Atari STe (1989)

Features

CPU: Motorola MC 68000 8 mHz
RAM: 4 x SIMM sockets - From 512 KB up to 4 Mb
ROM: 192 KB (256 KB in later versions)
Text Modes: 40 or 80 chars. x 25 lines (bitmapped graphics)
Graphic Modes: 320 x 200 (16 colors) / 640 x 200 (4 colors) / 640 x 400 (monochrome)
Colors: 4096
Sound: 3 voices + 1 noise channel, 8 octaves + two 8 bit PCM channels
I/O Ports: Cardridge, Midi (in, out), Centronics, RS232c, Hard Disk, Floppy disk, RGB, Joystick, mouse, 2 x analogue controllers, Stereo RCA jacks
Keyboard: Full-stroke keyboard with editing and numeric keypads
Built In Media: 3.5” disk-drive
OS: TOS + GEM

MESS currently supports for the Atari 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 “serial” (serl) port 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).

BIOS options

Different versions of the TOS roms are supported. You can switch between them, changing the -bios parameter. At command line,

"-bios 0" or "-bios default" = TOS 1.62 (STE TOS, Revision 2)

"-bios 1" or "-bios tos106" = TOS 1.06 (STE TOS, Revision 1)

RAM options

Different RAM configurations are possible for the atariste in MESS. You can switch between them, changing the -ramsize parameter. At command line, you simply have to add -ramsize ram_value, where ram_value can assume one of the following values

512k - to emulate a 520STe
1m (default) - to emulate a 1040STe

Known Issues

The emulation of this system is Preliminary.

History and Trivia

The Atari STe is the successor of the Atari STf (The 'e' stands for 'enhanced') and is almost fully compatible with the STf.

In september 1986, Atari decided to make a successor to the STf. They planned to equip it with enhanced video features : Atari said then that the STe will have a 640 x 400 with 16 colors among 4096 and a 320 x 200 with 256 colors among 4096 graphic modes. Unfortunately, eventually, the STe will have none of these graphic modes.

The new features are :

a new version of the OS (“Rainbow” TOS 1.6 and later, 1.62),
a Blitter chip to quick perform memory moves (it is the the Mega STf one),
the video chip (Shifter) has been enhanced: the STe can perform, as the Amiga, hardware scrolling in all directions and it is possible to write into the video counters. It also handle 4096 colors instead of 512, unfortunately, it can only display a maximum of 16 of them (without trick).
'phase lock' of the video output to an external video source permitting direct linking to genlocking device.
It has enhanced sound features too: two 8 bit PCM (Pulse Coded Modulation) channels which can replay stereo sound at 6.25, 12.5, 25, or 50 KHz and which can be mixed with the 3 FM channels.

Despite its new and interesting features, the Atari STe was a flop in the marketplace. The STf market was too important and the software editors (especially game editors) didn't sell STe versions of their products.

Not long after this, Atari launched the Mega STe to replace the Mega STf.

(info from old-computers.com)