Sold Atari Mega STE 4MB

[YouKnowWho]

Atari Mega STE. It is quite clean, minimal discolouration, marked as 2MB on the bottom but appears to have 4MB installed. The hard drive has been removed, but you'll probably put a card reader in here anyway. I have powered it and connected it to a SM124 monitor (which you are welcome to have only if you're picking this up as I don't want to ship a monitor) and what you see is all I get on the screen. I am not an Atari user and have no floppies to boot or test further, but it appears to me that this rare computer works. It is just the computer, no keyboard or mouse is included. I did find a round video out plug to VGA output adapter for it, so that's included for you as well.

NOW Asking: $500 USD (was $600, reduced to $550 USD Nov 22nd, and then reduced to $500 USD Dec 27th and Dec 30th officially marked as being offered "power tested as seen, sold as-is")
Paypal to a friend or if in Canada etransfer.

Dec 16th "Sales-Pitch Edit" : Did you guys see that non-working/non-powering "mystery" Mega STE sell for way way more than this unit out there yesterday? WOW. Or that other now few months back for even more with just a PS/2 keyboard? Grab this clean working/powering Mega STE instead and one of those Eiffel adapters, go with a Sony Vaio PS/2 keyboard as they match Atari colour and bask in glorious 16MHz Atari factory supplied speed like it's 1991 for about half the price of a non-working mystery non-powering unit. Also, Canada Post is back in operation as of Dec 17th, so economic shipping options are back on the table with estimated US shipping at about $55 and Canada about $30.

 

[HigashiJun]

How much would it cost to have it sent to Japan ?

Cheers.

 

[YouKnowWho]

@HigashiJun - lowest cost shipping would be via Post surface for $120 USD, courier/air would cost $215 USD.

Please note Canada Post is currently on strike so we would have to wait till strike end for surface option. Courier/air of course is available via UPS/DHL/FedEx, etc. Quote is FedEx, but the pricing is likely to be same across couriers. If more, I'll cover. If less, I'll refund the difference of course.

 

[YouKnowWho]

NEW BOXING WEEK PRICE!

 

[stween]

Declaring interest.

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(Interest withdrawn here)

 

[stween]

Interested, but I can't do much on this until mid January. I'm located in NYC.

Would at least like to see the machine boot to desktop; lack of Atari keyboard may be something I want to consider. Also would like to confirm the actual total ram if possible.

 

[YouKnowWho]

@stween, no issues on the shipping to NYC. No issues with mid-Jan, but not sure how that works on AmiBaY. Can items be reserved for a period without completion and potential to not complete? What are the obligations for such an arrangement, if any?

Re: Keyboard, there have been three matching Atari keyboards that I saw sell since listing this. I've been looking around on occasion because I am one foot thinking of getting into this special machine if there is no takers. That's how I've seen non-working machines, granted but with keyboard - sell for way more than this. Personally I'd rather start with working machines and deal with the relatively easy problem of keyboard at my convenience. But the other foot is currently letting others decide if that happens. As noted, I also saw plenty of nice/new PS/2 Sony Vaio keyboards that match Atari colour and are very low cost as well and was thinking of combining that with Eiffel adapter as a very low cost way to get this system going.

Re: RAM - it looks like 4MB to me, as all slots are populated. However, with no KB/Mouse I can't cancel that floppy warning and boot and am stuck there. Any instructions for testing appreciated.

 

[Watson]

@YouKnowWho You can reserve if you wish, with no obligations other than the ones you agree on.

 

[stween]

So, I'd expect an ST of any flavour to boot to desktop in the absence of disks. There's no hard drive (that's ok); can you disconnect the floppy drive? It should boot to a green desktop probably with no icons. Without a keyboard it's tricky to check much else!

 

[YouKnowWho]

@stween, I did as you suggested, removed power and then removed both power and data cable from floppy and I get the same error as per photo. In my view it is a working powering system, perhaps it was set up to boot from HDD and now with that HDD removed it's doing this for some reason. However, since I have limited resources as far as this system goes at this time and in case it wasn't clear I've updated description to "power tested as seen, sold as-is". FYI: I did some searching, and apparently you have to click cancel 3 times and you get the desktop. I actually have a Amiga/Atari switchable mouse, but you know the story with the Mega STE mouse port. So this is the extent of my testing ability. Considering that a non-working non-powering STE just sold for over 40% more...well...

 

[stween]

Ah yeah, interesting: I've never ran TOS 2.05 before -- one of the few I've never used -- but running a baseline MSTE config in Hatari with TOS 2.05 and no floppy image shows the same behaviour. So, the unit may well be operating as intended. I imagine that if the system was booted with a blank floppy then it'd seek, find no useful data for boot, and get straight to desktop. Understand that you have no floppies to test.

Even if you could get to desktop, to get a read on the amount of RAM that TOS detects you'd need to run something like sysinfo -- or skip the main TOS boot and use a diagnostic cartridge instead -- to get that kind of info out. With four slots filled, it's either 4x256kB, or 2x1MB + 2x256kB, or 4 x 1MB. The chips on the larger SIMMs appear to be 128kB (and 8 of those == 1MB), so at least two SIMMs appear to be 1MB. Willing to assume the stubby SIMMs are newer and also 1MB.

I can't find the keyboard posts that you allude to, but I know a legit Mega STE keyboard will be ... pricey for sure. Even a Mega ST keyboard can be pricey!

So, I'm interested, and I'd give this a good home. FWIW I'm typically cautious about paypal via friends/family.

 

[YouKnowWho]

Yes, I did as you suggested and was also surprised to see it again and at that point didn't want to be messing with things internally as I'm not an expert in the Atari world.

The last keyboard I saw was just recently, an "Atari Mega ST" keyboard on that other bay for a touch over a c-note. They come up regularly over my periodic search since I've had this thing in my hands. Because of that search I've seen what these Mega STEs are selling for out there even broken/not-powering, hence my Dec 16th "pitch". I considered buying a keyboard to bundle, but then thought...maybe someone wants a lower price system and they have a keyboard already? Why put money into this right now if I'm selling it? So...as-is.

I get what you're saying on the caution. Then again I have to be cautious about losing my hardware, payment claims or even possibly both on a vintage item with absolutely no or very limited recourse path. Not to mention potential part harvesting risks and that kind of fun stuff. So for that reason, those are my terms of transaction.

Happy New Year!

 

[FrodoJedi]

Declaring interest.

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Declaring interest. Can pay via Canada ETransfer. Located in New York.

 

[YouKnowWho]

@FrodoJedi - FYI, sorting things to give you an answer as quickly as possible.

 

[FrodoJedi]

@FrodoJedi - FYI, sorting things to give you an answer as quickly as possible.

Thank you

 

[stween]

Interest withdrawn. (was previously declared here)

 

[stween]

@FrodoJedi Hello fellow new yorker: I can't make a proper decision before mid January and I won't hurry, so I'll step aside!

 

[YouKnowWho]

Thank you @stween. @FrodoJedi, message sent. Best Regards.

 

[FrodoJedi]

@FrodoJedi Hello fellow new yorker: I can't make a proper decision before mid January and I won't hurry, so I'll step aside!

Thank you! I appreciate it.

 

[FrodoJedi]

Payment sent via eTransfer. Thank you again.