Atari ST vs Amiga?

[Lynxpro]

Isn't the AmigaOS [in]directly responsible for shared libraries like what Microsoft implemented into Windows with the curse-ed DLLs? Wasn't that part of the patents/IP that Amiga licensed to IBM/Microsoft for use in OS/2 and in return Amiga got ARexx out of it?

[atarian63]

Those were some fun days!

Edited January 31, 2012 by atarian63

[kenjennings]

Isn't the AmigaOS [in]directly responsible for shared libraries like what Microsoft implemented into Windows with the curse-ed DLLs? Wasn't that part of the patents/IP that Amiga licensed to IBM/Microsoft for use in OS/2 and in return Amiga got ARexx out of it?

Unix existed long before the Amiga and it used shared libraries. Though the Amiga Os does do it particularly well.

[kenjennings]

So in short, the legend of the ST being designed from start to finish after the Amiga fell through for Atari Corp is nothing more than a legend ...?

 

I didn't know that.

 

 

That's correct. A lot of it stems from misinformation from RJ, some from the press surmising, etc. Again, the Amiga deal never fell through with Atari Corp. - there was no deal with Atari Corp.

The deal was with Warner Atari who financed the developement of the amiga chipset ie Atari 1600XL

 

Speaking of the Atari 1600xl:

 

http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8BITS...0xl/1600xl.html

 

Oddly, the first picture on that page shows a box shaped like an amiga 2000.

[kenjennings]

The green desktop was ugly. Professional isn't exactly a word that comes to mind either, although I guess it did stack up reasonably well to the Mac at the time.

 

The Amiga dark blue was slightly less ugly.

 

It was always a mystery to me why computer makers chose such bad default colour combinations (A8 and C-64 included).

. . .

 

The first Amiga OS defaulted to a similar color scheme as the Atari 800 (white on blue) for essentially the same reason -- both were designed to use a NTSC TV. People with deeper pockets could buy a nice RGB monitor for the Amiga.

 

In any case, the defaults don't mean a lot. The original GUIs on both computers allowed the user to change the colors. I usually set the Amiga to use black on light grey, which turned out to be the default used for the version 2 Workbench.

[Retro Rogue]

So in short, the legend of the ST being designed from start to finish after the Amiga fell through for Atari Corp is nothing more than a legend ...?

 

I didn't know that.

 

 

That's correct. A lot of it stems from misinformation from RJ, some from the press surmising, etc. Again, the Amiga deal never fell through with Atari Corp. - there was no deal with Atari Corp.

The deal was with Warner Atari who financed the developement of the amiga chipset ie Atari 1600XL

 

Speaking of the Atari 1600xl:

 

http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8BITS...0xl/1600xl.html

 

Oddly, the first picture on that page shows a box shaped like an amiga 2000.

 

 

1600XL/Shakti had nothing to do with the Amiga project.

[oky2000]

I personally think The STE is what the ST would have been and what Shiraz Shivji wanted it to be, but money needed to be made FAST and a new computer needed to be signed off on by Jack T after he lost out on the Amiga chipset to start paying the creditors and generating some profit simple as that.

 

Once again, never happened. It was never planned around the Amiga chipset, that's based on RJ Micals misinformation and tall tales floating around, as you've been explained time and again.

 

No what I meant was those Commodore engineers Jack walked into Atari with would have all wanted, and were perfectly capable, to produce a machine with custom chipset. Not the Amiga chipset specifically (although that could also have happened had things been different).

[kenjennings]

So in short, the legend of the ST being designed from start to finish after the Amiga fell through for Atari Corp is nothing more than a legend ...?

 

I didn't know that.

 

 

That's correct. A lot of it stems from misinformation from RJ, some from the press surmising, etc. Again, the Amiga deal never fell through with Atari Corp. - there was no deal with Atari Corp.

The deal was with Warner Atari who financed the developement of the amiga chipset ie Atari 1600XL

 

Speaking of the Atari 1600xl:

 

http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8BITS...0xl/1600xl.html

 

Oddly, the first picture on that page shows a box shaped like an amiga 2000.

 

1600XL/Shakti had nothing to do with the Amiga project.

I didn't say it was an Amiga. I was just noting the coincidental similarity of the case.

[metro2005]

I own a Atari 1040STFM and a 1040STE and since a week i also own an Amiga 600HD.

 

First impressions of the Amiga: god its slowwwwwwwwwwwww.

Opening a window takes forever, it may have icons and more colors than TOS but where TOS shows the contens of a folder in about 2 seconds, it can take a good 10 to 15 seconds on the Amiga because it has to load every freakin' icon's thumbnail. And it doesn't cache. Everytime you reopen a drive, it has to reload everything again.

 

Second impressions: Why the freak doesn't the amiga read PC formatted floppy's! The Atari has no problems with that at all. Makes it easy to transfer files from and to Pc's.

With the amiga? forget it !

I've Used a nullmodem cable but guess what: I can't transfer binary files in workbech > 2.0

 

Now i have ordered a pcmcia flashcard reader to transfer files to the amiga but man, what a pain in the butt it is so far.

 

On the plusside: The amiga has a pcmcia slot so you can add stuff easy like networkcards and flashcards, it can be expanded with harddisks (i have a harddisk in it already) and the hardware is on par with the atari STE (it should be, its 3 years newer) but better then the stock Atari ST. The Amiga can be expended more i guess but if i only could have 1 system it would be the ST. I also think the ST is better looking.

 

And dont forget that the amiga was very expensive in comparison to the ST back in the days. The ST may have been less capable, it was better value for money.

 

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

edit: Just found the prices: Atari ST 520FM with monochrome monitor 799 dollars, with colour monitor 999 dollars.

Commodore amiga 1000 with 256k : 1299 dollars without monitor. With monitor and 512KB mem a whopping 1950 dollars. Thats twice the price of the ST.

Edited June 3, 2013 by metro2005

[GadgetUK]

There's not much to say really, other than the Amiga had better graphics and sound from Agnus and Paula. Incidentally the Amiga was very nearly an Atari product until Commodore bought it from Amiga before the deal was done.

 

That said the ST was unloved by some developers and publishers, and despite lacking the graphical and musical power of the Amiga it excels in other ways - MIDI for one, and in general it feels more like a machine developed for business - the Amiga has always felt like a gaming machine to me, whilst its true that it was acually used heavily in the video industry - Agnus and Denise helped with that imo.

 

It was all about the custom chips. If Atari had beefed up the ST earlier (think STe with faster CPU), then we wouldnt be having this discussion.

 

Even funnier would be us arguing whether the Atari Amiga or Commodore ST was better - I am sure commodore would have still put custom gfx and sound in a 'Commodore 68000 based machine' even if they hadnt got the Amiga contract. Maybe they wouldnt have even gone with the 68000....

Edited June 3, 2013 by GadgetUK

[ParanoidLittleMan]

...

edit: Just found the prices: Atari ST 520FM with monochrome monitor 799 dollars, with colour monitor 999 dollars.

Commodore amiga 1000 with 256k : 1299 dollars without monitor. With monitor and 512KB mem a whopping 1950 dollars. Thats twice the price of the ST.

 

I don't think that Amiga 1000 prices are relevant. It was sold in low quantity. Real comparison starts at A500. And in time when I bought my first ST - spring 1987 prices were practically same. Amiga 500: 1200 DEM, Atari 520 with double sided floppy: 1150 DEM . I choosed Atari because better SW support in that time.

[Cyprian]

There's not much to say really, other than the Amiga had better graphics and sound from Agnus and Paula

"better graphics" is very discussable. I think that from kids point of view, more colors = better, but from pro users, higher resolution and higher refresh rate = better.

From my point of view, Amiga with his really crap interlaced low resolution graphics and slow processor wasn't an option for serious work.

[Thorsten Günther]

I knew the Iron Curtain was less solid for Hungarians, but I didn't know it was that open in 1987. Not even problems with the authorities (neither Western European - cf. CoCom, nor Eastern)? I mean, it still was the Cold War for most of the world, despite Gorbachev trying desperately to convince the West (esp. the US government, i.e. Ronnie Raygun) he was reforming the Soviet Union and was not aiming for the 3rd World War.

[GadgetUK]

 

"better graphics" is very discussable. I think that from kids point of view, more colors = better, but from pro users, higher resolution and higher refresh rate = better.

From my point of view, Amiga with his really crap interlaced low resolution graphics and slow processor wasn't an option for serious work.

 

I never had one as a kid . Basically the scrolliing and copper of the Amiga IS better than what the ST can do. That's not a fan boy comment its a technical fact. I personally prefer the ST despite that limitation. Similar with the sound chip, the Amigas is marginaly better than stock STFM imo, but everything changed with the STe. But the ST was awesome at MIDI.

 

Both systems were relatively equal at the end of the day, same RAM sizes, same CPU.. I prefer TOS to Amiga OS as well, TOS has always seemed the more professional OS to me.

 

I love both platforms equally, I wish developers did back in the day.

[Cyprian]

Basically the scrolliing and copper of the Amiga IS better than what the ST can do. That's not a fan boy comment its a technical fact.

 

that's obvious that A500 has better custom chips than 1040 STfm. my intention wasn't to deny the facts only shows that different group of users have different needs and finally different understanding of "better graphics"

[GadgetUK]

Yes, that's a good point. It's not all about smooth scrolling and faster blitter its about resolution, colours, refresh rate and application at the end if the day. I think the other problem was lack of understanding from some developers. Look at Vrooom for example, that game is equally as impressive on the ST or Amiga.

[amiman99]

Second impressions: Why the freak doesn't the amiga read PC formatted floppy's! The Atari has no problems with that at all. Makes it easy to transfer files from and to Pc's.

With the amiga? forget it !

Actually, A600 can read IBM floppies. Just go to the STORAGE/DOSDrivers and copy the PC0 icon to the DEVS/DOSDrivers folder and reboot.

You'll see 2 icons for your floppy disk, one for AmigaDOS and other for PC.

 

Yes, the A600 is slow (I sold my first A600 because of that) so, to make it fast, get an accelerator with fast ram or just the fast ram expantion and It should make it more responsive.

[mimo]

So to make it fast just spend $400 on an upgrade

[+CyranoJ]

So to make it fast just spend $400 on an upgrade

 

Still cheaper than a CT6x.

[amiman99]

So to make it fast just spend $400 on an upgrade

$40 for 4MB RAM http://kipper2k.com/amigaforsale/ or $103 for an accelerator http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=43&products_id=1102

 

I think is reasonable

[NightSprinter]

I'm guessing he was referring to when the 600 originally came out..

[Cyprian]

$103 for an accelerator http://amigakit.leam...roducts_id=1102

would be cool to have adopted that accelerator to my STE

[amiman99]

would be cool to have adopted that accelerator to my STE

I'm not sure if memory mapping would be compatible.

[FastRobPlus]

 

edit: Just found the prices: Atari ST 520FM with monochrome monitor 799 dollars, with colour monitor 999 dollars.

Commodore amiga 1000 with 256k : 1299 dollars without monitor. With monitor and 512KB mem a whopping 1950 dollars. Thats twice the price of the ST.

 

The A1000 is far more than twice as capable.

[atarian63]

I don't see, why to blame the AMIGA OS.

I had a 1040 STF before. I bought the ST, because I really was an 800XL freak and thought, the ST was really better and the software was more serious.... And, Yes, two programs were really serious : Calamus and .... erm.... don't know

The "so much better" TOS showed me very often those nice bombs... what the heck... it was a SIMPLE single task OS, not even capable of doing a filling routine without running into a bomb screen...

They told me the TOS was a very stable thing, but there was no day passing by without a bomb. OK, except days I only played GAMES.

Because the coders put all knowledge into the game programming on the ST... because it was sold better than the AMIGA in that time.

The AMIGA had the AMIGAOS and the workbench. Having a Harddrive in it, it was easy to enhcance the features of the os. Using it was as easy as using window-based OS from today then.

Guru meditations were there, but people may oversee that the AMIGAOS was a full 32Bit multitasking system and the lacking wasn't in the OS. The CPU lacked by memory and execution protection. So, bad coded software could "overlap" with other software and put the AMIGA into the Guru's heaven (or hell)...

 

Except the fact that the ST had the 70Hz b/w display for a better "Workplace" it was a cheap product with a horrible OS.

If you blame a complex thing like the AMIGAOS for its lacks, what to say about a simple TOS that shows even (more) lacks?

due to it's 256k initial ram and even after the additional 256k module you had to install it was a crash happy not ready for prime time o/s. bombs on an st were rare compared to guru meditation errors lol!

Edited June 7, 2013 by atarian63