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title, categories, types, origins, years, cpus, params
title categories types origins years cpus params
Atari MEGA STe
Computers
Professional Computer
U.S.A.
1991
Motorola MC 68000
name company company_name specs tabs photos adverts hardware emulators links docs comments related oc_id source
MEGA STe /companies/atari Atari
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NAME MEGA STe
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MANUFACTURER Atari
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TYPE Professional Computer
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ORIGIN U.S.A.
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YEAR March 1991
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END OF PRODUCTION Unknown
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BUILT IN LANGUAGE None
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KEYBOARD Full stroke 94 keys with numeric keypad, editing keys and 10 function keys
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CPU Motorola MC 68000
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SPEED 8 / 16 mHz
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CO-PROCESSOR Optional Motorola MC68881 math co-processor
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RAM 1 / 2 / 4 MB - Up to 8 MB thanks to a 4 MB card connected to the VME bus
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ROM 256 KB
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TEXT MODES 40 or 80 chars. x 25 lines (bitmapped graphics)
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GRAPHIC MODES 320 x 200 / 640 x 200 / 640 x 400
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COLORS 16 among 4096 (320 x 200) / 4 among 4096 (640 x 200) / monochrome (640 x 400)
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SOUND 3 FM channels, 8 octaves + two 8 bit PCM channels
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I/O PORTS Cardridge, Midi (in, out), Centronics, RS232c (2), Hard Disk, Floppy disk, RGB, Joystick, mouse, Stereo, VME Bus
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BUILT IN MEDIA 3.5 '' disk drive, Seagate 48 MB hard drive\ The 'open' version had 2 MB of RAM but no hard disk.
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OS TOS + GEM
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POWER SUPPLY Built-in power supply unit
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PRICE Unknown
photos
adverts
hardware
emulators
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docs
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ANOTHER PICTURE null
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ABOVE null
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GERMAN BROCHURE #1 Thanks to **Volken** null
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GERMAN BROCHURE #2 Thanks to **Volken** null
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SF-354 Single density disk-drive /media/museum/hardware/atari_st_sf354-diskdrive_1.jpg
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SF-314 Disk-drive /media/museum/hardware/atari_st-disk-drive_sf314.jpg
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CUMANA DRIVE /media/museum/hardware/atari_520_cumanadrive_1.jpg
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SUPRADRIVE 20 Mb hard-disk /media/museum/hardware/atari_supradrive_20mb.jpg
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170MB QUANTUM HARD-DRIVE This unit has an ICD Host Adapter. /media/museum/hardware/atari_st_quamtum_hd170.jpg
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ATARI MEGAFILE 30 This hard-drive has a 30Mb capacity. /media/museum/hardware/atari_st_megafile30_1.jpg
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INSIDE THE MEGAFILE 30 **(1)** Seagate MFM 30 MB hard-disk Type ST-238\ **(2)** Power supply\ **(3)** Logical board\ **(4)** Power and disk access LED's /media/museum/hardware/atari_megast_insidemegafile_1.jpg
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ATARI UNIVERSAL MODEM 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. /media/museum/hardware/atari_520_modemsx212_1.jpg
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SML-804 Laser printer 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. /media/museum/hardware/atari_megast_slm804printer_s1.jpg
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SMLC-804 Laser printer interface This interface allowed the SML-804 printer to be connected to any Atari ST holding at least 1 MB RAM. /media/museum/hardware/atari_megast_slmcinterface_s1.jpg
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Pacifist ! http://www.pacifist.fatal-design.com/ MS DOS Pretty good emulator
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Gemulator http://www.emulators.com/gemul8r.htm Windows
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MagiCPC http://www.application-systems.de/magicpc/index.html Windows
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SainT http://saint.atari.org Windows The best Atari ST Emulator !
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Steem http://steem.atari.st/ Windows Excellent emulator for 1040/520 STE !
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Tos2Win http://www.aixit.com/tos2win/ Windows A good Atari GEM Emulator !
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MagiCMac http://www.application-systems.de/magicmac/index.html Apple
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NoSTalgia & PowerST http://users.skynet.be/sky39147/ Apple
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STonX Homepage http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/nino/stonx.html Unix / Linux
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Atari ST Emulator http://www.atari-st.lovely.net/ Other platform Written in Java !
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ARAnyM HTTP://ARANYM.ATARI.ORG Multiplatform Multiplatform project
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Hatari http://hatari.sourceforge.net/ Multiplatform 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.
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Atari & Commodore Home Computer Museum http://www.best.com/~hmk/
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Atari Music Network http://www.atarimusic.net/ Atari Music Network welcomes and celebrates all vintage digital musicians no matter what their computer
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Atari ST Demo History http://wwwbrauer.in.tum.de/~brandtf/ataridemos.html
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Atari ST Download Area http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Services/PDA/atari.shtml Atari 400/800/XL/XE & ST/TT/Falcon Software download page
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ATARI.ORG http://www.atari.org/ Looking for something on any Atari machine ? Follow the links !
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Dead Hackers Society http://www.dhs.nu/ Atari demo scene
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Little Green Desktop http://www.atari.st/ Largest Atari ST ressource!
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Medusa computer http://www.kingx.com/kingx/medusa/thes.html You can still buy an Atari ST family clone computer
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MiNTOS Distribution http://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/~steve/mintos.html
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Musique.Atari.Org HTTP://MUSIQUE.ATARI.ORG Web site dedicated to the ATARI and the Music...
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PLOPBOX - Atari music archive and jukebox http://www.plopbox.net/ listen to atari tunes directly from your browser
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Polish Atari Wikipedia http://atariki.krap.pl A lot of info about Atari (in polish)
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ST Anwender Bern http://my.blackpoint.ch/stab/ Atari ST Usergroup Bern (Swiss)
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The Atari Historical Society http://www.atarimuseum.com/ The complete history of Atari Arcade and Home games and computers. Complete site with pictures, commercials (streaming), and full text articles. Amazing site !
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The Atari ST Quick FAQ http://www.megacom.net/~q-funk/ST/
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The Atari WebRing Homepage http://b.webring.com/hub?ring=atari Useful !
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The Ultimate ATARI Resource http://www.atari.org
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What is TOS http://www.vanc.igs.net/~roughley/tos_main.htm
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Index of -~archive-atari- http://www.umich.edu/~archive/atari/
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Web Wiz CAPTCHA http://www.webwizcaptcha.com French forum
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ATARI 520 ST OWNER'S MANUAL http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/atarist/index.htm /media/museum/docs/couvs/atari_520st_user_doc.jpg [**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 :**
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Malcolm Ramage (United Kingdon) Friday 22nd April 2011 The Mega STE was the fastest released official ST from Atari and included the VME bus from the TT030. The bottom of the range Mega STE 1MB machine had an optional SCSI drive, though all other machines in the range came with SCSI as standard (At least here in the UK). The maximum official RAM capacity was the same as the rest of the ST range at 4MB, though there were upgrades available from 3rd parties that took advantage of the 68000 address bus, allowing for up to 16MB to be added. AtariFreakz have a range of mega STE and TT keyboards available and have them on their eBay shop, also 16/32 systems also sometimes carry spares. The Mega STE makes an excellent MIDI sequencer, and the LAN port can make use of early Apple Macintosh MIDI interfaces, so long as you are using Cubase and the latest version of MROS. The Mega STE is also the only one of Atari''s ''Professional'' range of computers to have a TV modulator on the back, allowing it to be used if a monitor is not available.
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Jan Thomas Saturday 6th July 2013 The internal SCSI drive inside was actually connected to an ACSI$SCSI converter card, as the motherboard had only an ACSI controller. The ACSI-SCSI card only supports a maximum of 1GB hard drives, without modification.
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Shredder11 (United Kingdom) Friday 2nd September 2011 My Mega STE does not have the RF port for some unknown reason$ was this later $ped from the computer by Atari? This computer was originally a 2MB RAM / 40MB SCSI machine with a French TOS and keyboard, but it was later upgraded to 4MB / 100MB+ and a 68881 FPU chip. Since I bought it, I have turned the keyboard into a UK layout and I am in the process of replacing the floppy drive and TOS chips. This is an excellent computer and pretty fast when optimised with the right software. It also has great looks.
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Malcolm Ramage (United Kingdom) Saturday 21st May 2011 Just noticed an error above. The Mega STE was not the only Atari machine to have the AppleTalk (Or RS432) port, the TT030 was the first machine to have it and the Falcon also has one. In fact with the LAN.DRV driver in the Cubase MROS folder, Cubase on Atari can use a number of Apple MIDI interfaces for Macs!
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Alex (Germany) Saturday 8th March 2008 My uncle still has an Atari Mega STE, it still works pretty well, he's also got a 5 1/4 floppy drive and a printer for it.
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Jeff Stenett (USA) Thursday 3rd May 2007 I still have one of the first Mega STe's...still hooked up, works fine, though not in use. I paid between $1100-1300 for it (don't remember...long time ago!), with 4 MEG of RAM, which I immediately upgraded to 8 MEG. It did NOT come with an IDE hard drive, as your data reflects, and I don't remember any of them coming with IDE, that was the later TT....mine came with a Seagate 20gig SCSI drive, 3.5"x1" form-factor, which I still have, and which still works fine ! :). Since mine was one of the first Mega STe's, in also did not come with a 1.44 floppy, mine was only 720, so I bought an after-market 1.44 meg HD floppy for it. My primary use for it was MIDI control of synthesizers and a drum machine, and loudspeaker design using the original version of MacSpeakerz, which was sold through the Carvin guitar/amp company of California, U.S.
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Max (California) Friday 31st October 2003 I found one of these with a buncha music editing equipment! Could any of you tell me how to set it up? Oh, and there is no monitor. Can I hook it up to a TV via that one output on it?
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pedro (portugal) Saturday 11th October 2003 i want to buy a atari mega ste to use as a midi sequencer.this is the best atari for that?\ if any one have one to sell ,contact me.\ thanks..............:)
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pod (australia) Tuesday 14th May 2002 my mega st keyboard is broken (although the mouse still works)does anyone have any suggestions/info on a suitable replacement or any technical info on the keyboard or know of a good link to help me??????? please help me!!it's driving me insane.
/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-st-book
/museum/atari-stacy
/museum/atari-stylus-st-pad
/museum/atari-tt-030
164
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https://web.archive.org/web/20230605041509/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=164 2023-06-05

The Atari Mega STe is the successor of the Atari Mega STf. It is an Atari STe with some features of the TT (the case, the VME bus) and has a new version of TOS (2.05 and 2.06).

It has (like the Mega STf) a battery-backed up clock. The user can choose in the configuration panel the speed of the CPU (8 or 16 MHz) and can switch on or off a small memory cache. Thanks to these two features, the Mega STe was really faster than the STf.

Some companies developed VME graphic cards for the Mega STe. This computer had less success than the Mega STf and was used as a publishing station or in music studios.

A minor note: the Mega and TT gave a nod to the earlier integrated-keyboard ST series by adding a tongue-and-groove design element for loosely connecting the keyboard to the base of the CPU.

The Mega STe ended production in 1993. This was also one of the few Atari product to have an Appletalk networking port (or RS432)built-in. The TT030 was the first machine to have it and the Falcon also had one. Some models included hard drives, and some did not. The drives were usually shipped separately to the the dealers, and installed in the store. The internal hard-drives in the Atari Mega STE where SCSI, not IDE. A small internal SCSI adaptor board had to be installed for this feature.

The Mega STE was the fastest released official ST from Atari and included the VME bus from the TT030. The bottom of the range Mega STE 1MB machine had an optional SCSI drive, though all other machines in the range came with SCSI as standard (At least here in the UK). The maximum official RAM capacity was the same as the rest of the ST range at 4MB, though there were upgrades available from 3rd parties that took advantage of the 68000 address bus, allowing for up to 16MB to be added.

The Mega STE makes an excellent MIDI sequencer, and the LAN port can make use of early Apple Macintosh MIDI interfaces, so long as you are using Cubase and the latest version of MROS.

The Mega STE is also the only one of Atari's 'Professional' range of computers to have a TV modulator on the back, allowing it to be used if a monitor is not available.


Contributors: Steve Martin, Malcolm Ramage

We need more info about this computer ! If you designed, used, or have more info about this system, please send us pictures or anything you might find useful.