The ATARI ST was great because....

[Galahad/FLT]

Positioning of Ports 1 and 2 for Mouse and Joystick didn't help!

[dir_marillion]

Photon all the opinions from all the people are welcome.

But this part of your message:

"But apart from the drab games, I think what did ST in for me was that fucking toy keyboard and the Tower of Shit that was TOS.",

shows that you have some problems with yourself . You know, here is an amiga forum, not a site. It would be great if moderators could ban you from the English Amiga Board for several weeks to relax and find yourself and then to return back with more successful information than "that fucking toy keyboard and the Tower of Shit".

I hope that English Amiga Board has some rules for messages like that and will remove it as soon as possible.

[jrom]

Yeah dude... talk some normal fucking english for a change ;-)

[dir_marillion]

Hey...

Of course Amiga was better in Games and Graphics and had better sound (better sound is different than the midi - I think that you know the difference).

But read carefully: I wrote... just some things that Atari was better.

Programs like Scala and Lightwave, Vista and Imagine and Cinema 4D ... and many many many others, the advanced Multitasking of Amiga OS (the better OS that ever created for me) and Zorro Cards like VLAB Motion never happened on Atari side.

[Ironclaw]

Stop fighting . The Amiga fans will say the Amiga is best and the ST fans will say the ST is best..

Personally I don't know... but I'm a Amiga freak :P and don't like ST.

[Retro-Nerd]

The lack of hardware-scrolling was probably (beside the bad soundchip) the main disadvantage of the Atari ST, compared to the amiga 500. But with selfwritten softscrolling routines, as example from Thalion programmed for Warp, the ST was able to produce a 1:1 clone of a amiga game. Sadly the most Atari programmers wasn't skilled (or lazy?!) enough to do this for all games.

[dlfrsilver]

I wanted to say that M.Jackson's musician use Bars'n'Pipe......

This info was compiled in the website "Famous uses of amiga" or
something like that. look at "http://www.obh.snafu.de/~solon/MAIN.html"

And most of all, Look after the wonderful job R.joseph have done with his standard
Midi amiga system, on gods, speedball 2, and magic pockets, wow !

- Danny Elfman, have made the music for Batman etc.
Used Amiga in his music production.
- Jim Blashfield.
Did music videos and movies for Michael Jackson among others.
Using Amigas ofcourse.
- Prince, formerly known as the Artist.
Have used Amiga and Bars n Pipes.

-Walt Disney Productions.
Animated movies and television series.
Video Toaster workstations.
Mickey's Magical Fountain controlled by Amiga 3000.
Computerized water effects, stage show, dinosaur, explosions.
Pleasure Island controlled night-time fireworks, lasers, and music.

[sarek2k]

If there was any justice the Atari ST should have had a decent sound chip and vice versa the Amiga should have had midi how different things could have been then

@Anubis i thought Defender of the Crown was better on the Atari ST than the Amiga version maybe because i had that version before Amiga (and After C64) i just thought it seemed to play better and i don't remeber having to swap disks on the ST version. I can't think of another ST game thats better tho!

@Galahad as well as what you pointed out the ST used to Blister on top too cause of the internal power supply or was that just my machine!

[Adropac2]

The Atari ST was great because

Like the spectrum that was also not so good in comparison to Commodore's C64 , it forced both developers of the ST and Amiga to outdo each other and push past previous technical achievements.This was great for both machines of course though admittedly the Amiga mostly played host to ST ports for some time untill it shone.

I owned an Atari ST for some time untill my dad bought me the wondermachine but i loved every minute of my ST days.It was crap in every way of course in comparison but did boast some gems like Oids(Why did they never port it damn it) and Super Sprint(i prefer this to the arcade version to be honest - the game is perfect).

It had a warmth of atmosphere much like the spectrum did and despite it's many flaws, allowed for quite a bit of charm from the machine.For this reason i very fondly remember Atari's baby.

Happy days

[dir_marillion]

Dlfrsilver, are you sure you know what is MIDI ?

I read the link you've posted. It cannot approve that Amiga was a midi-system. By default, the Atari ST was a professioanl Midi-System. I think that once upon a time I read on an Amiga Format article that Bruce Willis was an Amiga user. Yes we are not alone :-)

It's very easy to understand this example:

Amiga had a lot of ray-tracers available just like Lighwave, Imagine, Alladin3D etc...
Atari-ST had one professional, the Inshape...

You reaction is: like to try to persuade you that Atari-ST was the perfect raytrace system as it had the Inshape... the "super" 3D program.

Whatever to tell you, Amiga (& SGI) were alone to this professional place (raytracers) at that time, at that price.

->>>>>

By the way, Atari 520 ST was 2 years older than Amiga 500, it was 8MHz not 7.14MHz, it was little cheaper than Amiga 500, it had the 640*400 at B/W but Amiga hadn't it also had colour resolutions for games. Atari ST was faster in vector games like Hard Driving and had specific games that could run in B/W mode (high resolution games).
Atari 520ST was beautiful; Amiga 500 was a bit ugly.

the most loved war ever happened :-)

Atari Falcon had 4MB or 14MB base memory - A1200 had 2MB, Atari Falcon could take IDE 2.5" or SCSI 2.5" internally and 3.5" SCSI externally, Amiga 1200 had only internal 2.5" option.
Atari Falcon had 68030/16MHz but Amiga 1200 had 68020/14MHz.
Atari Falcon had 1.4MB Floppy, A1200 had 880KB. Atari Falcon had DSP inside (don't tell me that Michael Jackson didn't use it, lol), Amiga 1200 had not. Atari Falcon had 16 bit sound; Amiga 1200 had 8 bit sound. Atari Falcon had a lot of graphic modes, the max was an 800*600 at 256 Colours (SVGA), Amiga 1200's max resolution was DoublePAL that could display a resolution up to about 768*560 (with maximum overscan) not 800*600. Atari Falcon had LAN option, Amiga had not. Atari Falcon had 4 joystick/mouse ports, Amiga 1200 had two.

---->>>>>

Atari Falcon was the complete solution for musicians as Cubase Audio was the final solution on 68k before it's release to ppc processors (Mac Platforms). Atari Falcon with Cubase Audio had perfect Midi-Sequencing and Midi-Timing and 16 simultaneous mono audio (or 8 stereo) channels recording possibility. That's why this machine became Musician favourite. And it had the half price of a Mac (at that time). I am still using it at my home studio.

Amiga 1200 released a few months before Atari Falcon. For me A1200 was the first machine from Commodore that was not ugly. But still Atari Falcon had better design. At this time, Atari Falcon was more expensive but it's construction was much more serious than A1200's.

-->> Atari had announced first in the world the creation of the CD-ROM (in 1987)
-->> Atari was the first company that bringed electronic games to the people (blik blik)
-->> The designer of the Atari 800XL was the designer of Amiga 500
-->> TOS was the first windowing operating system that was in ROM (Amiga's kickstart was in diskette). It is unfair to compare it with AmigaOS 2.06 3.1 3.5 or 3.9. Although there were a lot of Alternative desktops that were compareable to AmigaOS. Check MagiC & Jinnee Desktop(multitasking OS - preemtive type like Workbench). MagiC has been ported to Mac (MagiCMac) and PCs (MAgiCPCs). Also it was used on Atari clones (such as Medusa060/Hades040/Milan040-060).

-->> Jack Tramiel was the most important person in production of the Commodore-64 and then moved to Atari-ST/STE/TT/Falcon
-->> Acorns (Archimedes series) had also RISCOS in ROM.



see you later

[Wingnut]

Even on the back of game boxes for the Atari ST, it showed only screenshots from the Amiga version. Always wound my mate up to go home and find it didn't look anywhere near as good as it did on my Amiga.

[dir_marillion]

The first games on Amiga 500 had been ported from the Atari ST versions, so all the screenshots at the boxes had been taken from ST screens.

Later it happened as you said and it was a trick of the companies to sell more copies of their games... and do not forget the overscan capability of Amiga :-)

[Galahad/FLT]

Firstly, Vector games on Amiga were faster than their ST cousins, because with the exception of a few games, most used the Amiga's blitter chip to draw the vectors and fill them, and I can assure you the blitter in the Amiga was a damned sight faster than the 8mhz chip in the ST.

Secondly, the ST was as much inferior to the C64 as it was to the Amiga.

Thirdly, developers competing against each other on ST and Amiga? Er, I don't think so! Most of the developers on Amiga were the same ones doing the ST versions.

Connect a set of midi ports to the Amiga, and what else did the ST have over the Amiga? Er, nothing.

TOS was a 'Tower of Shite' and the keyboard was crap, these are facts. I had an ST for about 5 months, and the amount of times the GEM desktop crashed was unbelieveable.

As for the Falcon, I seriously considered getting one when they were first announced, certainly the base spec was higher than the A12oo's, but then when you actually delve a little deeper, you realise its a 32bit chip with a 16bit data bus?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

So that extra speed and power is crippled, meaning you could never use the 68o3o properly and that the unrestricted 68o2o in the A12oo was actually quicker!

The ST was hardly better than the C64, and some might argue the Sam Coupe was better than the ST, and that was an upgraded Spectrum!!

I remember the BBC Micro with fondness, I don't hold the ST in the same esteem.

The fact that ST owners keep harping on about its MIDI ports says it all. Of all the ST's sold, what percentage actually ever used the MIDI ports? Very few.

[Anubis]

What's that with resolution 640x400? Monochrome?

What games used this resolution?

[dir_marillion]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Firstly, Vector games on Amiga were faster than their ST cousins, because with the exception of a few games, most used the Amiga's blitter chip to draw the vectors and fill them, and I can assure you the blitter in the Amiga was a damned sight faster than the 8mhz chip in the ST.

Tell me one Vector Game such as Hard Driving or NoSecondPrize that was faster on Amiga 500 than on Atari-ST. Can you refer even a flight simulator that was faster?

And lets start from the beggining: Do you have an unexpanded (original) Amiga 500 ?

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Secondly, the ST was as much inferior to the C64 as it was to the Amiga.

??? an example to understand ???

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Thirdly, developers competing against each other on ST and Amiga? Er, I don't think so! Most of the developers on Amiga were the same ones doing the ST versions.

Who told something like that?

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Connect a set of midi ports to the Amiga, and what else did the ST have over the Amiga? Er, nothing.

Atari-ST had build in Midi Ports so Steinberg and other serious midi companies created Serious Commercial Programs. Musicians didn't care about Atari or Amiga. They always had and have as best priority to create Music. All Amiga Midi Applications were not Professional to the wide of Musicians. Check the Magazines like "Sound on Sound" that still have articles for Atari.

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

TOS was a 'Tower of Shite' and the keyboard was crap, these are facts. I had an ST for about 5 months, and the amount of times the GEM desktop crashed was unbelievable.

I think that you had a defect machine, or little knowledge on Atari platform. Atari TOS versions had differences, from system to system, so boot prgs or accessories or applications had a readme explaining clear what runs and what's not in which machine. It's like on a plain A500, to execute the FPU version of Lightwave. It won't run. Lightwave needs 020+ and some fast memory... to run etc.

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

As for the Falcon, I seriously considered getting one when they were first announced, certainly the base spec was higher than the A12oo's, but then when you actually delve a little deeper, you realise its a 32bit chip with a 16bit data bus?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!.

You are the first you say that Falcon030 has 16bit Bus. Atari since the release of the Atari TT in 1990 (TT means ThirtyTwo), produced full 32 bit systems. The final game-machine Jaguar was the first 64bit console.

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

So that extra speed and power is crippled, meaning you could never use the 68o3o properly and that the unrestricted 68o2o in the A12oo was actually quicker!

Amiga1200 was less than 2, Atari Falcon was 3.85 (BOGOMIPS).

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

The ST was hardly better than the C64, and some might argue the Sam Coupe was better than the ST, and that was an upgraded Spectrum!!

Sam Coupe as I know it had a 68000. So, it's not an upgraded Spectrum that had Z-80. What do we compare now? I think that there were a lot of 8bit computers that released on 1990. Sure, they must be better in some points than the 16 bit systems that released 5 years before.
Sun's 64bit processors that released in early ‘90s are slower than 32bit Pentium 3 or 4 that released in early 2000. Have you ever seen Fujitsu's Computer Towers (with 4-5 ISA slot expansions) that released in early 90's that was 8 bit?

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

I remember the BBC Micro with fondness, I don't hold the ST in the same esteem.

???? BBC was 8 bit indeed.

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

The fact that ST owners keep harping on about its MIDI ports says it all. Of all the ST's sold, what percentage actually ever used the MIDI ports? Very few.

I do not care what ST owners have in their mind about their Midi-Ports. I only care that both systems had better points the one from the other.

[keropi]

is there a site with atari hardware and accelerators, like the BBOAH???? I wanna check it... curiosity!

[dir_marillion]

Anubis: Flight Simulators for instance. Do you know that most early Macs 68k (system 6) had only that resolution at that time ? Some of the games we had on Amiga and Atari platforms they had them on 30% smaller resolution than 640*400 B/W. B/W has a lot of patterns to create a game.

Keropi: I am not sure if they are alive today (as Atari closed before Commodore) and had not Amiga Technologies and companies like eyetech behind them :-)

Check a company system solutions. They had a PAK030/50MHz. But they was very very expensive.

For sure there a lot of accelerators for Falcon030:
http://www.czuba-tech.com/accueil/english/welcome.htm

They are very recent accelerators and boost 68060 integer much much over 100 mips :-) (my ppc603/166 phase 5 accelerator is 205 Mips. Check where 68060 can go ...

[sarek2k]

This is getting REAL boring!

ST users whats wrong run out of things to say in your Own forums???

[dir_marillion]

Sarek you are at the thread "The ATARI ST was great because..." on English Amiga Board.

Thanks

[sarek2k]

Well tis ok i'll make sure i don't read it no more can't say fairer than that! and i think i'll start a thread in your ST forums and call it the same but replace ST with AMIGA fair enough???