Atari ST in use since 1985

12Bass

12Bass

New member
While many here are chasing the next big thing in technology, this man is still using a 1985 Atari ST to run his business, using software he wrote himself. Really get a kick out of how much use he's had from this machine, especially in an era when some upgrade their mobile phones every six months...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LxPEz9x2fs

[yt]6LxPEz9x2fs[/yt]
 
that's really impressive and it shows how the hardware was build back then. Heck i had a commodore 1084 Monitor (perfectly working) until i discarded it a few years ago.
 
Ive seen some Sony tvs last that long they used such robust and big components back in the day.
 
i spilled coke on my atari 800 3 times each time i washed it out with a hose and let it sit outside in the Az sun for a day or so always worked fine after :lol:
 
bill dennison said:
i spilled coke on my atari 800 3 times each time i washed it out with a hose and let it sit outside in the Az sun for a day or so always worked fine after :lol:
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Had an Atari 400 16k, my first computer! It was made for spills. Nice to see the 800 could take the abuse. Would have loved a 48k Atari 800 with a pair of floppy drives. Got a 65XE years later, but still no drives.

Dithered between the Atari ST and the Amiga in the early 90s and eventually got an A1000. Had fun using it in the early internet days.
 
Had one of these. Lots of good memories.

1024px-Amiga_4000T.jpg
 
12Bass said:
Had an Atari 400 16k, my first computer! It was made for spills. Nice to see the 800 could take the abuse. Would have loved a 48k Atari 800 with a pair of floppy drives. Got a 65XE years later, but still no drives.

Dithered between the Atari ST and the Amiga in the early 90s and eventually got an A1000. Had fun using it in the early internet days.
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had a Atari ST before i went to a AMD 386

had a Atari ST 20 mb hard drive it cost 899.99 at the time :bleh: :lol:
 
Yep my first computer was also an Atari 400, got the 800 and actually still have it with the 5 1/4 floppy drive and it still works.
 
we had a C64 for a short time? my memory is poor at the best of times and even worse for my childhood.

I just recall playing a few games on it on our tv in the living room by the fire one year, may have borrowed the system from an aunt.

playing around with an Apple II of some kind at my cousins and then a 486 was the first computer I have solid memories of.

I have a Pal Vic-20 boxed up as well with a few things from my ex step father. but I can't plug that in to even test without buying a convertor for voltage.
 
got a C=64 at christmas with the game Ghostbuster, was able to get my hands on pretty much every game that was out there and played the heck outta 'em. I actually took my C=64 with me into the hospital when i had to stay there for a while. After that i sold it and bought a A500, followed by a A1200 and a A4000 which was the last classic home computer i owned. After that i got a P3 500....
 
A close friend of mine seems to feel that computers got "boring" after the Amiga. Yes, PCs are much more powerful, but they seem to lack some of the magic that was the Amiga. And the 8-bit Ataris were the ancestors of the Amiga (Jay Miner), making them kind of special too, considering their capabilities in 1979.
 
I think I still have an 800xl sitting in a closet somewhere. Actually, it was a 400xl, but I added a memory expansion to it so it was functionally an 800xl. No idea if it still works or not.
 
12Bass said:
A close friend of mine seems to feel that computers got "boring" after the Amiga. Yes, PCs are much more powerful, but they seem to lack some of the magic that was the Amiga. And the 8-bit Ataris were the ancestors of the Amiga (Jay Miner), making them kind of special too, considering their capabilities in 1979.
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I can see that.

With my C=64 I had the pinout book and I did all kinds of crazy stuff with that computer. No telling how many times I popped the fuse in that damn thing. LOL...

It was VERY easy to program. It was very user friendly when it came to accessories. I ran a deamon dialer on the thing that I programmed myself to work with my old 9600baud modem. I had it set up so that it would call phone numbers in a row and then if there was a connection to another modem write that number to a file. I'd let it run over night and in the morning I had a list of phone numbers that had computer connections. I programmed all the dang time. There were always some new things to do with them.

Made my own synthesizer with it. Built a checkbook organizer with it for the parents. You could do crazy stuff like that on those machines easily.

I even had a subscription to RUN magazine.

Those were fun days.
 
oh boy, i still remember the mags with pages over pages full of listings and yes, BASIC was awesome, easy to get into and so many things to explore.
 
Silent-Runner said:
Had one of these. Lots of good memories.
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Never had the Amiga but I do recall people raving about how great the video toaster was.

My first PC was an IBM XT "clone" 8088. I think people are just used to technology now to the point that it's taken for granted. Some of that 'magic' has just worn off and probably will never return.

I'm of that generation (X) where we can still remember a time in our youth that cellular phones were not around yet. Hah!
 
Riptide said:
Never had the Amiga but I do recall people raving about how great the video toaster was.

My first PC was an IBM XT "clone" 8088. I think people are just used to technology now to the point that it's taken for granted. Some of that 'magic' has just worn off and probably will never return.

I'm of that generation (X) where we can still remember a time in our youth that cellular phones were not around yet. Hah!
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for that time it was an amazing piece of hardware, the demo scene alone showed what this ancient machines were capable of. It was a great time to game and explore. It's kinda hard to decribe to our current generation because they are raised with all the technology on hand.
 
Silent-Runner said:
for that time it was an amazing piece of hardware, the demo scene alone showed what this ancient machines were capable of. It was a great time to game and explore. It's kinda hard to decribe to our current generation because they are raised with all the technology on hand.
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is it weird if we finally get a full AI, I'd want someone to give it something like a C64 and say "go to town" on programing it.

In the same way it was shocking what the demo scenes were able to get out of the hardware, imagine what an AI could squeeze out of it.
 
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