I have very fond memories of my 1040ST — I bought one as soon as I got to college, and the “hi-res” screen made it perfect for writing papers and (more importantly for me) logging into the BSD VAXen from the dorms.
Years after I got a 486 and stopped using my ST I often continued to use it as a dumb terminal hooked up to my 486 which was running Linux via null-modem cable. I did that right up til about 1995.
Atari was very smart building a VT52 mode into the ST, and the mono hi-res monitor was great.
