The Atari ST, Everyone's Second Favourite 16-Bit Home Computer, Turns 40

Image: Damien McFerran / Time Extension

Let me tell you a little story. My father is the person who got me into gaming, and my first genuine introduction to interactive entertainment (not including the Donkey Kong II Game & Watch) was on his beloved Atari ST, which turns 40 this year.

Games like Starglider, Dungeon Master, Populous, Defender of the Crown, Captain Blood... these were the games I cut my teeth on as a kid. While I would later progress to consoles, I still have a soft spot for the ST, and was a fan of it for long enough to realise that life as an Atari devotee at the close of the '80s and dawn of the '90s was very difficult indeed.

You see, while the ST was something of a monster when it launched back in 1985 (there was a limited release around April and June of that year, with the wider launch coming in July), it was quickly overtaken by the Commodore Amiga—a rival 16-bit home computer ironically made by the company that Atari Corp boss Jack Tramiel had just departed from in 1984.

Designed in just five months by a team led by former C64 developer Shiraz Shivji, the 520ST would later be joined by the STE, the portable STacy, the TT030, Mega STE and Falcon. The ST line was discontinued in 1993, and Atari would throw all of its weight behind the ill-fated 64-bit Jaguar console.

I spoke to Shivji back in 2008 for Retro Gamer magazine, and he explained the convoluted and entwined histories of the ST and the Amiga:

It is very interesting that the Warner Atari difficulties were due to Tramiel’s Commodore. The Commodore 64 was much more successful (I would say wildly successful) compared to the Atari Computers such as the 800 and the 400. We were also taking away sales from the video games division, the Atari 2600. Jay Miner was at Atari in the old days and was involved in the design of their products. He left Atari to design the Amiga. Atari had funded some of this effort and had an option to buy the Amiga. When we took over Atari in July 1984, the first order of business was to decide what to do with this option. The problem was that the Amiga was not quite ready and would need a lot of money to acquire. We decided to pass on Amiga, but this put enormous pressure on our own development team. Commodore, on the other hand, did not have an internally developed 32-bit graphics-oriented machine and did not have the confidence to develop the machine internally. They ended up buying Amiga for between $25-$30 million and spent a further $20 million or so and yet came out with a product a little after Atari. The roles were reversed, the Atari ST has a Commodore pedigree, while the Amiga has an Atari pedigree!

The ST had famously weaker audio capabilities than the Amiga, but it did offer built-in MIDI ports, making it popular with both professional and amateur music makers.

White Town's "Your Woman", which famously reached No. 1 in the UK singles charts, was created using an Atari ST, and acts like Utah Saints, Atari Teenage Riot, Pet Shop Boys, Dario G, Fatboy Slim, Mike Oldfield and Tangerine Dream have all used the computer to create music at some point during their careers.

While I remember being somewhat jealous of my Amiga-owning friends (I was literally the only person I knew who had an ST at home), I'll never forget the amazing experiences I had with that system. If you're also a long-suffering ST fan, sound off in the comments below.