The Atari ST Story | Nostalgia Nerd

THANK YOU for the mention (I'm White Town) and representing the almighty ST! I currently have four in a cupboard upstairs and Lotharek's FPGA version too. I can tell you, as of 2020, nothing comes close to touching the ST still in terms of MIDI timing tightness and usability. Maybe Reaper on a good day, if the wind's blowing right. WIthout the rock-solid timing of the ST (synced to my Tascam 688 via its built-in FSK), Your Woman would not have sounded like it sounds.

Brilliant job. It's important to have a video like this done from a UK perspective, and you're bang on about the ST being to the Amiga what the Speccy was to the C64, that's exactly how it felt to me too. I remember that I got a very early STFM, and it came with a single sided (360k?) floppy drive, which I later upgraded with a double sided one...which involved taking a hacksaw to the case...good old days.

The PC disk compatibility for the ST was a godsend. I was able to take 4 years of work and port them when I upgraded to PC in 1992. I still have those files. There is something cool about having something that old.

I had an Atari STE 1040 STE and was the only machine I had from 1986-1996 and only stopped because I broke it by taking it apart! It was so awesome, had RCA stereo jacks, TV out, 4 controller ports and MIDI ports (we needed this and no other machine could offer this for the price). I doubt if I can ever again buy a machine that lasts a decade in terms of daily driver, so kudos to Atari!

Great video! Remember STart magazine? It was dedicated to the Atari ST platform and I was a columnist for that publication. I'll never forget stopping in Chicago and browsing a magazine rack and seeing the first edition. I was just thrilled to see my column inside. I was a national columnist! The column was called 'By the Numbers by Don Smith. I also ran a popular Atari ST BBS in my Houston (TX) apartment and I called it 'The AtariST'.

I miss the glory days of just being able to sit down at my computer, turn it on, and have it be a blank canvas where I could just write a program to make it do whatever the heck I wanted it to. A time when the computer came with the manual that actually gave you all the instructions for how to do just that and not only that, gave you the full schematic of the workings of the chips so you could get them to do what you wanted them to do. Nowadays, you don't get a manual with the computer. If you want to write a program, you need to get a separate program in order to even program the thing. Then you need to figure out what language you want to use because different languages are better for different types of purposes, then you need to get a big book or take a course to learn the big complex language. I used to write so many games and programs on my C64. I ran a C64 BBS back in the day. Times have really changed a LOT and have gotten a LOT more complicated since then.

flew to Atari a few months before the ST release to meet the Tramiels. The Atari offices were very depressing. I did see the room where they were studying the Lisa to see what they could learn. A couple months later I was developing on one of the first 520sts. lots of hand-wiring on motherboard and no rf shielding. I did finally sell off that system last year probably way cheaper than I should have. I really enjoyed working on the machine. things got a lot better once they had hard drives

Atari has influenced my whole life. I truly enjoyed your amazing video, sent me on a trip down nostalgia road. As a teenager, I was hooked by the Arcade-machines, spent a fortune on Defender and Pac-Man. Bought my first computer a second hand Atari 800 because of the games but soon found out that the best "game" was Atari Basic. Wrote a lot of simple games like slot-machines and mace-games before I stepped up to an Atari Mega 2 and Mark Williams C. Spent a lot of time creating a horse racing game which I eventually sold to Commodore (oh the irony) intended for their CD-TV. The game went into lengthy development to fit the hardware, but Commodore went bankrupt before it could be released. My devotion for computers brought me into a career as a computer graphics designer, handling dedicated systems like the FCG Beacon and later the Dutch Aesthedes. Started my own design firm and got Atari Scandinavia as one of my clients, creating campaigns and packaging for the Atari 520 ST, and later the Atari TT desktop bundled with the revolutionary Calamus dtp-program. Glorious days, still got a couple of Atari computers including rarities as the Stacy4 and the Atari Portfolio. Speaking of irony, the game I’m most known for is a traditional board game called Dungeon Quest.

The Atari ST has a special place in my heart because it was the first computer i owned and the first computer i bought from my own money . My parents gave us pocket money and we could it save or buy things with it. I saved it for years and had enough to by a used 520STFM at the age of 12. But with only a little bit of software and only two games after my father screened all of the disks. But GFA-Basic 2.0 was part of it. Also being the only one on the hole school with an ST, i got into software development. Primary to write games for my self. I realized back then that writing a game is much more fun than playing it. :-)

I've just discovered your videos. Being an old git at 50 I remember all these systems well. Really enjoying the channel. Keep up the good work.

Knowing it was designed in super short time and on budget this is much more impressive machine than I thought.

Oh man, what a trip down memory lane. I remember my dad bringing home a 520ST with colour monitor in the late 80's, then we upgraded to a 1040STF a few years later. I learned so much of my computer fundamentals on those things, including graphics, music, gaming, BBS's, even some early programming. I wish we still had those old computers just so I could relive those early digital days! ♥️

My family took advantage of the Atari ST MIDI ports in the back and invested in a MIDI connectable Casio synthesizer keyboard. Helped us learn all about music.

If it wasn't for the Atari ST , we wouldn't have Cubase and Logic Pro.

You do a wonderful job with these videos of yours. They are really interesting and fun to watch. Thanks.

This was very informative and entertaining, great work! Big shout out to the ST camp from myself, an Amiga guy. Those were just fun times for all of us. I sometimes miss the days of all the diverse system architectures and operating systems.

These are high quality and informative videos and I recognize the work that goes into them. Very nice work! :D

30 minutes, this is a documentary. Well done!

Absolutely loved this video and both parts of the Amiga documentary. Great job, thanks for bringing up the happy memories of this era!

Great presentation, well researched. As an ST fan this is much appreciated. Keep up the great work!