Ruben's Retro Corner
Atari 1040 ST^E (1989)

The Atari 1040 ST^E was an expanded Atari ST, released in 1989.

The original 520 ST was developed after Jack Tramel left Commodore and bought the consumer assets of the original Atari. It was more affordable than the Amiga and Macintosh, and beat both to market with a GUI. ST stood for sixteen/thirty-two, referencing the external and internal data bus widths of the 8 MHz Motorola 68000 it shared with those machines.

The E stood for enhanced, referring to the machine's expanded 4096 colour palette, upgradeable SIMM slots, 8-bit digital PCM audio support, and a hardware "BLiTTER" chip which improved graphics performance. Key engineers from the Commodore 64 were involved in the development of the ST, including the legendary Shiraz Shivji. I think it's angular industrial design is the coolest of any 16-bit machine.

STs shipped with TOS (The/Tramiel Operating System) and Digital Research GEM, a GUI I loved tinkering with on the PC (rest in peace, Gary Kildall). While its high-resolution monochrome output made it popular with desktop publishers, audio production was the line's real claim to fame thanks to its MIDI support. Some of my favourite albums from my childhood owed part of their existence to an Atari ST, which blows my mind.

My functional unit is technically a 4160 ^E, because it was upgraded to 4 MiB of memory. It came from a local Sydney-based music producer, who only ever used it for that purpose. It's in good physical condition, though it need a bit of a cleaning. The only changes included a RAM upgrade, and replacing a damaged disk drive with a GOTEK. My plan is to get a GOEX drive, and get some updated TOS 2.06 ICs.

Photos

Components

System

Component	Part	Year	State	Memo
Name	miku	-		Everyone's favourite musical idol!
Case	C070297 #1	1989		-
Keyboard	C070786-002 REV.A	1989		-
Motherboard	PAL 50 Hz UK version	1091		CA4003290, GX-211 VO
SIMMs	4x 1 MiB NEC 424400-70	1091		P10-04B556203 REV.D

ICs

Component	Part	Socket	Week	State	Memo
CPU	8 MHz MC68000FN8	U100	9052		"SC414072FN8 2C91E QEHG"
STB	-	U101	-		Incorporated into Atari C302183-001
EPROM HI	ST M27C1001	U102	?		TOS 1.62, 1 MBit (128 KiB x8)
EPROM LO	ST M27C1001	U103	?		TOS 1.62, 1 MBit (128 KiB x8)
ACIA	ST EF6850 P	U200	9038		ASync I/O
ACIA	ST EF6850 P	U201	9038		ASync I/O
Audio	Yamaha YM2149F	U202	9044		"GADG"
MFP	Motorola MC68901P	U203	9046		"2C19M IETI"
DMA	Atari C398739-001A	U300	1990
FDD Controller	WDC WD1772-PH	U301	9035		-
GST MCU	Atari C302183-001	U400	9142		GLUE, MMU, BLiTTER
Shifter	Atari C301712-001	U401	1990		9217TWG

Site Menu