Atari TT030

Atari TT030
ManufacturerAtari Corporation
TypePersonal computer
Release date1990; 34 years ago (1990)
Introductory priceUS$2,995 (approximately US$7,000 today)
Discontinued1993; 31 years ago (1993)
Operating systemAtari TOS 3.0x, ASV (Atari System V)
CPUCPU: Motorola 68030 @ 32 MHz (system bus @ 16 MHz)
FPU: Motorola 68882 @ 32 MHz
Memory2/16 MB
Storage1.44 MB (later version) or 720 KB (first TT version) 3½" floppy disk drive
50 MB hard drive
DisplayVGA Monitor (analog RGB and Mono)
GraphicsTT Shifter; Six Display modes
Color: 320×200 (16 colors), 320×480 (256 colors), 640×200 (4 colors), 640×480 (16 colors), palette of 4096 colors
Duochrome: 640×400 (2 colors)
Monochrome: 1280×960 mono TT high with ECL 19 in (483 mm) monitor[1]
SoundYamaha YM2149 + Stereo 8-bit PCM via DMA, same as in the STe
InputKeyboard (detachable) 94 Key
2 button Mouse
Backward
compatibility
Atari ST
PredecessorAtari MEGA STE
SuccessorAtari Falcon

The Atari TT030 is a member of the Atari ST family, released in 1990. It was originally intended to be a high-end Unix workstation, but Atari took two years to release a port of Unix SVR4 for the TT, which prevented the TT from ever being seriously considered in its intended market.

In 1992, the TT was replaced by the Atari Falcon, a low-cost consumer-oriented machine with greatly improved graphics and sound capability, but with a slower and severely bottle-necked CPU. The Falcon possesses only a fraction of the TT's raw CPU performance. Though well priced for a workstation machine, the TT's high cost kept it mostly out of reach of the existing Atari ST market until after the TT was discontinued and sold at discount.

The nascent open source movement eventually filled the void. Thanks to open hardware documentation, the Atari TT, along with the Amiga and Atari Falcon, were the first non-Intel machines to have Linux ported to them, though this work did not stabilize until after the TT had already been discontinued by Atari. By 1995, NetBSD had also been ported to the Atari TT.

  1. ^ "The All-American TT". Atari Explorer Magazine. Atari Corp. 1991. Archived from the original on August 2, 2010.