Somewhere along the way, "one Atari ST" turned into three Mega ST 4 machines plus a Mega ST 2. Rather than let them gather dust, each one got a clearly defined purpose, from untouched nostalgia piece to fully upgraded workstation.
The Lineup
- The heirloom machine, kept as close to factory-original as possible, running the stock TOS 1.04 and a classic floppy drive. Its job is to be a baseline reference: if something breaks on a modded machine, this one proves the fault isn't in the software.
- The "Low" machine, a bargain-bin Mega ST 4 rebuilt with a Cloudy/StormyCloud combo for TOS switching and extra FastRAM, a Gotek floppy emulator, an UltraSatan hard disk emulator, and a SidecarTridge multi-device for ROM, floppy, and Wi-Fi tricks. This is the demo- and game-machine, optimized for fast disk-image swapping rather than serious productivity.
- The "High" machine, the workstation build. A MonSTerBoard adds 8MB of AltRAM, IDE storage, and flashable TOS (currently TOS 2.06), running Geneva for real multitasking. A NetUSB adapter and original Atari keyboard/mouse round it out, with an ET4000 graphics card in the pipeline for higher resolutions.
- The spare Mega ST 2, a reserve and donor machine, kept in largely original condition, used to safely test upgrades before they go into the "real" machines.
Fun fact: two of the "problem" machines turned out to have nothing wrong with the boards at all, a badly soldered CPU socket and a leftover blitter patch bridge were the actual culprits. Moral of the story: check your solder joints twice before blaming the silicon.