exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Hi there - I'm a game developer who grew up with Amiga and Acorn machines back in the days when the Atari ST was around. I started on Spectrum and BBC Micro. But I collect a lot of machines and I've got a bunch of the 8-bit Ataris and even a Jaguar. So it seemed like a good time to get my ST up to speed. I have a hard drive for it, and that seems to work (it's an Atari 520STFM) so the next step is to upgrade the ram. I think one of the kits here would work well, I seem to have been lucky with my mobo revision, and the ram slots for the next 512K are free. Of course 4mb is also an option. Keen to hear people's thoughts!

Also very interested in knowing more about the ST, like which games were its strengths. No blitter on the base machine, but a faster 68K, so I'm guessing games like Damocles would be a bit more sprightly than the Amiga version. I really like that GEM is built in because that's a system I remember from my Amstrad PC1640.

Anyway, happy to be here, and keen to learn more.

Cheers!

Robin

:welcomewave:

I may have been talking to you on Facebook :)

The board you have is one of the easiest to upgrade to 1MB, 41256 RAM IC's are easy to get hold of, just make sure you get the same speed or faster RAM and you can check the values of the caps you need from the ones installed or on the schematic.

Caps seem to typically be 0.1uF, but check for your machine. There are suitable caps in the store.

:swave:
Welcome to the forum!

If you're planning on using the hard drive then going up to 4Meg RAM generally makes the most sense.

Also, maybe consider upgrading to TOS 1.04 (if you have an earlier version installed) as that has a few important fixes targetted at hard drive use.

Hi! I've got TOS 1.04 it seems.

The only thing holding me back from a 4mb upgrade (other than not being exactly sure which one to get) is the suspicion it will be advanced level soldering where I'm merely an enthusiastic amateur.

jubber wrote: 28 Mar 2025 15:58 Hi! I've got TOS 1.04 it seems.

The only thing holding me back from a 4mb upgrade (other than not being exactly sure which one to get) is the suspicion it will be advanced level soldering where I'm merely an enthusiastic amateur.

That's fine for an ST.

I'd go for this: 4MB upgrade

It requires the least soldering (Usually)

Good news re the TOS version as it's pretty rare to see the 2 chip version for sensible money.

If the shifter is socketed then it can be quite simple

Unfortunately, under the little metal box, it seems my shifter (CO25914-38A) is soldered into the board, not socketed.