--- title: Atari ST BOOK categories: - Computers types: - Portable origins: - U.S.A. years: - '1990' cpus: - Motorola MC 68000 params: name: ST BOOK company: /companies/atari company_name: Atari specs: - label: NAME value: ST BOOK - label: MANUFACTURER value: Atari - label: TYPE value: Portable - label: ORIGIN value: U.S.A. - label: YEAR value: '1990' - label: KEYBOARD value: full stroke keyboard - label: CPU value: Motorola MC 68000 - label: SPEED value: 8 MHz - label: RAM value: 1 or 4 MB (no extension) - label: ROM value: 256 KB - label: TEXT MODES value: 40 x 25 / 80 x 25 - label: GRAPHIC MODES value: 640 x 400 - label: COLORS value: monochrome LCD display - label: SOUND value: three channels, 8 octaves - label: I/O PORTS value: Centronics, RS232c, Floppy Disk, internal IDE Hard disk, Midi In/Out, Dock Station connector - label: BUILT IN MEDIA value: One 2.5'' disk drive - label: OS value: TOS + GEM - label: POWER SUPPLY value: Unknown - label: PRICE value: Unknown tabs: - photos - hardware - emulators - links - docs photos: - title: ATARI ST BOOK subtitle: '' text: '[Thomas Conté](http://www.pas.net)' image: null - title: LEFT SIDE subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: RIGHT SIDE subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: MOUSEPAD subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: REAR CONNECTORS subtitle: '' text: '' image: null - title: BOTTOM subtitle: '' text: '' image: null hardware: - title: SF-354 subtitle: Single density disk-drive text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_st_sf354-diskdrive_1.jpg - title: SF-314 subtitle: Disk-drive text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_st-disk-drive_sf314.jpg - title: CUMANA DRIVE subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_520_cumanadrive_1.jpg - title: SUPRADRIVE subtitle: 20 Mb hard-disk text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_supradrive_20mb.jpg - title: 170MB QUANTUM HARD-DRIVE subtitle: '' text: This unit has an ICD Host Adapter. image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_st_quamtum_hd170.jpg - title: ATARI MEGAFILE 30 subtitle: '' text: This hard-drive has a 30Mb capacity. image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_st_megafile30_1.jpg - title: INSIDE THE MEGAFILE 30 subtitle: '' text: |- **(1)** Seagate MFM 30 MB hard-disk Type ST-238\ **(2)** Power supply\ **(3)** Logical board\ **(4)** Power and disk access LED's image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_megast_insidemegafile_1.jpg - title: ATARI UNIVERSAL MODEM subtitle: '' text: |- The SX212 modem was one of the rare Atari peripherals that could be used with all the Atari computers range, from the 400/800 series up to the Falcon. It had both the Atari I/O ports for the 8-bit systems and a standard RS-232 connector for ST's It was a 300/1200 baud modem compatible with the well-known Hayes 'AT' commands.\ Cable and software was sold separately, depending of the computer used. image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_520_modemsx212_1.jpg - title: SML-804 subtitle: Laser printer text: |- The SLM-804 was actually a Kyocera F1000 printer but without neither on-board processor and memory nor buttons other than the on/off switch. It was first delivered with the Mega ST but could be connected on all of the ST series computers through a dedicated interface box.\ The printer used the processing power and the RAM memory of the ST computer for printing at 8 pages per minute and 300 DPI. The paper tray held 250 sheets. Thanks to **Francois Michaud** who donated us this printer. image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_megast_slm804printer_s1.jpg - title: SMLC-804 subtitle: Laser printer interface text: This interface allowed the SML-804 printer to be connected to any Atari ST holding at least 1 MB RAM. image: /media/museum/hardware/atari_megast_slmcinterface_s1.jpg emulators: - title: Pacifist ! url: http://www.pacifist.fatal-design.com/ platform: MS DOS text: Pretty good emulator - title: Gemulator url: http://www.emulators.com/gemul8r.htm platform: Windows text: '' - title: MagiCPC url: http://www.application-systems.de/magicpc/index.html platform: Windows text: '' - title: SainT url: http://saint.atari.org platform: Windows text: The best Atari ST Emulator ! - title: Steem url: http://steem.atari.st/ platform: Windows text: Excellent emulator for 1040/520 STE ! - title: Tos2Win url: http://www.aixit.com/tos2win/ platform: Windows text: A good Atari GEM Emulator ! - title: MagiCMac url: http://www.application-systems.de/magicmac/index.html platform: Apple text: '' - title: NoSTalgia & PowerST url: http://users.skynet.be/sky39147/ platform: Apple text: '' - title: STonX Homepage url: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/nino/stonx.html platform: Unix / Linux text: '' - title: Atari ST Emulator url: http://www.atari-st.lovely.net/ platform: Other platform text: Written in Java ! - title: ARAnyM url: HTTP://ARANYM.ATARI.ORG platform: Multiplatform text: Multiplatform project - title: Hatari url: http://hatari.sourceforge.net/ platform: Multiplatform text: Hatari is an Atari ST emulator for Linux, BSD, BeOS, Mac OS X and other systems that are supported by the SDL library. More precisely, Hatari is an adaption of the WinSTon source code to the SDL library. links: - title: Atari & Commodore Home Computer Museum url: http://www.best.com/~hmk/ text: '' - title: Atari Music Network url: http://www.atarimusic.net/ text: Atari Music Network welcomes and celebrates all vintage digital musicians no matter what their computer - title: Atari ST Demo History url: http://wwwbrauer.in.tum.de/~brandtf/ataridemos.html text: '' - title: Atari ST Download Area url: http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Services/PDA/atari.shtml text: Atari 400/800/XL/XE & ST/TT/Falcon Software download page - title: ATARI.ORG url: http://www.atari.org/ text: Looking for something on any Atari machine ? Follow the links ! - title: Dead Hackers Society url: http://www.dhs.nu/ text: Atari demo scene - title: Little Green Desktop url: http://www.atari.st/ text: Largest Atari ST ressource! - title: Medusa computer url: http://www.kingx.com/kingx/medusa/thes.html text: You can still buy an Atari ST family clone computer - title: MiNTOS Distribution url: http://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/~steve/mintos.html text: '' - title: Musique.Atari.Org url: HTTP://MUSIQUE.ATARI.ORG text: Web site dedicated to the ATARI and the Music... - title: PLOPBOX - Atari music archive and jukebox url: http://www.plopbox.net/ text: listen to atari tunes directly from your browser - title: Polish Atari Wikipedia url: http://atariki.krap.pl text: A lot of info about Atari (in polish) - title: ST Anwender Bern url: http://my.blackpoint.ch/stab/ text: Atari ST Usergroup Bern (Swiss) - title: The Atari Historical Society url: http://www.atarimuseum.com/ text: The complete history of Atari Arcade and Home games and computers. Complete site with pictures, commercials (streaming), and full text articles. Amazing site ! - title: The Atari ST Quick FAQ url: http://www.megacom.net/~q-funk/ST/ text: '' - title: The Atari WebRing Homepage url: http://b.webring.com/hub?ring=atari text: Useful ! - title: The Ultimate ATARI Resource url: http://www.atari.org text: '' - title: What is TOS url: http://www.vanc.igs.net/~roughley/tos_main.htm text: '' - title: Index of -~archive-atari- url: http://www.umich.edu/~archive/atari/ text: '' - title: Web Wiz CAPTCHA url: http://www.webwizcaptcha.com text: French forum docs: - title: ATARI 520 ST OWNER'S MANUAL url: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/atarist/index.htm cover: /media/museum/docs/couvs/atari_520st_user_doc.jpg text: |- [**ATARI 520 ST OWNER'S MANUAL**](http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/atarist/index.htm)written by Atari  compiled/archived by Daves Old Computers\  type of document : PDF\  size : 5 Mb\  source : [Daves Old Computers](http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield) **... READ THE ONLINE VERSION BY CLICKING BELOW :** comments: - author: herve warin (France) date: Monday 5th December 2011 text: |- I am the proud owner of this marvel. At my knowledge, only 47 models have been built for sale in France (AZERTY keyboard ?), all distributed by "Informatique $ Nature". This is mainly a prototype material. I can confirm that the same interface port can be used for a ACSI/DMA device or a dedicated floppy. I still own the dedicated DMA cable but I don''t remember to ever have used it. I still own the dedicated external 1.44 floppy drive that was also distributed by "Informatique $ Nature". The ST-BOOK appendum describes the following options :\ \- External floppy disk (no mention of 1.44Mb)\ \- Midi cables (from mini-DIN to DIN)\ \- Serial transfer cable (similar as null modem but I don''t own the original)\ \- Keyboard cable (unfortunately, I don''t own it) to connect a MegaST, MegaSTE or TT keyboard - It disables "vector pad" and allow the use of normal mouse or joystick\ \- Cardrige port\ \- Mouse/Joystick interface Currently, original HDD gives weakness symptoms and orginal battery is dead. - author: Andrew (USA) date: Friday 10th September 2010 text: 'Link: That dark strip down the left side of the screen did absolutely nothing.' - author: Julio cao (Asturias gijon spaña) date: Wednesday 7th July 2010 text: Me interesa todo lo que sea en relacion con ATARI gracias y ATARFOREVER - author: Malcolm Ramage (Huddersfield, UK) date: Thursday 15th April 2010 text: |- The ACSI interface was not the same as the one on the ST/TT as it also included the floppy control lines. However other than a plastic box, no floppy drive was evr made for this by Atari. The long edge connector also had nothing made for it, though it was pin compatible with the expansion connector on the ST Pad (Also never released) - author: Matt (USA) date: Saturday 16th December 2006 text: No, it's definately ACSI - it was a butchered-up varient of SCSI. If you wanted to use a SCSI harddrive with an atari, you had to buy a third-party circuitboard to do translation. - author: Link (Hyrule) date: Friday 8th April 2005 text: What did that dark strip down the left side of the screen do? Anything? - author: Amir Isa (Malaysia) date: Wednesday 6th April 2005 text: |- Erm... I think it's a little error in the text where it says that the external floppy drives were weird and used the same interface as Atari's desktops (ASCI). I believe the correct terms is SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) which is still current technology and in use in many high end applications and is in many ways superior to the more common IDE architecture. The terms ASCI is a new one on me but I've heard of something called ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange- I think) which is something else entirely. Or am I wrong? Can somebody please clarify? - author: Andy Ball (Illinois, USA) date: Thursday 30th September 2004 text: |- I just found some answers at another web site.\ Size: 36x279x216 mm (A4, 36mm thick)\ Weight: approx. 2 Kg\ Battery life: 5 hours on seven AA alkaline cells or 10 hours on the optional NiCd battery. - author: Andy Ball (Illinois, USA) date: Thursday 30th September 2004 text: |- What are the ST-Book's dimensions?\ How much does it weigh?\ How long is its battery life? related: - /museum/atari-130-st-260-st - /museum/atari-4160-ste - /museum/atari-520-1040-ste - /museum/atari-520-1040-stf-stfm - /museum/atari-520-st-st-stm - /museum/atari-falcon-030 - /museum/atari-falcon-030-microbox - /museum/atari-fx-1-sparrow - /museum/atari-mega-st - /museum/atari-mega-ste - /museum/atari-stacy - /museum/atari-stylus-st-pad - /museum/atari-tt-030 oc_id: 283 source: url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230609190833/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=283 date: '2023-06-09' --- After the success of the [Stacy](/museum/atari-stacy/), Atari presented a new portable computer: the ST Book. It was a rather nice toy: very light, impressive battery life, MIDI ports, battery-saved RAM, etc. The Hard Disk contains a small Null-Modem program to transfer files (very handy!). It has no internal floppy drive, the external floppy was a weird (and expensive!) unit that used the same interface as Atari's hard disks (ACSI). Despite its interesting characteristics, and because of the deplorable commercial policy of Atari (I KNOW NUTTZING!), it had no success and only about one thousand units were sold in Europe. A word of warning: The cases & screen on this computer are VERY FRAGILE! Whatever you do, do not drop this computer, as it probably will shatter!