The Heirloom Mega ST 4: A Reference Machine
This is my father's original Mega ST 4, deliberately kept in its historical, unmodified condition. It's the one machine in the fleet that stays true to how it left the factory.
Current State
- Original TOS 1.04 reinstalled (onboard ROM, no external TOS switcher).
- No modern expansions active, no MonSTerBoard, no Cloudy/Storm.
- A classic floppy drive instead of a Gotek or emulator.
- Its own original Atari keyboard and mouse.
Role in the Fleet
This machine serves as a nostalgia and comparison reference. When problems occur on one of the modified Megas, I can test against this unchanged original state to distinguish bus, flash, or configuration errors from genuine hardware faults. It can also be used as a test platform for uncritical experiments, but stays as close to original as possible for nostalgic reasons.
History
The machine spent many years at my parents' house and was fully rebuilt and brought back into operation by me after I got seriously back into retro computing in 2020.
Plans
The plan is to use this machine again the way it originally was: hooked up to the old SM124 black-and-white monitor, and with the two old MegaFile hard disks (a MegaFile 60 and a MegaFile 30) connected, keeping the whole setup period-correct. Both are still stored in the basement at my parents' place for now.