Atari Computers....What happened ?

[mark cremona]

I came across an old 1040ST this weekend in one of those 'House Clearance ' type shops, the chap offered it to me with the monitor for 15 quid.

when I bought my first Mac it was to do music sequencing on, 1989 it was, an SE 30, the guy in the shop asked me what I wanted to use it for, as I was currently then using an old (by then) Yamaha QX3 Hardware sequencer, I wanted to upgrade to the Mac mainly because I read that it was a popular choice with the Detroit Techno crowd.

When I explained this to the shop assistant back then, he said to me, 'you would be better off with an Atari for music sequencing, the Atari will still be around long after the Mac has disappeared ' .......indeed.......

it got me thinking tho...the Atari was a quality machine with its built in MIDI ports, instant boot from a floppy and the oh so wonderful pro 24 sequencer, plug in my Korg M1 and hey presto, instant Bizarre Inc ! but I digress....

why did the Atari fade away like that ? to see it languishing covered in mold in that Junk shop last weekend when it seemed to have the (music & computer game) world at its floppy drive, seemed a sad end for a once great computer ?

[Mojo]

Being a classic video games geek I know what happened. Atari went bankrupt several times. I think the name's still around making the odd game, but it's nowhere near what it was during the Golden Age of Video Games when it made the VCS console.

[Bob Singleton]

I still have my old ST1040 with both a mono and a colour monitor and a separate 20mb hard drive that cost me a small fortune.

I also have WordPerfect 4 (on one 512kb disk, with a second disk containing the dictionary... makes Microsoft's bloated Word look like a step back in time!), K-Graph, RapidFile, DEGAS and other "serious" software along with copies of Geoff Crammond's F1 Grand Prix, F15 Strike Eagle, Caeser, Civilisation, Transport Tycoon, Prince of Persia and other games.

Whilst I've had about a dozen PCs/laptops in the last 15 years (about a 50/50 split between having to get a new machine because the previous one had died beyond economic repair, or because newer software just wouldn't run) the old ST still boots up immediately and runs and runs all day long without a TOS error (the Atari equivalent of the PC blue screen).

I shall never sell or dispose of it... maybe I'll leave it to a museum in my will.

[BeestonBoy]

Was all ways an Amiga man my self. Jumped from a Spectrum 128 to the the Amiga 1200. Crikey can still remember that day!! I dont think its teary eyed nostalgia either. These were/are great machines. Been looking at he Amigas on E bay for a little while now. There are some real bargains out there. My mum gave mine away to a family she knew who were not so well off. The eldest boy is now a top computer dude at a certain well known pet feed maker here in the Midlands. Im sure my old amiga had more than a little to do with that. And the cunt has never so much as bought me a drink.....wanker!! lol

Cheers

BB