Atari ST Sites... any recommendations?

[mfletcher]

Hi,

So yes, this is an Amiga site, and Im probably committing heresy just mentioning the Atari word, but since there are subforums here for buying and selling Atari items, I was wondering if anyone could recommend me some good Atari community sites, similar to http://eab.abime.net?

The reason Im asking is that Ive just purchased an Atari 520 STFM and Im looking for information on software, hardware, stuff like that. If anyone has some useful info, it would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

Mark

 

[Merlin]

Re: Atari ST Sites... any recommendations?

Hi,

You aren't blaspheming for mentioning Atari, Amibay is expanding to cover the whole retro scene so you are welcome

I would recommend that you look up Atari-Forum, it's easily Googled. They seem to be a good crowd and are very knowledgeable.

 

[meega]

Re: Atari ST Sites... any recommendations?

Easily Googled indeed, but here's a url for them anyway.

 

[Harrison]

Re: Atari ST Sites... any recommendations?

Yep, that is the de facto ST forum, and the greatest ST site that links into the forum, that I've been using since the 90's has to be http://atari.st/ I've always thought how cool the URL of it was, and although it was a horrible OS, the site replicates GEM very nicely and even hints at the ST vs Amiga rivalry by having the trash can named Amiga.

I used to own a 520STFM since 1987 and was a big fan of the system. Well that was until I used an Amiga! Then I knew I had made a big mistake and spent the next few years playing the ST versions of game released, whilst looking over at the Amiga versions with envy. The day I got my first Amiga the ST instantly started top gather dust. 8)

There are however some exclusive ST games that are worth playing that you can't find on the Amiga, and surprisingly some games that are better on the ST than the Amiga due to bad ports. A good example of this is Captain Blood. It should have been so much better on the Amiga thanks to the better stereo 4 channel audio, but the developers responsible for porting it buggered it up and it ended up with muffled horrible sound samples and all of the alien language speech completely missing!

You could say I'm a closet ST fan! It's a poor second to the Amiga, but due to owning and using one for years on the late 80's I do have some fond memories of the system and its games.

 

[Zetr0]

Re: Atari ST Sites... any recommendations?

I used to have an STFM and its bigger brother, my favourite games were Drakken, Space Harrier and Beach Boy (or was that bouy)

although technically inferior to the Amiga at the time, it still has a place in my heart as me and my brother used to beat games on it regularly ... ahhh such care free youth....

 

[Harrison]

Re: Atari ST Sites... any recommendations?

Double Dragon 2 and Gauntlet II were two of my favourites on the ST. Especially as I'd completed both arcade machines.

 

[sarek2k]

Re: Atari ST Sites... any recommendations?

I liked Defender of the crown best on the ST cause it was more playable so it seems a lot of us here are also closet ST fans

I also had an ST but desperatly wanted the Amiga which i eventually got

 

[Harrison]

Re: Atari ST Sites... any recommendations?

I think a lot of ST owners really wanted Amigas, but in 1986-1988 the A500 was £100 more than the 520STFM and most of us were still at school so just had to buy what we could afford and so ended up with an ST.

But for me, at the start of the 16-bit era I hadn't even considered the Amiga, and had instead been following the progress of the ST with great interest, as it was covered much more in UK magazines than the Amiga, and I was reading everything I could about it, hoping that one day I could afford one. But when i did start to save for one I started to take interest in the Amiga thanks to the screenshots on game boxes clearly showing it did have superior graphics, and then seeing some running in shops. But I was still over £100 short and my parents would only give me the difference needed for an ST.

Oh well, I got one in the end (well quite a few).

BTW, my earliest memory of the ST was booting it up for the first time and being quite impressed with the GEM desktop environment. A graphical interface where you could actually see and interact with the files. And owning my own system that used floppy disks for the first time! But in my defence this was coming from a pure commandline OS of 8-bit home computer with tape loading. I also remember being a little confused that the ST seemed to be missing a commandline or any way of programming it out of the box. The need to buy additional software so I could code some basic programs on the ST seemed quite mad and a rip off to me back then.

 

[mfletcher]

Re: Atari ST Sites... any recommendations?

The Atari ST was the first 16bit computer I had ever seen; I had a BBC B at the time and a mate of mine had just got an Atari ST. I remember going down to his house and seeing this amazing game running on it: Dungeon Master.

There were many November and December nights spent down in that house playing Dungeon Master or watching it being played. And it seemed like an eternity waiting for Chaos Strikes Back to be released! There was also a PD game that I was addicted to called Jitterbug. It was kinda cool in that it included a level designer that you could play around with.

But Dungeon Master, along with Populous and New Zealand Story on the Amiga were my first introductions to 16bit gaming.

I never owned an Atari ST, I went straight to owning an Acorn Archimedes A3000. So just as I couldnt swap games with mates at school who all had Speccy's and C64's when I had my Beeb, so too was I locked out of swapping games with Atari ST and Amiga owners.

I just bought my first Atari ST this week. Im looking forward to spending a few winter evenings rediscovering Dungeon Master and Chaos Strikes Back

 

[Harrison]

Re: Atari ST Sites... any recommendations?

Dungeon Master! Now that is one of my all time favourite games. I played that for a very long time on my ST, and it was the one game that single handedly changed computer RPGs. An end to text adventures and instead full 3D interaction. Brilliant.

But Eye of the Beholder on the Amiga was even better!