What was better for 'serious' tasks, Amiga or ST?

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by saimon69

Is a bit OT but did anyone tried to run the Mac version of AutoCAD in an emulator like Shapeshifter? (i did not but i seen there was one)

try it https://www.macintoshrepository.org/16-autocad

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by pandy71

try it https://www.macintoshrepository.org/16-autocad

Kind of strange that it was compatible with Mac OS 7 and 9, but not 8.

WinWorld says,

This is an M68k native port of AutoCAD for the Apple Macintosh. It was one of only three versions released for early Macintosh computers. The Macintosh platform port was plagued with problems and lagged behind the DOS and Unix versions.

Version 12 for Macintosh features vastly improved UI integration and more speed increases. Release 12 was the last version for early Macintosh computers. AutoCAD was not revived on the Macintosh platform until Apple started using Intel CPUs and Mac OS X.

[JimDrew]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Kind of strange that it was compatible with Mac OS 7 and 9, but not 8.

WinWorld says,

This was not that uncommon really! This is the main reason why I support so many different system ROMs (and system software) with EMPLANT's Mac emulation and FUSION.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Unless you bought a graphics card, of course.

Well, that goes the ST as well.

And well, useful graphics cards weren't available until both Commodore and Atari had dropped out of the computer business. The first affordable graphics cards were the Picasso II and Retina cards, and they used hackish "Workbench emulators" until CyberGFX appeared in ~1995.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by pandy71

So PC had HGC, if you need color then was not many option on market - some of them ridiculously expensive (as mentioned PGC) so at some point it was special dedicated cards to do such job on PC (dedicated card with dedicated monitor), cards usually build around 6845 or uPD7220.

That depends. VGA was launched at the same time as the Amiga 500. It might not have been the best-in-class graphics solution, but it did offer flicker-free colour in high resolutions without extra hardware and first-party support.
The Amiga was astounding in 1985, but not as much in 1987. Come 1991, the Amiga was basically still offering what it offered in 1985 whilst the PC had quite cheap SVGA cards. And all the while, the ST had a flicker-free monochrome screen which was nice to your eyes and quite fine for word processing, programming, DTP and CAD.

And Amiga was OK for CAD - i've used to design PCB Newio, it allow to use virtual screen and thanks to Amiga graphics capabilities this significantly compensated lack of progressive mode - similar virtual screens was standard in those times due of limited display capabilities - i had opportunity to see how people designing ships working on Tektronix 4014 and VAX11 - they work exactly same - operating on fraction of area with capability to move worksheet but in a way worse quality than delivered by Amiga, today we are spoiled by high resolution displays but in those times Amiga was not substantially worse than average workstation.

AFAIK, the average workstation had a (roughly) 1024×1024 display. It might scroll, but the display it scrolled was flicker-free and high-res.

Well i can imagine but not Jobs obsessed with calligraphy - there was not big deal to create similar graphics to Atari ST on Macintosh - question is 9 inch CRT and 128KiB limit of RAM - this are obvious choices made by Apple - Amiga choose different way.

I don't know why being obsessed with calligraphy can be held against someone. Why should this not be a valid factor in deciding a screen if it is to be used for text output?
Consider the cost of 128 kB of RAM in 1984. The Amiga had 256 kB and had to deal with the extra cost of a colour display.
RAM prices in the 80s had far-ranging consequences. It resulted in the Mac System being crippled in many ways and it resulted in AmigaOS being crippled in many ways simply because you needed to squeeze out a bit too much of the hardware, making compromises in the process that would haunt you until you switched CPU architectures and beyond that.

Of course you could drive monitor such as SM124 but with external circuitry - it was perfectly doable to use 320x200 @ 4bpl to be converted externally to 640x400 mono with external circuitry (RAM size 32KB or less) but obviously no one in Amiga world wanted to use Amiga with crippled 640x400 mono progressive.

External circuitry costs. The proposal of the SM124 was low cost, not just being high resolution. If cost is not a factor, you can contract a top-tier display manufacturer to make a monster screen, like IBM with the PGA solution. That wasn't Atari's niche. They managed to make a workable screen, albeit monochrome, at a price lower than a fuzzy old 1084.

VGA offer 16 colors from 262144, Amiga 16 colors from 4096 and this is not so dramatic difference in real life especially on mono monitor.

Agreed regarding colour depth, but that that is 16 colours at 640×480 at 60 Hz and not 16 colours at AARGH MY EYES.

Situation on PC and Amiga was quite comparable - need higher than standard resolution and color - you need pay - PC market was beneficial from competition and millions of $ invested in competing products. Commodore was simply unable to invest comparable amount of money in Amiga.

As a consumer, I couldn't care less about R&D costs as long as I don't have to pay for them. With the Amiga, I would have had to pay through the nose for the (lack of) R&D whereas I could have paid less for a black-and-white Atari screen or a VGA screen which was more expensive than a 1084 but cheaper than an A2024 or a flickerfixer.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by idrougge

That depends. VGA was launched at the same time as the Amiga 500. It might not have been the best-in-class graphics solution, but it did offer flicker-free colour in high resolutions without extra hardware and first-party support.
The Amiga was astounding in 1985, but not as much in 1987. Come 1991, the Amiga was basically still offering what it offered in 1985 whilst the PC had quite cheap SVGA cards. And all the while, the ST had a flicker-free monochrome screen which was nice to your eyes and quite fine for word processing, programming, DTP and CAD.

PC software generally do not use graphics and if graphics was in use then it was mostly Hercules, rarely CGA and even more rarely EGA - VGA started to become standard after 1990 - i know because i work in company selling various PC's (branded and custom build).
Amiga was astounding even in 90's when compared to many PC's (in fact introduction of 386 started to fading Amiga advantages but stil it was not 0/1.

Originally Posted by idrougge

AFAIK, the average workstation had a (roughly) 1024×1024 display. It might scroll, but the display it scrolled was flicker-free and high-res.

Well, TEK was vector not raster and it used storage type CRT - this had some quirks when compared raster type of display.
I saw how it looks in real life and trust me - working in CAD application on Amiga was way natural than working on very pro TEK+VAX or PC (as there was few CAD in those times and if people wanted color then they usually used CGA).

This is how PRO CAD works in end of of 80's - at way higher cost than many Amiga computers working as personal graphic terminals (that's why Sun willing to buy Amiga as graphic terminal)

[ Show youtube player ]

Originally Posted by idrougge

I don't know why being obsessed with calligraphy can be held against someone. Why should this not be a valid factor in deciding a screen if it is to be used for text output?

Problem is not with calligraphy but with obsession as it distort possibility to see other opportunities. If i read that PCB layout in Macintosh was few (5? 6? more?) times modified not because of technical requirements but because subjective Jobs esthetic perspective then you have my point.

Originally Posted by idrougge

Consider the cost of 128 kB of RAM in 1984. The Amiga had 256 kB and had to deal with the extra cost of a colour display.
RAM prices in the 80s had far-ranging consequences. It resulted in the Mac System being crippled in many ways and it resulted in AmigaOS being crippled in many ways simply because you needed to squeeze out a bit too much of the hardware, making compromises in the process that would haunt you until you switched CPU architectures and beyond that.

Well - i'm fully aware of this but Commodore provided possibility to extend RAM where Apple not provided such opportunity - for Jobs 128KiB was enough so this argument simple loose importance, same for lack of color capabilities in Macintosh for very long time.
And perhaps Amiga was crippled in 256KiB of ROM - Mac ROM was 64KiB and it was even more crippled (to point when it was compressed and need to be decompressed on the fly).

Originally Posted by idrougge

External circuitry costs. The proposal of the SM124 was low cost, not just being high resolution. If cost is not a factor, you can contract a top-tier display manufacturer to make a monster screen, like IBM with the PGA solution. That wasn't Atari's niche. They managed to make a workable screen, albeit monochrome, at a price lower than a fuzzy old 1084.

Of course it cost - but this cost can be partially justified if non-interlace 640x400 BW display mode could be truly beneficial for users - but market don't even created niche demand for this and A2024 was internal Commodore design that at some point started to be commercial product but not so much as it was not highly advertised.
External flicker fixer for Amiga to provide 640x400 require 32KB of RAM - this was not much if market would create true demand for such video mode. You could easily use 320x200 with 4 bit planes to produce such video (single DRAM like 64Kx4 could be used for this). Commodore can probably provide slightly more (50..75$?) expensive than SM124 BW monitor with embedded such circuitry inside.
I have impression that in case of Atari not only price of BW SM124 was important (side to 640x400 progressive) but also small size and better portability for SM124. So other factors involved too.

Originally Posted by idrougge

Agreed regarding colour depth, but that that is 16 colours at 640×480 at 60 Hz and not 16 colours at AARGH MY EYES.

I don't share your impression - worked quite frequently with interlace modes active and after proper monitor configuration it was acceptable - you could work quite comfortable - of course having true progressive display would be better but as i said earlier - obviously market don't demanded this so much as you are saying.

Originally Posted by idrougge

As a consumer, I couldn't care less about R&D costs as long as I don't have to pay for them. With the Amiga, I would have had to pay through the nose for the (lack of) R&D whereas I could have paid less for a black-and-white Atari screen or a VGA screen which was more expensive than a 1084 but cheaper than an A2024 or a flickerfixer.

That's why you choose Atari ST over Amiga - fine for me, respect Atari and never participated in any anti-Atari activity.
But also i have no account on any Atari forum and not arguing with Atari users on Amiga superiority (undoubtful) over Atari.
Company i've worked in first half of 90's sold two times high res BW graphic card with dedicated 19 inch monitors for PC (Hyundai card with Hyundai monitor) - card with monitor cost similarly to fully equipped 286AT .
So i have impression that for many people 640x480 (512) was fine especially in color.

[redblade]

Originally Posted by pandy71

Of course it cost - but this cost can be partially justified if non-interlace 640x400 BW display mode could be truly beneficial for users - but market don't even created niche demand for this and A2024 was internal Commodore design that at some point started to be commercial product but not so much as it was not highly advertised.
External flicker fixer for Amiga to provide 640x400 require 32KB of RAM - this was not much if market would create true demand for such video mode. You could easily use 320x200 with 4 bit planes to produce such video (single DRAM like 64Kx4 could be used for this). Commodore can probably provide slightly more (50..75$?) expensive than SM124 BW monitor with embedded such circuitry inside.
I have impression that in case of Atari not only price of BW SM124 was important (side to 640x400 progressive) but also small size and better portability for SM124. So other factors involved too.

I don't share your impression - worked quite frequently with interlace modes active and after proper monitor configuration it was acceptable - you could work quite comfortable - of course having true progressive display would be better but as i said earlier - obviously market don't demanded this so much as you are saying.

I haven't seen a external flicker fixer with RAM, most I've seen (on Aminet) have a logic chip on the board and I think it just shows the screen at 30/25 fps?

Using 8x8 font and doing 1x1 pixel work on interlace would be sore on the eyes and difficult, but a 16x8 font and using something bigger that 1x1 pixel shouldn't be that bad on the eyes?!?

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by pandy71

PC software generally do not use graphics and if graphics was in use then it was mostly Hercules, rarely CGA and even more rarely EGA - VGA started to become standard after 1990 - i know because i work in company selling various PC's (branded and custom build).

That was my experience too. VGA was available from late 1987, but very expensive compared to MDA/Hercules and CGA. EGA was also pretty expensive. Most business PCs had MDA because it was cheap. No flicker, but it wasn't nice to use. The monitors had a long persistence phosphor that smudged movement badly, so reading scrolling text was impossible and your mouse pointer disappeared while being moved. The combination of this with the slow CPU in an XT lead to a horrible experience, as you were always waiting for it to finish doing stuff.

Amiga was astounding even in 90's when compared to many PC's (in fact introduction of 386 started to fading Amiga advantages but stil it was not 0/1.

The Amiga certainly was still astounding for the price. But a 386SX could run all the PC software people wanted to use like Windows 3 and MS Works etc. so for businesses the higher price was justified.

For both the Amiga and the ST, by the time you had added a hard drive, printer etc. and suitable software, the price difference between it and a PC was narrowing. Then you had to put up with incompatibilities that you wouldn't have with a PC, and you were on your own if any problems occurred because the IT support outfits only did PCs.

This is how PRO CAD works in end of of 80's - at way higher cost than many Amiga computers working as personal graphic terminals (that's why Sun willing to buy Amiga as graphic terminal)

[ Show youtube player ]

Fascinating. You can see the electron beam laying down a trail as it 'paints' lines on the storage tube. Then the whole screen is erased before starting the next image. Faster than plotting it on paper, but not by much!

And perhaps Amiga was crippled in 256KiB of ROM - Mac ROM was 64KiB and it was even more crippled (to point when it was compressed and need to be decompressed on the fly).

I didn't know that (wondered how they managed to fit it all into the ROM). Does that means it used up precious RAM? My experience with Macs was very frustrating. I had a 256k Mac and a Color Classic, both of which ended up in the trash after I took out the 'good' bits.

The Amiga wasn't at all crippled in 256k ROM. When more space was desired it easily transitioned to 512k, and can go up to 1MB in most models if needed.

External flicker fixer for Amiga to provide 640x400 require 32KB of RAM - this was not much if market would create true demand for such video mode.

True. Such a device could have been made relatively cheaply, but AFAIK nobody did. This suggests the demand for it was negligible. Then in 1990 Commodore introduced ECS with productivity mode, and again hardly anyone used it.

I think we must agree that including a hires flicker-free monochrome display in the ST gave an edge over the Amiga for certain 'serious' applications in the early days. But the rest of the machine wasn't that great.

The Amiga had a much better OS, with long file names and true multitasking. Applications could open multiple screens to display graphics etc,. so the need for flicker-free hires was less. Having all screen modes use the same frequency meant you could drag screens to reveal those behind, which is much more intuitive than having to mess around with windows or quit one program to run another. The boost in productivity and creativity was enormous.

An ST with monochrome display might have been fine for single tasking applications that needed that display, but for general purpose 'serious' use it sucked compared to the Amiga.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by redblade

I haven't seen a external flicker fixer with RAM, most I've seen (on Aminet) have a logic chip on the board and I think it just shows the screen at 30/25 fps?

You need memory to store video data - flickerfixer require full frame buffer so it can create video fully independently from source (important if your source has completely different video refresh rate that intended to be produced by flickerfixer).

Logic is usually very simple to that point that special branch of memory products was created field buffers and line buffers.

Originally Posted by redblade

Using 8x8 font and doing 1x1 pixel work on interlace would be sore on the eyes and difficult, but a 16x8 font and using something bigger that 1x1 pixel shouldn't be that bad on the eyes?!?

Depends on contrast and phosphor persistence. instead b&w fonts you can use antialiased ones. But generally PC fonts provide some guidance on size.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

That was my experience too. VGA was available from late 1987, but very expensive compared to MDA/Hercules and CGA. EGA was also pretty expensive. Most business PCs had MDA because it was cheap. No flicker, but it wasn't nice to use. The monitors had a long persistence phosphor that smudged movement badly, so reading scrolling text was impossible and your mouse pointer disappeared while being moved. The combination of this with the slow CPU in an XT lead to a horrible experience, as you were always waiting for it to finish doing stuff.

Even in 1991 or 1992, VGA quite commonly was combined with mono monitor where you have 64 levels of grayscale - that's all...
And Hercules Graphic Card for CAD usage was usually combined with separate CGA so you could have to independent displays and work on two monitors (it was not possible in case of EGA/VGA).
Theoretically Amiga could be combined with external electronics and two monitors still providing HW acceleration for graphics - it was unique and uncommon in PC and Mac world for very long time. Amiga by standard has HW graphic acceleration and multichannel PCM sound - most hilarious is that such functionality was usually not used by multiplatform games.
But pro application using OS could be beneficial from this just like that.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The Amiga certainly was still astounding for the price. But a 386SX could run all the PC software people wanted to use like Windows 3 and MS Works etc. so for businesses the higher price was justified.

Pro application delayed transition to Windows as much as possible - some of them till Win98 or even later.
I can list only one application that forced people to start using Windows - MS Access - applications made with MS Access started to compete with DOS based dBase. Before this Windows was not popular in professional environment.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

For both the Amiga and the ST, by the time you had added a hard drive, printer etc. and suitable software, the price difference between it and a PC was narrowing. Then you had to put up with incompatibilities that you wouldn't have with a PC, and you were on your own if any problems occurred because the IT support outfits only did PCs.

Yes, creating combined and comfortable working environment on Amiga was expensive and at some point PC could be cheaper if compared software portfolio.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Fascinating. You can see the electron beam laying down a trail as it 'paints' lines on the storage tube. Then the whole screen is erased before starting the next image. Faster than plotting it on paper, but not by much!

Yep, serial port transfer with speed so you could in theory work from home over modem line - bigger Tek offered 4096x4096 'resolution' when smaller only 1024x1024.

I have many memories from large shipyard - for example wooden large boxes full of punched tape roles - each wooden box signed with ship symbol - those punched tape roles was later delivered to dedicated branch where large plasma cutters computer controlled cut from thick (like inch or more) steel plated fragments of ships later moved to be welded and create part of ship.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I didn't know that (wondered how they managed to fit it all into the ROM). Does that means it used up precious RAM? My experience with Macs was very frustrating. I had a 256k Mac and a Color Classic, both of which ended up in the trash after I took out the 'good' bits.

I've read this somewhere, can't find source quickly - to fit Mac OS in 64KB Hertzfeld use some compression so procedures can be quickly unpacked on the fly - he also use plenty of other tricks and if i understand Mac OS idea correctly it was similar to Atari ST OS design - they also use exception - 'A line' to not only call OS procedures but also to pass parameters - it was one big hack but 64KB ROM was enough from Apple perspective.
Also 128KiB was very small memory size not justified by memory price as many 8 bit home computers was equipped with 64KiB of RAM.
This was in my opinion intentional choice of Jobs same as other HW functionality. Mac offered for user 85KB of RAM after boot.
I never was fan of Mac, but i have fully working complete IICx (with monitor) and two Quadras: incomplete 610 and quite complete Quadra 660AV - need to verify my prejudices in future.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The Amiga wasn't at all crippled in 256k ROM. When more space was desired it easily transitioned to 512k, and can go up to 1MB in most models if needed.

And quite important - it was not possible in Mac for very long time, having more than 4MB of RAM was not possible because Mac use remaining memory address space for other things (they saved 1 or 2 cents for more complete decoding logic - truly visionary), also they use upper 8 bits in address registers for non address purposes so whole OS need to be rewritten for 68020 and higher CPU's (so much about charisma and 64KB of ROM).

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

True. Such a device could have been made relatively cheaply, but AFAIK nobody did. This suggests the demand for it was negligible. Then in 1990 Commodore introduced ECS with productivity mode, and again hardly anyone used it.

In opposite - external video modifiers offering more colors was quite popular - Amiga market was color not monochromatic albeit A2024 is very tempting and from time to time willing to build such A2024 extension - perhaps something around RPi Pico.
But then you have 4 grayscale levels and 1000x1000 resolution - something ST, Mac, PC incapable for very long time.

Forgot to add - seem A2024 and related was sufficiently popular so Commodore decided to build custom IC MOS 390562-01 - A2024 patents (US4851826 & EP0298243B1) are about PAL implementation so it seem in between demand was sufficiently high to justify shifting from PAL to LSI.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I think we must agree that including a hires flicker-free monochrome display in the ST gave an edge over the Amiga for certain 'serious' applications in the early days. But the rest of the machine wasn't that great.

Yes but question is - what was more important - resolution and being progressive or low price and being more compact than commonly available 14 inch color monitors.
I can imagine that answer will be not easy as Atari offered 19 inch monochrome monitor and i have impression that it was not popular product.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The Amiga had a much better OS, with long file names and true multitasking. Applications could open multiple screens to display graphics etc,. so the need for flicker-free hires was less. Having all screen modes use the same frequency meant you could drag screens to reveal those behind, which is much more intuitive than having to mess around with windows or quit one program to run another. The boost in productivity and creativity was enormous.

An ST with monochrome display might have been fine for single tasking applications that needed that display, but for general purpose 'serious' use it sucked compared to the Amiga.

Amiga was simply more versatile and more flexible than Atari ST - i agree that with dedicated task, single program Atari could be more interesting option but for people willing do different things Amiga was better choice (also because you could those things at the same time - at some point you need to have two monitors in ST even to work in grayscale)

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I'm not saying that Gould's choice was the best possible, but if you insist it should have been someone from the computer industry then who? Someone who previously ran another struggling home computer business? Just because they are in the industry doesn't mean they are more competent. I wouldn't be hiring anyone from Ti or Osborne.

This is a good point. Apple spent a lot of effort to hire an executive from Pepsico, who went forward to replace Steve Jobs and kick him out of the company.

What does a soft drink salesman know about computers? Probably as little as Steve Jobs knew about running a company the size of Apple.

The thing is, by 1984, the micro computer industry was seven years old. Who were you going to hire for the executive position that didn't come from chemicals, cars or steel manufacturing? Someone who by luck stumbled into the micro industry just a few years earlier or someone who had worked at IBM, DEC or Data General, who might have had experience with a computer industry that was so dissimilar to micro computers that he could just as well have worked in the steel business?

[TCD]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Who were you going to hire for the executive position that didn't come from chemicals, cars or steel manufacturing?

Well, a 'drink salesman' for example The difference is the goods you are used to sell. Steel doesn't need (much) advertising and the product cycles are very long. If you think about it there's hardly any industry less suited to the fast moving computer business of the 80s and 90s.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by idrougge

This is a good point. Apple spent a lot of effort to hire an executive from Pepsico, who went forward to replace Steve Jobs and kick him out of the company.

What does a soft drink salesman know about computers? Probably as little as Steve Jobs knew about running a company the size of Apple.

Seem you are unaware what Apple tried to do under Sculley presence - try to read about Scorpius project:
https://thechipletter.substack.com/p...e-aquarius-7cb
https://thechipletter.substack.com/p...n-the-aquarius
https://archive.org/details/scorpius_architecture

Perhaps Sculley was from company that selling flavored, gassed, sweetened water but it give green light for major step forward (especially after Jobs reluctance to put "fancy" HW in Apple computers) - IMHO problem was not Sculley but rather people behind project, perhaps also lack of experience in Apple...

[TEG]

Originally Posted by pandy71

Seem you are unaware what Apple tried to do under Sculley presence - try to read about Scorpius project:
https://thechipletter.substack.com/p...e-aquarius-7cb
https://thechipletter.substack.com/p...n-the-aquarius
https://archive.org/details/scorpius_architecture

Perhaps Sculley was from company that selling flavored, gassed, sweetened water but it give green light for major step forward (especially after Jobs reluctance to put "fancy" HW in Apple computers) - IMHO problem was not Sculley but rather people behind project, perhaps also lack of experience in Apple...

Thanks for those links, very interesting. I'd never heard of the Apple's Cray story before. At least the money didn't go into plane and mansions and gave credibility to the company.

Steve Jobs had departed Apple in 1985 and Apple was now being run by CEO John Sculley. The head of the Mac division, John-Louis Gassée, and Sculley were persuaded that Apple should take control of their fate by designing their own processor.

So having it's own cpu was not a total extravagant idea. Of course, talking about RISC, the article ignore the MOS 6502:

All the new features included in the Scorpius design meant that they lost one of the key advantages of the RISC approach: simplicity. Small teams at UC Berkeley and Stanford, and then at Acorn in the UK, had successfully designed and built working RISC processors in little more than a year. At Apple, even with a team of fifty, the design struggled to make progress.

Finally I think the problem was from the start with the name of the project :-)

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by TEG

At least the money didn't go into plane and mansions

John Sculley

In May 1987, Sculley was named Silicon Valley's top-paid executive, with an annual salary of US$10.2 million.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by TEG

Thanks for those links, very interesting. I'd never heard of the Apple's Cray story before. At least the money didn't go into plane and mansions and gave credibility to the company.

This quite recent story - documents about this project was released in February 2023 http://bitsavers.org/pdf/apple/atg/

Originally Posted by TEG

So having it's own cpu was not a total extravagant idea. Of course, talking about RISC, the article ignore the MOS 6502:

Well... 6502 is just simple CISC - RISC usually is equipped in large amount of inner registers so they can be used instead memory and focus on register - register operation (so no external communication)

Originally Posted by TEG

Finally I think the problem was from the start with the name of the project :-)

Working name - good as other - corporations enjoy fancy names for internal projects... also high level managers enjoy to place their signatures on components even if they have no clue how it is build and how it works.

[jizmo]

An opinion from someone who's used both for productivity in the past, so no Atari hatred here.

I tried out Atari ST productivity software a while ago, after being absent from Atari ST for 30+ years. My former experience was from midi software and sequencer, and I found the likes of Cubase still exceptionally good and fully usable today when used with a monocrome display. That's a massive feat for a system this old.

Upon digging deeper to the commercial software library I never had access before I was surprised how shallow it really was in the end; the offering is not very versatile nor of a great quality. Not only that, most of the software was really limited in its functionality with top down menus basically empty, ie really bare bones if you compare to the similar offerings with Mac or Amiga with lots of power user features available. I realise that this simple stupid is the aspect many Atari users preferred, but for me this just felt really restricted for the most parts.

Lastly, when it comes to any graphics related software, there simply is just no competition. Atari's most advanced offerings seem to be on par with PD software offered for Amiga ('create and play a simple animation') where Amiga software for anything related to art or animation, especially 3D is not just somewhat better – but rather a scifi level more advanced on most fronts.

[jizmo]

Also, if you really had to write a simple text file or do a spreadsheet for work purposes in 1988, an average joe might've had some success on Atari, producing something that they could have perhaps fix to working state on their work PC.

With the Amiga of the same time and no knowledge of third party software, this would have been a much too hard task for most.

[CCCP alert]

Hmmm I was watching a documentary the other day, think it was from 1991, and it turns out that due to the ease with which SMPTE audio track syncing was possible with the ST vs any other system at the time they ended up in movie/TV studios everywhere. Hollywood was full of ST's for audio work on TV/movies. I was a bit shocked but it makes sense, same reason why the Video Toaster was everywhere in the scene for video work in the USA.

[petran]

In the mid-90s my uncle worked as a musician/sound mixer and he demonstrated in his home studio a live sampling demo using AtariST. He called it "The Last Breath". He breathed into the microphone and recorded that sound and then using keyboard and samplers he added various tracks, while the breath sound was looping and slowly fading away.
I was quite impressed because on Windows computers such thing was not possible at that time without spending a fortune.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by petran

In the mid-90s my uncle worked as a musician/sound mixer and he demonstrated in his home studio a live sampling demo using AtariST. He called it "The Last Breath". He breathed into the microphone and recorded that sound and then using keyboard and samplers he added various tracks, while the breath sound was looping and slowly fading away.
I was quite impressed because on Windows computers such thing was not possible at that time without spending a fortune.

Atari ST was not capable to perform sampling - some external sampler controlled by MIDI was required to do sampling and i think cost of this sampler was way higher than 'Windows computer' so you need to spend fortune anyway for Atari ST or for PC.
But Amiga could do sampling with help of the relatively cheap sampler and offered comparable to Fairlight CMI capabilities so overall cost was way lower than Atari ST solution. Of course you could use MIDI on Amiga so Atari ST didn't provided substantial advantage.