exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

I have a couple of 520ST s: a)520STM with C070243 rev H motherboard & b) 520STFM with C103253 rev 1 motherboard.

What is the minimum effective memory for a useful ST?

Options seem to be:
512 Kb as fitted,
upgrade to 1Mb - ok on C103253 mother board, difficult on C070243.

add 4 MB RAM board.

What can I do with more RAM other than use it for a RAM drive or speed up disk to disk copy?

Which software will only run on an expanded system?

Benefits of 1024 Kb over 512 Kb
Benefits of 4 Mb over 1 Mb

Thanks

Peter

I guess that it really depends on your usage of those ST. If only games and productivity tools that are happy with 512Ko, then this is sufficient.

I heard that some games do not support when there is more than 512 KB.

On the other hand some softwares and games may require 1 MB and the more the better. And as you said, with more than 1 MB, one can setup some RAM Disk that can accelerate tasks like compiling.

I also believe that with 4 MB you might try MINT (to be confirmed by those that effectively use it)

sporniket wrote: 12 Feb 2022 19:28
I also believe that with 4 MB you might try MINT (to be confirmed by those that effectively use it)

I can run Mint on mine with 4MB, as for it being usable, well that's another story altogether......

I'd say for most cases 1MB is ok, but if you can get a 4MB/1MB switchable upgrade like the one @exxos makes then you have the best of both worlds.

If you want to use an HDD then 51KB is going to come up short once you load the drivers.

microman wrote: 12 Feb 2022 18:54 I have a couple of 520ST s: a)520STM with C070243 rev H motherboard & b) 520STFM with C103253 rev 1 motherboard.
...

4Mb board for C070243 (with updated gerbers since Adrians video).

Back in the day I was developing stuff for MiNT with 2.5MB, but that was before gcc got bloated and I just had the kernel and bash in memory.

1MB games run from hard drive needs the driver loaded into RAM. So you need more than 1MB in that case.

I'd highly recommend taking it to 4 megs - just get it over with. :)

If you stick with the ST any length of time at all, you'll encounter
games and demos that need more than 512k. Many hard disk adapted
games (as Exxos mentioned) will need more than 1 meg to run correctly
and again...get mass storage, it's so easy these days and put all your
games on one medium.

If you start running alternate desktops with software to enhance your
ST experience, you're going to need more RAM.

There's so many reasons to upgrade to the max and not many not too.

If you're one of those people who only switch on their ST every 3-6 months,
pop in a floppy based game and play it for 15 minutes then, that amazing
momentary need for noSTtalgia appeased, switch it back off, then no...
you don't need more RAM. :)