Atari 8bit is superior to the ST

[atariksi]

One more think I forgot to mention is that WSYNC is also optional on Atari if you get every cycle computed in the frame for each procedure used in the frame. Then you can have stable DLIs and WSYNC won't be needed.

 

 

So in other words, nothing that every single other processor on the planet can't do anyway..

...

That's an incorrect statement. On ST, C64, modern CPUs, and many others the stability is thrown off by indeterminate signals so they cannot be compared to Copper. On A8, the reset trapping code and VBI trapping code shows that without WSYNC you can do cycle exact coding and sprites, DLIs, VBIs, keyboard, etc. will not affect the cycle-exactness. On pentium chips, you get power management, cpu throttling, caching, I/O wait states, etc. to throw things off.

 

 

As much as it pains me to say so, in this specific instance, atariksi is indeed (mostly) correct.

 

Modern CPU's do not deterministically execute code. You can't be sure exactly how many cycles is will take for a given code sequence to execute. Multiple cores, multiple levels of cache, out of order execution, etc. etc.

 

No way you can count cycles and say "this code will definitively execute in 29 cycles". The A8, ST and friends rely on that for many video effects

 

You can mask interrupts on the ST if you need cycle exact-ness.

 

I heard that keyboard r/w on ST causes synchronization (cycle-exactness) to get lost.

[Crazyace]

You need to look at worst case analysis so blinking power pills, escalators, bombs, etc. And as far as I see it, this is another one of those ANTIC 4 (five color) modes but this time w/DLI on every mode line. What overhead are you computing to mimic an A8 DLI every 8 scanlines?

 

I looked at all of the levels, and I'm pretty certain that there's always more than 50% 'blank' chars - and as I said in most levels the animating chars are a lot less. So 50% is a good number.

For DLI I'd just use a timerB IRQ on the ST - I've used it for colour graduations before, and the cost should be pretty similar to the A8 interupt as it's only going to change a single pallette entry.

[Crazyace]

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.

 

... I found this as an example for the standard ST ( not STe ) - in my eyes it looks pretty good

 

That looks pretty good. Same Nrsima (half man/half lion) image I used in my A8 demo posted earlier in the thread.

 

This looks like more than 16 colors though...

 

Yes, it's a photochrome image - ( Around 400-500 colours on the ST ) , I posted it as I thought it would be a valid comparision. The zip file has the ST disk image with the picture and viewer.

[+wood_jl]

Well, it's not that simple and subjective. You can have vanilla from Breyers that used superior ingredients and is more expensive than some non-brand ice-cream that uses inferior ingredients to make the product cheaper. Now regardless of which one sells more, one can argue objectively which is the superior product.

 

And you can have Breyer's on the one hand - excellent quality stuff, or Haagen Daaz vanilla which is good, but has less of a "homemade" taste, yet compensates by *really* overloading with fat and sugar. Not that the Breyer's (or any) is health food, but "junk it up" to the point of Haagen Daaz and lots of people would think it was superior. Anybody for ice cream?

[kool kitty89]

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..

Badly chosen colors??? on the A8 ... huh?

 

Even ignoring the doubled shades of GTIA, CTIS has the same palette as TIA of the VCS which is a great palette for a lot of stuff, possibly the best up to the 5200 (for any GTIA stuff) or 7800 (with similarly large palette) as far as consoles go.

 

Even the base VCS palette has soem advantages over the ST's 9-bit RGB, with 8-shades for each of its 16 colors, opposed to only 7 shades with 9-bit RGB. (plus black, so for grays there are 8 shades) And those 7 shades (8 for gray) are only for the 6 basic colors (R,G,B,Y,C,M -again plus grays/B/W), with fewer shades available for additional colors. It's a trade off, there are plenty of examples where the added colors of 15-bit RGB are preferable, and others where the Atari palette is better. (moreso foe the 16-shade by 16 color GTIA palette -same for 7800 I think) It really depends on what you want to do.

In any case, even the TIA/CTIA palette contains all the colors/shades (or very close approximations) of most contemporary Computers/Consoles. (simple 3-bit RGB, the speccy's RGBI, CGA's modified RGBI, Vic-20, C64, various TM9918 based systems, 6-bit RGB, the CPC's 3-level RGB, and probably the NES/Famicom's palette)

 

 

Either atari was ahead of their time with TIA in 1977, or everone else was lagging behind for the following years.

[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.

 

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.

In a simple sense it's like ice cream..

For a non specific example.

You like choclate lets say.I don't like chocolate

I like Vanilla. You don't like vanilla.

Throw in a smidge of brand loyalty (hard to to since the brands changed sides or mixed).

There you have it.

Flame on, but in reality if it's good for you, then fine.Just don't try to convince me that mine sucks and yours is great.

 

Go like your chocolate, I'll stay with my Vanilla. They are both classics so enjoy.

 

But if you were on an icecream forum (I'm sure there are such things lol) and looking to find a nice vanilla icecream and someone was shouting about Raita vanilla icecream is the best because it has less ice crystals compared to all the others and you had no way of knowing if that was true and just believed it.....

 

I don't think at this or any point really (apart from some weird folk) anyone is trying to get the other people to change their minds about their affiliations. It tends to be (especially now some more knowledgeable folk have appeared) separating the wheat from the chaff as it were in the hope some people won't be blinded by technical babble.

 

 

 

Pete

Except it seems there were some who were not in the industry at the time (or even born for that matter) that would like to change things to suit their view. Technical or not being in the industry and running a service center gives a perspective that few if any in the public would have.

As for ice cream..(wouldnt be surprised to see such a forum) many having seen both flavors made a preference. not likely to change after all these years. Just enjoy your preference and that is all fine

[Crazyace]

Wikipedia has a really interesting pallette comparision here

 

Atari ST:

 

 

Atari VCS/8 bit

 

 

 

(edit) Actually, that's not really fair, as the ST image is quantised to 16 colours.

 

This one is representative of the 9 bit pallette:

 

Edited December 30, 2009 by Crazyace

[andym00]

Badly chosen colors??? on the A8 ... huh?

 

Calm down, I wasn't knocking the actual palette, though it is lacking in some regards like in reds, and over powering in greens, but there's nothing essentially wrong with it really..

What I should have made clearer was that I meant the colour choices made by the games given the trade-offs that have to be made on the hardware.. Just going by what I've seen, there's an awful lot of colour lacking games for a machine with such a versatile palette..

 

I do think that for the time is wasn't bad at all, but I'm sure there's some cheap reason why they went that route, and I'm sure it's half the reason the A8 got lumbered with essentially single colour players, when at the time everything else with hardware sprites (of >= 2 colours) had fairly restrictive palettes.. I'm not electro-wizard but something smells a bit with that, and it wasn't until quite later that the larger earlier palettes were available on the machines featuring hardware multicolour sprites.. Maybe I'm wrong on that, but I found myself thinking about that earlier today in connection with the A8s palette, and I'd never twigged before that the machines with multicolour hardware sprites generally all had fairly limited palettes at the time.. I'd love to know why, or if it was just coincidence..

 

7800 doesn't count though, because it's all rendered into a RAM buffer.. I mean in proper hardware sprites

 

As for them being ahead at the time with the TIA, hmm I dunno.. As I said before, something just wreaks of it being the cheapest solution, but it worked for what it was designed for

Edited December 30, 2009 by andym00

[Crazyace]

I think the Bally Astrocade was the only other machine with a big pallette ( 256 colours ) around that time.

[andym00]

I think the Bally Astrocade was the only other machine with a big pallette ( 256 colours ) around that time.

 

But that's only got a bitmap screen, no hardware sprites, but granted 4 colours from 256..

 

But it's the hardware sprites aspect I was curious about, and the relationship between palette sizes & multi-coloured hardware sprites, because there seems to be hardly any example of machines utilising multicoloured (2bits per pixel or higher) hardware sprites with the larger palettes directly in play in the early days.. Or maybe it's just coincidence

[atarian63]

Wikipedia has a really interesting pallette comparision here

 

Atari ST:

 

 

Atari VCS/8 bit

 

 

 

(edit) Actually, that's not really fair, as the ST image is quantised to 16 colours.

 

This one is representative of the 9 bit pallette:

 

Wow! That A8 version looks great, so does the 2nd ST pic but gotta say wow for good ol A8!

[Crazyace]

It'snot a real a8 picture - but a picture using all 128 colours from the pallette

[PeteD]

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.

In a simple sense it's like ice cream..

For a non specific example.

You like choclate lets say.I don't like chocolate

I like Vanilla. You don't like vanilla.

Throw in a smidge of brand loyalty (hard to to since the brands changed sides or mixed).

There you have it.

Flame on, but in reality if it's good for you, then fine.Just don't try to convince me that mine sucks and yours is great.

 

Go like your chocolate, I'll stay with my Vanilla. They are both classics so enjoy.

 

But if you were on an icecream forum (I'm sure there are such things lol) and looking to find a nice vanilla icecream and someone was shouting about Raita vanilla icecream is the best because it has less ice crystals compared to all the others and you had no way of knowing if that was true and just believed it.....

 

I don't think at this or any point really (apart from some weird folk) anyone is trying to get the other people to change their minds about their affiliations. It tends to be (especially now some more knowledgeable folk have appeared) separating the wheat from the chaff as it were in the hope some people won't be blinded by technical babble.

 

 

 

Pete

Except it seems there were some who were not in the industry at the time (or even born for that matter) that would like to change things to suit their view. Technical or not being in the industry and running a service center gives a perspective that few if any in the public would have.

As for ice cream..(wouldnt be surprised to see such a forum) many having seen both flavors made a preference. not likely to change after all these years. Just enjoy your preference and that is all fine

 

Couldn't agree more about the loudest person on this forum having no credentials what so ever as far as industry/real world experience goes

 

Icecream, you're not getting what I'm saying. Nobody expects to change anyone's mind but some of us do exepect blinkered people (the small minority who might not have a clue yet) to at least have a fair idea of wtf is going on in the world instead of (hopefully not) listening to zealots.

 

 

Pete

[Lazarus]

Wow! That A8 version looks great, so does the 2nd ST pic but gotta say wow for good ol A8!

That picture cannot be displayed by an A8. It uses the A8 palette but completely ignores all the limitations on color usage and resolution on the A8.

[atarian63]

Wow! That A8 version looks great, so does the 2nd ST pic but gotta say wow for good ol A8!

That picture cannot be displayed by an A8. It uses the A8 palette but completely ignores all the limitations on color usage and resolution on the A8.

none the less quite a lovely pallette and not exceeded till Amiga

[peteym5]

Certainly looks like we have another computer vs computer bashing thread here. Will it go 300+ pages just like the Atari vs Commodore thread or will it get locked well before that? Comparing these computers is unfair, like comparing the '57 Chevy to 2000 Corvette. Both of those computers were designed in 2 different times by different design people.

 

I maintain by the time the ST was coming onto the market, the IBM PC Compatible market started to dominate and was becoming an accepted standard. If something was not compatible with a x86 CPU with MS-DOS, its days were numbered. Once the PC had VGA graphics and x86 CPUs started going past 50mhz, the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga started to die, neither could keep up. The prices of building your own more powerful PC became less than a new ST or Amiga. Atari & Commodore also started to make PC clones but that was too little too late.

 

I also learned that there were issues with the 68000+ CPUs being made to run as fast as the '486 because of all the registers, architecture, etc. Even Apple eventually switched away from it with a new Risc Processor, then going an Intel processor. Guess they maintain backward compatibility with emulation built into the operating system.

[+wood_jl]

 

kool kitty89: all over the map

We need a supercat to get this kool kitty to get more focused and drop all this NES/TRS-80/Z-80/etc. crap.

 

I don't know, it seems interesting to include - for the sake of comparison - the NES/Megadrive-Genesis (etc) stuff in the technical discussion because they're somewhat of an analogue to the A8 and ST, graphically capable, and this discussion seems to center around A8/ST graphics and the limitations therein.

[Rybags]

I don't know what the problem was with the 68K... it had a much less "evolved" instruction set than the x86 - from the word go, most of the instructions you wanted/needed were in the 68000, and it grew into full 32-bit models with Virtual Memory support, cache and floating-point in a somewhat less painful way than x86.

 

The x86 on the other hand tacks on new instructions with each generation or two and just looks a mess.

 

Why the 68K didn't go further? Did anyone ever use the 68060 in the day? I think Apple effectively killed the 68K series by going RISC, although time proved that it did scale up well.

 

On the other hand, the x86 is like a fibro house. Every year or so, the redneck that owns it grabs some scrap building materials and adds on another room, and builds another outhouse.

 

If they were to scrap that architecture and start from scratch, you'd probably end up with a CPU that could clock 25% faster or more, and perform the same functions in half the silicon.

[+wood_jl]

Except it seems there were some who were not in the industry at the time (or even born for that matter) that would like to change things to suit their view. Technical or not being in the industry and running a service center gives a perspective that few if any in the public would have.

As for ice cream..(wouldnt be surprised to see such a forum) many having seen both flavors made a preference. not likely to change after all these years. Just enjoy your preference and that is all fine

 

Well, we should be fair to the young, too. If a younger person takes it upon themselves to get interested in these dinosaur computers, I applaud them for showing a genuine interest in the field. It may help to be born prior to - and live through - the era, but it's also possible that a younger person looking back would have a fresh perspective. I mean, I was just a casual user (still am) but I formed some pretty biased opinions back in the day, and it took a hell of a lot to get me to appreciate other makes. Perhaps a youngster is free of this burden. Alas, you didn't have to be alive during the Civil War to discuss it and form opinions, or have lived through the Pleistocene epoch to meaningfully understand and debate the ice age.

 

Before you think I'm talking about myself: I'm as old as most of you (I imagine), and I freely admit I know considerably less (on this subject) than most (all?) of you, but I sure enjoy reading your techno-babble. I do believe these threads - as lamented as they are by some- can be both entertaining and informative at the same time.

[Shawn Jefferson]

On the other hand, the x86 is like a fibro house. Every year or so, the redneck that owns it grabs some scrap building materials and adds on another room, and builds another outhouse.

 

If they were to scrap that architecture and start from scratch, you'd probably end up with a CPU that could clock 25% faster or more, and perform the same functions in half the silicon.

 

They gave the public what they wanted: backward compatibility. It was nice to be able to run your old favourite apps even when you upgraded to a new processor, and some people had a massive investment in software (even if the investment was just time and blank disks! )

 

Looking back it seems almost foolish to think that supporting a "rip and replace" model like Atari, Commodore and Apple did would be the way to succeed in the computer industry. Imagine a business with hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in software (some of it being in-house custom written, difficult to upgrade software) having to replace it all at the same time as the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of hardware too. It's pretty easy to see the appeal of backward compatibility.

[Lazarus]

Wow! That A8 version looks great, so does the 2nd ST pic but gotta say wow for good ol A8!

That picture cannot be displayed by an A8. It uses the A8 palette but completely ignores all the limitations on color usage and resolution on the A8.

none the less quite a lovely pallette and not exceeded till Amiga

The ST palette looks nicer than A8 too.

[atariksi]

On the other hand, the x86 is like a fibro house. Every year or so, the redneck that owns it grabs some scrap building materials and adds on another room, and builds another outhouse.

 

If they were to scrap that architecture and start from scratch, you'd probably end up with a CPU that could clock 25% faster or more, and perform the same functions in half the silicon.

 

They gave the public what they wanted: backward compatibility. It was nice to be able to run your old favourite apps even when you upgraded to a new processor, and some people had a massive investment in software (even if the investment was just time and blank disks! )

 

Looking back it seems almost foolish to think that supporting a "rip and replace" model like Atari, Commodore and Apple did would be the way to succeed in the computer industry. Imagine a business with hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in software (some of it being in-house custom written, difficult to upgrade software) having to replace it all at the same time as the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of hardware too. It's pretty easy to see the appeal of backward compatibility.

 

Atari 8-bit did have backward compatibility (moreso than PC) and Commodore and Apple did eventually start making their machines backward compatible; however, 6502/680x0 didn't evolve as rapidly as Intel processors. And AMD/Cyrix/etc. clones also helped promote 80x86 architecture to predominate the world. I think Rybags is right that Apple should have stuck with 680x0 architecture. And some of the processor upgrade features are a waste of silicon or mistakes like segmented architecture expansion on 80286, MMX crap and all the SSE crap. The MMX/SSE stuff was better left to video cards. And many other processor manufacturers didn't even replicate their features or couldn't because of copyrights and thus compatibility wasn't the issue with it. They can remove all the MMX/SSE crap and most people won't even notice and would in fact speed up processing as decoding crap won't be part of the pipeline.

[atariksi]

Wow! That A8 version looks great, so does the 2nd ST pic but gotta say wow for good ol A8!

That picture cannot be displayed by an A8. It uses the A8 palette but completely ignores all the limitations on color usage and resolution on the A8.

none the less quite a lovely pallette and not exceeded till Amiga

The ST palette looks nicer than A8 too.

 

You're wrong. That palette is only 128 colors (assuming all 128 are there) not 256.

And A8 can display 128 color images. It all depends on how the mapping works out. And resolution A8 supports is higher than that image which is only 150*200.

[atariksi]

Technically obviously the ST is more superior, but I way way way prefer the 8-bit.

 

The OP is right, the ST just doesn't feel the same as the 8-bit at all, it really doesn't seem as though they are related to each other.

...

Technically is what we are examining here how 8-bit has more hardware support than ST. Everything for the ST is 68000 instructions and video shifter. Whereas 8-bit has a lot more variety of hardware support.

 

The ST just kinda feels souless in comparison to the 8-bit, like it's more like a traditional bland computer.

...

Believe me, the ST definitely does not have a soul. And believe me all your 8-bit Boulderdash collection is safe from Atari ST. It will never match it in throughput regardless of what software algorithms people come up with.

 

When I was young, I was sucked in by the flashy graphics of the ST, and sold my 8-bit to get one (I had in mind that I'd buy another 8-bit when I was able to).

 

About a week later I totally regretted it, the games on the ST just weren't as fun as the games on the 8-bit, they weren't even the same. In fact to this day there's not really many games that I like on the ST.

Luckily, I realized the ST was inferior by reading a bunch of technical magazine articles at that time and also all of my digitized image library would be unportable to ST so I never upgraded to it. I recently got a few from Ebay though to check out the cycle-exact stuff.

[atariksi]

Well, it's not that simple and subjective. You can have vanilla from Breyers that used superior ingredients and is more expensive than some non-brand ice-cream that uses inferior ingredients to make the product cheaper. Now regardless of which one sells more, one can argue objectively which is the superior product.

 

And you can have Breyer's on the one hand - excellent quality stuff, or Haagen Daaz vanilla which is good, but has less of a "homemade" taste, yet compensates by *really* overloading with fat and sugar. Not that the Breyer's (or any) is health food, but "junk it up" to the point of Haagen Daaz and lots of people would think it was superior. Anybody for ice cream?

 

Breyers will outperform any other ice-cream in Shop-rite or PathMark in terms of health value. I mean come on, look at ingredients in the other brands like the artificial flavors, artificial coloring, and some even Egg yolk (usually disguised under a term that nobody knows like lecithin). Egg yolk is bad fat for the body.