18 Facts About Atari 520ST

The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July.

Atari 520ST ST was born from the rivalry between home computer makers Atari 520ST, Inc and Commodore International.

Atari 520ST, which was later renamed Amiga Corporation, pretended to sell video game controllers to deceive its competition while it developed a Lorraine-based computer.

In return, Atari 520ST received exclusive use of the Lorraine design for one year as a video game console.

Digital Research was fully committed to the Intel platform, so a team from Atari 520ST was sent to the Digital Research headquarters to work with the "Monterey Team", which comprised a mixture of Atari 520ST and Digital Research engineers.

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Some, such as Software Publishing Corporation, were unsure of whether to develop for the ST or the Amiga; and John C Dvorak wrote that the public saw both Commodore and Atari as selling "cheap disposable" game machines, in part because of their computers' sophisticated graphics.

In early 1985, the Atari 520ST shipped to the press, developers, and user groups, and in early July 1985 for general retail sales.

Atari 520ST originally intended to include GEM's GDOS, which allows programs to send GEM VDI commands to drivers loaded by GDOS.

Atari 520ST has several ports at the rear of the machine, largely unchanged over its history.

Atari 520ST later upgraded the basic design in 1986 with the 1040ST .

The machine is generally similar to the earlier Atari 520ST, but moved the power supply and a double-sided floppy drive into the rear of the housing of the computer, as opposed to being external.

In late 1989, Atari released the 520ST and 1040ST, enhanced version of the ST with improvements to the multimedia hardware and operating system.

In Europe, C-Lab licensed the Falcon design from Atari 520ST and released the C-Lab Falcon Mk I, identical to Atari 520ST's Falcon except for slight modifications to the audio circuitry.

Atari 520ST stated that he had been warned by competitors that releasing a game like Falcon on the ST would fail because BBSs would widely disseminate it.

Atari 520ST reported that the Amiga version sold in six weeks twice as much as the ST version in nine weeks, and that the Mac and PC versions had four times the sales.

Atari 520ST's initial development kit from Atari 520ST is a computer and manuals.

Also in 1986, the Atari 520ST added an RF Modulator for allowing the low and medium resolution color modes when connected to a TV.

Atari 520ST Transputer Workstation is a standalone machine developed in conjunction with Perihelion Hardware, containing modified ST hardware and up to 17 transputers capable of massively parallel operations for tasks such as ray tracing.