As some of you know I've been searching for an Atari STE for some time. I've picked up bits ready to upgrade one to its max, but finding a decent example of an actual STE has been harder than I thought it would be.
None offered for sale on here yet, and those that appear on ebay normally sell for silly money. However the other day one appeared on ebay that looked in great condition and came boxed with inserts and its original Turbo software bundle. I stuck in the maiden bid, not expecting to win it, but no one else did, so it was mine!
It finally arrived today, and it was a very good bargain!
The box and inserts were in perfect condition, and the STE itself is also in very good condition with only slight yellowing to the case along the front edge below the keyboard. It is a 520STE, but as I recently got hold of 4MB SIMMS ready for the STE from a nice Amibayer I didn't mind as I was armed ready to upgrade it.
I first booted her up to check everything worked, and it booted into the horrible green GEM desktop perfectly, so that was good. I then booted up a couple of games and they worked fine.
So next to open her up and upgrade the ram. But this is where I got a nice surprise! I opened the case up and removed the PSU shielding to get to the SIMM sockets, and what did I find? 4 SIMMs already installed! Nice! Not sure of their size I downloaded a little ST program that displays the STs setup and have a guess what. 4MB installed! How cool is that.
The action never mentioned what the ST's setup was. It just stated 520STE in box with Turbo software bundle and listed the software included. If the seller had stated it had 4MB it would have commanded over 4 times its final price for sure. So I got a real bargain here.
Finally I took the floppy drive out to check the TOS and DMA revisions. Early STEs didn't have socketted TOS sockets so required de-soldering of the existing TOS chips and sockets fitted. Gladly this STE has socketted TOS sockets and is currently fitted with 1.06 TOS roms, but with 2.06 TOS roms on there way it will soon be upgraded.
Finally I checked the DMA chip version as STFM's and early STE's came with a faulty DMA chip that doesn't work properly with harddrives. And I was very pleased to find it has the later good DMA chip.
So it was a great bargain of a 520STE with 4MB ram, boxed as new with a good bundle of software. And how much was this? £13. I'm very happy.
Now I just need to make an ST to Amiga monitor cable to get the best display from it.
None offered for sale on here yet, and those that appear on ebay normally sell for silly money. However the other day one appeared on ebay that looked in great condition and came boxed with inserts and its original Turbo software bundle. I stuck in the maiden bid, not expecting to win it, but no one else did, so it was mine!
It finally arrived today, and it was a very good bargain!
The box and inserts were in perfect condition, and the STE itself is also in very good condition with only slight yellowing to the case along the front edge below the keyboard. It is a 520STE, but as I recently got hold of 4MB SIMMS ready for the STE from a nice Amibayer I didn't mind as I was armed ready to upgrade it.
I first booted her up to check everything worked, and it booted into the horrible green GEM desktop perfectly, so that was good. I then booted up a couple of games and they worked fine.
So next to open her up and upgrade the ram. But this is where I got a nice surprise! I opened the case up and removed the PSU shielding to get to the SIMM sockets, and what did I find? 4 SIMMs already installed! Nice! Not sure of their size I downloaded a little ST program that displays the STs setup and have a guess what. 4MB installed! How cool is that.
The action never mentioned what the ST's setup was. It just stated 520STE in box with Turbo software bundle and listed the software included. If the seller had stated it had 4MB it would have commanded over 4 times its final price for sure. So I got a real bargain here.
Finally I took the floppy drive out to check the TOS and DMA revisions. Early STEs didn't have socketted TOS sockets so required de-soldering of the existing TOS chips and sockets fitted. Gladly this STE has socketted TOS sockets and is currently fitted with 1.06 TOS roms, but with 2.06 TOS roms on there way it will soon be upgraded.
Finally I checked the DMA chip version as STFM's and early STE's came with a faulty DMA chip that doesn't work properly with harddrives. And I was very pleased to find it has the later good DMA chip.So it was a great bargain of a 520STE with 4MB ram, boxed as new with a good bundle of software. And how much was this? £13. I'm very happy.
Now I just need to make an ST to Amiga monitor cable to get the best display from it.
