ScuzzBlog: Diaries June 2017
Entry 13th June 2017: Post: 04
A GEM or a load of TOS
Hi
It's Atarifest at the moment and I slid out the 400 and slid back into
its place the 1989 Atari 1040STE. This was the later enhanced version of
the ST range and E followed F if I am correct.
Big beast this and kinda like the Amiga 500 but not. Grey colour and has
the power built in so you just need a tea kettle lead to connect. I am
playing through a black and white TV so I am not confronted with the
lime green desktop.
When you switch on the power light comes on in the bottom left and then
the disk drive activates. Its a bit odd as you get nothing on the screen
for a while until the unit determines there is no disk to activate so
fires up the GEM interface of the TOS os. I am advised that Amigans
lovingly called Atari users GEMMERS... or was it TOSS... er .. anyway.
The desktop for me is pretty crude and a touch lifeless. Like the Acorn
system you have to activate the standard disk drive icon to fire up
what's in the drive. You get an A and B drive as standard and this
enables you simply drag the A icon over the B icon and copy disks with a
single drive unit. I very quickly formatted a few disks and then copied
my Language disk dated 1987. This disk has BASIC installed which I did
find a little odd. When you fire up BASIC you get a LIST screen, a RUN
screen and a COMMAND screen so you have three screens. Sadly there isn't
enough space to display what you write and so it all gets very
confusing. Far better just to have the standard line editor and just
flip between screens.
I was able to copy and backup disks without issue. I dug out an Atari
mouse. I did find one of my Amiga mice with the Atari functions but that
was a real pain to use. The mouse is plugged into one of the two ports
'under' the computer. Or should I say below. Not sure I like that to be
honest.
The computer worked without any issue and all the disks formatted
without fault. The image on the screen was clear and all the keyboard
functions worked. So job done.
I have a little box of disks here that have been lying around for some
time. Discovery Pack Disks. They include STOS Program Disk, Language
Disk, Games Disk 1 and 2. So I still have some more fun to have before I
put the 1040 to bed.
http://www.scuzzscink.com/amiga/amiga_scuzz209.htm
http://www.scuzzscink.com/amiga/amiga_scuzz199.htm
You can download a copy of the Atari Language disk here ...
http://www.atarimania.com/utility-atari-st-atari-mega-and-st-language-disk-rev-d_28783.html
Remember my discussions regarding Gary Kildall of "Intergalactic Digital
Research" (later renamed as Digital Research, Inc), well it was he that
was responsible for GEM the default interface for the TOS operating system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST
GEM Desktop Atari ST
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1b9kUP0WtI
The Operating System
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_TOS
Onwards
scuzz
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