Atari 8bit is superior to the ST

[Crazyace]

Reading some of the replies here, is this supposed to be an ST vs A8 thread, or an A8 vs c64,amiga, st, speccy, nes, sms etc etc thread

 

The ST doesn't need to have scroll registers, the likes of Steve Bak (Return to genesis and Goldrunner etc) as well as Wayne Smithson (Anarchy and ST version of Blood Money etc) proved that ST could smooth scroll without the need of registers and be as good at scrolling like the A8/c64/amiga etc

 

On the other hand though, If the ST really did need scroll registers or increased colour range, why were'nt there more support for STe specific games

 

Only thing I would gripe about the ST, was the positioning of the mouse/joystick ports...they chose possibly the worst location for them, what was wrong with placing them next to the cart area (like they did with the STe analog ports)

 

Having scroll registers would have been great though. The STe was just a little too late - by the time it came out developers couldn't ignore the base ST model - so any support would have to be extra work.

Personally I'd have been happy with a word addressable screen base - as that would solve the problems for vertical scrollers at least.

( I wonder what the chances were of a ~10MHz 68000 at the time - you could use the same crystal found on the NES , /2 for CPU, /6 for 3.58 NTSC colour , or slightly different crystal /5 for 4.43 PAL colour )

[kool kitty89]

Especially if you like the sound of angry bees (SID)

 

Even if that was all it could do I'd still prefer it to everything sounding like it's made from springs. *HUGE GRIN SMILEY*

 

Pete

 

Think he means it is superior to the angry bees noise of pokey in the A8 version of Forbidden Forest by comparison

Umm, judging by these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhqrfB7UbPY (1:15)

(0:45)

I'd have to say I prefer the A8's sound most definitely, if any C64 stuff fits Atarian's "angry bees" argument, that game is a prime example. (I mean it's OK, but I much prefer the clean sound of the A8, which apears to be using POKEY's viriable pulse-wave to good effect -kind of NES sounding) Not a bad looking game by comparison either. (though there isn't much A8 stuff on youtube for that game, so it's not as easy to compare for someone who doeasn't actually own it)

 

I wasn't arguing which standard is better. Yes, RGB can display better higher resolution imagery, but A8 doesn't need RGB to output it's various graphics modes so take out the monitor price and take out the advantage that RGB output of ST is better than A8 as a separate advantage. It's just the same as saying ST has higher resolution and you have to pay for that with a special monitor.

Again, not if you're in Europe, hell I think SCART became more popularized in many parts of Europe and the UK before composite video inputs on US NTSC sets became common. (it didn't become mandated in all countries, so like the US, many lower-end sets only had RF inputs, I think this is true for the UK -but that holds true for composite was well as RGB, and later for S-video) So it's a matter of context, and had something like SCAR been similarly standardized in the US, then it wouldn't even be an issue.

 

 

Having scroll registers would have been great though. The STe was just a little too late - by the time it came out developers couldn't ignore the base ST model - so any support would have to be extra work.

Personally I'd have been happy with a word addressable screen base - as that would solve the problems for vertical scrollers at least.

( I wonder what the chances were of a ~10MHz 68000 at the time - you could use the same crystal found on the NES , /2 for CPU, /6 for 3.58 NTSC colour , or slightly different crystal /5 for 4.43 PAL colour )

By the time the Mega 2 came out with the BLiTTER, I think going for a faster CPU instead may have been a better idea overall (and they could have put it ont he MEGA 1 without delay) 16 MHz 68000s should have been available by then. They could have focused on upgrading the audio earlier instead. (and have the MEGA with something like the STe's audio and a 16 MHz CPU sans the blitter)

They should also have started offering higher-end models with faster (10-12.5 Mhz) CPUs sooner, as stock. (along with baseline 8 Mhz units)

In addition to the audio, an updated shifter would also be needed, something more competitive with VGA (not to mention Amiga) by '88 or '89 at the latest. (along with 32-bit systems sooner -this both the ST and Amiga fell behind PC and MAC with in terms of stock offerings)

Atari probably should have made the systems more easily expandable as well, if not on the console versions, at least get some units with box/tower form factor out as higher-end systems prior to the MEGA -those same ones with 10-12.5 MHz CPUs. (Amiga was equally late with the opposite, getting out the A500 in console form factor)

Edited December 29, 2009 by kool kitty89

[atarian63]

As far as things like the NES/SMS/Turbo-Grafx go these are dedicated sprite engines built solely to play specific types of games and they are quite a bit newer in technology compared to A8 and C64 chipsets. I will never argue that R-Type on SMS is possible on any other 8bit home computer because it is not, nor is the colour resolution. But to be fair you should really compare these machines to the Amiga given the time frame. Also you couldn't do Starglider 1/2, The Pawn or other games on those 8bit consoles either.

The PC Engine is granted, but the Famicom' shardware was closer to the C64's in age than the C64's was to the A8 by a good margin. (and was released about a year later) Sega's SG-1000 Mk.III was closer to the age difference between 8-bit and C64 though. (and it was released the same year as the Amiga, but obviously with much lower cost in mind, so far more limitations -one of Sega's contemporary mid-range arcade moards would be more comperable to the Amiga -with obvious architectural differences)

And Starglider I was released on NES. (in Europe only iirc)

 

My comment about colours is the choice of 16 colours not the number in total, and given the huge restrictions in even getting more than 4 on screen with the A8 @ C64 multicolour resolution it's better to have 16 well chosen colours on screen than 4 out of 128/256. PC EGA also has 16 colours but look how terrible those colours are even with higher resolution of 640x200ish. The Pawn looks superior on the C64 to EGA PC despite a 4x disadvantage in resolution

I think the C64's limited palette could have been a bit better, but being limited to 16 in general was still a big shortcoming for the VICII. (most of the C64's colors are pretty desaturated looking, especially reds and browns)

 

As for sound yes there is an element of subjective BUT the SID is the only sound chip that can replicate the soundtrack to the movie of Rambo (just play the game and see how close Martin Galway's SID rendition is of the movie soundtrack) and then in another game do a perfect electric guitar sound and in yet another game do some very triphop/electronica style sounds as in some of the good Hubbard tunes (compare the intro music on Flash Gordon with the intro of the Depeche Mode tune New Life to see what I mean) and then when you have listened to all that listen to Lazy Jones and Panther game soundtracks by David Whittaker. My point is different [good] composers where able to bring their own style of sound.

I know several retro game/computer fans who'd rather have had music composed on hardware excluding some capabilities of the SID (other than atarian63), say the SN76489 would be preferable. (but NES moreso) Again, the filter effects and arpeggio were the main comments. (I'm more in the middle, I like all of them, though the plain sounding AY-3-xx/YM2149, SN76489, or VIC's sound less so generally -I prefer variable duty cycle pulse wave to at least be available)

 

On the other hand ST and A8 music and effects pretty much sound identical from the start of each respective machine's life cycle to the end. There is a rendition of the Sanxion loading music on Pokey, and it's probably the best attempt at sounding different (and good) in my opinion. I wouldn't be able to tell you who did what tune on Pokey because ALL sound is too similar on the machine indicating a lack of actual diversity in the real world. If you like Pokey sound great...if not tough because you are stuck with it.

I dissagree, there are blander examples using plain square waves, but some cool envelope effects and simulated reverb (along with some cool bass beats) on better ST music, and much broader use of waveforms (variable pulse most often, but soemtimes saw/traingle-ish sounds -the latter often requiring 16-bit channels for good quality) opposed to simple square. (the Ghostbusters intro could have been a lot more varied and lively had it used more than just plain square waves -again variable pulse is significant -and what gives much NES music its distinctive sound)

 

On the other hand if someone says to me 'SID is crap' I know they are a fanboy trying to troll, why? Because the correct answer would be 'xxxx composer's tunes sound crap' but I challenge anyone to have heard EVERY style or type of SID music in one sitting, and funnily enough people who owned a C64 and did hear many different types of sound/music rarely speak badly of the chip.

Perhaps if a significant number of C64 games made use of unfiltered pulse/square/saw/trangle wave production, such people would have different oppions. (those people I've referred to do tend to recognize it was the composer's chioce, but also point out that soem composers may have used that sound just for the SID's characteristic sound, rather than the more "generic" unfiltered alternative -again, I'd have liked to hear a lot more unfilterd stuff for variety, the SID could certainly do it well -and with a good variety of waveforms -the exiting SID stuff is still cool to me personally though)

 

As for Atari and the A8...they desperately needed to update player/missile and colour resolution (ie total number of colours on screen in 320x200 or 160x200 resolutions) WITHIN 12 months of C64 launching. Once it became obvious that the A8 would plough along with inferior hardware and charge MORE for a 48k 800 model that was the final nail in the coffin and people traded in their machines for other less colour restricted machines...like the CPC and C64 etc.

I don't think so, the A8 was decently capable for the time, had it not been for the screw-ups (specifically those of 1983 -and not producing smaller cased A8s sooner), th eline could have served well through the C64's life until a good successor could have been made. (the ST is not that example, it wasn't part of Atari Inc at all, compatiblility would have ben preferred in any case -same with the C64's successor, though like the Amiga and ST, that may not have been the case if something like the Sierra or Gaza designs were used)

The A8s were definitely superior to CPC and Speccy for games and I'd say better than speccy in pretty much every respect. However, the A8s never got the sort of market pennetration in UK/Europe as the others, so who knows how things may have gone in that respect. (with late generation games goign into the early 90s)

 

Whether it would have rivaled the C64 in overall sales is certainyl depatable, but I think it's pretty obvious that the A8 could have sold much better is Atari hadn't screwed up with the 1200 XL and halt in late '83, plus following problems tied to the crash and liquidation to form A Corp. and A Games. (had they had the 600 and 800XL released properly in place of the problematic 1200XL and no halt in '83, things could have been quite different, not to mention a cleaner A5200 -and even with an insuing gaming crash, a more popular computer lien would cushin Atari substancially)

 

Which games you wanted to play probably plays a big role in your opinion of whether the ST was a waste of time OR a superior machine....me...I bought an ST for Neochrome, those favourite games of mine listed above where a bonus to be honest. People in the early 90s bought a PC and certain games were either identical or inferior to the much cheaper Amiga, however they were probably happy given that they bought it as a general purpose computer to run business applications too so any games they liked where a bonus regardless of if a better version was out....same thing with the ST early adopters. Only one computer was light years ahead of ALL it's competitors at the time of it's launch and that only ever happened once and never again....and it still never lasted more than a decade....go figure.

The ST also apealed as a gaming machine for those who couldn't afford an Amiga, at least prior to the A500. (though the lack of RF or composite on some models hurt this side of the system, particularly in the US market -without SCART)

The St did well here in the US certainly the 1st 3 years. Most people didnt care about RF and even after it was release with rf,nearly all machine we sold were sold with monitors. As for gaming, during this period most games were developed on the ST then ported to Amiga, There are notable exceptions and I will say the amiga always sounded better. Though a big title using didgitized sound..Starglider sold by the bucket loads due to excellent(for the time) sound. Drove the amiga people nuts. The Amiga starglider was an ST port.

[atarian63]

Especially if you like the sound of angry bees (SID)

 

Even if that was all it could do I'd still prefer it to everything sounding like it's made from springs. *HUGE GRIN SMILEY*

 

Pete

 

Think he means it is superior to the angry bees noise of pokey in the A8 version of Forbidden Forest by comparison

Umm, judging by these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhqrfB7UbPY (1:15)

(0:45)

I'd have to say I prefer the A8's sound most definitely, if any C64 stuff fits Atarian's "angry bees" argument, that game is a prime example. (I mean it's OK, but I much prefer the clean sound of the A8, which apears to be using POKEY's viriable pulse-wave to good effect -kind of NES sounding) Not a bad looking game by comparison either. (though there isn't much A8 stuff on youtube for that game, so it's not as easy to compare for someone who doeasn't actually own it)

 

I wasn't arguing which standard is better. Yes, RGB can display better higher resolution imagery, but A8 doesn't need RGB to output it's various graphics modes so take out the monitor price and take out the advantage that RGB output of ST is better than A8 as a separate advantage. It's just the same as saying ST has higher resolution and you have to pay for that with a special monitor.

Again, not if you're in Europe, hell I think SCART became more popularized in many parts of Europe and the UK before composite video inputs on US NTSC sets became common. (it didn't become mandated in all countries, so like the US, many lower-end sets only had RF inputs, I think this is true for the UK -but that holds true for composite was well as RGB, and later for S-video) So it's a matter of context, and had something like SCAR been similarly standardized in the US, then it wouldn't even be an issue.

 

 

Having scroll registers would have been great though. The STe was just a little too late - by the time it came out developers couldn't ignore the base ST model - so any support would have to be extra work.

Personally I'd have been happy with a word addressable screen base - as that would solve the problems for vertical scrollers at least.

( I wonder what the chances were of a ~10MHz 68000 at the time - you could use the same crystal found on the NES , /2 for CPU, /6 for 3.58 NTSC colour , or slightly different crystal /5 for 4.43 PAL colour )

By the time the Mega 2 came out with the BLiTTER, I think going for a faster CPU instead may have been a better idea overall (and they could have put it ont he MEGA 1 without delay) 16 MHz 68000s should have been available by then. They could have focused on upgrading the audio earlier instead. (and have the MEGA with something like the STe's audio and a 16 MHz CPU sans the blitter)

They should also have started offering higher-end models with faster (10-12.5 Mhz) CPUs sooner, as stock. (along with baseline 8 Mhz units)

In addition to the audio, an updated shifter would also be needed, something more competitive with VGA (not to mention Amiga) by '88 or '89 at the latest. (along with 32-bit systems sooner -this both the ST and Amiga fell behind PC and MAC with in terms of stock offerings)

Atari probably should have made the systems more easily expandable as well, if not on the console versions, at least get some units with box/tower form factor out as higher-end systems prior to the MEGA -those same ones with 10-12.5 MHz CPUs. (Amiga was equally late with the opposite, getting out the A500 in console form factor)

The "angry bees" thing is a subjective opinion on my part though back in the day it was shared by many. It's a love it or hate it sound I guess. The sound drove me right up a wall. I always made the employees turn in down a bit, though I was always game for the user group guys coming in and running demos.

[oky2000]

Reading some of the replies here, is this supposed to be an ST vs A8 thread, or an A8 vs c64,amiga, st, speccy, nes, sms etc etc thread

 

The ST doesn't need to have scroll registers, the likes of Steve Bak (Return to genesis and Goldrunner etc) as well as Wayne Smithson (Anarchy and ST version of Blood Money etc) proved that ST could smooth scroll without the need of registers and be as good at scrolling like the A8/c64/amiga etc

 

On the other hand though, If the ST really did need scroll registers or increased colour range, why were'nt there more support for STe specific games

 

Only thing I would gripe about the ST, was the positioning of the mouse/joystick ports...they chose possibly the worst location for them, what was wrong with placing them next to the cart area (like they did with the STe analog ports)

 

Having scroll registers would have been great though. The STe was just a little too late - by the time it came out developers couldn't ignore the base ST model - so any support would have to be extra work.

Personally I'd have been happy with a word addressable screen base - as that would solve the problems for vertical scrollers at least.

( I wonder what the chances were of a ~10MHz 68000 at the time - you could use the same crystal found on the NES , /2 for CPU, /6 for 3.58 NTSC colour , or slightly different crystal /5 for 4.43 PAL colour )

 

The reason I talk about the C64 is because the games on it are different to A8 and it was a big reason why millions of people didn't get an ST....there are plenty of smooth scrolling excellent sounding 16 colour C64 games...this simply is not the case with the A8....not to the same graphical sophistication. Like I said Salamander is not really possible on the A8 on the same level as a C64. So for me generally the ST is the better machine to own if I could only own one...C64 vs ST...much tougher choice and a better comparison of brute CPU force of 68k vs traditional 8bit custom chip rich machine.

 

Goldrunner etc are low colour resolution vertical scrollers, anarchy isn't scrolling much technically and blood money was hardly pushing an Amiga with it's very slow scrolling. Enchanted Land is probably the best scrolling I have seen on an STM/STFM.

[oky2000]

Umm, judging by these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhqrfB7UbPY (1:15)

(0:45)

I'd have to say I prefer the A8's sound most definitely, if any C64 stuff fits Atarian's "angry bees" argument, that game is a prime example. (I mean it's OK, but I much prefer the clean sound of the A8, which apears to be using POKEY's viriable pulse-wave to good effect -kind of NES sounding) Not a bad looking game by comparison either. (though there isn't much A8 stuff on youtube for that game, so it's not as easy to compare for someone who doeasn't actually own it)

 

The A8 stuff sounds like a demented Colecovision to me. ho hum.

 

The "angry bees" thing is a subjective opinion on my part though back in the day it was shared by many. It's a love it or hate it sound I guess. The sound drove me right up a wall. I always made the employees turn in down a bit, though I was always game for the user group guys coming in and running demos.

 

Yeah many blinkered atari fanboys that is*

[oky2000]

 

 

I don't think so, the A8 was decently capable for the time, had it not been for the screw-ups (specifically those of 1983 -and not producing smaller cased A8s sooner), th eline could have served well through the C64's life until a good successor could have been made. (the ST is not that example, it wasn't part of Atari Inc at all, compatiblility would have ben preferred in any case -same with the C64's successor, though like the Amiga and ST, that may not have been the case if something like the Sierra or Gaza designs were used)

The A8s were definitely superior to CPC and Speccy for games and I'd say better than speccy in pretty much every respect. However, the A8s never got the sort of market pennetration in UK/Europe as the others, so who knows how things may have gone in that respect. (with late generation games goign into the early 90s)

 

Whether it would have rivaled the C64 in overall sales is certainyl depatable, but I think it's pretty obvious that the A8 could have sold much better is Atari hadn't screwed up with the 1200 XL and halt in late '83, plus following problems tied to the crash and liquidation to form A Corp. and A Games. (had they had the 600 and 800XL released properly in place of the problematic 1200XL and no halt in '83, things could have been quite different, not to mention a cleaner A5200 -and even with an insuing gaming crash, a more popular computer lien would cushin Atari substancially)

 

Hmmm erm no, some games on the C64 like Salamander and Armalyte are not really possible with the stock limitations of total no. colours on screen AND PM graphics limitations. So those two areas needed addressing if A8 games were to look less shit than a bigger selling machine which cost less...this was a crucial mistake by Warner...and cost them dearly in sales.

 

The 800XL is a 64kb A8 with ALL the graphical and sonic limitations of the Atari 400/800...ergo the games are still going to be the same 4 colour crap with DLIs to mask the horribly restrictive 4 colours anywhere on screen in 160x200 mode. Same VCS sounding chip too. FAIL.

 

Unlike most consumer electronics goods (like VHS players or radios) the difference between different 8bit machines technically (perceived) was quite easy to see....you can clearly see colour restricted backgrounds and mono sprites on most A8 games. And then you get games like Last Ninja on the C64. Which do you think little Johnny's dad will approve his hard earned wages on. Takes an engineer to tell the difference in colour temperate on a Trinitron tube and a JVC tube'd TV...not many people had the equipment to isolate the small difference in quality between VHS and betamax technically...but as far as 8bit computers went...it was mostly on how the games looked that sales were made...and that is why C64 with the most sensible compromises of all 8bit computers had such a slam dunk win sorry.

 

In the time of the 800XL (ie too late) sales went to fanboys and clueless people just buying into the brand name associated with games....or people wanting a bargain when they were all dumped by Jack @ £100 complete!

 

edit: Also remember that some games can clearly possible to bypass the crappy ST YM soundchip..like Gauntlet 1...pretty decent arcade game that is basically in PC speaker mode as far as sound output goes. You can't really do that on an A8, you have to use Pokey like it or lump it. And I've never heard 4 channel Pokey music AND samples together unlike SID 3 channel plus excellent 4th sample channel on some game soundtracks.

Edited December 30, 2009 by oky2000

[atarian63]

 

 

I don't think so, the A8 was decently capable for the time, had it not been for the screw-ups (specifically those of 1983 -and not producing smaller cased A8s sooner), th eline could have served well through the C64's life until a good successor could have been made. (the ST is not that example, it wasn't part of Atari Inc at all, compatiblility would have ben preferred in any case -same with the C64's successor, though like the Amiga and ST, that may not have been the case if something like the Sierra or Gaza designs were used)

The A8s were definitely superior to CPC and Speccy for games and I'd say better than speccy in pretty much every respect. However, the A8s never got the sort of market pennetration in UK/Europe as the others, so who knows how things may have gone in that respect. (with late generation games goign into the early 90s)

 

Whether it would have rivaled the C64 in overall sales is certainyl depatable, but I think it's pretty obvious that the A8 could have sold much better is Atari hadn't screwed up with the 1200 XL and halt in late '83, plus following problems tied to the crash and liquidation to form A Corp. and A Games. (had they had the 600 and 800XL released properly in place of the problematic 1200XL and no halt in '83, things could have been quite different, not to mention a cleaner A5200 -and even with an insuing gaming crash, a more popular computer lien would cushin Atari substancially)

 

Hmmm erm no, some games on the C64 like Salamander and Armalyte are not really possible with the stock limitations of total no. colours on screen AND PM graphics limitations. So those two areas needed addressing if A8 games were to look less shit than a bigger selling machine which cost less...this was a crucial mistake by Warner...and cost them dearly in sales.

 

The 800XL is a 64kb A8 with ALL the graphical and sonic limitations of the Atari 400/800...ergo the games are still going to be the same 4 colour crap with DLIs to mask the horribly restrictive 4 colours anywhere on screen in 160x200 mode. Same VCS sounding chip too. FAIL.

 

Unlike most consumer electronics goods (like VHS players or radios) the difference between different 8bit machines technically (perceived) was quite easy to see....you can clearly see colour restricted backgrounds and mono sprites on most A8 games. And then you get games like Last Ninja on the C64. Which do you think little Johnny's dad will approve his hard earned wages on. Takes an engineer to tell the difference in colour temperate on a Trinitron tube and a JVC tube'd TV...not many people had the equipment to isolate the small difference in quality between VHS and betamax technically...but as far as 8bit computers went...it was mostly on how the games looked that sales were made...and that is why C64 with the most sensible compromises of all 8bit computers had such a slam dunk win sorry.

 

In the time of the 800XL (ie too late) sales went to fanboys and clueless people just buying into the brand name associated with games....or people wanting a bargain when they were all dumped by Jack @ £100 complete!

 

edit: Also remember that some games can clearly possible to bypass the crappy ST YM soundchip..like Gauntlet 1...pretty decent arcade game that is basically in PC speaker mode as far as sound output goes. You can't really do that on an A8, you have to use Pokey like it or lump it. And I've never heard 4 channel Pokey music AND samples together unlike SID 3 channel plus excellent 4th sample channel on some game soundtracks.

I think you mean, superior color pallette, excellent arcade sound chip and excellent DOS system,not to mention class winning quality. Also free of angry bee sounds! (SID) yucko.

[atarian63]

Umm, judging by these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhqrfB7UbPY (1:15)

(0:45)

I'd have to say I prefer the A8's sound most definitely, if any C64 stuff fits Atarian's "angry bees" argument, that game is a prime example. (I mean it's OK, but I much prefer the clean sound of the A8, which apears to be using POKEY's viriable pulse-wave to good effect -kind of NES sounding) Not a bad looking game by comparison either. (though there isn't much A8 stuff on youtube for that game, so it's not as easy to compare for someone who doeasn't actually own it)

 

The A8 stuff sounds like a demented Colecovision to me. ho hum.

 

The "angry bees" thing is a subjective opinion on my part though back in the day it was shared by many. It's a love it or hate it sound I guess. The sound drove me right up a wall. I always made the employees turn in down a bit, though I was always game for the user group guys coming in and running demos.

 

Yeah many blinkered atari fanboys that is*

take off the commode a dore blinders dude.

[atarian63]

Reading some of the replies here, is this supposed to be an ST vs A8 thread, or an A8 vs c64,amiga, st, speccy, nes, sms etc etc thread

 

The ST doesn't need to have scroll registers, the likes of Steve Bak (Return to genesis and Goldrunner etc) as well as Wayne Smithson (Anarchy and ST version of Blood Money etc) proved that ST could smooth scroll without the need of registers and be as good at scrolling like the A8/c64/amiga etc

 

On the other hand though, If the ST really did need scroll registers or increased colour range, why were'nt there more support for STe specific games

 

Only thing I would gripe about the ST, was the positioning of the mouse/joystick ports...they chose possibly the worst location for them, what was wrong with placing them next to the cart area (like they did with the STe analog ports)

 

Having scroll registers would have been great though. The STe was just a little too late - by the time it came out developers couldn't ignore the base ST model - so any support would have to be extra work.

Personally I'd have been happy with a word addressable screen base - as that would solve the problems for vertical scrollers at least.

( I wonder what the chances were of a ~10MHz 68000 at the time - you could use the same crystal found on the NES , /2 for CPU, /6 for 3.58 NTSC colour , or slightly different crystal /5 for 4.43 PAL colour )

 

The reason I talk about the C64 is because the games on it are different to A8 and it was a big reason why millions of people didn't get an ST....there are plenty of smooth scrolling excellent sounding 16 colour C64 games...this simply is not the case with the A8....not to the same graphical sophistication. Like I said Salamander is not really possible on the A8 on the same level as a C64. So for me generally the ST is the better machine to own if I could only own one...C64 vs ST...much tougher choice and a better comparison of brute CPU force of 68k vs traditional 8bit custom chip rich machine.

 

Goldrunner etc are low colour resolution vertical scrollers, anarchy isn't scrolling much technically and blood money was hardly pushing an Amiga with it's very slow scrolling. Enchanted Land is probably the best scrolling I have seen on an STM/STFM.

Please.. people dumped 8-bit's like c64 like it was yesterdays lunch after St was released.We took them in trade so often that the value went to nothing and we stopped accepting them on St or Amiga trades. Even A8 models were limited in trade,however were never turned away completely like c64.

We had so many trading before we stopped taking them that we couldnt sell them, nobody wanted them at most any price, we scrapped many of them eventually. The only sellable part were the 1702 monitors. People bought them for use as a tv when attached to thier VCR.

C128 models also were made worthless by St/Amiga. Seemed like overnight.

[+wood_jl]

This thread is too long to keep track of. Let's "boil it down" to an easy-to-memorize chart of thread participants. Then you can zero in on the chart and know where a user stands.

 

A "RULES! or SUCKS!" form should be filled out by each user, for A8, C64, ST, Amiga. Then, one won't have to read all of the thread to jump in.

 

See if I'm keeping score correctly:

 

atariksi:

Atari 400/800/XL/XE: RULES!

Commodore 64: SUCKS!

Atari ST: SUCKS!

Amiga: RULES!

 

atarian63:

Atari 400/800/XL/XE: RULES!

Commodore 64: SUCKS!

Atari ST: RULES!

Amiga: SUCKS!

 

oky2000:

Atari 400/800/XL/XE: SUCKS!

Commodore 64: RULES!

Atari ST: RULES!

Amiga: RULES!

 

Mr.Amiga500:

Atari 400/800/XL/XE: RULES!

Commodore 64: ??????

Atari ST: SUCKS!

Amiga: RULES! (judging by his name)

 

These are the only ones that were easily compiled.

 

Still unclear:

 

kool kitty89: all over the map

PeteD: all over the map, seemingly pro-C64, pro-ST

DarkLord: pro-ST, but what think of A8, C64, Amiga?

MetalGuy66: pro-A8, pro-Amiga, ST Sucks, but what think of C64?

Thorsten Gunther: pro-ST, but what think of A8 and the C64, Amiga?

save2600: pro Amiga, but what of A8/ST/C64?

candle?

remowilliams? (thanks for the manual scans, dude!)

Rybags? (A8 Rules, but what about the others?)

Crazyace: pro-ST, unsure of the rest

[atariksi]

Umm, judging by these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhqrfB7UbPY (1:15)

(0:45)

I'd have to say I prefer the A8's sound most definitely, if any C64 stuff fits Atarian's "angry bees" argument, that game is a prime example. (I mean it's OK, but I much prefer the clean sound of the A8, which apears to be using POKEY's viriable pulse-wave to good effect -kind of NES sounding) Not a bad looking game by comparison either. (though there isn't much A8 stuff on youtube for that game, so it's not as easy to compare for someone who doeasn't actually own it)

 

The A8 stuff sounds like a demented Colecovision to me. ho hum.

 

The "angry bees" thing is a subjective opinion on my part though back in the day it was shared by many. It's a love it or hate it sound I guess. The sound drove me right up a wall. I always made the employees turn in down a bit, though I was always game for the user group guys coming in and running demos.

 

Yeah many blinkered atari fanboys that is*

take off the commode a dore blinders dude.

 

He keeps making off-topic already-refuted remarks. He is drawing conclusions about machines just from Salamander and a few games which haven't yet appeared on A8. And he can't understand that DLIs are equivalent of what Amiga does with the Copper. It's a feature like his crappy C64 does with Color RAM to make the screen appear to have more color depth although C64 has more restrictions in graphics modes, text modes, colors, etc. And even their color RAM makes DAC-based music sound like crap and causes instability in timing things. A8 has real linear 16-color modes that don't rely on color RAM and its consequent disadvantages. Yeah, he should take off his commodore blinders and re-read the 19 items I listed against his C64. I bet all those returns of failed C64s adds to the crappiness already substantiated by failing 6526s, PLAs, etc.

[atariksi]

No problem,

 

GPRIOR0 and 23 colours per scanline ( scrolled ) would be a big advantage to the A8 apart from it having quite stringent limitations - The best image I saw was the Tetris game in the other thread. That's why I treat it in the same way as the 48 colour/line Spectrum 512, which is also limited , but has quite an impact.

( It might be interesting to try to reproduce a particular image if you've got something in mind though )

 

I've seen some of the Photochrome pictures that look pretty amazing, but I guess they are in the same class as the hip mode pictures on the A8 - they are using 2 frames to get effectively 16 shades rather than 8 , but the flickering seems a lot less noticeable than some of the A8 pictures. I guess that's because the A8 is trying to mix a base colour with a brightness , but the ST is just trying to flicker between two consecutive brightnesses to suggest an inbetween value.

 

Mr Robot is a game that I couldn't see any problem with replicating on the ST though, so that's why I raised it. ( The character animation might seem complex, but there's nowhere like a full screen animating on any of the levels )

 

I have GTIA examples not much GPRIOR mode 0 examples. ST would flicker more in interlaced modes as their shades are further apart. Mr. Robot has those bombs that animate and go off, blinking chars, the multiplexed sprite monsters, and looks like a DLI to colorize things and you can construct your own screens so animation in worst case is whole screen.

[atariksi]

Reading some of the replies here, is this supposed to be an ST vs A8 thread, or an A8 vs c64,amiga, st, speccy, nes, sms etc etc thread

 

The ST doesn't need to have scroll registers, the likes of Steve Bak (Return to genesis and Goldrunner etc) as well as Wayne Smithson (Anarchy and ST version of Blood Money etc) proved that ST could smooth scroll without the need of registers and be as good at scrolling like the A8/c64/amiga etc

...

ST can smooth scroll in games which use subset of screen or reduce their planes (colors) and that only at cost of thousands and thousands of cycles of CPU. So it's worth having hardware registers. I am not talking about unreliable means like SYNC scrolling or VSP which put the system in an unreliable state by screwing monitor frequencies or garbling up memory.

 

On the other hand though, If the ST really did need scroll registers or increased colour range, why were'nt there more support for STe specific games

Because STe came too late. People who were scrollaholics found EGA/VGA/Amigas/A8s to do their smooth scrolling and still have almost 100% CPU power left over.

 

Only thing I would gripe about the ST, was the positioning of the mouse/joystick ports...they chose possibly the worst location for them, what was wrong with placing them next to the cart area (like they did with the STe analog ports)

 

They tried to hide their embarassing situation of having the most inferior joystick ports ever built for Atari machines-- 781 bytes/second protocol which requires multibyte packets to read joysticks w/keyboard and mouse overloaded on the same bandwidth. If you could port over a video digitizer to Atari ST, it would capture less thanb 1/30 frame per second (compared to 30 frames/second live video).

[FastRobPlus]

This thread is too long to keep track of. Let's "boil it down" to an easy-to-memorize chart of thread participants. Then you can zero in on the chart and know where a user stands.

 

A "RULES! or SUCKS!" form should be filled out by each user, for A8, C64, ST, Amiga. Then, one won't have to read all of the thread to jump in.

 

See if I'm keeping score correctly:

 

 

Funny!

[kool kitty89]

Umm, judging by these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhqrfB7UbPY (1:15)

(0:45)

I'd have to say I prefer the A8's sound most definitely, if any C64 stuff fits Atarian's "angry bees" argument, that game is a prime example. (I mean it's OK, but I much prefer the clean sound of the A8, which apears to be using POKEY's viriable pulse-wave to good effect -kind of NES sounding) Not a bad looking game by comparison either. (though there isn't much A8 stuff on youtube for that game, so it's not as easy to compare for someone who doeasn't actually own it)

 

The A8 stuff sounds like a demented Colecovision to me. ho hum.

I don't care for most of the A8 versions sound effects and such (a bit annoying), but that victory music is good, again kind of NES soundign to me. (a lot of square waves, but also a bit of non-square pulse, or at least it sounds like it) There are much better sounding C64 games for sure though. (R-Type is neat, especially the intro theme -which doesn't really fit the game as with the Amiga version, but is still awsome, or Stormlord for example, Shadow of the Beast sounds pretty good too)

 

The "angry bees" thing is a subjective opinion on my part though back in the day it was shared by many. It's a love it or hate it sound I guess. The sound drove me right up a wall. I always made the employees turn in down a bit, though I was always game for the user group guys coming in and running demos.

 

Yeah many blinkered atari fanboys that is*

No actually, without naming names, they aren't on atariage (AFIK), and the most prominent one I was thinking of is more of a Sega Genesis fan (the one who mentioned specific preference of the NES's sound over the C64's "warbly" sound), though I think he has reservations about a lot of the Genesis's music as well, the more generic stuff obviously moreso. (but in general he seems to prefer "chiptune" kind of sounds opposed to "synth" soundign ones, he even mentioned prefering the SMS's PSG rendition of R-Type to the FM rendition using the YM2413)

 

 

Hmmm erm no, some games on the C64 like Salamander and Armalyte are not really possible with the stock limitations of total no. colours on screen AND PM graphics limitations. So those two areas needed addressing if A8 games were to look less shit than a bigger selling machine which cost less...this was a crucial mistake by Warner...and cost them dearly in sales.

 

The 800XL is a 64kb A8 with ALL the graphical and sonic limitations of the Atari 400/800...ergo the games are still going to be the same 4 colour crap with DLIs to mask the horribly restrictive 4 colours anywhere on screen in 160x200 mode. Same VCS sounding chip too. FAIL.

Umm I meant fine until the mid 1980s (say 1985), at which point a proper (preferably compatible) successor could arrive and the A8s could be pushed into the budget market and slowly phased out. (you mention Salamander, which was never even ported to the A8, and came out after 1985 and later still in the US I think)

Hell, and GTIA with extended color RAM alone could have gone a long way. (allowing multiple 4-color palettes ables to be used for different characters)

 

In the time of the 800XL (ie too late) sales went to fanboys and clueless people just buying into the brand name associated with games....or people wanting a bargain when they were all dumped by Jack @ £100 complete!

Yeah, Atari should have gotten on the ball sooner and updated the 400/800 sooner in general, and not screwed up with the 1200. (even if a simpler update than the 600/800XL, they really needed to use a new form factor with the expensive and now unnecessary sesigns of the original 400/800 -and get rid of the membrane keyboard)

 

edit: Also remember that some games can clearly possible to bypass the crappy ST YM soundchip..like Gauntlet 1...pretty decent arcade game that is basically in PC speaker mode as far as sound output goes. You can't really do that on an A8, you have to use Pokey like it or lump it. And I've never heard 4 channel Pokey music AND samples together unlike SID 3 channel plus excellent 4th sample channel on some game soundtracks.

That's not bypassing the chip, that's using it, and not "PC speaker mode" (PWM was not the dominant method of sample playback anyway), Crazyace just brought this up... (of course, another difference is the added CPU resourse to playback samples)

 

kool kitty89: all over the map

Heh, I'm nowhere, I'm interested in them all (including the more reasonable side topic stuff), I find a lot of the stuff here facinating. Hell, I don't own either of these personally and both are older than I am, I'm just a retro tech enthusiast (electronics especially, but other stuff as well, and a bit of historical intersts beyond that. (plus my dad did some work involving the ST and Amiga at different points when at metacomco though; I really need to do a mini-bio/summary for my profile ...)

Edited December 30, 2009 by kool kitty89

[PeteD]

This thread is too long to keep track of. Let's "boil it down" to an easy-to-memorize chart of thread participants. Then you can zero in on the chart and know where a user stands.

 

A "RULES! or SUCKS!" form should be filled out by each user, for A8, C64, ST, Amiga. Then, one won't have to read all of the thread to jump in.

 

See if I'm keeping score correctly:

 

atariksi:

Atari 400/800/XL/XE: RULES!

Commodore 64: SUCKS!

Atari ST: SUCKS!

Amiga: RULES!

 

atarian63:

Atari 400/800/XL/XE: RULES!

Commodore 64: SUCKS!

Atari ST: RULES!

Amiga: SUCKS!

 

oky2000:

Atari 400/800/XL/XE: SUCKS!

Commodore 64: RULES!

Atari ST: RULES!

Amiga: RULES!

 

Mr.Amiga500:

Atari 400/800/XL/XE: RULES!

Commodore 64: ??????

Atari ST: SUCKS!

Amiga: RULES! (judging by his name)

 

These are the only ones that were easily compiled.

 

Still unclear:

 

kool kitty89: all over the map

PeteD: all over the map, seemingly pro-C64, pro-ST

DarkLord: pro-ST, but what think of A8, C64, Amiga?

MetalGuy66: pro-A8, pro-Amiga, ST Sucks, but what think of C64?

Thorsten Gunther: pro-ST, but what think of A8 and the C64, Amiga?

save2600: pro Amiga, but what of A8/ST/C64?

candle?

remowilliams? (thanks for the manual scans, dude!)

Rybags? (A8 Rules, but what about the others?)

Crazyace: pro-ST, unsure of the rest

 

Herein lies the problem with certain people's attitudes to what other people say in threads like this. I'm not pro or con any of them, I'm pro facts when it comes to talking about their capabilities. As of now I've owned them all, worked professionally on 3/4 of them and am now in the middle of working on at least game ideas for 3 of them (ditching the Amiga because there's no point doing what I want to on ST on the miggy and going full out on A8). I don't think any of them "suck" but I think some people do need a reality check when it comes to what each machine is or isn't capable of in a real world situation (which is why I'll argue with people), not take 1 point and argue about it removing parts of what's been claimed until it boils down to a spec of actual truth then banging on about it like it actually matters, not guessing at what one machine can do and presuming (due to lack of actual knowledge no doubt) that other's can't and refusing to admit they can when proof is handed to them..

 

 

Pete

[Crazyace]

I have GTIA examples not much GPRIOR mode 0 examples. ST would flicker more in interlaced modes as their shades are further apart.

I've noticed more flickering on the A8 pictures myself - maybe it's a combination of bigger pixels, and not flickering between the 2 closest shades? ( I still remember being super impressed by the first 256 colour PAL pictures on the A8 - at the time that was amazing )

 

Mr. Robot has those bombs that animate and go off, blinking chars, the multiplexed sprite monsters, and looks like a DLI to colorize things and you can construct your own screens so animation in worst case is whole screen.

 

I just had a look at Mr Robot again - I'd assumed that the monsters were paired players, as I've only seen 2 intersect on a scan line - but at closer inspection they are 9 pixel wide software sprites, and Mr Robot is the only player graphic. So no multiplexing there.

I'd probably just repaint the screen each time ( for anything non blank ) on the ST as I'm pretty sure I could handle a whole screen of animating bombs easily in a frame. But if not I'd just have 4 screens, each one representing one of the animation frames and cycle the whole screens in the same way that MrRobot cycles character animations.

[andym00]

And he can't understand that DLIs are equivalent of what Amiga does with the Copper.

You're really going for the 'Most Outrageous Claim in a Vs. Thread' 2009 award aren't you.. Just 2 days left!!! Good luck with it, you deserve it

 

But really...

DLIs are have bugger all to do with the copper.. They're a half-arsed attempt at true raster interrupts.. All they can do is trigger an interrupt at the end of zone, not on any line, so you either waste cycles wsync'ing yourself silly, or you hammer vscroll to shrink the zones.. Either way, a lot of work and complication for a simple raster interrupt..

 

They have their uses, and for what they do, they do well, but they're not a copper, and they're not proper raster interrupts.. You be lying again Mr.Atariksi

 

It's a feature like his crappy C64 does with Color RAM to make the screen appear to have more color depth although C64 has more restrictions in graphics modes, text modes, colors, etc.

 

So that'd be like the atributes on the VBXE that people are using to colourise stuff then ? Yeah, obviously a really really crappy idea, that'll never catch on..

 

Over in planet reality, they would appear to be not so crappy as just about about every other platform had them to some degree or another.. Hmmmm, which one didn't ? Oh yeah! The A8!!! Oops.. I don't think it's down to mere conicidence that it's also the platform with probably some of the least colourful and badly chosen colours in all of video game history..

 

And even their color RAM makes DAC-based music sound like crap and causes instability in timing things.

 

Wrong.. Again.. It's not the colour RAM.. You really must try harder!

hint: Colour RAM is on its own internal 4bit RAM inside the VIC-II with its own bus, doesn't can't steal cycles..

 

Either way, that's getting away from the fact that the A8 suffers exactly the same penalties for the fetches.

 

A8 has real linear 16-color modes with pixels so large they can be seen from space by the naked eye, that don't rely on color RAM and its consequent disadvantages.

 

Fixed that for you

Edited December 30, 2009 by andym00

[Crazyace]

I am not talking about unreliable means like SYNC scrolling or VSP which put the system in an unreliable state by screwing monitor frequencies or garbling up memory.

Do you actually have any evidence for this for Sync scrolling? - as none of the sync scrolling techniques I've seen change monitor frequencies or garble memory ( no memory seems to be changed at all - the shifter doesn't write after all )

[PeteD]

I am not talking about unreliable means like SYNC scrolling or VSP which put the system in an unreliable state by screwing monitor frequencies or garbling up memory.

Do you actually have any evidence for this for Sync scrolling? - as none of the sync scrolling techniques I've seen change monitor frequencies or garble memory ( no memory seems to be changed at all - the shifter doesn't write after all )

 

 

Yeah, Mr know it all atariksi gets it wrong again. VSP does nothing to monitor frequencies it just forces the VIC to hold off from starting to display the screen by toggling a register and then timing where that happens a cycle at a time (using combinations of 2 and 3 cycle instructions to get the odd/even) and a 6502 cycle just happens to equal a char (8 pixel) timing for the VIC. There's no instability apart from some unproven rumours about it not working on some machines but nobody I know has ever seen it not work and it certainly won't make your TV explode or become sentient and rape your family. No "memory garbling" either whatever the hell that's supposed to mean..

 

 

Pete

Edited December 30, 2009 by PeteD

[atariksi]

And he can't understand that DLIs are equivalent of what Amiga does with the Copper.

You're really going for the 'Most Outrageous Claim in a Vs. Thread' 2009 award aren't you.. Just 2 days left!!! Good luck with it, you deserve it

...

Sure they are like Copper-- they let you do cycle-exact register changes or re-use registers horizontally or vertically based on video positioning (in this case I was only referring to colors since I was comparing to color RAM). You are telling it the mode line in the DL and usually using WSYNC + instructions to go across horizontally. On Copper lists, you tell it x and y (instead of just y so no WSYNC needed) and count copper instructions to go across horizontally.

 

But really...

DLIs are have bugger all to do with the copper..

I would say that given a faster CPU, A8 can do the same number of color changes as Copper. Copper shares bus with 68K on odd cycles whereas bitplane DMA uses even cycles. I think whoever worked on it, just took it a step further in incorporating the WSYNC into the equation. Having programmed both, you can get that insight. What's there to lie about. ANTIC could also have taken its WSYNC and done it automatically for you with the DLI but they are both on the same chip. Both are giving you cycle-exact video timing and require no ack to retrigger.

 

It's a feature like his crappy C64 does with Color RAM to make the screen appear to have more color depth although C64 has more restrictions in graphics modes, text modes, colors, etc.

 

So that'd be like the atributes on the VBXE that people are using to colourise stuff then ? Yeah, obviously a really really crappy idea, that'll never catch on..

 

Over in planet reality, they would appear to be not so crappy as just about about every other platform had them to some degree or another.. Hmmmm, which one didn't ? Oh yeah! The A8!!! Oops.. I don't think it's down to mere conicidence that it's also the platform with probably some of the least colourful and badly chosen colours in all of video game history..

...

The point being addressed was A8 being limited to 4 colors in 160*200. So I was talking about graphics modes. Yeah, color RAM is good for text modes as that's what they were used for on PC.

 

And even their color RAM makes DAC-based music sound like crap and causes instability in timing things.

 

Wrong.. Again.. It's not the colour RAM.. You really must try harder!

...

Don't need to. That's just you nit-picking on things that ultimately do not matter. If you had no color RAM, you don't need the consecutive DMA cycles (72 in A8 terms) to screw up the DAC-based music or cause instability in timing things.

 

Either way, that's getting away from the fact that the A8 suffers exactly the same penalties for the fetches.

No, A8 has no such consecutive DMA cycles in any graphics mode. Even in text mode, the cycle-exactness remains, but I wasn't talking about text modes.

 

A8 has real linear 16-color modes with pixels so large they can be seen from space by the naked eye, that don't rely on color RAM and its consequent disadvantages.

 

Fixed that for you

Now you can be accused of lieing, but I think it was a joke.

[atariksi]

I am not talking about unreliable means like SYNC scrolling or VSP which put the system in an unreliable state by screwing monitor frequencies or garbling up memory.

Do you actually have any evidence for this for Sync scrolling? - as none of the sync scrolling techniques I've seen change monitor frequencies or garble memory ( no memory seems to be changed at all - the shifter doesn't write after all )

 

Yes. I combined both of those unreliable hacks into one sentence. One uses frequency toggling the other causes memory issues. I have read about both and thus avoided both.

[atariksi]

I have GTIA examples not much GPRIOR mode 0 examples. ST would flicker more in interlaced modes as their shades are further apart.

I've noticed more flickering on the A8 pictures myself - maybe it's a combination of bigger pixels, and not flickering between the 2 closest shades? ( I still remember being super impressed by the first 256 colour PAL pictures on the A8 - at the time that was amazing )

...

It depends on the image. I have seen images that have close to zero flicker. And logically speaking, toggling between shades closer together should give less flicker as is true for Gr.9.

 

Mr. Robot has those bombs that animate and go off, blinking chars, the multiplexed sprite monsters, and looks like a DLI to colorize things and you can construct your own screens so animation in worst case is whole screen.

 

I just had a look at Mr Robot again - I'd assumed that the monsters were paired players, as I've only seen 2 intersect on a scan line - but at closer inspection they are 9 pixel wide software sprites, and Mr Robot is the only player graphic. So no multiplexing there.

I'd probably just repaint the screen each time ( for anything non blank ) on the ST as I'm pretty sure I could handle a whole screen of animating bombs easily in a frame. But if not I'd just have 4 screens, each one representing one of the animation frames and cycle the whole screens in the same way that MrRobot cycles character animations.

 

That's pretty good that they got all those software sprites and animations done at 60Hz on A8; I thought they would use more sprites since I never saw more than two monsters in a horizontal zone. Nonetheless, it's repaint job for ST.

[Crazyace]

I am not talking about unreliable means like SYNC scrolling or VSP which put the system in an unreliable state by screwing monitor frequencies or garbling up memory.

Do you actually have any evidence for this for Sync scrolling? - as none of the sync scrolling techniques I've seen change monitor frequencies or garble memory ( no memory seems to be changed at all - the shifter doesn't write after all )

 

Yes. I combined both of those unreliable hacks into one sentence. One uses frequency toggling the other causes memory issues. I have read about both and thus avoided both.

Ok - please show me the evidence then - I'd be very interested in seeing it. ( Maybe you are getting confused about what switching the shifter from 50 to 60 and back again actually does to the real monitor frequency )

Please also keep on the topic of ST and A8 - any comparisions with CGA, C64 or even Amiga are irrelevant.