The SM124’s Monochrome Advantage

The Atari ST’s monochrome display made a convincing case for getting some work done. With the SM124, 640 × 400 pixels gave text, menus and line drawings room to breathe.

At one bit per pixel, a complete screen needed just 32,000 bytes: useful economy when display memory shared RAM with your applications. The monitor’s paper-white phosphor suited a desktop full of documents.

Particularly in Germany and the Benelux countries, the ST was marketed alongside the SM124, thereby cementing its reputation as a semi-professional machine, which in turn helped to drive the rise of numerous DTP programmes such as 1st Word, Signum, Papyrus and Tempus.

Artists and musicians were also taken by surprise. For a studio recording involving several instruments in sequencers such as Cubase, you simply needed to make the most of the limited space available. 

In the few commercial games that supported the SM124 – mainly from Sierra or Lucasfilm Games, but also from Rainbird – players could enjoy the superb monochrome rendering of space fighters, medieval cities and fantasy landscapes. See King’s Quest III, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade or Starglider II:

In September 1985, Antic reported finally viewing Atari’s high-resolution demo pictures after its SM124 arrived; its colour monitor could not display them. Black and white clearly had more to offer than another spreadsheet.

Recommended reading: Explore the ST, Amiga and their productivity software in 68000: THE FLAME WARS.