The ATARI ST was great because....

[carls]

Originally Posted by dir_marillion

The Atari ST family was great because:

a. it had 640*400 resolution at 72KHz in 1985

b. it had Calamus

c. it had Cubase and two build-in midi ports.

d. it had millions of text editors with "truetype fonts knowledge"

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.

f. all models had great design in difference with Amiga early models that were ugly

g. Atari ST was the first 16bit system that had Macintosh emulation (under macos system 6), in 1986-87.

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 :-)

a) Amiga ECS could do 640x400 in 72Hz and 4 colours, but yes, the Atari was first
b, c, d) Yes. The Atari had some nice Office-type applications and was a true MIDI workhorse. But then again, the Amiga had Scala, Lightwave, TV Paint and the Toaster. They were just good at different things.
e) Actually, TWIST was released for the Amiga, too.
f) Atari TT better-looking than the Amiga 3000? Now you're just plain wrong :-)
g) A-Max did the same on Amiga just a couple of years later.
h) On the other hand, the Amiga had its own official Unix long before TT/X and Linux m68k existed

The Atari wasn't a bad computer, I actually considered getting a Falcon 030 instead of an A1200 when it was released. Unfortunately, it was too expensive and couldn't use any of the software or peripherals I had already gotten for my A500+.

I also feel that the Atari demo scene of today is a bit more diversified and fun compared to the Amiga scene. On Amiga it's so much about 68060 chunky-to-planar demos that the copper and blitter are almost completely forgotten.

[EnglishRob]

The Atari ST was great (for me anyway) as we had one at school so I could take my ST games in on the last day of term and we could play them in our music class :-)

I have fond memories of my ST. I had an Atari 520STFM before getting an Amiga. Now I'm probably going to get some stick from folks on here but my uncle asked me what computer to buy for my cousins (this was Christmas 1988 I think or possibly Christmas 1989). I told him to buy an Atari ST despite the fact he'd been advised to get an Amiga 500.

Okay so I was a complete Atari fanboi at the time. I'd grown up with an Atari 65XE and it was my second computer (my first was a ZX81 but I didn't know much if anything about computers then so the 65XE was the one that got me really interested in computers).

I then got a 520STFM a year or so later, then a friend of mine got an Amiga 500, so I was a bit jealous of his Amiga and all the games he got from friends (whereas I didn't know anyone else near me who had an ST).

In the end I killed my ST by trying to connect a SNES controller to the ST by randomly putting wires from a dismantled joystick into the holes in the SNES controller connector. Sadly I couldn't get another keyboard chip or replacement keyboard so in the end I managed to sell the ST to a guy who repaired computers, with the money I put it towards a refurbished Amiga 500 (although at this point I'd pretty much lost contact with my Amiga owning friend after a fall out).

Rob

[s2325]

complex 3D objects on Atari ST: [ Show youtube player ]

[fryguy]

..because it sucked and made the Amiga look even better :P

[s2325]

Atari ST can show amazing things in right hands [ Show youtube player ]

[BarryB]

The ATARI ST was great because....

...I could trade the POS in for an A500

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by s2325

Atari ST can show amazing things in right hands [ Show youtube player ]

I wasn't impressed. I've seen the C64 pull off much more amazing things than that (with much better sound too).

[lurch]

After seeing those two demos I'm glad I backed Amiga. :-)

[nobody]

It was great as long as you were living in 1987 or 1988 and you could not afford to buy an Amiga. When the A500 price came close to 520ST it was all finished.

[pandy71]

This topic remain me Fantavision http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantavision - thx guys!
[ Show youtube player ]

[Skope]

[AnimaInCorpore]

An Atari ST was a real great machine. Especially with a monochrome monitor it was very comfortable and fun to work on.

[Megol]

What about the interleaved bitplane format? It makes chunky effects faster on low-end hardware.

But OTOH both the Atari and Amiga should have supported chunky modes out of the box.

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by AnimaInCorpore

An Atari ST was a real great machine. Especially with a monochrome monitor it was very comfortable and fun to work on.

[Fred the Fop]

Atari was great because I was too poor to afford a real computer like the Amiga, so i bought my friend's used Atari STFM and he got a gorgeous new Amiga 1200. Which he still uses!!

[Flash951]

The Atari ST 520 is more comparable to the Commodore 64, the Amiga is in another league. it's not comparable, the Amiga is just 100x superior.

A Commodore 64 or 128 bound-let with GEOS beats the Atari ST in many ways. Smooth moving of graphics in games, SID sound, GEOS looke better than GEM.

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by Flash951

The Atari ST 520 is more comparable to the Commodore 64,

Not really, the C64 has a REAL sound chip!

[Megol]

Originally Posted by Flash951

The Atari ST 520 is more comparable to the Commodore 64, the Amiga is in another league. it's not comparable, the Amiga is just 100x superior.

A Commodore 64 or 128 bound-let with GEOS beats the Atari ST in many ways. Smooth moving of graphics in games, SID sound, GEOS looke better than GEM.

Trolling much?
But yes for some (few) things the C64 is better than the Atari ST. That applies to the Amiga as well...
As for GEOS (8 bit version) looking better than GEM? ...

[Gzegzolka]

Originally Posted by Jim

I expect youve come in laughing and ready to rant and tear this machine to shreads but..
What (if any) were the joys of our inferior machine?

My praises are:

I didn't own one
Not many of my friends did

What pleased you......?

EDIT: The title of this thread was merely an attention grabber

no, it was not great

[Anubis]

Originally Posted by Fred the Fop

Atari was great because I was too poor to afford a real computer like the Amiga, so i bought my friend's used Atari STFM and he got a gorgeous new Amiga 1200. Which he still uses!!

It is really sad that kids suffered like that in childhood...