The LaST Upgrade — 30 Years of Atari ST Hardware Hacking
Posted: 22 Jun 2026 16:00
The LaST Upgrade — 30 Years of Atari ST Hardware Upgrades, Repairs & Mods
Since 1994 I've been documenting every upgrade, repair, fix and modification I've thrown at the Atari ST family and Falcon 030. Three decades on it's become one of the largest free Atari ST hardware archives on the web: 55+ fully illustrated, step-by-step guides covering everything from a simple recap to adding accelerators and various mods and fixes.
Whether your Atari has no video, a dead power supply, leaking capacitors, a faulty floppy drive, or you just want more RAM and more speed, there's a guide here for you. Grab a coffee and dig in.
» CPU Boosters & 68030 Accelerators
Want the boards and kits? Many of these guides have matching products in the exxos webshop.
All content is free for personal, non-profit use. If a guide has saved your Atari (or your sanity), please consider a donation to keep it online and growing.
Full index: https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/last/
Since 1994 I've been documenting every upgrade, repair, fix and modification I've thrown at the Atari ST family and Falcon 030. Three decades on it's become one of the largest free Atari ST hardware archives on the web: 55+ fully illustrated, step-by-step guides covering everything from a simple recap to adding accelerators and various mods and fixes.
Whether your Atari has no video, a dead power supply, leaking capacitors, a faulty floppy drive, or you just want more RAM and more speed, there's a guide here for you. Grab a coffee and dig in.
» CPU Boosters & 68030 Accelerators
- PART 11 – 16MHz STFM – overclock the 8MHz 68000 in your Atari STFM to 16MHz with a switchable clock for full software compatibility
- PART 16 – 16MHz Booster V1 & PART 18 – V1.5 – plug-in 16MHz CPU booster boards that speed up the Atari ST 68000 without hard-wiring the motherboard
- PART 24 – Booster V2.2 & PART 37 – Booster V2.3 – the mature exxos CPU accelerator for Atari ST/STE, a drop-in board with switchable speed
- PART 27 – STE Booster – 16MHz CPU speed upgrade designed specifically for the Atari STE motherboard
- PART 22 – 68030 FPU Overclock – overclocking the Motorola 68882 maths co-processor on 68030 machines for faster floating point
- PART 39 – ST536 & PART 52 – STE536 – full Motorola 68030 accelerator boards for the Atari ST and STE, bringing fast 32-bit CPU power and TT-RAM to 16-bit machines
- PART 9 – CT60 "The Story" & 9.1 – CT60 Firmware Update – installing and flashing the CT60/CT63 68060 accelerator in the Atari Falcon 030
- PART 46 – Falcon DFB1X – Atari Falcon 030 video framebuffer modification
- PART 10 – GemBench 6 – the GEMBench benchmark for measuring Atari ST/STE/Falcon CPU, RAM and video performance before and after upgrades
- PART 1 – TOS – Atari ST TOS ROM upgrades: swapping TOS 1.04, 1.62 and 2.06, socketing ROMs and fitting a newer operating system
- PART 2 – RAM – how to upgrade memory on the Atari ST, from 512K to 1MB, 2MB and 4MB
- PART 7 – 4MB STFM, PART 19 – 4MB + MMU Mod & PART 44 – STM 4MB – fitting a full 4MB RAM upgrade to the Atari STFM and STM, including the MMU modification needed to address the extra memory
- PART 3 – 1.44MB Floppy – upgrade the Atari ST floppy drive to read and write 1.44MB high-density disks
- PART 8 – HDD / GigaFile – adding hard disk and modern solid-state mass storage to the Atari ST over ACSI
- PART 13 – MPF920 Drive Mod – modifying the MPF920 floppy drive to work correctly in the Atari ST
- PART 14 – Write-Protect Fix – curing phantom write-protect errors on the Atari floppy drive
- PART 15 – DMA Mod & PART 47 – DMA Signal Guide – fixing and improving the Atari ST DMA/ACSI port for reliable hard drive connections, with a full signal reference
- PART 35 – Floppy Drive Repair – diagnosing and repairing dead, noisy or unreliable Atari ST floppy drives
- PART 41 – USB Cable – floppy/USB cabling for modern Atari drive solutions
- PART 6 – PSU Guide – Atari ST power supply pinouts, common faults and what kills them
- PART 20 – PSU 2015, PART 36 – PSU 2018 & PART 50 – DIY PSU 2025 – three generations of safe, cool-running modern replacement power supplies for the Atari ST/STE
- PART 33 – Pico PSU – converting the Atari ST to a tiny modern Pico/SMPS power supply
- PART 23 – STE Video Fix & PART 30 – STFM Sync Fix – curing no display, wrong colours, sync loss and jailbars on the Atari STE and STFM
- PART 31 – STE DAC Fix & PART 49 – STE Video DAC – repairing the Atari STE video DAC for correct, clean colour output
- PART 45 – RGB Upgrade & PART 48 – ST to VGA – getting a sharp Atari ST picture on modern monitors via RGB improvements and ST-to-VGA conversion
- PART 51 – STE 1712 Fix – fixing the STE video fault linked to the GST Shifter / 1712 area
- PART 4 – Keyboard – cleaning, repairing and upgrading the Atari ST keyboard and membrane
- PeST – PS/2 Mouse Adapter – use a modern PS/2 mouse on your Atari ST
- PART 26 – IC Removal – how to desolder and remove ICs from Atari motherboards without lifting pads or tracks
- PART 32 – Axial Caps – recapping the Atari ST: choosing and fitting axial electrolytic capacitors
- PART 42 – The ESR Lie – why a "good" ESR meter reading can still hide a bad capacitor, and how capacitor testing really works
- PART 43 – Find a Short – a practical method for locating dead shorts on Atari motherboards
- PART 34 – RTC & PART 12 – Falcon NVRAM – fitting a real-time clock and replacing the failed NVRAM/RTC battery chip in the Atari Falcon 030
- PART 55 – 68K Bus Sniffer – a 68000 bus sniffer for debugging Atari hardware at the signal level
- MC68030 & MC68882 Tests – test routines to spot genuine versus remarked/fake Motorola 68030 CPUs and 68882 FPUs
- Crash Screens – decoding Atari ST bombs and crash screens to track down faults
- PART 21 – Blitter Kit – adding the BLiTTER chip to an older Atari ST for faster graphics
- PART 38 – 2600 Switch – Atari 2600 Jr modification
- PART 53 – TRUDIE & PART 54 – FlashyClock – exxos hardware projects, including a flash-based real-time clock board
- PART 40 – ST Remake – recreating Atari ST hardware
- PART 25 – Falcon Clock Patch, PART 28 – Falcon WS & PART 29 – CT60 RSO – Atari Falcon 030 clock, wait-state and CT60 oscillator tweaks
- Rigol DS1052E Fix – repairing the Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope
- Sony WH-1000XM4 Rattle Fix – curing the rattle in Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones
- Keep Connected, Old Projects & STE Dismantle – the back catalogue and a full Atari STE strip-down
- Resistor Calculator – quick resistor colour-code and value calculator
- Educational V1 – electronics basics for Atari repair beginners
Want the boards and kits? Many of these guides have matching products in the exxos webshop.
All content is free for personal, non-profit use. If a guide has saved your Atari (or your sanity), please consider a donation to keep it online and growing.
Full index: https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/last/