Atari STacy

The STacy was a portable version of the Atari ST.

Originally designed to operate on 12 standard C cell flashlight batteries for portability, when Atari finally realized how quickly the machine would use up a set of batteries (especially when rechargeable batteries of the time supplied insufficient power compared to the intended alkalines), they simply glued the lid of the battery compartment shut.

The STacy has features similar to the Macintosh Portable, a version of their Macintosh computer which contained a built in keyboard and monitor.

Thanks to its built-in MIDI, the STacy enjoyed success for running music-sequencer software and as a controller of musical instruments among both amateurs and well-known musicians.

History

The Stacy was a global project, design work was carried out in the Sunnyvale HQ, Cambridge UK, final PCB board layouts where produced by Atari in Japan, which is where the first units were manufactured, with final manufacturing occurring in Taiwan

The distinctive sculptured charcoal-gray case was designed by Ira Velinsky — Atari's chief Industrial Designer.

Atari ST

The Atari ST is a line of home computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The first ST model, the 520ST, was released in June 1985. "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals. The Atari ST is the first personal computer to come with a bit-mapped color GUI, using a version of Digital Research's GEM released in February 1985. The 1040ST, released in 1986, is the first personal computer to ship with a megabyte of RAM in the base configuration and also the first with a cost-per-kilobyte of less than USD$1.

The Atari ST is part of the 16/32 bit generation of home computers, based on the Motorola 68000 CPU, typically with 512 KB or more of RAM, a graphical user interface, and 3½"floppy disks as storage. The ST was primarily a competitor to the Macintosh, Amiga, and, in certain markets, the Acorn Archimedes. Whereas the Amiga has custom graphics processors and sample-based synthesis audio, the ST has a basic frame buffer and a 3 voice synthesizer chip but with a slightly faster CPU and a high-resolution monochrome display mode ideal for business and CAD. Its simple design allowed the ST to precede the Commodore Amiga's commercial release by almost two months.