Well, my Atari collection is about 16/32 machines, so it just features the ST-line.
I use my computers, so they have upgrades or even sit in replacement casings.
From the collectors' point of view only few of them are interesting, from the users' point of view they are great.
520 ST+, TOS 1.x (don't know it exactly), one meg of ram.
1040 ST in a DDD Desktop case with selectable TOS 1.00 and 2.06, four megs of ram and PS/2 keyboard.
Mega/STe, TOS 2.05, four megs of ram, 500 megs hard drive, matrix graphics card which supports 1280x960 monochrome resolutions on an STM or TTM monitor for use with Cubase.
Mega/STe, TOS 2.06, four megs of ram, 130 megs hard drive.
TT 030, TOS 3.06, four megs of ST-ram, 16 megs of TT-ram, two gig hard drive, Ethernec networking card. Running MagiC. Attached to
Atari PTC 1426 monitor or
Atari TTM195 ecl monitor.
TT 030, TOS 3.06, two megs of ST-ram, 64 megs of TT-ram, four gig hard drive, Ethernec networking card, Nova graphics card, running MiNT OS.
Falcon 030, TOS 4.04, 32 mhz via FX-card, fourteen megs of ST-ram, 120 gig hard drive, Ethernec, external CD-rom drive, Jagpad. Running MagiC.
Falcon 030, TOS 4.04, 32 mhz (and the fast-ram) via Mighty Sonic 32 accelerator card, fourteen megs of ST-ram, 32 megs of fast-ram, ten gig hard drive, CD-rom drive, Syquest 44 drive, built into a Rocke tower with external Steinberg Falcon Digital Interface, Jagpad. Running MiNT.
ST-Book, TOS 2.06 (ST-Book edition), one meg of ram, many damages including keyboard, mouse and hard drive foil cables, so no hard drive.
ST-Book, TOS 2.06, four megs of ram, 80 meg hard drive.
Milan Atari Clone, Milan TOS, 64 megs of ram, 40 gig hard drive, internal CD-rom drive. Running MiNT.
My best liked machine is the Fx-Falcon which I use for ICQ, IRC, FalcAmp (mp3 player), looking at demos, playing (few) games.
The big question is which applications take advantage of the DSP, so it does not remain a cool, geeky thing. Without it, the Falcon '030 would just be another 68030 computer at a rather hefty price for its time. Previously I have price matched it to the Amiga 4000 but perhaps a beefed up 1200 can also be a good comparison.
Tomas Berndtsson has made a web page about what the Motorola DSP56001 is and what it can be used for. He mentions sound and image processors like MPEG, 3D calculations and so on. While probably theoretically correct, I'd need to see practical examples and comparisons with what a CPU itself could do. I suppose it is a bit similar to the GPU's in graphics cards of today, very fast at performing particular operations.
Well, regarding music issues first there's the possibility to play mp3 files on a standard Falcon (16 mhz 030, four megs of ram), or that of Cubase Audio Falcon that does recording on the 68030 and playback of the other tracks (up to 16) on the DSP (also on a standard Falcon).
In graphical ways you can see the DSP decode JPGs inside CAB, one of the web browsers for Atari 16/32 and do the same via an auto folder program for some graphics programme (don't know which unfortunately - I think it's RePro Studio or such).
Then the game Crown of Creation makes excessive use of the DSP, and probably there's a lot of DSP code in some Falcon demos.
The thing I don't like with the Falcon is it's clumsy OS and pain in the ass upgrade path
Well, it depends on which upgrade to make.
The CT60 speeders just plug into the Falcon Bus and there you go with up to 100 mhz on a 68060, the hard drive can easily be exchanged for 120 gig one, and ethernet can be attached to the cartdidge port.
So nothing about pain in the ass.
About the OS:
TOS is in Rom and can be enhanced by loading things from hard disk. It is something between the Amiga Kickrom (which is quite primitive in comparison) and the Amiga OS (which is quite comfortable in comparison).
Or in short, a graphical disk operating system.
Don't want to talk about replacement OS's or enhancements, as this would go way off-topic.
