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Atari 520ST Review in Creative Computing – By Paul Lefebvre

The Atari 520ST was released in the US in July 1985, but because Atari did not provide magazines with pre-production models (like Commodore did with the Amiga), it took a while before magazine reviews appeared. There were lead times for magazines that were two to three months. So if the 520ST came out in July that meant the August issue was already out. If a magazine bought a 520ST in July and was able to quickly review it after a week or so of use, then the best case was an October publication date.

The 520ST review was written by John J. Anderson and it had an absolutely wonderful story at the beginning, which I am quoting here in its entirety because it is so amazing and perhaps still relevant today. For after a few rounds of monochrome Lunar Lander on the Apple, I noticed a new machine lying neglected in the corner of the store. Back to the original 520St, for that low price of $800 you got a computer with 512K of RAM, a monochrome monitor and a single-sided disk drive that stored 360K.

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