https://www.goto10retro.com/p/st-book-the-notebook-atari-st [https] Goto 10 Retro: The Newsletter for Atari Enthusiasts SubscribeSign in Share this post [https] ST Book, the Notebook Atari ST www.goto10retro.com Copy link Facebook Email Note Other ST Book, the Notebook Atari ST A surprisingly innovative portable ST [https] Paul Lefebvre Oct 23, 2024 8 Share this post [https] ST Book, the Notebook Atari ST www.goto10retro.com Copy link Facebook Email Note Other 5 1 Share The first portable Atari ST computer was the Stacy, which I have previously written about (see: Atari STacy vs. Macintosh Portable), but do you know about the ST Book, the notebook Atari ST? Goto 10 Retro: The Newsletter for Atari Enthusiasts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. [ ] Subscribe Announced in October 1991, about the same time as the PowerBook 100 (the first Macintosh Notebook), the amazing ST Book is relatively unknown, probably because only about 1000 or so were made. I'm not even sure if it was ever actually sold in the US. The ST Book originally started its R&D life as a pen-based computer and something called the STylus or ST Pad. That would have been something to see! To my mind, this is the rarest of the Atari ST computers and I daresay it will be practically impossible to find one today, and if you did I can't even imagine what it would sell for. Essentially the ST Book was an Atari STE squeezed into a tiny form factor. [https] The 10.4" LCD display was monochrome, non-backlit and the same 640x400 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. [https] Ports, left-to-right: AC adapter, mini MIDI, DMA, serial, parallel. The ST Book had TOS 2.06 in ROM, like the Mega STE. Its case color was the dark gray color of the Atari Portfolio, which would also be used for the Atari Falcon030. The keyboard looks really nice. It is certainly more compact than a regular ST keyboard, with no separate number pad (although you there was a keypad lock key to allow you to use some of the keys as a number pad). I really like the white color and it even has a dedicated "Atari" key on the bottom left, although I'm not sure what that would have been used for. Although basically an STE, the ST Book did offer some interesting innovations: * Light weight. The ST Book weighed only 4.2 pounds, which was remarkably light for a notebook back then. The PowerBook 100 was nearly a pound heavier at 5.1 pounds. The STacy (and Mac Portable) weighed about 15 pounds! * No built-in floppy drive. Like the PowerBook 100, the ST Book eschewed the floppy drive to save weight. It did have a built-in 40MB IDE hard drive, the first ST to use IDE (which would also later show up in the Falcon030). To transfer files to it, you could use included software to connect it to another ST via parallel or serial cables and copy the files over. An external floppy drive that connected to the DMA port was also supposed to be available (The ST Book did not have a standard floppy port, which would have allowed existing floppy drives to be used with it, probably because the physical port would have been too large for the ST Book). The PowerBook 100 originally came with an external floppy drive. [https] * Vector Pad. At this point, track pads had not been invented. The STacy had a built-in trackball, which was common on portable computers. In fact, that's what the PowerMac 100 used. The ST Book went with something more unique: a vector pad, which is probably more similar to that little "nub" stick you may have seen on some IBM ThinkBooks. You could slightly push the vector pad, a pressure-sensitive disc, in directions to move the mouse around. The more pressure you applied, the faster the mouse moved. This pad was placed in the top right, above the keyboard, which I think would have been incredibly awkward to work with. * Long battery life. The ST Book had a total power consumption of just 1.25 watts (the STacy was 6 watts). The hard drive is powered down when not in use, something that is common today, but was not back then. Special RAM was used that did not need to always be powered. The LCD screen had a "video saver" capability to update from its own RAM rather than main RAM and it could be blanked out to save power. The ST Book also had a save and resume feature, similar to the sleep option that all laptops have today. All of this meant the ST Book could get about 5 to 10 hours using its optional rechargeable NiCad battery. Amazingly, the ST Book could also run for a couple hours on seven AA batteries! [https] Please consider sharing this post to your retro computing friends! Share For all its innovations, the ST Book had some odd omissions. Strangely, the ST Book did not have a great way to use an external mouse. To do so, you had to first connect an external Mega STE (or Mega ST) keyboard and then use the mouse connected to that. As far as I know those keyboards were never actually sold separately, so unless you already had a Mega STE or Mega ST you would have been stuck with using the vector pad. There was also no way to connect an external monitor and thus no way to get color support. Apparently this was removed to save power. Although the ST Book did have an expansion connector, it did not have a standard cartridge port. Apparently it was technically possible to connect a cartridge to the expansion connector, but it seems unlikely that anyone ever did that. This meant that the popular Spectre Macintosh emulator would not work with the ST Book. Compatibility, apart from games, should have been about the same as the Mega STE. From what I can tell the ST Book was originally priced at about $2000 (about $4600 in 2024). The PowerBook 100 originally sold for $2500 (about $5700 in 2024), but it came with the external floppy, NiCad battery pack and charger, all of which were optional with the ST Book 2. The May 1992 issue of ST Format had a great article about a pre-production ST Book that they were able to test. Overall, they really liked it, but did have complains about the vector pad, which they felt was difficult to use accurately. [https][https][https] [https][https] ST Format May 1992 story on the ST Book The January 1992 issue of Atari Explorer had an interview with the creator of the ST Book, Tracy Hall. [https] Atari Explorer January 1992 32.4MB [?] PDF file Download Download Although I've summarized from both of them, I still recommend reading both of these articles. [https] Photo from Atari Explorer [https] Photo from Atari Explorer Because so few ST Books were made, it's hard to really call it a flop. Rather, it was more like an interesting R&D project from Atari that barely saw the light of day. Considering its price was rather close to the PowerBook 100, it's hard to believe this would have sold well even if Atari had given it a full rollout. If any readers have used (or actually own) an ST Book, please share your thoughts about it in the comments. Leave a comment 1 Active-matrix was the much better, much more costly alternative. The difference being that passive matrix could not handle motion well, so it was easy to lose track of the mouse cursor if it moved across the screen too rapidly. 2 Supposedly the ST Book did come with 7 AA batteries, though! 8 Share this post [https] ST Book, the Notebook Atari ST www.goto10retro.com Copy link Facebook Email Note Other 5 1 Share Previous Discussion about this post Comments Restacks [https] [ ] Michael Malak Oct 23Liked by Paul Lefebvre The Atari Transputer Workstation is even more rare, at only [https] 350 made Expand full comment Reply Share 3 replies by Paul Lefebvre and others Josh Carlson 5 hrs ago Trackpads *had* been invented :P My Psion MC400 has a [https] trackpad above the keyboard that works remarkably well and it is from 1989. Expand full comment Reply Share 3 more comments... Top Latest Discussions No posts Ready for more? 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