Atari ST Indoctrination

[Megalomaniac]

Only if it had hardware scrolling as well. Games we dismiss as lame ST ports usually have either poor scrolling or a needlessly small game window (by Amiga standards - as an example Turrican 2 on the ST achieved smooth scrolling by using a much smaller play area to keep the maths simpler, whereas the Amiga could smoothly scroll a full screen of action. Most ST games which scroll the full screen have to make some big compromises elsewhere). Do we really notice, or care, whether its 16 or 32 colours? A lot of great action games developed initially for the Amiga were only 16 colours anyway. The ST's poor sound hardware probably held Amiga development back a bit too, though not by as much.

Of course, something being a straight port from the ST doesn't mean it can't still be fun, and these issues mostly affect arcade-style games rather than adventures, strategy games or 3D games, for which the ST could match the A500(very slightly exceed sometimes)

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by SuperFuryAnimal

When I was in my late teens having a lovely A1200, it almost felt like I had to hate the Atari ST by default. I had a couple of friends with ST's and I vaguely remember maybe once having a play.

Now due to having a Mister FPGA I have had a chance to play with the ST, watch some demos and generally have a good look at the machine.

Turns out I couldn't have been more wrong about the ST, what an awesome little machine, when you find a game or demo by someone who really understands the machine then it shines.

Found this out late but thankfully not too late!!

[ Show youtube player ]

Had a blast playing loads of ST games, unusual machine. Of course I got one in first half of 1986 whilst waiting for the A1000 to drop in price etc.

The ONLY machine Commodore and the Amiga owners should be sharpening their daggers over was the horrendous PC DOS EGA 'gaming' scene. What a horrible machine that was, inferior to the C64 1982 technology for gaming lol

Don't really have much against the ST, better than getting an Amstrad in 1987 when they went down to less than 300 quid. It is the second best 16 bit computer on sale in 1986 after all, Mac games look duff and PC EGA + beeper I've already discussed

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

But my attitude toward the ST has softened over the years

My negative attitude back then was not toward the machine, it was toward the software publishers insisting on selling me 16 colour blitter code devoid 'Amiga games' for 5 quid extra in 87/88. Thankfully I got pirate copies of games to check what was worth 3 days wages after a couple of joke purchases

Ditto for the Spectrum, I don't blame the Spectrum for Speccy port jobs on C64/Amstrad....that's the fault of the software publishers with zero respect for my hard earned cash in either case.

By Summer 1987 the 520STFM was £220 cheaper than the £499.99 A500 (modulator or SCART RGB cable was extra £20 in 87 I'm sure) and for that sort of price difference and for just £299.99 or less in the shops the ST wasn't bad. Sound was really the dodgy part but loads of games I had used software samples to avoid it (Gauntlet, Dungeon Master etc) and some arcade games like Road Runner had inferior sound to my C64 breadbin anyway lol

[donnie]

I got an st for Christmas back in 87 i think. An atari st with power pack. This was my gaming system growing up, got an nes and amiga much later.

Back then i did not know what games where good, i had essentially no information. I did what most people did back then i copied in bulk and gave everything 5 minutes evaluation. No information and way to many games. There is so much trash on atari st its insane. On the normal automation disc there could be 5 to 6 games. 95% of which where absolute dog shit.

I only gave a handful of games a fair shake, like rick dangerous, sim city, north and south, lemmings. And so on.

In hindsight i honestly think atari st kinda sucked. The early american made pc esque games where probably good. But the later more action oriented games, games made for c64 or amiga, euro-developed games are often just plain bad. With horrible scrolling, horrible frame-rates, just a general jankyness, 1 button joystick, music or sfx. These types of games are the games I like today. And there are very few of them on st that hold up today. There are no moonstone, lionheart, turrican 2(ok there is a janky port) apidya, hybris, sotb3 etc on atari st.

I don't think the hardware is at fault. If games where actually made within the st limitations this would be ok. Like how most msx games don't even attempt to do scrolling.. Then it would be ok. But so much of it is just janky ass hell.

Its the software that is not very good. If we are focusing on more arcadey games, its either early euro-jank or ports of c64 and amiga which just suffer from not being able to scroll. The hardware just cant keep up. Its the n64 of that generation.

I had fun with it back in the day. But today i don't think it is a very good system looking at the games. I see no reason to go back and play atari st today.

[Megalomaniac]

If you primarily wanted action games, the ST wasn't the best machine to own. Not only did the Amiga blow it out of the water once developers started writing specifically for it, but the C64 wasn't a million miles behind (and the games cost less than half as much). For 3D games it was a match for the Amiga, and for strategy and adventure / RPG they were pretty close - if you 'grew into' playing that kind of game an ST wasn't a bad thing to have, but as a first system for a kid looking for whizz-bang action games it was flawed. And you haven't even mentioned the music or sound effects, where the ST was badly deficient (the sound hardware they used was meant to be a placeholder in development to be replaced once they got hold of something better, but they never did)

I'm not sure you can really rate a game from playing a pirate copy with no manual for five minutes though - great gameplay can overcome the kinds of flaws you list.

I can sympathise, as my first system was a Spectrum, though well after its heyday - I had serious envy for the C64 screenshots on the boxes, not to mention C64 music. And for Amstrad ones if there were any - if the box had no Amstrad shots they were usually being fobbed off with a lazy Spectrum port. Doesn't mean I didn't have a lot of fun with it, and the more grown-up games are generally better than what a C64 could do (especially when comparing C64 cassette games to Spectrum games), but its no wonder that when I saw a mate's ST in action I was blown away by how amazing it was. I'm glad I saw an Amiga in action before choosing between them though....

I recently asked on an ST forum for them to recommend action games which show the machine off. Of the ones I've tried only Wings of Death and Wrath of the Demon really wowed me on a technical level. Someone suggested GODS, I had to laugh as that's a surprisingly-late lame ST port on the Amiga, 16 colours with minimal action, and flick scrolling.

[drHirudo]

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by drHirudo

The ST looked ok to me, because

a) I was mostly into RPGs, graphics adventures and simulations, since that looked and played "next gen" at the time.

b) up to Turrican in 1990, most Amiga action games looked and played like poo anyway. And even after that, there were not many good action games on the Amiga that could hold up to what got released on the MD and SNES at the time and especially later on.

c) in 1993 the SNES shot both out of the water when it came to action games anyway. You could wager that the Megadrive did that already two years earlier.

It's easy to state in hindsight that the ST just couldn't do scrolling action games well.

People these days forget, that most people who bought a computer (compared to console buyers) back then didn't give much of a fuck about that and wanted to play Monkey Island, Falcon, Elite, Dungeon Master, Starglider2 and the Pawn.

[Megalomaniac]

Before the Megadrive launched officially in Europe in late 1990 or early 1991, all but the ugliest Amiga and ST games looked better than anything available for anything else. You had Wing Commander on the PC but that needed a PC costing 3-4 times what an Amiga or ST cost to approach its potential. People who wanted to play top-end action games in 1987-1990 in Europe did buy Amigas (or possibly STs). The most technically impressive Amiga games were almost always the ones designed around the Amiga (Turrican, Beast, Battle Squadron, Sword of Sodan), not the ones ported over from the ST. The difference for action games was clear, and was relevant at that time. Besides, most Amiga games that we deride as lame ST ports are still better than any 8-bit (computer or console) version

For RPGs, adventures and sims it was much closer - if the Amiga's blitter and sprites were of no use to a game it usually came down to whether the Amiga's better sound and especially music outweighed the ST's quicker processor. Still, from Eye of the Beholder onwards the ST didn't get many of the best games in those genres anyway

[chip]

My very professional comment: Amiga rulez

[Photon]

Originally Posted by SuperFuryAnimal

When I was in my late teens having a lovely A1200, it almost felt like I had to hate the Atari ST by default. I had a couple of friends with ST's and I vaguely remember maybe once having a play.

Now due to having a Mister FPGA I have had a chance to play with the ST, watch some demos and generally have a good look at the machine.

Turns out I couldn't have been more wrong about the ST, what an awesome little machine, when you find a game or demo by someone who really understands the machine then it shines.

Found this out late but thankfully not too late!!

I had an ST, thankfully the store took it back. I liked it at first, and I got a huge pile of games with it. Problem was the games looked and felt worse than C64, and I tried some serious stuff like printing and TOS, but it too felt strange and limited, or old and underdeveloped.

I had to return it, it was a bad buy due to previous home computers and quite regardless of the Amiga being better in all these departments for just 100 EUR more. I found that out a few weeks after I returned it.

Now obviously teens ridicule others, doesn't matter whether synth vs. metal, rap vs. hiphop, or any other choice you had to make as a teenager, they have nothing holding them back and say exactly how they feel.

I'm guessing that's what you took as "indoctrination" from the teen Amiga devs. They are innocent. Less innocent are the computer reviewers at the time, who didn't see the clear advantage of Amiga over anything else on release. They're on record as knowitalls who knew nothing. :/ At the very least, they should have categorized the ST as bottom drawer for 16-bit so it didn't sell. But nope.

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by donnie

I got an st for Christmas back in 87 i think. An atari st with power pack. This was my gaming system growing up, got an nes and amiga much later.

Power Pack bundle was 1989. The Summer Pack bundle was to help the bitter pill of the ST going up £100 and launched during Spring 1988. Autumn 1988 was the Super Pack which replaced it but when that was on sale you could also opt for a £299.99 STFM again. The Power Pack the third bundle that was still on sale when the STE came out in 1989.

June 23-25 1989: Atari Show at the West Hall, Alexandra Palace, London, where Atari Corp. (U.K.) Limited introduced the 520STFM Power Pack (£399.99; 23 software titles: FirST BASIC, Organiser, Music Maker, and 20 games: After Burner, Black Lamp, Bomb Jack, Bombuzal, Double Dragon, Eliminator, FirST BASIC, Music Maker, Nebulus, Organiser, Out Run, Overlander, Pac-Mania, Predator, R-Type, Space Harrier, Star Goose!, Starglider, StarRay, Super Hang-on, Super Huey, Xenon; replacement for the 520STFM Super Pack).

https://mcurrent.name/atarihistory/t...echnology.html

Been doing a lot of research about the ST and Atari lately

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by Photon

I had an ST, thankfully the store took it back. I liked it at first, and I got a huge pile of games with it. Problem was the games looked and felt worse than C64, and I tried some serious stuff like printing and TOS, but it too felt strange and limited, or old and underdeveloped.

I had to return it, it was a bad buy due to previous home computers and quite regardless of the Amiga being better in all these departments for just 100 EUR more. I found that out a few weeks after I returned it.

Now obviously teens ridicule others, doesn't matter whether synth vs. metal, rap vs. hiphop, or any other choice you had to make as a teenager, they have nothing holding them back and say exactly how they feel.

I'm guessing that's what you took as "indoctrination" from the teen Amiga devs. They are innocent. Less innocent are the computer reviewers at the time, who didn't see the clear advantage of Amiga over anything else on release. They're on record as knowitalls who knew nothing. :/ At the very least, they should have categorized the ST as bottom drawer for 16-bit so it didn't sell. But nope.

Hmmm Gauntlet1 looks like cock on the C64 so it might scroll better but it doesn't look and sound better, 'shrunk in the wash' Gauntlet II scrolls, looks, sounds better on the ST than the now choppy scrolling cockup on C64 Ditto Super Hang-On, The Pawn. Batman isn't crap on the ST it is very crap on the C64 especially those pathetic 2D driving sections. All these games are identical on the Amiga btw. I don't think anybody who owned a machine for a week or two can have an opinion worth a shit, especially as I have just instantly shamed you with some great scrolling arcade games on ST that are no better on the Amiga.

SID vs YM2149 was the only problem the ST had 100% of the time, the rest is just your n00b inexperience and lack of knowledge for every machine that people like me actually have and cringe reading your bullshit mate. The £499.99+£24.99 A520 Amiga was just as shit a deal as the £299.99 Atari STFM in 1988 except for maybe 2 or 3 games lol

I doubt printing anything on the C64 is something you ever did...with open #4 and all that instead of clicking 'print' on the GEM GUI of the bundled since 1986 1st Word 80 column word processor lol ypu sound like one of those facebook/twitter spastics who are nothing more than fermented spunk bubbles clogging up the planet in disguise with all the use your post made

I don't know what parallel reality you came from but there was no slam dunk going on. Chase HQ is shit on C64, ST and Amiga, who the fuck cares if the Amiga had a nice tune at the start? lol

[donnie]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

June 23-25 1989: Atari Show at the West Hall, Alexandra Palace, London, where Atari Corp. (U.K.) Limited introduced the 520STFM Power Pack (£399.99; 23 software titles: FirST BASIC, Organiser, Music Maker, and 20 games: After Burner, Black Lamp, Bomb Jack, Bombuzal, Double Dragon, Eliminator, FirST BASIC, Music Maker, Nebulus, Organiser, Out Run, Overlander, Pac-Mania, Predator, R-Type, Space Harrier, Star Goose!, Starglider, StarRay, Super Hang-on, Super Huey, Xenon; replacement for the 520STFM Super Pack).

https://mcurrent.name/atarihistory/t...echnology.html

Been doing a lot of research about the ST and Atari lately

Holy shit it was 89 not 87.


Powerpack had a pretty good selection of games, id say, for the time. Couple of crappy ones like black lamp, after burner, outrun, super huey. I could never get super huey to work.



I had fun with Nebulus, eliminator, bombjack, star ray, star goose, superhang on, xenon, gauntlet, bombuzaul, double dragon. All playable with nice coloful graphics.


Pretty cool yt with all running simultaneous.


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[Megalomaniac]

I thought the Power Pack launched in mid-1988, when they had to put the price up. The disks were double-sided to fit 2 or 3 games onto most of them, so it must have been after the ST started coming with double-sided drives (not even Atari would be that dumb). It meant that, while the Amiga now cost the same, buying an ST meant you'd get weeks or months of play included, so it looked like the better deal - especially as virtually no games made full use of the Amiga's potential by then - though Pac-Mania was a poor choice as the ST version is in a small square window where the Amiga one is fullscreen and much more playable for it (though the Spectrum version was windowed too, with a similar aspect ratio, and I did finish that, so it wasn't necessarily a ruinous issue).

I know though, if I were an Atari ST developer, I'd have been peeved at the Power Pack. You were basically ensuring that anyone buying an ST would buy virtually no games for their first 3-6 months with the machine. Plus, most of the games were by big British companies who were established on the 8-bits (and still made more from 8-bit games than 16-bit ones), so new companies other than Logotron, the Bitmaps and Realtime were largely shut out, and most were action games which we quickly realised wasn't the ST's forte - a few were horizontally scrolling, which the ST was worse than the C64 for.

[Megalomaniac]

Also, I don't think there's any need to be so unpleasant to someone who bought an ST and hated it. I saw an ST first and was impressed, but I saw an Amiga before the opportunity to get an ST arose, and after that I never considered an ST. I doubt anybody who nearly bought an ST but ended up buying an Amiga instead ever came to regret their decision, even if the ST was cheaper and/or came with more software. Most of the included games in the Power Pack existed on the C64, and in many cases played just as well on the C64, and usually with better music on the C64 - only Starglider and maybe Xenon and Starray were really 'next generation' at that time, and beyond that only Super Hang-On and Afterburner were a better 'fit' for the ST's hardware than the C64's. Black Lamp seems like a favourite of a lot of ST owners, which probably sums up how bad most platformers which called for scrolling other than vertical were on the ST.

[Photon]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

Hmmm Gauntlet1 looks like cock on the C64 so it might scroll better but it doesn't look and sound better, 'shrunk in the wash' Gauntlet II scrolls, looks, sounds better on the ST than the now choppy scrolling cockup on C64 Ditto Super Hang-On, The Pawn. Batman isn't crap on the ST it is very crap on the C64 especially those pathetic 2D driving sections. All these games are identical on the Amiga btw. I don't think anybody who owned a machine for a week or two can have an opinion worth a shit, especially as I have just instantly shamed you with some great scrolling arcade games on ST that are no better on the Amiga.

Now that you mention it, scrolling in particular was a huge problem for ST. I remember Goldrunner had (vertical) scrolling, and it was apparently a big deal among ST owners. Most of the games I played at the time had trouble running at full framerate, even with a shrunken screen or flip-screen.

I think you'd be surprised at how much I can do with any machine if I'm given a solid 2 weeks of time.

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

SID vs YM2149 was the only problem the ST had 100% of the time, the rest is just your n00b inexperience and lack of knowledge for every machine that people like me actually have and cringe reading your bullshit mate.

When reading posts about all computer brands/models on forums, the authors tend to have much less knowledge than I of details and poor perception of of their experience with their model or software.

I tend to bite my tongue to not get into a fruitless debate with users who know less.

It will be hard for you to find a single computer brand/model that I haven't at some point owned, used, programmed, and played games on. An estimated 40+ have passed under my fingers.

I would counter accusations of inexperience by pointing at tapes and disks with my software, my articles, and my game reviews for various brands/models over the years.

But there's no such thing as infinite spare time, and I can spend it with only a few forums at a time.

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

Chase HQ is shit on C64, ST and Amiga, who the fuck cares if the Amiga had a nice tune at the start? lol

Not only music, but sound effects are part of the game. I would say sound is as important as graphics. A car game definitely is more exciting to play with good engine, skidding, etc. sounds.

I had lived through 8-bits that did not have the SID chip (and did not get the careful sound effects design of C64 games). The older chip in the ST reminded me of them, and all the games I played sounded like those 8-bits. Specifically, it reminded me of the Spectrum.

Regarding printing, I printed on most computers I've used. Listings, cross-stitches, I did a manual scan of Rocky (Balboa) using a light table and grid paper, entered it, and printed it, I remember. I coded some special things like a word processor with double-column preview, adjustment, and printout, and the same for pictures. Multiple-pass grayscale printing of bitmaps which came out nice. Plotting on a rolling plotter in multiple pen colors was fun.

IIRC TOS had an editor where you could create the printer you had and enter the control codes, and then you had a driver.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Photon

I had an ST, thankfully the store took it back. I liked it at first, and I got a huge pile of games with it. Problem was the games looked and felt worse than C64, and I tried some serious stuff like printing and TOS, but it too felt strange and limited, or old and underdeveloped.

I had to return it, it was a bad buy due to previous home computers and quite regardless of the Amiga being better in all these departments for just 100 EUR more. I found that out a few weeks after I returned it.

Now obviously teens ridicule others, doesn't matter whether synth vs. metal, rap vs. hiphop, or any other choice you had to make as a teenager, they have nothing holding them back and say exactly how they feel.

I'm guessing that's what you took as "indoctrination" from the teen Amiga devs. They are innocent. Less innocent are the computer reviewers at the time, who didn't see the clear advantage of Amiga over anything else on release. They're on record as knowitalls who knew nothing. :/ At the very least, they should have categorized the ST as bottom drawer for 16-bit so it didn't sell. But nope.

Christ my story reads the same as yours, I got an ST before Amiga, partly because I couldn't buy an Amiga locally as they were all sold out, and not knowing anything about the differences between ST and Amiga, I believed the salesman in Tandy/Radio Shack that the ST was just as good.

Got it home, "weird, no stereo connectors to link to my hifi", it came with 20 games, and I was just massively disappointed with the sound.

I had heard a mates Amiga which set me on wanting to get one, and the ST sounded nothing like it.

My dad caught me sat there one night just staring at the screen, looking dejected.

He said "you don't seem too happy even though you have only had the computer two weeks"

"I think I've made a massive mistake, the guy in the shop lied, its nothing like the Amiga, it sounds like our old BBC Micro we had!!"

I would have said something to him earlier but thought he would be pissed off at me, as he lent me the money to buy it and I would pay him back weekly.

He then offered to take it back, worried then I would have nothing at all, but tentatively mentioned a guy at work was selling his kickstart 1.2 a500 with a load of games for £300, it was only 6 months old.

2 days later I was an Amiga owner, my dad even though he wasn't greatly enthused by computers back then, he set it up for me whilst I was at work, eventually figured out how to navigate the Black Monks trainer menu for R-Type, and was suitably impressed by Mr.Huelsbecks title music!!