Time for a bit of a rant and a reminisce about the good old days. It’s not a new rant per se (I posted an older, less refined version a long time ago on my other blog), but to me it is a good one. So, let’s begin…

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When I were a wee lad, we had an Acorn Electron. I remember spending hours playing with it, or at least waiting for the tapes to load – “those were the days”, as they say. But those days were not to last.

The reason they didn’t last is because the Acorn decided to burst into flames one day, and that meant that I needed a replacement. My Dad didn’t like games consoles because he’s a boring old git, so he got me a real computer – an Atari 520STE, to be precise. With 512K of RAM, an 8MHz Motorola 68000 processor, and a 720K DD floppy drive, it was the best thing since sliced bread.

That machine, which I’m paying tribute to today, gave me my first taste of such classic games as Chase HQ, Desert Island Dizzy, Bubble Bobble, Golden Axe, Llamatron (and it’s awesome sequel, Revenge Of The Mutant Camels), Puffy’s Saga, and the mighty Monkey Island. It also started a lifelong love for all things classic Atari.

The big advantage of the ST over the games consoles of the time, of course, is that the games all came on floppy disks. Knowing lots of other kids with ST’s and rich Dads meant that there was a constant influx of pirated games to play – it seemed like almost everyone who was anyone at school had an Atari.

Okay, so I did have one friend (who we shall refer to as “Daryl”) who had an Amiga, but he also used to wet the bed, so he doesn’t count.-

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Anyway, I digress. My first experience of Atari, long before the ST, was at my uncle’s house. My cousin and I used to play Frogger on his 2600 until our eyes bled. Now that was one awesome game, even if Jeff Minter doesn’t agree. He also had an original Apple Macintosh, and a poster of a Lamborghini Countash on his wall (my cousin, not Minter), so he was the epitome of cool in my youthful eyes – in fact, it’s probably entirely his fault that I’m such a geek now.

In the ’80s and early ’90s Atari were miles ahead of the competition. My STE pissed all over the SNES and the Megadrive when it came to games – it had the perfect Atari arcade ports, for a start. Not only that, but you could do your homework on it too, not to mention the joys of MIDI-based music production, BBS access, Desktop Publishing, and countless other things.

You could lug it round to your friend’s house (if you were strong, it was the same size and weight as a paving slab, after all), plug it into their TV, and share that joy. Granted, most of the games were disk-based and didn’t load as fast as the Japanese cartridge-based systems at the time, but you couldn’t copy cartridges!

You could also use all of Atari’s back catalogue of controllers, light guns, trackballs, and console accessories with the ST, and the same went for most of their old software. Atari were doing backwards compatibility before it was even a big selling point!

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And what about that OS… “The Operating System”, as it was known, was everything you could ever want: fast, stable, intuitive, simple, and best of all, that green background was better than drugs – it still makes me feel sick now. If that wasn’t enough, they went and named it “TOS” – if there could be anything possibly more amusing to a ten-year-old British kid, I’d like to hear it.

I actually still have my STE now, at the tender age of 23, although it now has 4 Meg of RAM, a 520MB hard disk, a TOS upgrade, and has been adapted to use a modern PC mouse – Atari’s only flaw in an otherwise perfect system. In fact, I believe “Atari Mouse Cramps” was a common complaint back in those days, and my huge hands now just don’t get on with it. Still, do you remember the Amiga mouse with the ridge down the middle? Now that was the definition of pain.

Incidentally, Daryl also had a corresponding ridge down the middle of his hand – what a freak! Amiga did have the good sense to change their design at some point though, I believe, which is more than I can say for Atari.

Aaaanyway… To conclude. STE, and indeed the rest of the ST series, I salute you for all your greatness, and being better than anything that ever came before or after you (Amiga who?). If only a manufacturer came along now and made a whole computer in one unit, that was somewhat portable, plugged into a TV, and did computer stuff and games console stuff, I reckon it would be a massive success. I actually think the closest thing we have now is the PS3, but the less said about that the better!

Finally, If you love all things Atari, or want to learn to, you should check out the Atari Wikipedia Entry, or even the entry for the ST, if you’re that way inclined. Some other great Atari sites are AtariAge, Little Green Desktop, The Atari Museum, and MyAtari, the online web magazine for Atari fans. Once you’ve checked those out, you can find yet more links at Atari.org.

Have you played Atari today?

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