Atariscne.org

Robson, well-known for his amazing case modding skills, has published a collection of information on his latest finding: a tower created by German company Tetra GmbH (which still exists today). The tower was marketed as Manhatten tower in the 90s as a replacement for the ST/TT case and fitted all kinds of extensions, similar to the Lighthouse Tower, the Rocke Tower or theย  Digital Data Deicke (DDD) cases.

Robson's website contains detailed information, photos and screenshots as well as many other great Atari topics. It's highly recommended to have a closer look at the whole website.

๐Ÿ”— Robson's Tetra tower pages

๐Ÿ”— Original thread on Atari-forum.com

Comments

0
CiH
Saturday, 07 June 2025 07:44
A purely personal view, but the tower aesthetic never appealed to me.
There's too much of a 'Beige 1995-era PC dominating and overpowering all before ot' theme there.
I'm more keeping Atari in stock cases where possible, or a smart TT or Mega ST Pizza box. I also like rack-mount and my second Falcon has the Desktopper case.ย 
I appreciate other people's mileage may vary. I remember an impressive towered Falcon seen at demo parties, could have been Satantronic?
Quote
0
CiH
Saturday, 07 June 2025 07:52
Also, I have the same feelings about brutalist concrete architecture and the bloated ugly SUV and crossover style EV's that unimaginative motor manufacturers are currently spamming out.
Quote
0
505
Saturday, 07 June 2025 08:57
Same here, never shared the fascination of making an Atari look like a random PC. For the technically interested the additional space for extensions was probably another main motivation and added to the "boom" of these solutions back then.
My first STE came in the Desktopper case. I bought it unseen and found it quite ugly when I received it. But it worked well (4 MB, Toscard with TOS 2.06, 2 Floppy drives, external PC keyboard, usable as monitor stand) and in the end it was my main machine for a several years and I liked it for that.
It ended up being thrown away in a semi-functional state when moving 15 years ago, and as one may guess, for nostalgic reasons I sometimes regret it.
However, as a piece of Atari market history it's good to see at least the Tetrax being comprehensively documented. The information will be added on the dev-docs Atari archive pages, too.
Quote
0
evldhs
Saturday, 07 June 2025 13:18
Tower cases are big and ugly. But practical when you shove in all kind of upgrades, harddrives, CD-ROMS and what not. And not to forget, it opens up the possibility to use the fantastic Mega ST keyboard :)
Quote
0
CiH
Saturday, 07 June 2025 17:08
Quoting evldhs:
Tower cases are big and ugly. But practical when you shove in all kind of upgrades, harddrives, CD-ROMS and what not. And not to forget, it opens up the possibility to use the fantastic Mega ST keyboard :)
Evil, you're correct on the practical side.ย 
A lot of the peripherals back then were also lumpy and heavy.
You had the weird situation in the late nineties and early millennium, where people were getting more and more mobile, going to demo parties and Lan parties with heavier equipment and bigger CRT screens.
Until flatscreens came in, it was great weight training, or hernia inducing.ย 
Quote

Add comment

Submit

ยฉ 2025 The Atariscne Collective | info@atariscne.org