Technology | Nostalgia | 1980s | Life Story
Remembering the Atari ST
Facts and opinions from an owner of the ST’s rival, the Commodore Amiga
This is an updated version of an article I wrote a few years ago for some of my now-defunct blogs.
Exciting Time
The 1980s was an exciting time for anyone interested in computers, and in 1985, the Atari ST was launched just before the Commodore Amiga.
The ST, Amiga, and Apple Macintosh from the previous year all featured the 68000 microprocessor and were classed as 16-bit machines.
The ST and Amiga had some advantages over Apple’s offering: they were cheaper and featured colour.
The name ST means Sixteen/Thirty-two. This refers to the fact that the 68000 chip has a 16-bit data bus but is 32-bit internally.
With the ST being the cheapest, I imagined it might be the one I’d eventually choose to replace my Commodore 64. Despite it lacking the Amiga’s advanced custom chips for sound and graphics, it still had a lot more to offer than the best 8-bit computers.
