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23 lines
2.0 KiB
Plaintext
23 lines
2.0 KiB
Plaintext
---
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title: "The Atari Mega ST Fleet: Three Machines, Three Jobs"
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section: "retro"
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description: "How three Atari Mega ST computers ended up with completely different roles in a modern retro setup."
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layout: base.njk
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parent: "/"
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---
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<h1>The Atari Mega ST Fleet: Three Machines, Three Jobs</h1>
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<div class="detail-content">
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<p>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.</p>
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<h2>The Lineup</h2>
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<ul>
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<li><strong>The heirloom machine</strong> — 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.</li>
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<li><strong>The "Low" machine</strong> — 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.</li>
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<li><strong>The "High" machine</strong> — 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.</li>
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<li><strong>The spare Mega ST 2</strong> — a reserve and donor machine, kept in largely original condition, used to safely test upgrades before they go into the "real" machines.</li>
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</ul>
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<p class="redacted-note">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.</p>
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</div>
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