The ATARI ST was great because....

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by AnimaInCorpore

https://codetapper.com/amiga/intervi...eket-weeserik/

"Were 16 colours chosen so it could be easily ported to the Atari ST? Or was that all Ned wanted/needed to create an awesome atmosphere?
No, the choice to use only four bitplanes was made for memory and performance reasons."

But empathically, this wouldn't be necessary for all games.

[NLS]

The ST is the rush job, Tramiel needed to strike the upcoming Amiga and beat his former company in the Cold War of 16bit. This is a fact.
The b*stard child, that always envied his half sister that was better in virtually everything and wanted to have her fame and beauty.
I don't buy that ST helped the Amiga in anything. There was already another big 68K rival. Mac. Amiga would (without the ST) be able to concentrate on the different market that Mac was moving fast. It made her lost her focus.
Atari ST should have never existed, Tramiel should have stayed in his own Company, the love of his life and Ghould can rot in IT History hell (I am not wishing "real" hell to any human being).
Amiga would be the PC of today. That was the Master Plan.

You may proceed now, sorry for the interruption.

[lmimmfn]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Dont get me wrong, 32 colour Human Killing Machine is still going to be a pile of shit, but the original bar set by the ST just wouldnt have been acceptable.

HKM? Dont dis that absolute gem

[LongLifeA1200]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Wedge shapes for home computers had been around for a long time before the ST and Amiga.

The point is that Commodore might not of bothered with it if not for the competition (in this case, the Atari ST). Look at what Commodore did with the CD when it was added to the Amiga in 1991. It was treated like a Hi-Fi system and looked like a VCR. The marketing department wasted its potential.

When did the scene really take off for the Amiga? After the A500? The A500 was cheaper and clearly a response to Atari ST's success.

Originally Posted by NLS

Mac. Amiga would (without the ST) be able to concentrate on the different market that Mac was moving fast.

It could never compete, for you see, the Apple has a one button mouse. That's something Commodore would never understand, but Steve Jobs did (understand his customers) perfectly.

Originally Posted by NLS

I don't buy that ST helped the Amiga in anything.

I used to think so too, up until the moment Galahad asked what what things would be like without it.

There is also the matter of Amiga owing money to Atari before they were bought by Commodore. In a way, Atari was an investor.

Originally Posted by NLS

Amiga would be the PC of today.

With Jack's leadership, it might of been.

[masteries]

Originally Posted by dir_marillion

The Atari ST family was great because:

a. it had 640*400 resolution at 72KHz in 1985 (first production) and a stable desktop operating system, when Amiga was not in production yet. Only the desktop Amigas with graphic cards could have (after 1989) a resolution like that (of course more expensive).

b. it had Calamus that was and it is still (in PC platforms) the greatest DTP professional program ever created (could create a whole newspaper with a machine that had total of 2MB memory and a floppy disk capable of 720 KB). Until today, Amiga has nothing to show in this category as PageMaker has still many bugs and it is an ugly and unprofessional program.

c. it had Cubase and two build-in midi ports. Midi on Atari is still the best in the world (it is still using on Music Studios for timing and controlling Synthesizers) as the operating system on Atari is single-tasking and has no midi timing errors. Cubase is used also in mac and pcs. Amiga has not any serious Midi-Sequencer, even Bars & Pipes used only by hobbyists.

d. it had millions of text editors with "truetype fonts knowledge", as Amiga started developing programs such like Final Writer and Wordworth (they are already dead) very late. Papyrus and various German text editors are still in production in Atari platforms.

e. it had great databases since the first day. There are still many databases under development today, for Atari. Check for instance the Hisoft's TWIST. Amiga had only one professional database: The Superbase. And by the way, Superbase start developed on Atari since 1986.

f. all models had great design in difference with Amiga early models that were ugly, until the approach of A1200 and A4000 (this is my personal opinion). Check Atari TT and Amiga 3000 for instance and you will understand what I mean.

g. Atari ST was the first 16bit system that had Macintosh emulation (under macos system 6), in 1986-87. The program had the name: SPECTRE and could handle by hardware real mac roms.

and final h. it can handle X-Windows on Debian with the Build-In Graphic Card. AGA and ECS cannot :-)



I like Amiga like you !! Atari people is just like you :-)

h. It has an embedded hard disk controller from most modest models such ST 520, to most high end ones such Mega ST

A very rare feature for a 1985 dated computer machine


i. All common memory is chip memory, however earlier models are not easy to upgrade, while last ones are very easy from stock design



i. It evolved lately to Enhanced version, however, too late to make a difference on the game market; very few titles used the enhanced features. On these times, 16 bit consoles and 386 based computers started to quickly predate Atari and Commodore market