| MANUFACTURER | Atari |
| MODEL | 1040 STe |
| YEAR OF INTRODUCTION | 1988 |
| MAIN PROCESSOR | 68000 |
| BITS | 16 |
| CLOCK SPEED | 8 MHz |
| FLOATING POINT UNIT | none |
| MEMORY MANAGEMENT UNIT | none |
| CO-PROCESSOR | none |
| RAM | 4M |
| ROM | 5192k |
| OPERATING SYSTEM | TOS & GEM |
| HONOURABLE MENTION | Ray Whitehurst |
I got this machine in the late 90's along with an 80M external drive and SM-124 monochrome display. A couple of friends of mine were using them to make music with Cubase and I thought it was pretty cool. Seemed like an interesting machine so I got one myself. I played with it for a while but it didn't get as much attention as it deserved. The fact I didn't have internet at the time didn't help either, as I couldn't get software as easily, so it was put away and didn't come out for a while.
It was 2020 when I eventually got back to playing with it. Both the computer and monitor were fine but the external drive had died. I decided to buy an UltraSatan external hard drive emaulator which uses SD cards as well as an adapter for the video port to a HD15 VGA output. It still required a multisync monitor for the colour modes but I use an Extron RGB to HDMI scan converter that I got from a pile of e-waste at work. I also upgraded the TOS ROMs from 1.06 to 2.06, and this required desoldering the old ones and putting in sockets but it was worth it.
To be honest, I was rather shocked at what a capable machine this is. The ST was always considered to be inferior to the Amiga, and it was, but it looked like the STe's upgrades such as the audio and video blitter put it on par. The UltraSatan came with an SD card full of games and demos, and the demos were impressive. It was great to properly experience the machine after all these years of only having exposure to the Amiga and it's just as fun. One thing that's nice is it uses the FAT filesystem whih means I don't need special tools to load it with programs.
There is only one real major downside to this computer and that is the case. Not a problem when it was new, but over the years the plastic has become brittle and is somewhere between being like a rice cracker and chalk. I have glued cracks several times over the years and I am gluing parts of it again as I type this. It's a fragile little bugger. Unlike the Amiga, you can't get new cases for it and that's a tad depressing. In every other respect, the Atari STe is awesome.