s not the main system computer bus, it’s a peripheral I/O bus. The system bus, that connected the CPU to main memory and other system controllers, had the same size of the CPU. This means 32-bits for a 386DX.

 

Something similar happens with the ST. The main data bus is 16-bits. But most peripherals are 8-bit (ACIA’s, MFP, FDC, PSG). Besides main memory, only the graphics (MMU, Shifter, etc) and the hard disk interface is 16-bits. From the point of view of speed, the architectural design of using main memory for video display is what made the big difference with contemporaneous PCs.

867190[/snapback]

 

Yes, yes, I agree. Perhaps I worded that badly.

 

I had a Sinclair QL (before moving onto the ST) which used the 68008. Sinclair advertised it as a 32-bit machine, which of course it wasn't really. Motorola describe the 68000 as a 16/32 bit processor (and likewise the 6809 as 8/16 bits). And of course, ST stands for Sixteen/Thirty-two.

 

With processors like the 6502 it was easy - 8-bit data bus, 8-bit instruction word, 8-bit ALU. It's 8-bit! But with processors like the 68008 with 8-bit data bus, 16-bit instruction word and 32-bit ALU, the terminology got hijacked by marketing men. It gets really confusing with systems like the PlayStation2 - the GPU alone has 2 data busses to it's on-die memory which are 2048 and 512 bit. There was early marketing speak suggesting that it's 2560 bit! Crazy!!!

 

Anyhow, we've got a bit off topic so I'll shut up now.

[+xucaen]

If you are getting a 1040STfm it will have the modulator, if it's just a 1040STf, like mine, it doesn't, a monitor like the SC1224 will be needed. As a matter of fact, the stereo upgrade board I just installed in my 1040STf is sitting right in the spot where the RF modulator WOULD have gone had it had one; they have the spot for them if you care to install an RF modulator yourself...though I highly recommend an ST montior anyway, it's 500% better than hooking your ST up to a TV or composite video output (which I guess, form posts by others, that is available on the 1040STfm's)

863473[/snapback]

 

Hi there, I am looking for information on how to modify a 1040STF. I want to add RF modulation so I can hook it up to a TV. I am limited on space and have a 19-inch for games. Is there any info out there on how to do this? Easier is better.

 

 

Thanks!

 

edit:

 

I just found this technical document on how to convert the RGB to composite video.

 

http://www.preromanbritain.com/gwem/martbe...aridiy/conv.htm

 

For someone like me this doesn't seem easy.

 

 

Jim

Edited November 28, 2005 by xucaen

[tjlazer]

The reason the 1040STf does not have a RF Modulator is because this model came out right after the original 520ST, which also did not have a RF. After these initial models Atari came out with the 520STm (My first Atari ST in 1986) then the 1040STfm came out. Then at this time I think the 520STfm came out as well to appeal to the entry level user. (though my 520STfm has 1MB!) Atari kept updating models as time went on. I think the 1040STfm and 520STfm were more common in Europe than in the USA.

Edited November 28, 2005 by tjlazer

[Womble76]

The STFs do have space on the motherboard for the modulators but they were left off this range for 1 maybe 2 reasons.

 

Firstly the modulatorless systems were cheaper and secondly Atari were still hoping that the STs would become widely used in business and the fact it could be attached to a TV seemed a little too much of a nod towards the home game useage. Many of these systems were sold with a monitor so the RF socket was unrequired and detracted from the "serious system" image they were hoping to build.

[+xucaen]

Many of these systems were sold with a monitor so the RF socket was unrequired and detracted from the "serious system" image they were hoping to build.

973114[/snapback]

 

So, maybe my best bet is to find a broken 1040stfm but that has a good modulator and do some surgury. I had seen some posts that seemed to suggest that this was the way, but I was hoping for a simpler solution, something like the RF modulator unit that radio shack sells.

 

 

So, if anyone has a 1040 STFM modulator, PM me!

 

Jim

[Womble76]

You may find it easier to find an RGB monitor. Doesnt have to be an atari brand one either. Infact if your TV supports RBG (ie SCART / PERITEL socket) then you can connect it to the TV using the monitor socket. I assume Ma means Massachusetts? If so you are probably out of luck, I did read somewhere that SCART is predominantly on European tvs. Worth a look tho, easy to make up a cable if you have this connection.

 

http://img.hexus.net/v2/multimedia/nissan/dv100b/o6.jpg

 

Thats what they look like.

Edited November 28, 2005 by Womble76

[atarian1]

I thought I read somewhere that the reason why some Atari 520ST/1040ST computers have RF modulators and some don't is because of the FCC certification. Atari couldn't get the FCC Class B certification because of the RF modulator releasing too much radiation, so it was removed. I believe some got passed the FCC's eyes or a motherboard redesign fixed this which is why some US 520/104ST models have the RF modulator. Europe did not have as strict FCC radiation standards which is why I believe ALL 520/1040STs had RF modulators over there. (or at least I've never heard of a European 520/1040ST without an RF modulator) I think Canada also didn't have the strict FCC certification like Europe, so I think they also got all their 520/1040STs with RF modulators.

 

The reason the 1040STf does not have a RF Modulator is because this model came out right after the original 520ST, which also did not have a RF.  After these initial models Atari came out with the 520STm (My first Atari ST in 1986) then the 1040STfm came out. Then at this time I think the 520STfm came out as well to appeal to the entry level user. (though my 520STfm has 1MB!) Atari kept updating models as time went on.  I think the 1040STfm and 520STfm were more common in Europe than in the USA.

973086[/snapback]