Editing Atari ST (section)

=== STE ===
In late 1989, [[Atari Corporation]] released the 520ST<sup>E</sup> and 1040ST<sup>E</sup> (also written STE), enhanced version of the ST with improvements to the multimedia hardware and operating system. It features an increased color palette of 4,096 colors from the ST's 512 (though the maximum displayable palette without programming tricks is still limited to 16 in the lowest 320 × 200 resolution, and even fewer in higher resolutions), [[genlock]] support, and a [[blitter]] coprocessor (stylized as "BLiTTER") which can quickly move large blocks of data (particularly, graphics data) around in RAM. The STE is the first Atari with PCM audio; using a new chip, it added the ability to play back 8-bit (signed) samples at 6258&nbsp;Hz, 12,517&nbsp;Hz, 25,033&nbsp;Hz, and even 50,066&nbsp;Hz, via [[direct memory access]] (DMA). The channels are arranged as either a mono track or a track of LRLRLRLR... bytes. RAM is now much more simply upgradable via [[SIMM]]s.

Two enhanced joystick ports were added (two normal joysticks can be plugged into each port with an adapter), with the new connectors placed in more easily accessed locations on the side of the case. The enhanced joystick ports were re-used in the [[Atari Jaguar]] console and are compatible.{{citation needed|date=February 2017}}

The STE models initially had software and hardware conflicts resulting in some [[Application software|applications]] and video games written for the ST line being unstable or even completely unusable, primarily caused by programming direct hardware calls which bypassed the operating system. Furthermore, even having a joystick plugged in would sometimes cause strange behavior with a few applications (such as the [[WYSIWYG]] word-processor application [[1st Word/1st Word Plus|1st Word Plus]]). ''[[Sleepwalker (video game)|Sleepwalker]]'' was the only STE-only game from a major publisher, but there were STe enhancements in games such as ''[[Another World (video game)|Another World]]'', ''[[Zool]]'' and ''[[The Chaos Engine]]'', as well as exclusives from smaller companies.

The last STE machine, the [[Atari MEGA STE|Mega STE]], is an STE in a grey [[Atari TT030|Atari TT]] case that had a switchable 16&nbsp;MHz, dual-bus design (16-bit external, 32-bit internal), optional [[Motorola 68881]] [[floating-point unit|FPU]], built-in 1.44&nbsp;MB "HD" 3{{frac|1|2}}-inch floppy disk drive, [[VMEbus|VME]] expansion slot, a network port (very similar to that used by Apple's [[LocalTalk]]) and an optional built-in 3{{frac|1|2}}" hard drive. It also shipped with TOS 2.00 (better support for hard drives, enhanced desktop interface, memory test, 1.44&nbsp;MB floppy support, bug fixes). It was marketed as more affordable than a TT but more powerful than an ordinary ST.