Author: Anthony Green (proxy34-ext.nt.tas.gov.au)
Date: 01-05-2000 18:31
You can certainly convert an ST to an STe. Here's how! Sell the ST and then buy and STE. That is the only way to do the conversion. There are TOO many internal differences to actually modify an ST to become an STE, for a start a number of the custom chips in the ST were combined into a single 100 (?) pin IC for the STE and the internal functionality of the IC is somewhat difference to that of the equivalent chips in the ST. Also the DMA sound system in the STE has never had any equivalent developed for the ST.
It is MUCH cheaper for you to pick up an old STe than to even attempt to modify an ST to have some of the STe enhancements (many of which are still not realisable by upgrading an ST anyway).
Better still get a Mega STE, as it is faster and has more expansion possibilities than the ST or STe. Faster CPU and high speed serial ports are just the beginning of the Mega STE's enhanced capabilities.
Cheers,
Anthony
Steve Stupple wrote:
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I have learn't to never say never. In the past there has always been an Atari owner that has proved that the machines can do things they aren't meant too:)
To convert to an STE, you'll need to know what is improved (e=enhanced).
For starters you have an additional 2 joystick ports, you can plug the Jaguar game pad into these for some games; Substation is one IIRC.
Next you have SIMM memory upgrade slots fitted, along with blitter, improved sound system along side the standard chip sound chip. Not forgetting the 2 RCA phono sockets for stereo sound, 4096 colour palette instead of 512; hardware scrolling...
The machine runs a smidgen faster, buggers some protection techniques (especially RNC's).
And if that's not all, the memory mapping and ROM allocations are different (that's why Romantic Robots 'Multiface ST' won't run on one)!
Mind you while you're at it, if you manage to clean the STE's sound up a little and allow access to the full 16 meg of memory by just slottin....
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