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

[Megalomaniac]

ST Format had a long-standing perception (particularly by about 1991, once the Amiga had the lead for games) that the Amiga was primarily a games machine, while the ST was a much more versatile computer system as a whole. Is this based on reality? Thinking primarily about 68000-based units, but the fact that the TT and Mega STe with faster processors built-in pre-dated the A3000 might be relevant?

Theoretically the Amiga was better for graphical productivity, with more on-screen colours from a bigger palette and the Genlocking possibility (which the STe later added).

Initially the ST led for music production - the inbuilt MIDI port made it much cheaper to get started, which meant a bigger scene of musicians, which meant more and better software, which meant more people bought an ST to make music, and so on - but my perception is that Amiga did catch up later.

What about word processing, spreadsheets, DTP etc? Did Atari's tendency to bundle more serious software than Commodore by this time have an effect on perception?

[Tigerskunk]

Probably depends ob what you wanted to do with it.

For example, if you were a Jungle producer, the in built sampling capability of the Amiga came in very handy, I guess.

If you were into writing texts and spread sheet stuff, the ST was probably the better machine because of the bw monitor.

[TCD]

Both were equally as good for 'serious' tasks except for the build in MIDI capabilities of the ST for music production I'd say.

[fxgogo]

I got my Amiga to do graphics and animation and most of the people I knew at the time with Amigas were using them for the same thing. This was in Cape Town, South Africa. I would think that most of the Amigas in North America were used for the similar reasons given the popularity of the Toaster.

Reading Amiga World magazine, there was a wealth of productivity software from the start. ST and Amiga Format had a very different focus to the US based mags, and reflected the local market, so while that might of been true in the U.K., it might not reflect other regions.

I don’t know about the ecosystem on the ST very well, but both machines will have had a good selection of applications across different areas of productivity.

I don’t think we can say one was better than the other. They each had strengths in different areas as did the other two 16 bit machines of the day, the Mac and PC.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

ST Format had a long-standing perception (particularly by about 1991, once the Amiga had the lead for games) that the Amiga was primarily a games machine, while the ST was a much more versatile computer system as a whole. Is this based on reality? Thinking primarily about 68000-based units, but the fact that the TT and Mega STe with faster processors built-in pre-dated the A3000 might be relevant?

Theoretically the Amiga was better for graphical productivity, with more on-screen colours from a bigger palette and the Genlocking possibility (which the STe later added).

Initially the ST led for music production - the inbuilt MIDI port made it much cheaper to get started, which meant a bigger scene of musicians, which meant more and better software, which meant more people bought an ST to make music, and so on - but my perception is that Amiga did catch up later.

What about word processing, spreadsheets, DTP etc? Did Atari's tendency to bundle more serious software than Commodore by this time have an effect on perception?

Depending on the geographic zone, the Amiga, or further the Atari ST, were either used for gaming, or for Pro or Semi-pro use.

In USA for example, the Amiga was seen as a workstation more than a gaming machine and was used as such.

Keep also in mind that while a lot of productivity Amigas were used in the cinematographic industry and in countless others in USA, you would find there many more Amiga than Atari ST.

In Europe, most Amiga were used for gaming/Leisure/Family use. As were the ST computers.

The reason is simple : The main ST caracteristic for semi-pro/pro use was the MIDI ability.

Problem : there were not 1 million people using the ST for MIDI. Composers were something like 2000-5000 on the globe...... the MIDI was a total niche market.

A lot of Atari were used in Europe (ex: Germany) in small companies to do DTP, printing, in newspaper for redacting, etc.

Overall, there were a bit more than 1,3 millions Amiga used on the globe for professional use, and a bit under 1 millions in Germany for that.

The Amiga and the ST were mostly bought first hand by families in Europe for a leisure use, not a professional use.

The TT 030 is a very rare computer, that sold 30.000 units at best. Atari did a wrong move with it, because the TT came in conflict with the presence of the MegaST computers already there. This is documented.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Tigerskunk

Probably depends ob what you wanted to do with it.

For example, if you were a Jungle producer, the in built sampling capability of the Amiga came in very handy, I guess.

If you were into writing texts and spread sheet stuff, the ST was probably the better machine because of the bw monitor.

The Amiga had a range of high res/productivity screens. It was simply a matter of price.

You wanted a family configuration, the price was set accordingly.

You wanted to do professional works, you got the hardware proposed by the manufacturer, but the prices were professional prices, not family prices.

And of course, it was much more expansive (pro hardware have always been, since the beginning, even on PC).

[Retro1234]

Word Processing etc looked a bit sharper on TOS but in the end Amiga Word Processor became more advanced.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

Word Processing etc looked a bit sharper on TOS but in the end Amiga Word Processor became more advanced.

Unfortunately in the VERY end, around 1993/94, and Mac emulation was so good that most did not explore the amiga side

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

Word Processing etc looked a bit sharper on TOS but in the end Amiga Word Processor became more advanced.

Sharper on TOS ? But as i said earlier, people who were using an Amiga as workstation were not using family configurations, but professional configuration with the associated productivity monitor.

On Atari ST, it was the same thing : they were not using an SC1224 or an SC1425 or SC1435 to make DTP or MIDI, they were using an SM124 monitor, that was not made to play games.

It's nonesense to use a non productivity monitor (for game play) to make DTP.

A regular amiga player would use a 1083,1084,1085 monitor, while a pro amiga user would use a 1960, a multiscan philips monitor for example.

[Karlos]

I think way too much is made of the Atari built-in MIDI ports. Serial MIDI ports for the Amiga were inexpensive and so simple that if you wanted you could build your own pretty easily since the MIDI protocol is just basically serial data. All you needed were some optical isolator ICs for protection. Also, if you just wanted to connect another Amiga as a MIDI device, you could dispense with the whole lot and just use a serial cable.

For more professional use, you could also get the triple play plus and have 48 channel MIDI.

[ImmortalA1000]

It comes down to the software I guess, and I suppose whether you had that bespoke 70hz 31khz monochrome monitor for the ST or not.

Oddly, if you put a software blitter in the auto folder of an ST disk and run something like 1st Word on it in monochrome it is faster, more responsive and less migraine inducing that any mid 1980s Amiga WP program running in hi-res lace on Workbench. Kindwords I think was the one I tried on my A1000 and it was not as good as 1st Word Plus I had to use with my ST for coursework.

Sure you can get an A2000 and flicker fixer and expensive NEC monitor but that's expensive and my ST setup is about £399.99 including monochrome monitor in 1987 and the software blitter GEM program was £30-40 I think so it's a lot cheaper.

Multitasking was however a game changer, which is why not just the ST but PC Windows and Mac was inferior to Kickstart in the 80s in OS sophistication.

[idrougge]

Something Amiga users regularly overlook – but government and corporate buyers didn't – was that the Amiga's 15 kHz screens were thoroughly unsuited (or outright illegal) for working with for 8 hours every day. They were both low-resolution and flickery.

The ST's SM124 monochrome monitor was both sharp, high-res (640×400) and flicker-free at 70 Hz. At that refresh rate, you don't even hear the monitor in the same way you do with a 1084. That alone is a big plus in a music studio running Cubase, and made Calamus a more enthusing offer than ProPage on a 1084 in either medium-resolution 640×256 or eye-killing 640×512 interlace mode.

The AmigaOS was more advanced than TOS in both abstract terms like multitasking — ST users had to install "accessories" to do something simple like launching a calculator or a text editor to run some notes — and the concrete such as Amiga filenames not being limited to MY_FILE.WRI. But if you could put up with such limitations — as all PC users did — the SM124 (and, later, the SM144) in itself made the ST a more compelling platform for graphical tasks which didn't require colour.

Ergonomics count, and the Amiga didn't have any cheap options for screens which didn't hurt your eyes. The A2024 was expensive and had abysmally slow screen updates (15 fps) and flickerfixers were equally expensive and required expensive monitors since you couldn't count on cheap VGA screens supporting the flicker-fixed Amiga screen modes back in the day. They count even more so if you factor in government and industry regulations regarding ergonomics.

I have an Atari Viking card here for using sharp and big ECL screens at 1280×960 here, so it's not as though you were limited to the (really) small screen area of the SM124 either if you had a Mega ST.

Another Atari innovation (they were few and far between, but there were some) was their laser printers. They were very cheap since they employed the same technology of so-called Windows printers in the 90s of using the computer's own CPU for rasterisation making the printer itself particularly dumb, but it worked in a single-tasking operating system and made a complete DTP workstation particularly cheap.

Commodore were more ambitious, making network cards and a flexible operating system which was a big win for software developers, but for the end-user in a vertical niche, the Atari was often a more rational choice.

[desiv]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Something Amiga users regularly overlook – but government and corporate buyers didn't – was that the Amiga's 15 kHz screens were thoroughly unsuited (or outright illegal) for working with for 8 hours every day. They were both low-resolution and flickery.

The ST's SM124 monochrome monitor was both sharp, high-res (640×400) and flicker-free at 70 Hz.

Yep, and that's why the ST was so successful in government and corporate areas!!!

er.. ;-)

Not sure if there is anyone who thinks that if the original Amigas had a less expensive flicker free option, they would have been successful in those areas...

For a home user, non-interlace screens without flicker were perfect for word processing and spreadsheets at that time...

As has been said, it's all about software... Not just quality but name.
Both the ST and Amigas were good enough for most things back then.
The ST was a bit better suited for Midi with the built in ports.
The Amiga was better suited for video.

That was their professional markets.

Neither was going to take out WinTel...

Businesses were run on both systems and they were good enough and both well suited.

I have always thought the interlace thing was a bit overrated.
Yes, there was something too it. But there were ways to get flicker free or near to it on the Amiga.
Yes, the ST had it's HIRES, but you needed two monitors if you wanted to take advantage of that and regular ST programs.

Neither makes each less suited, as both still did professional really well.
And neither would be successful there, but not because they were or weren't suited for it...

[QuikSanz]

The original owner of my A4000T was the FAA. I suppose it did the math and graphics pretty good.


Chris

[Minuous]

AmigaOS was always far more advanced than anything on the ST; I would imagine it would be very frustrating to try to get serious work done in a toy OS like that.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Another Atari innovation (they were few and far between, but there were some) was their laser printers. They were very cheap since they employed the same technology of so-called Windows printers in the 90s of using the computer's own CPU for rasterisation making the printer itself particularly dumb, but it worked in a single-tasking operating system and made a complete DTP workstation particularly cheap.

I saw my first laser print out in the late 80ies on said Atari ST laser printer. And holy shit, was that impressive.

Looked like something from the future.

The ST definitely had its perks.

[Megalomaniac]

ST monochrome monitors being so cheap and high-quality always stuck me as an advantage there, the flicker on hi-res Amiga resolutions without a flicker-fixer (were they even available for the A500?) was quite painful. Laser printers probably made a difference, the output from those (even being monochrome) would make for stunning DTP for the time.

Not sure if Kindwords was the best Amiga word processor in the early days, but I think later stuff like Wordworth and Pen Pal massively outperformed it - Amiga Format were scathing about it in a word-processor round up in late 1991 (the issue that launched the A500+, as it happens).

From reading all this, I can see why STs might have been preferred in some settings where colour wasn't an issue. Did most potential business users even know what multitasking was, let alone appreciate the benefits?

Still, on the music side, I know someone who made jungle music on an A1200 while still in school, and amusingly I bought Urban Shakedown's single Some Justice before they were on the cover of Amiga Format as poster-boys for making music using Amigas. By the early 90s at least, you could have a hit with either system.

Overall it might be 520ST over A500 (at least pre WB2), but top-end Amiga over top-end ST later? With exceptions in both categories though, and (other than top-end graphics or genlocked video) it seems like both were good or better in everything? The main thing is, both the A500 and the ST were astonishing systems for their time, new generation hardware with new possibilities at affordable prices. Probably both generally better than PCs or Macs in the same price ranges, unless you needed software you already knew?

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

Did most potential business users even know what multitasking was, let alone appreciate the benefits?

I don't think multitasking was a priority before OS/2 and Windows 95 for business users. That might be due to certain companies not being able to advertise its benefits Business users really cared for IBM compatibility even in the 80s, so they would neither care about an Amiga nor an Atari ST.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

It comes down to the software I guess, and I suppose whether you had that bespoke 70hz 31khz monochrome monitor for the ST or not.

Oddly, if you put a software blitter in the auto folder of an ST disk and run something like 1st Word on it in monochrome it is faster, more responsive and less migraine inducing that any mid 1980s Amiga WP program running in hi-res lace on Workbench. Kindwords I think was the one I tried on my A1000 and it was not as good as 1st Word Plus I had to use with my ST for coursework.

Sure you can get an A2000 and flicker fixer and expensive NEC monitor but that's expensive and my ST setup is about £399.99 including monochrome monitor in 1987 and the software blitter GEM program was £30-40 I think so it's a lot cheaper.

Multitasking was however a game changer, which is why not just the ST but PC Windows and Mac was inferior to Kickstart in the 80s in OS sophistication.

As said above, no one using the amiga for pro use bought the family configuration.

People doing graphics or DTP on Amiga were using appropriate multisync monitors (no need for flicker fixer).

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Something Amiga users regularly overlook – but government and corporate buyers didn't – was that the Amiga's 15 kHz screens were thoroughly unsuited (or outright illegal) for working with for 8 hours every day. They were both low-resolution and flickery.

The ST's SM124 monochrome monitor was both sharp, high-res (640×400) and flicker-free at 70 Hz. At that refresh rate, you don't even hear the monitor in the same way you do with a 1084. That alone is a big plus in a music studio running Cubase, and made Calamus a more enthusing offer than ProPage on a 1084 in either medium-resolution 640×256 or eye-killing 640×512 interlace mode.

The AmigaOS was more advanced than TOS in both abstract terms like multitasking — ST users had to install "accessories" to do something simple like launching a calculator or a text editor to run some notes — and the concrete such as Amiga filenames not being limited to MY_FILE.WRI. But if you could put up with such limitations — as all PC users did — the SM124 (and, later, the SM144) in itself made the ST a more compelling platform for graphical tasks which didn't require colour.

Ergonomics count, and the Amiga didn't have any cheap options for screens which didn't hurt your eyes. The A2024 was expensive and had abysmally slow screen updates (15 fps) and flickerfixers were equally expensive and required expensive monitors since you couldn't count on cheap VGA screens supporting the flicker-fixed Amiga screen modes back in the day. They count even more so if you factor in government and industry regulations regarding ergonomics.

I have an Atari Viking card here for using sharp and big ECL screens at 1280×960 here, so it's not as though you were limited to the (really) small screen area of the SM124 either if you had a Mega ST.

Another Atari innovation (they were few and far between, but there were some) was their laser printers. They were very cheap since they employed the same technology of so-called Windows printers in the 90s of using the computer's own CPU for rasterisation making the printer itself particularly dumb, but it worked in a single-tasking operating system and made a complete DTP workstation particularly cheap.

Commodore were more ambitious, making network cards and a flexible operating system which was a big win for software developers, but for the end-user in a vertical niche, the Atari was often a more rational choice.

As i said above, people using Amiga as workstation never used family configurations.

They used much more expensive multisync monitors for work. Monitors 1083,1084,1085 were unsuited for work and going working in highres.