Atari v Commodore

[atarian63]

...As for Amiga it is essential the next gen ATARI so it should look good. Too bad they(commodore) cludged it up with that awful os and dull interlaced screen.

Awful os ?

One of the best Oses ever!

I much preferred GEM

[atarian63]

...As for Amiga it is essential the next gen ATARI so it should look good. Too bad they(commodore) cludged it up with that awful os and dull interlaced screen.

Awful os ?

One of the best Oses ever!

 

 

TOS was the awful OS. Not really able of being a full single tasked OS, it showed more system crashes (bombs) than the Amiga showed Gurus being a 16/32 bit multitasking OS.

The AMIGA really had nothing bad of the C64. The bad parts went off with the Tramiels and you find them in the ST.

The AMIGA had the good chipset, and the better OS. Just like the A8 in it's time of the first release.

The only "bad" point was the lower CPU speed. But, what to say? The C64 and the ST have their cheapness in common. The fast development with available technics , hammered together in a small timespan. So the ST got the 8MHz and bad hardware, which is also some progressive step, thinking of the C64.

A good chipset and a slow CPU makes the prizing useless for business use.

So they made a turn over with a fast CPU and a cheap chipset, selling the ST to a good count.

Actually bombs were quite rare, the gurus were a contstant problem until a500 which was years after a1000. Heck we used to laught at the multitask aspect on a1000, you would runs a few workbench demos (really just scrambled dots) and it would crash!

[emkay]

Actually bombs were quite rare, the gurus were a contstant problem until a500 which was years after a1000. Heck we used to laught at the multitask aspect on a1000, you would runs a few workbench demos (really just scrambled dots) and it would crash!

 

 

I know the facts vice versa. I never saw as much gurus as some bombs.

I asked myself how it can be possible to have a OS running that often into the nirvana, just without no cause. Sometimes it was enough to insert a disc, causing a bomb error.

 

On the AMIGA it was a simple explanation that a multitasking os without any memory protection can crash after a dedicated memory range is overwritten by another program.

On the ECS Amiga with 5MB RAM and a 50MB HD, I was running a Text program, Noisepayer played the MOD files in the background and a intro was running at the bench behind the workbench.... at the same time, without big slowdowns

[oky2000]

Pointless to comment claim like this, but I have to.... What have you been drinking ?

Have you ever played games on Amiga ?

Why would someone make game about flying around and rescuing people from barren planet when they could make much better games with whole living, moving worlds with tons of action and adventure ?

Don't tell me rof is better than Midwinter, hunter, zeewolf,warhead,frontier, ashes of empire ...

If you dont belive... try "Subtrade: Return to Irata" just to see how MULE can look like on Amiga...

 

Julian Reschke, former CEO of Factor 5 (developer of Turrican series et al) wrote me once an email where he stated that he got the source code for RoFL and Ballblazer to port that somehow to Amiga. Only the Amiga version of Ballblazer was created (or was it PSX?). But he was binded to an NDA/Copyright so he could not release it to the public. He said... Lucasfilm (or Lucas Arts) would not be ammused if he would do it...

 

It was the time around when F5 developed StarWars Games for the GameCube.

 

You can re-create Ballblazer without a single line of source code, not exactly a case of a technically difficult game to produce on the Amiga (which it was by Rainbow Arts I believe)

 

Rescue on Fractalus however is a different matter, the guy who wrote those routines had spent months in the early 80s writing machine code on mainframes to draw unbelievable photorealistic fractal mountains for SiGraph (international computer graphics awardss show) so he knew everything there ever was to know about it which is why he could even get anything resembling a mountain landscape on a 1.79mhz 6502 but the guy was a genius (and only a consultant doing George Lucas a favour when asked...for salary too obviously)

 

Going back to Popmilo's point, yes Ball Blazer is not really anything compared to other Amiga games but the graphics on things like Midwinter or Frontier etc were nothing to what was potentially possible on a 7/8mhz 68000 compared to the original RoF/Koronis/Eidolon code running quite smoothly on just a 1.79mhz 6502. So yes it is a big deal we didn't have rescue on Fractalus...not everyone wanted to play overly complex strategy games despite the rave reviews in magazines. A graphically sophisticated 'flying round alien canyons' game would have been very welcome. Captain Blood's wireframe landing sequence is a poor substitute as is any solid polygon game like Starglider II (which runs just as slow in framerate as A8 RoF).

 

There were a lot of unsophisticated games on the Amiga which broke the sales records, not everyone likes heavy strategy except when it is perceived as something else (like Carrier Command). The next thing resembling RoF was Voxel based games on PCs with 200x the CPU power and people loved those graphics too.

 

Trust me if anyone could have done it they would have done it and I believe the only attempt on ST/Amiga at those kind of graphics was the unreleased/unfinished Mars Cops. And also the person who wrote the fractal engine moved on after RoF hence only 2 other games with that engine and simple point and click adventure games for ST/PC/Amiga by Lucasfilm Games which were technically underwhelming IMO from the producers of such pioneering work.

[oky2000]

Actually bombs were quite rare, the gurus were a contstant problem until a500 which was years after a1000. Heck we used to laught at the multitask aspect on a1000, you would runs a few workbench demos (really just scrambled dots) and it would crash!

 

 

I know the facts vice versa. I never saw as much gurus as some bombs.

I asked myself how it can be possible to have a OS running that often into the nirvana, just without no cause. Sometimes it was enough to insert a disc, causing a bomb error.

 

On the AMIGA it was a simple explanation that a multitasking os without any memory protection can crash after a dedicated memory range is overwritten by another program.

On the ECS Amiga with 5MB RAM and a 50MB HD, I was running a Text program, Noisepayer played the MOD files in the background and a intro was running at the bench behind the workbench.... at the same time, without big slowdowns

 

I agree with emkay (shock horror!) GURU Meditations were down to badly written software and I certainly didn't see that happen on a KS 1.2 A1000 on the demos mentioned but my 520STM bombed a lot due to hardware fault (loose ROM chips needing re-seating every week or two).

 

I can supply a program that is so badly written it can crash even Windows Vista (and XP/2000/ME/98/95)....any rogue application can cause crashes by exceeding its allocated memory address space for execution in a multitasking environment, the ST was CPM underneath with no multitasking so the fact it never crashed due to that was not suprising...bit like saying my manual windows on a classic car are better than electric windows because there is no fuse/switch/motor to fail. More advanced more complex software can be brought down in ANY multitasking OS easily. Protected memory architecture was something only mainframes had in the early 80s so expecting it in hardware is just stupid for a $1500 machine.

 

Like emkay says I also ran multiple programs on my A1000 without incident, the only Guru Meditations I ever got was from badly written games (ie they didn't like extra memory) or dodgy PD utilities. Never had a single problem multitasking Sonix/Digi-view/Dpaint and whatever else was running in the background....if only Windows was as reliable in those two decades the Amiga existed. I even have more problems with MAC OS 8.xx too unbelievably.

 

Also the original A500 and PAL A1000 only have one difference, they have ROMs not write-once protected RAM and the parallel port changed between a female/male connector. And reliability wise my A1000 is confidently heading towards its 3rd full decade of active duty without a single repair...something PCs/Xbox only dreams of today! A500 is just a cost reduced A1000 in fact you can use A500 external peripherals on the expansion bus just by turning them around (the port is on oppossite sides of the machine) it's just using cheaper components (the keyboard is nowhere near as good on the A500, almost as bad as the STs)

[frenchman]

Space War was not 'first person', but Star Raiders (1979 cartridge A8) certainly was, and it was the first 'killer app' were gaming was concerned.

But the first 'first person' was some tunnel game on Pet in 1977

 

Not much of a killer app given Atari waited until '82 to stick it on the VCS and 5200.. I guess they'd run out of other better options by then to raise some cash

 

And as for first first person games, go look up Spasim from 1974.. That'll be your first first person game I reckon, and it's a shooter as well as networked multiplayer as well

 

 

Ah you misunderstood, a killer app is a piece of software which sells hardware, on Apple 2 it was Visicalc, on 2600 it was Space Invaders, PC had Lotus 123, and the software which sold 800s was Star Raiders. Irrelevant on other platforms.

 

As for Spasim, great, even I who knows all, learnt something new, thanks. Looking on Wiki it says Maze War was also 1974.

Edited September 28, 2009 by frenchman

[emkay]

Julian Reschke, former CEO of Factor 5 (developer of Turrican series et al) wrote me once an email where he stated that he got the source code for RoFL and Ballblazer to port that somehow to Amiga. Only the Amiga version of Ballblazer was created (or was it PSX?). But he was binded to an NDA/Copyright so he could not release it to the public. He said... Lucasfilm (or Lucas Arts) would not be ammused if he would do it...

 

 

Julian F. Reschke was one of the guys who wrote the "Atari Profibuch"....

'nuff said

 

If he really had some "Rescue on Fractalus" around, and he "was" binded, where can we find the game today?

 

Seems J.F.R. ( ) likes to spread untrue rumours.

[oky2000]

...As for Amiga it is essential the next gen ATARI so it should look good. Too bad they(commodore) cludged it up with that awful os and dull interlaced screen.

Awful os ?

One of the best Oses ever!

 

It was and still was the most sophisticated and powerful and efficient multitasking OS right up until around Windows XP/2000. Nothing else could touch it by the time you got to version 2 or 3.

 

You don't have to use interlace for Hi-res there were built in double scan 32khz VGA modes too and interlace is how your TV produces all it's high resolution images. The fact that the Amiga is a true videographers machine makes interlace a natural choice. That's like complaining a specific car is no good because it uses an internal combustion engine...interlace is the product of TV technology and not specific to the Amiga. It certainly doesn't flicker on 640x512 65k or 256 colour images any more than broadcast quality TV (digital TV today is never running at true uncompressed PAL resolution so it is softened by a downshift in bitrates and resolution).

[oky2000]

Meanwhile, I made this somewhat ordinary-looking ship almost three times as beautiful! Objectively!

And this is just plain ugly.. Objectively

Ow me eyes!!

 

Still looks better than the Spectrum version

[Heaven/TQA]

...As for Amiga it is essential the next gen ATARI so it should look good. Too bad they(commodore) cludged it up with that awful os and dull interlaced screen.

Awful os ?

One of the best Oses ever!

 

It was and still was the most sophisticated and powerful and efficient multitasking OS right up until around Windows XP/2000. Nothing else could touch it by the time you got to version 2 or 3.

 

You don't have to use interlace for Hi-res there were built in double scan 32khz VGA modes too and interlace is how your TV produces all it's high resolution images. The fact that the Amiga is a true videographers machine makes interlace a natural choice. That's like complaining a specific car is no good because it uses an internal combustion engine...interlace is the product of TV technology and not specific to the Amiga. It certainly doesn't flicker on 640x512 65k or 256 colour images any more than broadcast quality TV (digital TV today is never running at true uncompressed PAL resolution so it is softened by a downshift in bitrates and resolution).

 

Well... I loved my A1200 Workbench & Kickstart... now with OS X 10.6 I have the feeling being "back home".

[oky2000]

Well... I loved my A1200 Workbench & Kickstart... now with OS X 10.6 I have the feeling being "back home".

 

 

I've not used OS X for any long period of time so I can't really comment fairly, the application dock was taken from Amiga OS 3.5 (3.9?) though I think.

 

Going back to the RoF is rubbish graphics here is a demo of what is ultimately possible today given pure CPU power (no GPU rendering assistance) using the CELL processor and realtime manipulation of 2D overhead satellite imagery and 3D radar profiles of any terrain @ 60FPS

 

It's one of the early PS3 tech demos and you need to be forwarding the video to about 2:25. Remember this is not fractal graphics but essentially this is what we saw in our minds when we played RoF as kids in the mid 80s Why nobody at Sony thought to do a quick RoF for the PS3 online store for £10 with this simple routine is beyond me...stupid people!

[sack-c0s]

Meanwhile, I made this somewhat ordinary-looking ship almost three times as beautiful! Objectively!

And this is just plain ugly.. Objectively

Ow me eyes!!

 

Still looks better than the Spectrum version

 

And probably less painful than the c64 version...

 

I think in this case the A8 wins by not having a version

[+SpiceWare]

Meanwhile, I made this somewhat ordinary-looking ship almost three times as beautiful! Objectively!

[Heaven/TQA]

Well... I loved my A1200 Workbench & Kickstart... now with OS X 10.6 I have the feeling being "back home".

 

 

I've not used OS X for any long period of time so I can't really comment fairly, the application dock was taken from Amiga OS 3.5 (3.9?) though I think.

 

Going back to the RoF is rubbish graphics here is a demo of what is ultimately possible today given pure CPU power (no GPU rendering assistance) using the CELL processor and realtime manipulation of 2D overhead satellite imagery and 3D radar profiles of any terrain @ 60FPS

 

It's one of the early PS3 tech demos and you need to be forwarding the video to about 2:25. Remember this is not fractal graphics but essentially this is what we saw in our minds when we played RoF as kids in the mid 80s Why nobody at Sony thought to do a quick RoF for the PS3 online store for £10 with this simple routine is beyond me...stupid people!

 

that would be a cool game RoFl on 360 & PS3... HD def, surround sound... analog sticks... photo realism...

[TMR]

Meanwhile, I made this somewhat ordinary-looking ship almost three times as beautiful! Objectively!

 

That's nothing, you should see what i've been doing since yesterday!!

[potatohead]

That's just Awesome!

 

 

Meanwhile, I made this somewhat ordinary-looking ship almost three times as beautiful! Objectively!

And this is just plain ugly.. Objectively

Ow me eyes!!

 

Still looks better than the Spectrum version

 

And probably less painful than the c64 version...

 

I think in this case the A8 wins by not having a version

[frenchman]

you know what I realised?

 

that most of the time (99%) non-coders on a8 side (except Atariski) are arguing against coders esp. game coders on the commie side...

 

 

 

I don't see any C64 game coders here, wannabe coders yes, but coders no.

As for A8 coders, Steve (Jetboot Jack) is highly here above all others, having published on A8, PS, CD32 Dreamcast and many other platforms.

Edited September 28, 2009 by frenchman

[Heaven/TQA]

aha... 100% sure???????

[atarian63]

Actually bombs were quite rare, the gurus were a contstant problem until a500 which was years after a1000. Heck we used to laught at the multitask aspect on a1000, you would runs a few workbench demos (really just scrambled dots) and it would crash!

 

 

I know the facts vice versa. I never saw as much gurus as some bombs.

I asked myself how it can be possible to have a OS running that often into the nirvana, just without no cause. Sometimes it was enough to insert a disc, causing a bomb error.

 

On the AMIGA it was a simple explanation that a multitasking os without any memory protection can crash after a dedicated memory range is overwritten by another program.

On the ECS Amiga with 5MB RAM and a 50MB HD, I was running a Text program, Noisepayer played the MOD files in the background and a intro was running at the bench behind the workbench.... at the same time, without big slowdowns

 

I agree with emkay (shock horror!) GURU Meditations were down to badly written software and I certainly didn't see that happen on a KS 1.2 A1000 on the demos mentioned but my 520STM bombed a lot due to hardware fault (loose ROM chips needing re-seating every week or two).

 

I can supply a program that is so badly written it can crash even Windows Vista (and XP/2000/ME/98/95)....any rogue application can cause crashes by exceeding its allocated memory address space for execution in a multitasking environment, the ST was CPM underneath with no multitasking so the fact it never crashed due to that was not suprising...bit like saying my manual windows on a classic car are better than electric windows because there is no fuse/switch/motor to fail. More advanced more complex software can be brought down in ANY multitasking OS easily. Protected memory architecture was something only mainframes had in the early 80s so expecting it in hardware is just stupid for a $1500 machine.

 

Like emkay says I also ran multiple programs on my A1000 without incident, the only Guru Meditations I ever got was from badly written games (ie they didn't like extra memory) or dodgy PD utilities. Never had a single problem multitasking Sonix/Digi-view/Dpaint and whatever else was running in the background....if only Windows was as reliable in those two decades the Amiga existed. I even have more problems with MAC OS 8.xx too unbelievably.

 

Also the original A500 and PAL A1000 only have one difference, they have ROMs not write-once protected RAM and the parallel port changed between a female/male connector. And reliability wise my A1000 is confidently heading towards its 3rd full decade of active duty without a single repair...something PCs/Xbox only dreams of today! A500 is just a cost reduced A1000 in fact you can use A500 external peripherals on the expansion bus just by turning them around (the port is on oppossite sides of the machine) it's just using cheaper components (the keyboard is nowhere near as good on the A500, almost as bad as the STs)

All I can tell you is we had many an A1000 return. Could not fix. The ST also has problems but only the loose chip thing, quite an easy fix. I have no opposition to the A1000 construction. It was light years ahead in quality. Being a close relative of A800 did not hurt either.

ST loose chip issues were resolved for customers in 20 min or so. The Amiga issues.. As you said probably were software.

The machine was rushed to market to attempt to compete with Atari,the early units did not have enough ram and we had people bitching about the ram upgrade..the front installed module to make it 512k.Yes Atari had to wait a month after release for TOS on Rom,but it was a fast fix and way ahead in the timeline compared to a1000. Also lots of buyers remorse having to deal with kickstart, then WB and the GURU. The A500 yes was a cost reduced machine but that did not occur for years.

I personally have owned several of each model, I used it exclusivly for games. Which is fine, I really like games!

The funny thing in all this is the inbred mess that was created with Atari and Commodore. You would think C64 guys would love the St and Atari Guys would love the Amiga but from a retail standpoint it did not work out that way. The name or Brand was the primary thing. Will say both camps in the day really hated MAC!

Edited September 28, 2009 by atarian63

[atarian63]

...As for Amiga it is essential the next gen ATARI so it should look good. Too bad they(commodore) cludged it up with that awful os and dull interlaced screen.

Awful os ?

One of the best Oses ever!

 

It was and still was the most sophisticated and powerful and efficient multitasking OS right up until around Windows XP/2000. Nothing else could touch it by the time you got to version 2 or 3.

 

You don't have to use interlace for Hi-res there were built in double scan 32khz VGA modes too and interlace is how your TV produces all it's high resolution images. The fact that the Amiga is a true videographers machine makes interlace a natural choice. That's like complaining a specific car is no good because it uses an internal combustion engine...interlace is the product of TV technology and not specific to the Amiga. It certainly doesn't flicker on 640x512 65k or 256 colour images any more than broadcast quality TV (digital TV today is never running at true uncompressed PAL resolution so it is softened by a downshift in bitrates and resolution).

Again, we were selling to the average "joe" and to explain why the screen is fuzzy was a tough sell. They liked the crisp clear Atari display, or PC later for that matter.

Unlike today where everyone has a pc. Back then you really had 2 camps. The hobbyist who had an exclusive on the hobby for quite sometime and the new emerging class of mainstream buyers. It really depended on who you were selling to. Very quickly it became the new emerging class that was dominant. Amiga was a harder sale. Even ST with the Atari name took some selling but it was much easier with the great initial "Jackintosh" reviews. People came in looking for it.

[andym00]

I don't see any C64 game coders here, wannabe coders yes, but coders no.

As for A8 coders, Steve (Jetboot Jack) is highly here above all others, having published on A8, PS, CD32 Dreamcast and many other platforms.

 

You really haven't been paying attention have you..

Here, you can borrow my glasses

Edited September 28, 2009 by andym00

[+Stephen]

I don't see any C64 game coders here, wannabe coders yes, but coders no.

As for A8 coders, Steve (Jetboot Jack) is highly here above all others, having published on A8, PS, CD32 Dreamcast and many other platforms.

 

You really haven't been paying attention have you..

Here, you can borrow my glasses

LMAO - thanks. I just choked on my Mountain Dew. Most went through my nose, the rest landed on my monitor & keyboard.

 

Stephen Anderson

[frenchman]

I don't see any C64 game coders here, wannabe coders yes, but coders no.

As for A8 coders, Steve (Jetboot Jack) is highly here above all others, having published on A8, PS, CD32 Dreamcast and many other platforms.

 

You really haven't been paying attention have you..

Here, you can borrow my glasses

 

 

Wow, you gotta wear THOSE? Nah you keep 'em, my eyesight is perfect.

As for paying attention.....just to remind you: I don't see any C64 game coders here, wannabe coders yes, but coders no.

Edited September 28, 2009 by frenchman

[miker]

Now that were mine ones...

 

POLICE, GET THAT BURGLAR!!!

 

:D

[PeteD]

aha... 100% sure???????

 

Of course he is, if the information is in his head (or not in this case) then it must be correct.

 

Just out of interest and not to slight JBJ because I don't know what he's done but isn't he an artist/designer/producer and not a coder?

 

 

Pete

Edited September 28, 2009 by PeteD