Compared to the standard 520 ST or 1040 ST, the Mega ST comes in a low, flat desktop case with the floppy drive and motherboard separated from the keyboard, similar to a classic PC tower-and-keyboard setup. It shipped with a built-in Blitter chip for fast graphics operations, which the earliest 520/1040 ST models lacked, making it noticeably better suited for GEM-based desktop publishing software of the era.
Mega STs were sold as Mega 2 (2 MB RAM) and Mega 4 (4 MB RAM), both expandable, and were commonly bundled with monochrome high-resolution monitors for DTP work with software like Calamus or PageStream.
+Mega STs were sold as Mega 1 (1 MB RAM), Mega 2 (2 MB RAM) and Mega 4 (4 MB RAM), all expandable, and were commonly bundled with monochrome high-resolution monitors for DTP work with software like Calamus or PageStream.
The separated case design makes internal expansion and modification considerably easier than on an all-in-one 1040 ST, which is one reason the Mega ST remains a popular base for retro computing projects like the ones documented on this site.