Atari 520STFM

The Atari ST line brought 16-bit power into the home from 1985, built around a fast, capable processor and a friendly, mouse-driven graphical interface that made the older 8-bit machines suddenly look ancient. The 520STFM tidied everything into one unit, with the disk drive and television modulator built in, ready to go.

Its masterstroke, though, was a pair of built-in MIDI ports, a rarity at the price, which let the machine talk directly to electronic instruments. Almost overnight the ST became the computer of choice for musicians, turning up in bedrooms and professional recording studios alike, and it remained a fixture of music production for years.

Fast, affordable and quietly creative, the ST went toe to toe with Commodore's Amiga in one of the great rivalries of the era, a friendly war fought across playgrounds and magazine letters pages. For a whole community of artists and especially musicians, the ST wasn't just a games machine; it was a genuine creative tool.