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Atari ST Book laptop among the rarest treasures of the 16-bit era [1]
['Rob Beschizza']
Date: 2024-10-25
The Atari Stacy lived in a bulky hinterland between 1980s-style briefcase computer and a true laptop, but the ST Book was unambiguously the real thing. Though now 35 years old, it still looks sleek, even minimalist. One may experience a certain frisson seeing that logo on what appears to be a fairly modern-looking machine. But few were made and, obviously, it didn't help the company close the overwhelming lead taken by Windows PCs and Apple Macintoshes. Goto 10:
The 10.4" LCD display was monochrome, non-backlit and the same 640×400 resolution that the ST always had for its high-resolution, monochrome output. It used a high-contrast, passive-matrix screen like many early low-cost portables1, which meant you had to use it in a lighted area. The CPU was still a 68000 running at 8Mhz (the PowerBook 100 had a 68000 running at 16Mhz) and came with 1MB of RAM (a 4MB version was also available). Most ports were largely the same, although the MIDI ports were mini-sized.
See the unreleased and even older Commodore LCD, which has cool sci-fi prop vibes. This is what the Raspberry Pi 500 should look like when it lands.
Note the mono displays. Asking thousands for that was probably a tough sell even then. I remember a Compaq LTE from roughly that era being ugly and bricky and beigey—but having a bright color screen.
UPDATE: Looks pretty bright to me! If you're going to be in mono, though, make mine a gas plasma.
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