Atari ST History Snippets [part1]

In 1985, Atari Corporation released the Atari ST personal computer, the successor to the Atari 8-bit family, the new ST, which stood for Sixteen thirty-two, in reference to the Motorola 68000 CPU used in the machine, which has a 16-bit external data bus and 32-bit internals, the machine saw early release to press, developers and user groups in the Spring of 1985, before becoming commercially available to the public in the Summer of that year.

If we picture the computing landscape way back in 1985, then I think it would be fair to say, that in general, accepted personal computer user trends were very much still with command lines and 8-bit architectures, so when Jack Tramiel showcased the 520ST in 1985, with a fast Motorola 68000 based 16/32-bit architecture and it’s GEM (Graphic Environmental Manager) GUI (Graphical User Interface), then it was something new for consumers at the time, another notable fact about the Atari ST was that it could offer greater power than the Apple Mac of 1984 and at a much reduced cost, living up to the advertising slogan ‘power without the price’. You have to understand that when the Apple Mac first arrived with its GUI in 1984, it was a very new and very going forward thing for personal computing consumers, and only previously in 1983, something that had been implemented on the Apple Lisa, a machine aimed at individual business users, being the first personal computer to feature a graphical user interface, but the machine was considered a commercial failure with a price tag of US$9,995 (equivalent to over $27,000 in 2021), so as well as high price tag, which was out of reach for many, the machine also had issues such as unreliable hardware and lack of software support, however when the cheaper Mac arrived in 1984, then this GUI technology was available at a more affordable price to the everyday consumer, although you’d still have to be from a certain well heeled group of computer users with a price tag of US$2,495 (equivalent to over US$6,000 in 2021).