Oriiginal ST

[Pgittins]

I have saved an Atari ST in my garage for many years now and I am wondering if you folks might be able to help me place a value on it. I may or may not place it up for sale should someone be seriously interested.

This ST I have is a pre-production engineering sample ST with a note on the back where the serial number would be placed indicating that this machine is to be sent to Sam Tramiel. All the IC chips are engineering samples and there are no RF shields on the video modulator. When I tested it, I found it to be working but due to the nature of the beast it was not fully compatible with all the software I tried.

I am thinking this is more in the nature of a collectors item for a true ST enthusiast. It is possible to take a picture or two if anyone is interested. I can imagine there could be some interest from those of you who are just curious about the history of this computer family.

I first purchased an Atari Computer in 1984 and it was a 130XE which I quickly upgraded to 320k of memory. I mention this because some of you may have seen my work in the past. I once published a "how to" upgrade for the ST which allowed the use of 1 meg sim chips instead of the 18 pin dip chips that were used in the early model ST computers.

I will check back from time to time to see what interest this post might attract.

Thanks,

Paul Gittins

[FonZ]

The first thing everybody wants to know is your location I guess

Is the story of the machine documented and/or do you have any images of the main board, so all the hardware fans can simply look and squable over it?

[Shredder11]

Surely a museum would be more interested?

[kristjanga]

please post some pictures of this machine here and a video on youtube would be great

[Pgittins]

Thanks for your interest. I will take a couple pictures and post them here in the next day or two. I live out in the Portland Oregon area. I think the pictures will be sufficient documentation to prove my story. I thought at the time it was pretty cool so I never removed the original labels from the back cover. I am new to this forum so I am not sure what is the preferred way to post a picture here. perhaps a photo bucket link would suffice.

[Pgittins]

Well here we go. If I got the pic links correct, this is my old 520 ST. I have included two shots of the top side of the main board. Several of the IC's are clearly marked Eng Proto. The two that stand out most are the two square socketed chips. I have long since forgotten what those particular two chips did. These two chips actually have gold contacts around the edges. Directly below them and above the 68000 processor is a chip marked Sample. The circuit where the timers and crystals are located is missing the shields. For this particular board, the shield was never installed which made this a fairly noisy board RF wise. The chip in this circuit is also marked Eng Proto. Both the chips below the cpu are also marked Eng Proto. There are also a few wire jumpers on the board inside the timer circuit area.

The keyboard is interesting as well in that it was secured with duct tape. There have never been screws holding the keyboard to the keyboard housing and the plastic keyboard housing screw holes are "virgin" meaning they have never been tapped. I was a bit surprised when I took the computer out this evening and found that the duct tape has lost some of its properties. It is now rigid but it has relaxed enough to permit most of the rubber key actuators to escape. I do not think many were lost judging from the pile on my desk and inside the keyboard housing. I might have tried to put them all back inside but the keyboard diode leads were getting a little tight and I did not wish to damage it further. Somehow the idea of duct tape seems to make it a bit more interesting to me.

The story behind this computer is that it is an engineering sample that was sent from Taiwan to Sam Tramiel. I could be mistaken about the name as I never could remember between Jack Tramiel and Sam Tramiel. I purchased it from a fellow who I believe was named Dave. I no longer remember his surname but there was also a sticker on the back of the housing from Antic magazine where I believe he was a part time writer. Some of you may remember him for some of the unique circuits he designed for the Atari ST. I am twisting my brain now trying to remember what some of those devices were but my memory will not permit. When I looked at the computer this evening the Antic sticker was still in place. I removed it while taking the picture of the back cover but the sticker is undamaged. I believe I have owned this computer for approximately 15 years. I really should look on the of the chips to see if I can decipher any date codes.

Well after a bit of eye strain, I see what I believe to be date codes on two of the chips. The Timer chip and the center white chip both have 8509 printed on them. I believe this means the chips were made in 1985 on either the 9th week or the 9th month. I have seen various manufacturers using this type of coding over the years so I am fairly confident on the year in particular.

I hope you enjoy this little cruise back in time. Your comments will be appreciated.

[wongck]

photos are blank with moved or deleted words on it

[Pgittins]

I posted the picture links right after I posted the photos to photo bucket. I wonder what went wrong. I used the Img tool on the reply form. Would it work ok if I just pasted links to the pics from the site? I dont know if there is a policy here about posting links but I will try that in a bit and see if it works ok for you guys.


Ok. there we go. if it is too hard to see the photos let me know. This will at least serve as a taste. Im curious to see what you think and I will be happy to answer any questions you might have.

[kristjanga]

the pics work but they are way to small to see anything
you should post bigger images

[Pgittins]

Regarding the request for larger images. I am not familiar with a good method of posting larger images to this particular site. If anyone would care to offer a suggestion I would appreciate it. I used photo bucket but they compress the files down quite a lot which makes for the smaller pictures. I might also try to take new shots of the board to see if with better lighting I could get the chip names sharper. I think that is something I would be interested in were I looking at it.

[FonZ]

Well, if nobody is up for it I'm willing to put them on my webspace, no problem. I think you can e-mail me from a button left to this post.

[wongck]

but it sure beats some pictures that are way too big.
So big that half gets chop off by the browser and no scroll bar to move right to see it.

... you just can't beat them all

[FonZ]

If it's too small you can't read the numbers, so best is to just follow the links.

http://www.dutched.org/520proto/IMG_0108.JPG
http://www.dutched.org/520proto/IMG_0109.JPG
http://www.dutched.org/520proto/IMG_0110.JPG
http://www.dutched.org/520proto/IMG_0111.JPG
http://www.dutched.org/520proto/IMG_0112.JPG

Big thanks to Paul!

[kristjanga]

intresting
Then there is the TOS in the machine. can you make a image of it and post it here?
i cant remember what the name of the program is that does this for you

[wongck]

Thanks for the larger versions, Paul & Fonz.

I reckon the TOS ought to be at best v1.0.
But most like a beta version which probably not available anywhere else & lost.... well, right now found.

[kristjanga]

what was the name of that software that can make a image of the tos?

[wongck]

what was the name of that software that can make a image of the tos?

TosDump ... http://no-fragments.atari.org/browser/i ... OLS/ATARI/

[insanity]

It would be nice if we could add one of the motherboard pics to the wiki:

http://www.atari-forum.com/wiki/index.p ... _revisions

Would that be ok?!

baz

[Pgittins]

I have no objection to adding one of the motherboard pics to the Wiki.

It might be a good idea for me to see if I can get better lighting and a little better camera angle. I think it should be possible to clear up the chip names some.

[insanity]

I have no objection to adding one of the motherboard pics to the Wiki.

It might be a good idea for me to see if I can get better lighting and a little better camera angle. I think it should be possible to clear up the chip names some.

That would be great! Thanks... you will be credited obviously!

baz

[Pgittins]

Kristajanga requested that I dump the TOS to a file for you guys. I think this would be a neat thing to do but I do not think I have the means to do so. In my Atari hayday I had all sorts of hardware and software but eventually I needed room for other things and I donated nearly all my Atari equipment to good homes. The only item I have left is that single 520 which I shared with you.

I know someone who probably has a disk drive, monitor and power supply that would be required if I were to power up and test the machine again. I am seeking advice on how to go about reading and dumping the Tos to a file. I would appreciate any suggestions.

thanks

[spiny]

Kristajanga requested that I dump the TOS to a file for you guys. I think this would be a neat thing to do but I do not think I have the means to do so. In my Atari hayday I had all sorts of hardware and software but eventually I needed room for other things and I donated nearly all my Atari equipment to good homes. The only item I have left is that single 520 which I shared with you.

I know someone who probably has a disk drive, monitor and power supply that would be required if I were to power up and test the machine again. I am seeking advice on how to go about reading and dumping the Tos to a file. I would appreciate any suggestions.

thanks

the tosdump PRG listed above does what it says really it dumps the contents of the ROM to disk, so you'll need a floppy drive (single or double, it won't matter) a floppy disk that works, and the PRG. once the PRG has done its stuff and saved the image to floppy, there arer plenty of ways to read the disk on a PC and upload the file somewhere where we can all have a look

[kristjanga]

to read the disk on a PC, format the disk in the atari with a program called FCOPY

[kristjanga]

have you been able to dump the TOS?