Editing Atari 260ST (section)

== History ==

Jack Tramiel acquired the consumer division of Atari Inc. from Warner Communications in July 1984. He immediately set engineer Shiraz Shivji to work designing a new 68000-based computer. The machine was designed in approximately five months and announced at the January 1985 Winter CES alongside the 520ST.

The 260ST was positioned as the most affordable entry point to the new 16/32-bit ST architecture, priced at just US$399. However, by the time production began in mid-1985, the cost difference between 256 KB and 512 KB of DRAM had narrowed sufficiently that the 260ST offered poor value. The earliest units shipped with TOS loaded from a floppy disk via a small boot ROM, which consumed most of the 256 KB RAM and left very little for applications. Atari quickly consolidated production around the 512 KB 520ST model, and the 260ST was quietly discontinued after a very short production run.

The "ST" designation stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", referring to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external data bus and 32-bit internal architecture.