Jamie Lendino - Faster Than Light: The Atari St and the 16-Bit Revolution

Faster Than Light

Faster Than Light

THE ATARI ST AND THE 16-BIT REVOLUTION

Jamie Lendino

Steel Gear Press

Audubon, NJ

2019 Jamie Lendino. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from Jamie Lendino or the publisher.

Steel Gear Press

PO Box 459

Audubon, NJ 08106

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

Edited by Matthew Murray.

Atari is a brand name owned by Atari Interactive, a subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA. Atari, SA doesnt sponsor, authorize, or endorse this book.

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019906387

ISBN: 978-1-7323552-5-5

To my wonderful wife Allison and my incredible daughter Siena

Contents

For the first decades of its life, the computer was a room-filling monstrosity found only in dusty, dimly lit backrooms at universities, in research labs, and on military bases. You wouldnt think of stepping foot near one without a thorough knowledge of electronics and programming, or at least punch cards. But with the advent of the personal computer, that all changed. For the first time, anyone could buy a complete computer system, set it up on a regular desk, and run software, as tens of millions of people had discovered by the early 1980s.

But it was what happened next that was just as significant in revolutionizing personal computing. The Apple Macintosh , the Atari ST, and the Commodore Amiga featured GUIs you could control intuitively with a mouse, based on innovations first developed at the Stanford Research Institute and Xerox s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Command lines gave way to pointing devices, windows, menus , icons , check boxes, and radio buttons. The three new machines, released within 18 months of each other, also featured built-in support for mass storage and enhanced word processing and desktop publishing. In addition, they included improved graphics and sound capabilities that forever changed the trajectory of visual art, music production, and computer gaming.

The Atari ST, Atari Corporation s underdog entry in the 16-bit computer wars, was named for the platforms internal architecture: Sixteen/Thirty-Two, for its 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internal data path. The machine contained a powerful Motorola 68000 processor, and it was the first Atari computer to come with a mouse and a graphical user interface, the latter derived from Digital Research 's GEM running on top of Atari's own operating system. And unlike the companys excellent 8-bit line, which used 5.25-inch floppy disks, the ST used new 3.5-inch disks, with their higher storage capacity and tidier, more rigid packaging. From music production to gaming, the ST delivered in a way no 8-bit computer could.

As much as the ST was a next-generation platform, it was also a cost-cutting move meant to save Atari. Although the ST was more powerful than the 800 , as well it should have been with six years between release dates, it lacked the earlier computers advanced coprocessors for graphics and sound production, leaving the (admittedly fast) CPU to do most of the work. The ST was similar to but not quite as powerful as the Amiga , which arrived a few months after the ST and did have hardware coprocessors. Both the ST and the Amiga came out in 1985, one year after the Macintosh , and yet neither machine featured the Macintoshs raw ease of use. Its easy to see why some dismiss the STs influence as a result.

If the cost cutting worked to Ataris disadvantage in some areas, it also landed the ST platform in a real sweet spot in the market, with pricing that undercut both the Mac and the upcoming Amiga . Thanks to that and some shrewd design choices, the ST became a compelling platform. It delivered more advanced gaming in many genres, including simulations and role-playing games. It displayed color graphics, something the Mac couldnt do for another several years. And thanks in part to favorable exchange rates, the ST also found a serious following in business markets in parts of Europe for its computer-aided design (CAD ) and desktop publishing capabilities.

Perhaps most significantly, the ST kick-started a revolution in music recording with its built-in Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI ) ports, a then-new innovation that let synthesizers, drum machines, and other audio gear talk to each other. MIDI is still in wide use today in recording studios around the world. The ST was the only computer to include MIDI ports . We might all be using PCs and Macs these days, a 2008 story on the pro audio site MusicRadar wrote, but back in the 80s, the Atari ST was the machine that every computer musician wanted to own.

Why You Should Read This Book

Even with the above advantages and fervent fan bases, the ST never quite reached critical mass in mainstream popularity. Well address that dichotomy in this book. But more importantly, well celebrate all of what the ST had and still has to offer. The ST was an amazing music machine, a phenomenal game system, and a do-it-all general computing platform anyone could use. Theres a lot of wonderful stuff to cover.

Throughout the book, Ill also tell a little bit of my own ST story, which centered around gaming, getting online, using it as a main home computer, and ultimately setting it up as the center of my first home music studio. I owned one of the first machines, the one with the dreaded drop chip-seating problem (I cant wait to get to that part), and one without the OS in ROM at first. Nonetheless, moving from the 8-bit 800 to the 16-bit 520ST felt like a tremendous upgrade. I owned my 520ST from late 1985 through the year 2000, though I also got a 286 PC in 1989. In the late 1990s, I picked up a Mega 4 and a 1040ST . And, of course, I kept my two Atari 800s throughout, one of which ran a BBS for three years even as I tinkered with the 520ST on another desk. I'll never lose the sense of wonder I had for these machines and the incredible software that ran on them.

Ultimately, though, my own experience with the ST will play second fiddle to the main narrative: the history of the platform within the context of the tech industry. Well go through its entire production run, including the TT and Falcon, until the last system rolled off of Ataris assembly line in 1993, as well as the time afterward when many ST fans (musicians and otherwise) stayed with the platform. Along the way, well touch on some tangential developments, such as the evolution of CRPGs, the Atari Lynx handheld, and the aforementioned rise of computer-based music recording, but always from within the world of the Atari ST. Finally, well take a close look at the thriving global community of enthusiasts that exists today, and talk about how to collect, maintain, and mod these wonderful computers to keep them humming for many more years to come.

You Can Go Home Again

In a world of downloadable software on Steam , iOS, Google Play, and other places in the cloud, the art of the physical box containing a new piece of software has been lost. That said, high-quality scans of just about everything that came out for the ST have been made available online. Ive found its not enough to just download a ROM or boot an old floppy disk. To get the most out of each ST program, its worth seeking out scans of the manual, quick reference cards, maps, the box copy (front and back), and any other information about what was in the package, assuming you dont have the money for a complete-in-box version (though if you do, more power to you).