Mega STE

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The Atari Mega STE

The Mega STE was released in 1991 and was designed to replace the aging Mega ST design. The enhancements found in this machine were mostly a mixture of features from the standard STE (from a software compatibility perspective) and the TT (from a hardware and design perspective).

Features

  • Software switchable 68000 CPU speed between 16Mhz and 8Mhz, and switchable cache, for both performance and compatibility
  • All STE features, including
    • 4096 colour palette, 16 colours on screen
    • 8-bit DMA Stero sound, output through RCA connectors
    • 30-pin SIMM slots for easily upgradable RAM
    • Genlock support.
  • A much improved version of TOS, with versions from 2.0, 2.05 and 2.06 available in it's lifetime.
  • TT style case with detachable keyboard and base which also acted as a monitor stand.
  • Support for a 1.44Mb floppy drive, which was added to later models as standard.
  • Internal SCSI hard drive support.
  • Appletalk compatible network port.
  • A VMEbus slot.

Models

There were three models available with 1Mb, 2Mb and 4MB RAM. The 1MB model lacked the high resolution mono monitor and built in SCSI hard drive.

Impact

  • Insert information here, how much faster could it be than a normal STE, software made for it. Not a commercial success really? Anounced too close to Falcon, not cheap enough compared to Falcon

Programming Information

  • Link to articles on how to switch CPU speeds with your program, Hardware registers etc

Magazine References

  • ST Format, issue 38, p64-67