After the success of the Stacy, Atari presented a new portable computer: the ST Book.
It was a rather nice toy: very light, impressive battery life, MIDI ports, battery-saved RAM, etc.
The Hard Disk contains a small Null-Modem program to transfer files (very handy!). It has no internal floppy drive, the external floppy was a weird (and expensive!) unit that used the same interface as Atari's hard disks (ACSI).
Despite its interesting characteristics, and because of the deplorable commercial policy of Atari (I KNOW NUTTZING!), it had no success and only about one thousand units were sold in Europe.
A word of warning: The cases & screen on this computer are VERY FRAGILE! Whatever you do, do not drop this computer, as it probably will shatter!
Please consider donating your old computer / videogame system to Old-Computers.com or one of our partners from anywhere in the world (Europe, America, Asia, etc.).
I am the proud owner of this marvel. At my knowledge, only 47 models have been built for sale in France (AZERTY keyboard ?), all distributed by "Informatique $ Nature". This is mainly a prototype material.
I can confirm that the same interface port can be used for a ACSI/DMA device or a dedicated floppy.
I still own the dedicated DMA cable but I don''t remember to ever have used it.
I still own the dedicated external 1.44 floppy drive that was also distributed by "Informatique $ Nature".
The ST-BOOK appendum describes the following options : - External floppy disk (no mention of 1.44Mb) - Midi cables (from mini-DIN to DIN) - Serial transfer cable (similar as null modem but I don''t own the original) - Keyboard cable (unfortunately, I don''t own it) to connect a MegaST, MegaSTE or TT keyboard - It disables "vector pad" and allow the use of normal mouse or joystick - Cardrige port - Mouse/Joystick interface
Currently, original HDD gives weakness symptoms and orginal battery is dead.
Monday 5th December 2011
herve warin (France)
Link: That dark strip down the left side of the screen did absolutely nothing.
Friday 10th September 2010
Andrew (USA)
Me interesa todo lo que sea en relacion con ATARI gracias y ATARFOREVER
Wednesday 7th July 2010
Julio cao (Asturias gijon spaña)
NAME
ST BOOK
MANUFACTURER
Atari
TYPE
Portable
ORIGIN
U.S.A.
YEAR
1990
KEYBOARD
full stroke keyboard
CPU
Motorola MC 68000
SPEED
8 MHz
RAM
1 or 4 MB (no extension)
ROM
256 KB
TEXT MODES
40 x 25 / 80 x 25
GRAPHIC MODES
640 x 400
COLORS
monochrome LCD display
SOUND
three channels, 8 octaves
I/O PORTS
Centronics, RS232c, Floppy Disk, internal IDE Hard disk, Midi In/Out, Dock Station connector
