Hiya from Leeds, UK

[voorsk]

hi all

I'm totally new to this atari malarkey, having never owned an Atari of any description until a few days ago, when i bought a 520 STFM. I've always been curious about what one can do, mainly due to seeing one used on the TV show Games Master to play Xenon. At least, I think that was an ST?

This is the board I've ended up with:

20240404_122129.jpg

I have no cables for it, so i jumped in at the deep end and bought an rgbtohdmi. I've also got an old gotek drive that might work with it, once I've printed a bracket.

Are there any essential upgrades i should get or do? Is there a lighter PSU i could put in, as this is gonna be a lap-based affair, and it weighs a ton! :P

[Icky]

:welcomewave:

[supaduper]

Greetings and enjoy your retro hobby like we all do :cheers:

[russellnash]

It was written about in ST Format at the time that Games Master never mentioned the Atari ST, so it might not have been one that they were playing Xenon on. By 1992 it was very uncool to have an ST. It still is. :D

[stephen_usher]

:welcomewave:

[rubber_jonnie]

:welcomewave:

[alexh]

Welcome. I would read this thread about Mandatory Fixes

viewtopic.php?t=1585

You're going to want a HDD. Exxos sold me a great external ACSI2STM clone which works great. (I don't see it in the shop, maybe sold out?)

There is also the SidecarT https://sidecartridge.com/

[JezC]

:swave:

Welcome to the forum!

I think that a few of the forum members have used replacement power supplies (different Meanwell versions) which are a lot lighter (and run much cooler) than the original PSU.

Your Gotek should work fine (might need Flash Floppy putting on it to make it easier to navigate) - don't forget that the floppy cable needs to be plugged in 'upside down' compared to an original ST floppy though.

Good luck!

[voorsk]

i had a closer look at the PSU, and it looks like one of the caps has already done a sick..

20240408_134036.jpg

I've ordered a meanwell rt-50a to replace it. also on order is an ACSI2STM from masteries, although I've now seen a few posts saying 520, or even 1mb, is not enough RAM for running stuff from a hard drive, so i guess i need to find a 4mb upgrade that won't conflict with the rgbtohdmi that's already sitting on the shifter chip.

i love this learning curve part of buying old computers. :)

[DoG]

Nah. That's probably glue to hold the caps in place under transport.

BTW, how good are you at soldering? That motherboard you got should be SMT chip on it. 4Mb upgrade on that board is pretty easy (if you know what you are doing). You could change those original chips and run a wire between some legs to get 4Mb.

See here or you could check this.