My personal (hot-rodded) STe

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Steve
Posts: 2570
Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2017 11:49 am

My personal (hot-rodded) STe

Post by Steve »

Hey guys,

My first Atari was an STe in 1990 when I was 7-8 years old. I had it until the age of 15 when I sold it for money to save for a PC. It's been a long time but recently I got a lucky buy on an STe auction and I've finally been re-united.

Now... being the guy who usually does all the upgrades for other people... time for some FUN :twisted:
The motherboard, a 5.1 revision with separate blitter. I literally bought the best capacitors money can buy, a mix of organic-polymer, film and ultra-high-spec low esr elcos. Also using Exxos 4700uf PCB capacitor kit which I usually reserve for Falcons
overview.jpg
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Here on the left you can see a beautiful Exxos PSU and 4MB of Exxos RAM. Plus a close-up of some of those special capacitors I mentioned.
leftside.jpg
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Here on the right you'll notice the 32mhz prototype plug-in CPU and fast-tos switcher, plus a flash floppy drive (Notice the TOS switcher cable running inside the flash floppy drive
rightside.jpg
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Here at the rear you get to see where I mounted a Pi-RGB which converts the STe output to pixel perfect HDMI, I installed the port above the external floppy socket
pirgb.jpg
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Here on the floppy side you'll notice an 8/32mhz switch
32mhz.jpg
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Here in the flash-floppy you'll notice an extra round-black push button switch, this is what is connected to the TOS switcher
flashflopandswitch.jpg
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What's this green device at the back? It's an ACSI2SD, which provides a very fast hard disk drive. It's better than most ASCI SD solutions because it is based on SCSI2SD, so it actually emulates up to 4x disk drives! So I can load up a partitioner, completely re-partition one drive and not have the other three affected, all on the same SD card. It is powered directly through that barrel jack to the internal PSU. The HDMI output port is just to the right of it.
acsi2sd.jpg
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Turned on and working as intended
turnedon.jpg
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A Gembench result
bench.jpg
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To finish the icing on the cake, a suitable 4mb badge (A reasonably priced one from a seller on ebay in Poland, not the ST-Freakz £30 version... I'm not *that* crazy
4mb.jpg
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thesofa
Posts: 49
Joined: Wed Jun 30, 2021 3:51 pm
Location: Co. Durham, UK

Re: My personal (hot-rodded) STe

Post by thesofa »

Lovely job, Steve, I am heading that way myself, apart from the accelerator!
Can you please take a pic from behind the PSU so i can see how you routed the cables?
TT030 with Storm with 256 Mb Ram, Thunder with a CF drive and Lightning, HxC floppy emulator and one of Codekiller's magical Mono/Colour switchers, also 3 STS one has TOS1.0 AND 2.06 switchable with an HD drive, the other two are untested as yet, just bought for spares!!
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HigashiJun
Posts: 1195
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2020 7:21 am
Location: Tokyo

Re: My personal (hot-rodded) STe

Post by HigashiJun »

Well done, Steve !

Is this Pi-RGB stuff something reliable ?

I heard that setting it can be quite annoying.
Steve
Posts: 2570
Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2017 11:49 am

Re: My personal (hot-rodded) STe

Post by Steve »

thesofa wrote: Sat Oct 30, 2021 1:14 am Lovely job, Steve, I am heading that way myself, apart from the accelerator!
Can you please take a pic from behind the PSU so i can see how you routed the cables?
Do you mean underneath the PSU inside the machine or on the outside
Steve
Posts: 2570
Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2017 11:49 am

Re: My personal (hot-rodded) STe

Post by Steve »

HigashiJun wrote: Sat Oct 30, 2021 6:58 am Well done, Steve !

Is this Pi-RGB stuff something reliable ?

I heard that setting it can be quite annoying.
Not annoying at all, works 100%. Please check the following thread on Atari forum as many people are posting photos for installation on different machines, also pixelk is taking orders from people so he might make you one if you ask:

https://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=40201
thesofa
Posts: 49
Joined: Wed Jun 30, 2021 3:51 pm
Location: Co. Durham, UK

Re: My personal (hot-rodded) STe

Post by thesofa »

Steve wrote: Sat Oct 30, 2021 9:16 am
thesofa wrote: Sat Oct 30, 2021 1:14 am Lovely job, Steve, I am heading that way myself, apart from the accelerator!
Can you please take a pic from behind the PSU so i can see how you routed the cables?
Do you mean underneath the PSU inside the machine or on the outside
Lid off from back of machine so I can see where you routed thecables from PSU, mine is a mess!
TT030 with Storm with 256 Mb Ram, Thunder with a CF drive and Lightning, HxC floppy emulator and one of Codekiller's magical Mono/Colour switchers, also 3 STS one has TOS1.0 AND 2.06 switchable with an HD drive, the other two are untested as yet, just bought for spares!!
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HigashiJun
Posts: 1195
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2020 7:21 am
Location: Tokyo

Re: My personal (hot-rodded) STe

Post by HigashiJun »

Steve wrote: Sat Oct 30, 2021 9:22 am
HigashiJun wrote: Sat Oct 30, 2021 6:58 am Well done, Steve !

Is this Pi-RGB stuff something reliable ?

I heard that setting it can be quite annoying.
Not annoying at all, works 100%. Please check the following thread on Atari forum as many people are posting photos for installation on different machines, also pixelk is taking orders from people so he might make you one if you ask:

https://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=40201
Thanks !

:)
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mrbombermillzy
Posts: 1441
Joined: Sun Jun 03, 2018 7:37 pm

Re: My personal (hot-rodded) STe

Post by mrbombermillzy »

Nice work there Steve.

Obviously, you have too much time on your hands, so I will have to put you to work again with more repairs! :lol:
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frank.lukas
Posts: 660
Joined: Fri Jan 19, 2018 11:52 am

Re: My personal (hot-rodded) STe

Post by frank.lukas »

Can you please run for me the SPEEDMET.APP on your STE with the Exxos STE 68000 Speeder?

SPEEDMET.zip
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