I can assist you with the 8-bit stuff, but never got into the ST end of things. I have years of experience on the 8 bits and recently got them all back out and have been buying more items. I just ordered an SIO Pro kit. I have plenty of copy protected disks and a happy 1050 drive.
I've used a few emulators and have been recently using Atari800Win Plus. There are many games I would like to be able to run on my laptop emulator. I still think the 8 bits were the best.. so many fond memories. Now if I could only find my old ICD MIO board.