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Info for megaste


====== Atari Mega STe (1991) ======




===== Features =====

* CPU: Motorola MC 68000 8 / 16 mHz
* Co-Processor: Optional Motorola MC68881 math co-processor
* RAM: 1 / 2 / 4 MB - Up to 8 MB thanks to a 4 MB card connected to the VME bus
* ROM: 256 KB
* Text Modes: 40 or 80 chars. x 25 lines (bitmapped graphics)
* Graphic Modes: 320 x 200 / 640 x 200 / 640 x 400
* Colors: 16 among 4096 (320 x 200) / 4 among 4096 (640 x 200) / monochrome (640 x 400)
* Sound: 3 FM channels, 8 octaves + two 8 bit PCM channels
* I/O Ports: Cardridge, Midi (in, out), Centronics, RS232c (2), Hard Disk, Floppy disk, RGB, Joystick, mouse, Stereo, VME Bus
* Keyboard: Full stroke 94 keys with numeric keypad, editing keys and 10 function keys
* Built In Media: 3.5" disk drive, Seagate 48 MB hard drive. The 'open' version had 2 MB of RAM but no hard disk.
* OS: TOS + GEM
* Built In Language: None



===== Usage =====

MESS currently supports for the Mega STe both cart dumps and disk images. The former are accepted in .stc format and use the "cartridge" (cart) device; the latter are accepted in .st format and use one of the two floppy drives, "floppydisk1" (flop1) and "floppydisk2" (flop2).

Also notice that the "printer" (prin) and the two serial ports, "serial1" (serl1) and "serial2" (serl2), are emulated as well.

== Keyboard ==

This system requires full keyboard emulation to work correctly. At startup, full keyboard emulation mode is enabled by default. Whilst in full keyboard emulation mode, some key associated functionality may be disabled (like the ESC key for EXIT). The keyboard emulation mode is toggled using the "Scroll Lock" key (by default).

=== RAM options ===

Different RAM configurations are possible for the megaste in MESS. You can switch between them, changing the -ramsize parameter. At command line

mess megaste -ramsize ram_value

where //ram_value// can assume one of the following values

1m - to emulate a Mega STe 1
2m - to emulate a Mega STe 2
4m (default) - to emulate a Mega STe 4



===== Known Issues =====

The emulation of this system is Preliminary.



===== History and Trivia =====

The Atari Mega STe is the successor of the Atari Mega ST. It is an Atari STe with some features of the TT (the case, the VME bus) and has a new version of TOS (2.05 and 2.06).

It has (like the Mega STf) a battery-backed up clock. The user can choose in the configuration panel the speed of the CPU (8 or 16 MHz) and can switch on or off a small memory cache. Thanks to these two features, the Mega STe was really faster than the STf.

Some companies developed VME graphic cards for the Mega STe. This computer had less success than the Mega STf and was used as a publishing station or in music studios.

A minor note: the Mega and TT gave a nod to the earlier integrated-keyboard ST series by adding a tongue-and-groove design element for loosely connecting the keyboard to the base of the CPU.

The Mega STe ended production in 1993. This was also the only Atari product every to have an Appletalk networking port built-in. Some models included hard drives, and some did not. The drives were usually shipped separately to the the dealers, and installed in the store. The hard drive, a regular IDE drive (instead of the earlier ST models which used a SCSI-to-DMA interface board in the drive casing).

//(info from old-computers.com)//



===== Links =====

* Atari Mega STe at old-computers.com -- http://old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=164



===== Other Emulators =====

* SainT -- http://leonard.oxg.free.fr/
* Steem -- http://steem.atari.st/
* Pacifist ! -- http://www.atari.st/pacifist/
* Hatari -- http://hatari.sourceforge.net/
* STonX (*nix OS) -- http://sourceforge.net/projects/stonx/
* Gemulator -- http://www.emulators.com/download.htm




Generated on Sun Jul 19 10:17:28 2009