Noob questions.. Please help!!!

[Ell]

Hi guys, I thought I had better sign up as I have just treat myself to an ST520FM and a nice Hi-Res monitor off Ebay.

I used to own an Atari ST around 1990 when I was around 12 or so, lately I came to the conclusion that I should have never parted with my ST, after watching a few youtube videos of the games of yesteryear.. This leads me on to my first question...

Back in the day I used to get all the latest "scene" releases from groups such as the Pompey Pirates, Automation, Was Not Was etc.. Now, I know although they were not exactly the most Legal of disks I was hooked on the amazing menu's and the brilliant menu music with every new release these groups churned out.. I would love to be able to get hold of these to play on the ST again but have no idea if thats even possible. I have already bought a fair few of the classic games through Ebay such as Xenon2, Outrun, etc.. But I would love to know if there is some way of getting hold of these original scene releases to re live on my Atari ST..

Another question I have would be do you guys know how to get intouch with any of these scene groups who were my heros in my youth.. I would love to chat with a few of them!

Also, I am very keen in expanding the rom in this 520ST so I can use more demanding software on this old gem.. Does anyone know how to go about this?

Sorry for the Noob questions which I am sure may have been asked before.. But we all have to start somewhere!

Thanks..

Elliott.

[marakatti]

Hi Elliott,

welcome to the forum and congratulations for your STfm, an excellent choice

You can find some old scenepeople from http://www.atari-forum.com or http://www.dhs.nu. The first one needs registration and your first 3 posts will be examined before they go on-line but it's worth the trouble. It's the main forum for Atari 16/32-bit people where you'll get all your questions answered, well, most of them anyway

You can also find couple of guys who are real hardware experts. For example Simbo or Techie Alison, so they might be able to help you with the RAM or ROM-upgrades.

STfm should already have TOS 1.2 or 1.4, they are best for gaming. RAM-upgrade wouldn't hurt though if you want to play the later games from 1991 onwards. Or it might get cheaper to buy 1040STfm or STe instead, they're not that expensive yet. You can upgrade STe with SIMM-modules which makes it very simple to go all the way to 4MB, downside is that few of the real old software from pre-1987 doesn't run on it.