06 February 2017, 19:04 | #61 |
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Well I actually think it might be that (joking or not) attitude that annoys Atari owners. If the perception is that that attitude pervaded (or still pervades) the Amiga scene then I can see where the resentment comes from.
Each to their own. I have to say though, I've recently bought an Atari and my experiences so far of what's been achieved with Badmood and the Q2 test show that one particular Atari machine absolutely stomped all over what was possible with a fast-ram equipped A1200. So in that regard the boot is on the other foot. |
07 February 2017, 00:55 | #62 |
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A fully upgraded 68060'd Falcon is a sight to behold. One could argue that it necks-on with the most solidly upgraded A4000's. But, as much as the Commodore machine, the Falcon is not the seminal Atari machine (one could argue if it actually is an ST at all). Released in 1992 and cancelled in 1993, it really stood no chance to actually get a foothold onto anything (Commodore made a similar mistake with the A1200). A shame, really... Maybe the whole story could have been different if the Falcon was released in 1989 in the place of the STe.
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07 February 2017, 04:04 | #63 | |
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And therefore you can actually do a whole lot more with an A4000 than you could with a Falcon simply due to the larger amount of software which runs on the Amiga. Indeed I believe this is one of the main reasons that the Windows OS is so successful. In many ways it's inferior to the alternatives such as Linux or MacOS, but there is just so much software available for it that it becomes an attractive option. Last edited by Anakirob; 07 February 2017 at 04:05. Reason: grammar |
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07 February 2017, 08:52 | #64 | |
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Before this you did not have e.g. Cubase on PC, LightWave, Cinema 4D, PhotoShop, Illustrator... best DTP on PC was Ventura running GEM. When PC become able to run GUI programs from other platform, all programs get ported to Windows. I even open topic at Atari-Forum.com "Programs born on Atari, Amiga, Mac... and then ported to Windows" and you are welcome to help me to complete the list. trixster refer to stock Falcon when he said "what's been achieved with Badmood and the Q2 test show that one particular Atari machine absolutely stomped all over what was possible with a fast-ram equipped A1200. So in that regard the boot is on the other foot." [ Show youtube player ] [ Show youtube player ] [ Show youtube player ] note: this is stock, 14MB Falcon |
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07 February 2017, 09:27 | #65 | |
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Plus this thread is sales comparisons, not what an expensive underused piece of Atari hardware is capable of 20 years later. |
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07 February 2017, 10:08 | #66 | |
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07 February 2017, 20:31 | #67 |
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22 March 2017, 14:19 | #68 |
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As I suggested, best way to determine production numbers is to collect as much as possible serials numbers of machines (or tanks ).
I made web site where Atari users can enter their serial numbers of Atari computers and Atari peripherals (equipment). You can also add pictures of motherboards, cases, stickers... http://milan.kovac.cc/atari/chipmunk/ please use it (if you have any Atari )! If we type enough serial numbers, we can make some conclusion regarding Atari computer production! like Mark_G suggested, there is "German tank problem" calculation if you have enough serial numbers in database. --- Is there any similar site/database for Commodore or Amiga computers? |
22 March 2017, 19:27 | #69 |
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I think the ST had more users until 1990 or so. I had read that it had around 1.000.000 users in UK alone.
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04 January 2022, 22:39 | #70 |
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Ok, let's update a bit this thread with 2 pictures, made from the annual financial reports, between Atari, Commodore and Microsoft between 1988 and 1992 :
The conclusion is that from the official data we have regarding the amiga sold, for which the Dr Peter Kittel pointed based on the serial numbers the numbers of machine sold due to Commodore bankruptcy, if we have 5,2 millions amiga sold, when you see the graphics, since Atari did less than half the turnover of Commodore, It's impossible that 6 millions of Atari machines got sold. On average, this means they sold something like 2,5 millions of ST machines. |
10 January 2022, 05:42 | #71 |
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From what I remember, the first Amiga games were mostly Atari ports not using all of the Amiga capabilities. Until Shadow of the Beast. I think the only Atari which came close to the Amiga was STE...
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10 January 2022, 09:12 | #72 | |
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The Amiga completely lost it's mind share here, and most of my friends switched over or at least lusted for an 386/486 machine because that's where the cool stuff was happening in 1991/92. And those people who were more into arcadish games got an SNES, I guess. The story would have been very different if Commodore had shown AGA in a hard disk capable Amiga in 1990, imo. Most people would have been more than willing to upgrade, there just was not any indication from Commodore of new exciting hardware being released soon. When the 1200 hit in early 1993, almost anybody I know had a PC already, and the Amiga was done here, and wasn't even reported about anymore in magazines. And that's a shame, since it's a very nice machine, imo. Could have easily competed with the PCs at that time on many fronts. |
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15 January 2022, 02:37 | #73 | ||||||
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Take Silent Service 2 for example. Sure the Amiga version wasn't quite as colorful, but was the difference really that much? (apologies for not showing a screenshot of the PC version - crappy eab won't accept any more pictures in this post!). [ Show youtube player ] [ Show youtube player ] Quote:
But there's the rub. Amiga users were spoilt by the Amiga and becoming bored it - while they pirated games instead of buying them and didn't spend anything on upgrades (hard drives, FastRAM etc.) that would provide a platform for better games. Quote:
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16 January 2022, 20:54 | #74 |
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The arrogance of PC owners still makes my mind boggle. Like being told by a 'friend' a lunchtime round his house that the Amiga was only a games computer while he played Mortal Kombat on his PeeCee with a flight stick and bleepy sound chip! Ridiculous! He should have been embarrassed! I was never embarrassed at owning an Amiga.
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17 January 2022, 18:53 | #75 | ||||||||||||
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VGA was a huge jump with its 256 colors capability and higher color space. Soundblaster wasn't really special. Quote:
[/QUOTE] or these: Yeah, if you don't give a shit about graphics, it's not much different. But people did. And the Amiga looked very very old in comparison suddenly. Quote:
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I just saw that the stuff that I loved got much better version on the PC, and crap ones if at all on the Amiga. Quote:
I mean, paying 39 D-Mark for a bad game is one thing, but SEVENTYNINE for some crap was highway robbery. That amount of money was more worth then than what 79 Euros would be today. Quote:
What would have been my incentive to? So I could have some tones playing in F-18 Interceptor? Or some assets were loading faster? Meanwhile on the PCs you had 256 color games, and no disk swapping plus faster loading from hard disks. If Commodore had shown me this in 1991, I would have bought this immediately. But honestly, I would have told anybody to "fuck off" if they told me to "buy fast RAM" to support the platform. Quote:
I played R-Type on my 512k Vanilla A500 in 1989, I kind of wasn't really sure why Z-Out needed an additional 512K. It didn't look that much better to me. Same with a lot of other 1mb games. Quote:
On the 1200, it was simply too late. Like I wrote above. The same machine could have done wonders for a few years on the european market. I know it's only anecdotal evidence, but I would have loved to get a 1200 in 1990 with the option to buy a hard disk for it and having 256 colors at disposal. In 1993 when it released here in Germany, people almost didn't notice it anymore. When I saw one in a computer store back then I was like "wow, they still produce new Amigas?". And then I saw the A600 and was laughing. Quote:
Fast RAM expansion for the workbench to run better? Sounds really amazing, mate. Quote:
You could see it in basically any computer mag that was centered on Amiga releases before that the reports about it became less and less frequent, since all the interesting stuff was suddenly happening on PCs. And no wonder, the Amiga has been riding on the same chip set since 1985, and it was showing then. People were getting bored with it, while on the PC market there was a feeling of constant innovation. Quote:
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17 January 2022, 19:27 | #76 | |
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You could also see very exciting PC games previews in magazines in 1992, like Star Wars: X-Wing for example, which definitely showed that PC was the next big thing. Demoscene was also starting to get really serious on PC in 1992, with Future Crew's Unreal demo that even Tim Sweeney mentioned recently on Twitter as a milestone: [ Show youtube player ] When I saw The Party 1992 invitation on PC that year, the music was a huge slap in the face, I could not believe it, the days of the PC speaker were over and it sounded to me like it came straight out of a music studio: [ Show youtube player ] I also remember that Borland's Turbo Pascal 7 was very popular for programmers (many people were mixing Turbo Pascal and Assembler). My first physics projects at university were done with Turbo Pascal (simulating galaxy collisions using RK4 integration and computation heavy things like that) I slowly stopped using my ST and Amiga at that time and PC was gaining traction for me, those CD-Roms in magazines with countless freewares and sharewares were quite something for the kid I was back then. As for the price of a PC in 1992, it was expensive indeed, but so was an Amiga 500 in 1987: Prices in France: 1992: PC 386 DX 40 MHz, 4M RAM, 85 MB HD, SVGA + Monitor 7990 F (it did not include a Soundblaster but it had a hard drive) 1987: Amiga 500 + Monitor 7490 F Last edited by Keops/Equinox; 17 January 2022 at 20:40. |
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18 January 2022, 08:41 | #77 | |
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18 January 2022, 10:40 | #78 |
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18 January 2022, 10:45 | #79 | |||||||
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Demos on the PC were inherently pointless because the PC didn't have a custom chipset to show off. You could make an 'EGA demo' or 'VGA Demo' etc., but not a 'PC demo'. And why would you want to? You spend ages developing some clever technique that pushes the hardware to the limits for a unique graphical effect, then Intel brings out a more powerful CPU and any kid can reproduce it in BASIC! Quote:
PC speaker sound was irrelevant to us. Some of us heard it once and were so repelled that we never touched a PC again. Unfortunately I didn't have that option because I had to sell and service them. I remember endless frustration trying to get crappy PC sound cards to work with various games. Meanwhile the Amiga just worked, and didn't subject us to music that sounded like it came from a toy synthesizer keyboard. BTW did you watch those Silent Service II videos? How does the PC version's sound compare to the Amiga? Quote:
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Those of us who didn't ditch our Amiga for a PC the instant they finally got hardware parity continued to enjoy our machines for many more years. That's more than you could say for the average PC owner, who was constantly forced to 'upgrade' if they wanted to play the latest games. |
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18 January 2022, 12:38 | #80 | ||||||||
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Looking at the in-game images I can see a lot more than 16 colors in the Amiga version. It appears to been crudely ported from the PC version except for the nice copper shading which looks better than the PC version. Someone obviously put a bit of effort into using the Amiga's hardware. The static image of the submarine didn't port so well, probably because they used a crude color reduction technique. Seems they didn't have a copy of Art Department Professional (or an equivalent program for the PC). But for a game like this the graphics don't have to be amazing, just 'serviceable'. Could the Amiga version graphics have been better? Sure. Did people who actually played the game give a shit? No. Quote:
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But it was a successful marketing strategy. Make them buy shit and then 'innovate' the next model to be less shitty, and they think you are doing them a favor! Now I see why the Amiga failed. They should have started with a 6502, no GUI or multitasking, 128MB RAM and slots for 'future expansion'. Then in successive years they could dribble out endless 'innovations', until it eventually becomes the A1200 (or something like it) in 1991. But wait! They can't stop there. For the Amiga to be successful they would have to continue 'innovating' it, forcing users to buy a new model every couple of years. Silly Commodore, they didn't realize that producing a design that lasts for years reduces sales! |
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