December 19th, 2011 by Benj Edwards
Santa has little respect for floppy disks, shoving them in there without sleeves.
[ From ANALOG Computing, December 1988, front cover ]
Discussion Topic of the Week: When’s the last time you used an Atari ST series computer? What did you run on it?
Tags: 1988, Analog Computing, Atari, Atari ST, Christmas, DungeonLords, Retro Scan, stocking
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Santa has little respect for floppy disks, shoving them in there without sleeves.
December 19th, 2011 at 4:39 pm
That is a pretty progressive magazine design.. it looks like it could be on the news stand today.
Never had an Atari, I had a Vic 20, C64 and then IBM clones going forward.
December 19th, 2011 at 6:26 pm
Honestly, I never used an Atari ST. At least, not a “real” Atari ST. I have been searching around for an inexpensive one, but with no luck.
At least I have my Atari 8-bit, right?
December 19th, 2011 at 7:18 pm
i wonder why they picked “Analog” for a computing magazine? computers are digital creatures…
anyway, no i haven’t got the chance to use an Atari ST computer.
December 20th, 2011 at 12:22 pm
That is some cover. I love the juxtaposition of “Dungeonlords” in that nasty gothic font over something as innocent as a Christmas stocking.
Same here, no ST, just 8-bit. On which most recently I ran a little Hello World for kicks to prove it was alive after years of storage. And Pac-Man (so much better than the 2600 version), but without joysticks, so the game was short lived.
December 20th, 2011 at 1:37 pm
I owned an Atari ST until the early 90s. I remember doing some Modulas or Pascal programming on it. I eventually traded it for an Amiga 1000 which I still own today though I have not used that in quite some time.
December 20th, 2011 at 3:37 pm
I almost bought an Atari ST, but my Amiga-owning friend convinced me to go his route.
December 22nd, 2011 at 5:52 am
I bought an Atari 1040ST from a car boot sale a couple of years back for £9 (UK) with a whole load of games and accessories. It is in really nice condition (no yellowing). I played Xenon 2 Megablast on it.
December 22nd, 2011 at 10:28 pm
Last time I used my Atari was in the late 90s or early 2000s when I had to sell my old hardware in college. Wish I had kept it.
I used to play games like SunDog, Time Bandit, Starball, and Asteroidia. Did lots of BBSing, primarily in ANSIterm so I could see the 16-color ANSI graphics on PC BBSes. I also created some ANSI artwork using Eric March’s FANSI.
As a kid I played a lot of with STWriter and NeoChrome. I also programmed some rudimentary stuff in GFA Basic.
BTW I’m slowly scanning some old ACE-St. Louis newsletters which I saved from the early 90s. Check out what I’ve got so far: http://www.joshrenaud.com/grossworld/atari/
December 23rd, 2011 at 3:30 am
The last time I touched one, or the last time I used one?
Last time I touched one–about an hour ago. It resides in my hallway sandwiched between my TRS-80 Model 1 and my Commodore SX-64.
Used one? About a month ago. I wanted to show my 9 year old daughter King’s Quest, and the Tandy Model 1000 is too high up on the shelf to play with 🙂
December 26th, 2011 at 3:52 am
I’ve never used one — it wasn’t until I got on the Web that I finally found out what the mysterious Atari mentioned on the back of so many of my favorite games was. 🙂
P.S. Actual reason I came here: you should post a link to your “Great Gifts: Computers on Christmas Morning” slideshow at PCMag. (I only found it by accident during some aimless web browsing, but got a kick out of all the pics once I did.)
December 26th, 2011 at 9:03 am
A 1040ST…. last used one of those in the mid 90s, I reckon, back when I was doing audio stuff (Cubase/MIDI sequencing). When I lived in Caulfield, Melbourne (up till 99) there used to be a repair shop for them above an old newsagents near the train station. Was sad to see it not still there on my last visit. 😉
Also, happy holiday season, Benj, and thanks for all the nostalgia trips. 😉
December 28th, 2011 at 1:54 am
Me and a friend went for the Atari instead of the Amiga because we fell in love with the design. (And let’s face it, Commodore’s strength was not in the design department). We knew it wasn’t up to par with the Amiga but we had a lot of fun with it anyway.
Foolishly I sold my Atari 520 STE (for a lot more than it was worth at the time) so I could afford a CD player. The weird thing about it was the guy paying more than market value for it. He already had an Amiga with several hundred games. His reason for buying my Atari? He was bored with the Amiga and wanted something new to play on. This was around 1993 and that was sadly the last time I touched an Atari.
I can’t help but wonder how long it took the buyer to get tired of his new Atari…