Atari 8bit is superior to the ST

[atariksi]

You're doing Chewbacca defense. Either you admit the 16-gray image I posted on from A8 is inferior on ST or you accept that interlacing is allowed. You are maintaining a double standard. We're comparing which palette is superior so that's why it's relevant to compare whether A8 and ST would be better with A8 palette or ST palette. And stop with the crap about 128 colors. Palette on A8 is 256 and on ST is 512. If you can't understand this point, then the rest of the discussion about palettes is moot.

 

I'd never want to be accused of Chewbacca defense

 

So I'll admit I can't reproduce your 16 shade grayscale image on the ST exactly without interlacing or discolouration( as I said here )

 

The other way would be to false colour the pallette slightly - so the inbetween shades are slightly off hue.

RGB's {0,0,0},{0,1,0},{1,1,1},{1,2,1} .... {6,6,6},{6,7,6},{7,7,7} - or some other calibrated pallette.

There wont be an exact match, and your picture is slightly biased already as it's made for the resolution, rather than being converted from a true colour original.

 

Now please show me a 176x240x31 shade image - I'm actually just interested in seeing it.

 

I have no means of getting interlaced stuff of my A8 into BMP yet. I'm working on it. Here's one I posted previously that uses resolution enhancement to get 60Hz imagery at 160*240*16. I also added to it a new image: Kaliy411 and Kaliy565 that do 4:1:1 color space subsampling while retaining luminance at full resolution to prove my point that luminance is more significant even at 4:1 subsampling on each axes.

KALIYA.ZIP

[PeteD]

You're doing Chewbacca defense. Either you admit the 16-gray image I posted on from A8 is inferior on ST or you accept that interlacing is allowed. You are maintaining a double standard. We're comparing which palette is superior so that's why it's relevant to compare whether A8 and ST would be better with A8 palette or ST palette. And stop with the crap about 128 colors. Palette on A8 is 256 and on ST is 512. If you can't understand this point, then the rest of the discussion about palettes is moot.

 

I'd never want to be accused of Chewbacca defense

 

So I'll admit I can't reproduce your 16 shade grayscale image on the ST exactly without interlacing or discolouration( as I said here )

 

The other way would be to false colour the pallette slightly - so the inbetween shades are slightly off hue.

RGB's {0,0,0},{0,1,0},{1,1,1},{1,2,1} .... {6,6,6},{6,7,6},{7,7,7} - or some other calibrated pallette.

There wont be an exact match, and your picture is slightly biased already as it's made for the resolution, rather than being converted from a true colour original.

 

Now please show me a 176x240x31 shade image - I'm actually just interested in seeing it.

 

I have no means of getting interlaced stuff of my A8 into BMP yet. I'm working on it. Here's one I posted previously that uses resolution enhancement to get 60Hz imagery at 160*240*16. I also added to it a new image: Kaliy411 and Kaliy565 that do 4:1:1 color space subsampling while retaining luminance at full resolution to prove my point that luminance is more significant even at 4:1 subsampling on each axes.

 

Nice set of images. A shame seemingly only one of them has anything to do with the A8 or ST and that's not the one you've posted as the picture on this thread that supposedly proves some kind of point. lum/chrom isn't the argument here, that's you twisting the argument to get a "win" again. The argument is has the A8 got a better palette than the ST.

 

*edit*

Also a funny thought, despite nobody actually arguing that lum is more important (if there is a full spread of chroma), trying to prove it on a basically 95% lum only image is kind of cheating, no?

 

 

 

Pete

Edited January 3, 2010 by PeteD

[atariksi]

Is that through Photoshop? Don't trust it.

 

I've found that to get anything resembling decent conversion, you need to boost the saturation first.

 

It also has the annoying trait of remapping stuff to greys, and incorrectly assigning blues to colour 10, which is in fact green with a blue tint.

 

But, that said... the A8 has the strength of 8/16 luma levels, but the weakness of constant saturation level which penalises it when brighter colours are involved.

 

Yeah, photoshop seems to be using some linear distance formula or similar as I can manually choose better colors although the algorithm picks more gray-scale values. Anyway, A8 still has better palette even if some colors are wrongly picked. In many scenarios you can (1) dither the chroma given it's resolution can be lower (make up for missing colors), (2) many monitors/TVs already have differences of chroma and people live with it, (3) in applications like where lighting is involved, the colors are picked already so the luminance plays the bigger role anyways. So A8 wins in palette.

 

Chroma is easier to make up for (or left alone) than luminance. Only a mentally deranged lunatic or biased person would think otherwise.

[PeteD]

tum te tum, rinse and repeat.

 

Seems the argument is getting skewed to a non-contested truth about luma being more important to perception than chroma. Nobody has said otherwise (at least not that I've noticed), what has been said goes like this..

 

Lum can only change a colour that exists, not make new colours (you can't make red by changing the luminance of blue). The A8 palette is missing some base colours and no amount of fiddling with its luminance can fix that. The ST has a wider spread (and double overall) colours but to gain that wider spread it misses luma accuracy BUT unless you're doing an image that has shades and no colours the ST will match closer to the original one. And all of that is still ignoring the resolution/colours on screen restrictions.

 

 

Which is back on track to the "has the A8 got a better PALETTE than the ST".

 

 

Pete

[Crazyace]

I have no means of getting interlaced stuff of my A8 into BMP yet. I'm working on it. Here's one I posted previously that uses resolution enhancement to get 60Hz imagery at 160*240*16.

 

Your picture is pretty nice - How does it look on an A8? - It's not really 160x240x16 though - although you have done a really good job on the face.

 

Here's a version for normal ST , and a photochrome interlaced version to compare with. ( I cut out the middle 320x200 from the picture , as that shows most of the colour range )

[+wood_jl]

LATE 1979 (if you were one of the lucky first 100) due to production problems so really 1980-1982 was it's technical reign (although horrible overpriced for the entire range and by 1982 less compromised machines look a bargain)

 

Overpriced in comparison to what competition? Apple 2? Wasn't everything "overpriced" back then?

[+wood_jl]

I can't see any credit for Shiraz doing anything with the SID or VIC-II designs....the rest is basic computer design stuff, so unless the 2 geniuses who were responsible for VIC-II or SID went with Jack (and they didn't) then doesn't mean anything

 

Think he worked on TED based machines or VIC-20..both not exactly custom chip rich

The only Shiraz reference towards C64 is the interview where he was claimed to be "the father of the C64" by Tramiel. I think Tramiel only said that to make atleast some C64 people buy the ST.

 

What, then, did he do with the ST? It would seem he was little more than a janitor at C=, by this conversation.

[Crazyace]

His Linkedin page says he was 'Director of R&D' at Commodore - so that's probably a little more than a janitor

[PeteD]

His Linkedin page says he was 'Director of R&D' at Commodore - so that's probably a little more than a janitor

 

Recycling & Dusting

 

 

Pete

[JamesD]

atariksi, save the insults and innuendos. Prove your argument.

...

I PROVED you can't read! It wasn't an insult. I specifically wrote A8s with 128K+ RAM or big secondary storage and you went and claimed it doesn't have memory and other inapplicable trash.

Wow... you proved I can't read? I must be understanding this telepathically.

And how do you explain "Once you start doing layers and trutype fonts and photos the memory drops by the wayside *hundreds* of K at a time."

I was saying that 128K+ is an understatement. 128K+ doesn't exactly = hundreds of K at a time.

What you basically expect me to accept is that "128K+" Atari means an endless amount of memory to do the job?

The new 8 Bit Atari Infinityum!!!!! (It puts the yum in the Atari 8 bit!)

 

Exactly how many registers for paging memory are we going to limit this too. I want to know because you start spending more time and memory paging memory than actually doing anything else at some point. For crying out loud, just how long is it going to take just to calculate all the pointers?

 

And that was a typical personal attack on your part just like almost all of your posts contain. If this were a different forum the mods would be giving you a warning or suspending your account on a regular basis. Try sticking to the facts for a change.

 

You didn't prove it could be done and I did read it.

You wanted to drag the discussion into never going to happen hypothetically true land that doesn't exist.

And I'm calling BS.

If you start looking at what is required to do this the amount of speed and RAM required is going to be absurd. And that doesn't even begin to address how impossible the code would be to write and follow.

 

If your argument has merit you don't need to insult me, just put forth evidence.

what if you don't see the argument/proof or my point.

You still haven't provided any proof and your entire message is built around attacking me rather than providing one shred of proof to back it up.

At least not where you are replying to what I actually said instead of who knows what.

You just said do this this and this and you can do it. That is your entire argument. Just do this.

 

I can say you can move a planet if you just change the gravitational constant of the universe but it doesn't make it so.

An "anything is possible" argument doesn't quite jibe with the real world.

 

Talk is cheap. Until you can PROVE your point then a person cannot honestly say the Atari 8 bit is better than the ST at everything which was the entire point of my original post. Post #1086.

I was referring to the original poll where a lot of people claimed the Atari 8 bit was better than the ST at everything.

At this moment in time the ST is superior to the 8 bit at desktop publishing. No hypothetical BS about "it could do it".

...

I was complaining regarding your statement "it can't be done on 8-bit." I don't need to go and do it to prove it to you-- I can give algorithm or logical explanation. Perhaps, if there was enough demand today for A8 someone may have done it. DTP wasn't that popular during 8-bit era. No, I didn't claim 8-bit is superior at everything, but you replied to me. And I don't speculate on why others may have claimed as such since who knows-- perhaps they had high resolution/80 column hardware for A8 or other expansions which I don't have.

Sure I replied to you, but that was a reply to me and the original post was about the poll and the ST could do desktop publishing and the 8 bit can't.

 

edit> actually, originally it was about the Atari 8 bit being superior in all ways and I said it wasn't. I didn't say can't do it but lets go there.

 

You were trying to introduce one of these anything is possible type of arguments and I'm saying prove it.

 

You can give small algorithms and talk but the real challenge of putting it all into one application is another matter.

I know you can do a little demo here or there and say "look, we can do it too". It's another matter when you have to start putting it all together into one really big program that does everything, where you are out of page zero registers, out of stack space, have to dynamically allocate large amounts of RAM across lots of memory pages, you have to manipulate and display all of the data from within those RAM pages and everything stretches across those pages, and you don't know where any of the data is until you load it, etc...

All the speed from unrolling loops that is useful in demos is gone or your program dwarfs the original 68000 version for the ST which needed a large amount of RAM to run on the ST. You are not just paging when you want like in a demo, you are constantly paging for any data access and you have operations that exceed a memory page in size, so you have to jump from page to page.

The size of your code is going to explode and be so slow, there's no way you could manipulate the stuff on screen in response to a user.

How are you going to do desktop publishing on an application that can't possibly interact with the user?

You can't.

 

You couldn't do desktop publishing on the 8 bit in the past, you cant do it now, and frankly... nobody willing to write it means you won't even be able to do it in the future no matter what you argue. Can't can't can't can't can't

 

If you want me to say it's possible from a "super theoretical any number of man hours program" run on a "we can rebuild a machine that isn't even an Atari anymore and reality is totally thrown by the wayside computer", then I think you need your head examined because we both now it's never going to happen. Maybe if we involve one of those alternate 'what if' timelines where anything is possible because the entire history of the planet is different, otherwise I say no.

 

What exactly was the 8 bit era anyway? Many 8 bits were produced until the 90s.

Desktop publishing was certainly being done then and trying to exclude the time of the ST, which is the very machine you are comparing against, is absurd as that would exclude the ST itself.

 

You are trying to reintroduce the "but that's too late" crap from the Atari vs C64 topic.

There is no definition as to exactly what the 8-bit era was (feel free to find an exact definition and post a link, putting it on Wiki and then posting it doesn't count) and there is no mention of it in the original poll or my posts.

You are trying to introduce something that wasn't in my original argument, not in my reply and certainly not in the poll.

 

DTP was certainly being done on the ST and the 8 bit was still being produced at that time.

And frankly, DTP was even being done years before the ST but on large expensive machines only publishers could afford.

So how the hell does the 8-bit era have anything to do with it?

On top of all that, you want to expand the 8 bit with things that weren't being done in your "8-bit era" to accomplish this and the two arguments don't even go together.

 

If you want to prove me wrong, provide a desktop publisher that can come anywhere close to Calamus on the 8 bit.

I don't care if it has already been written or if you write it.

And remember... my original argument was over "better".

Even if you can write it on the 8 bit I don't think you can ever accomplish "better" no matter what you do.

...

So do you admit that it CAN be done on 8-bit?

I was emphasizing the point and you tried to take the discussion out of context.

"if you could" How is "if" equal to "is" all of a sudden?

 

Just so you have an idea what you are up against... vector drawing, scalable postscript fonts drawn in outline/filled/color/grayscale/no jaggies/printable at any angle, Pantone color, import large graphics files, scale & rotate pictures, print in postscript, multiple layers, and that's just for starters.

It was just about as good as anything you'd have today, and in fact it's still available for the PC to this day.

If you read this review you'll see some people even think the current version is better that Adobe or Quark.

The same was even more true back on the ST. It was probably the best thing out there.

Stick to ST's capability at the time not today's.

So, you want me to stick to the ST's capabilities back in the day but you want to use POSSIBLE capabilities of the 8 bit today?

 

The ST program had all the features I listed back in the day. The article was to demonstrate just how good the software was and if you bothered to read my post you would see the words "The same was even more true back on the ST. It was probably the best thing out there."

I wasn't just talking about the current program.

No need for IIgs? Well, its the only machine you could get with a fast 65816, high res graphics with a large color palette, support for hard drives (no slow serial interface), and with large memory expansions we can compare to. If someone has a comparable Atari 8 bit, feel free to use it to prove your point. If you can't do it on the IIgs I don't see how you could possibly do it better on an Atari 8 bit, but that's just my opinion.

...

So, now it's just your opinion (fanboyism I would say). But you claimed it's REALITY just a few posts ago. You list a couple of applications that are better at higher resolution and you think IIGS (or ST) has surpassed the A8 in everything. Sorry, I don't follow that type of corrupt logic. And again, learn to read. A8 had hard drives that used PBI (not serial interface) and hard drives and memory expansions. I would give you the slightly faster processor and larger palette. But if I follow your logic, all I have to do is list a few pieces of software that are inferior on IIGS and A8 would win right? How about, Pole Position, Boulder Dash, Joust, etc. I bet IIGS will have more of problem than ST with its lack of sprites, hardware scrolling, DLs, et,

Again, twisting my words to suit your argument. You took the last sentence out of the paragraph and tried to change the intended meaning.

Read the entire context. It wasn't about games at all or the IIgs being better than the Atari, it was about desktop publishing. The IIgs is the only 6502ish system that had (has) the hardware that could approach doing this that could be used as a basis for comparison against the ST. I even listed the hardware needed in the post. Not one time did I mention games or say the IIgs was better. I said "I don't see how you could possibly do it better on an Atari 8 bit" which is not the same thing.

If you make all kinds of upgrades (as you suggest) to the Atari 8 bit you really aren't going to be able to do any better than with the IIgs when it comes to desktop publishing. Read my reply and the original post and it's obvious that's what I'm talking about.

 

Sprites and games have nothing to do with desktop publishing.

You are trying to make this a IIgs vs 8 bit argument when it's about desktop publishing on the 8 bit vs ST in reference to the poll.

 

Not only that, I said the Atari 8 bit wasn't superior at everything in reference to the poll and gave examples to support that.

It was clear that anyone voting for #1 in the poll is wrong. I stopped short of using the word fanboy.

 

*YOU* claim I said "has surpassed the A8 in everything".

Nowhere in my posts does it say anything of the kind and I didn't even vote that way.

You are using a straw man argument and it doesn't even relate to the topic.

 

And yet you accuse *me* of not being able to read.

 

I wouldn't even want to attempt it on the Atari 8 bit. I think you'd use more RAM than the 65816 could address for something of any size plus the program. I also said you could probably do simple CAD stuff on the 8 bit. As a matter of fact, there were some simple house planner CAD programs for the Apple so I think I can safely say I'm sure of it. I still wouldn't want to do anything complex.

 

Okay, so your CAD is also pretty bad on Apple. Oh, you don't need linearily addressed RAM in order to process stuff more than the memory addressability. There's something tiling, page swapping, and other means.

To quote my post... "I also said you could probably do simple CAD stuff on the 8 bit. As a matter of fact, there were some simple house planner CAD programs for the Apple so I think I can safely say I'm sure of it."

I just said I'm sure you could do simple CAD stuff on the Atari because it's being done on the Apple II.

The II didn't have linearly addressed RAM either.

What the hell are you replying to anyway?

You seem to be replying to something completely different.

Edited January 4, 2010 by JamesD

[atariksi]

I PROVED you can't read! It wasn't an insult. I specifically wrote A8s with 128K+ RAM or big secondary storage and you went and claimed it doesn't have memory and other inapplicable trash.

Wow... you proved I can't read? I must be understanding this telepathically.

That would save me the time to reply if you could do that. But that feature also does not exist in you.

 

And how do you explain "Once you start doing layers and trutype fonts and photos the memory drops by the wayside *hundreds* of K at a time."

I was saying that 128K+ is an understatement. 128K+ doesn't exactly = hundreds of K at a time.

What you basically expect me to accept is that "128K+" Atari means an endless amount of memory to do the job?

The new 8 Bit Atari Infinityum!!!!! (It puts the yum in the Atari 8 bit!)

 

Exactly how many registers for paging memory are we going to limit this too. I want to know because you start spending more time and memory paging memory than actually doing anything else at some point. For crying out loud, just how long is it going to take just to calculate all the pointers?

...

You can have simplistic implementation of DTP with a 128K machine and go up from there. There were 1MB expansions available that I saw advertised (for A800). 256K was pretty common on 800XLs. You had the ram drive expansions on the PBI port as well as hard drives. Paging to a RAM drive is much faster than a hard drive.

 

And that was a typical personal attack on your part just like almost all of your posts contain. If this were a different forum the mods would be giving you a warning or suspending your account on a regular basis. Try sticking to the facts for a change.

...

Huh. You didn't address the fact that 128K+ machines or large secondary storage was available until this message so I had to conclude you can't read. You kept babbling on about not having enough memory. Stop the false accusation crap.

 

You didn't prove it could be done and I did read it.

You wanted to drag the discussion into never going to happen hypothetically true land that doesn't exist.

And I'm calling BS.

If you start looking at what is required to do this the amount of speed and RAM required is going to be absurd. And that doesn't even begin to address how impossible the code would be to write and follow.

...

You're not making any sense. Even STs at the time had 512K and most were without hard drives (same for IIGS which had less standard RAM).

 

You still haven't provided any proof and your entire message is built around attacking me rather than providing one shred of proof to back it up.

At least not where you are replying to what I actually said instead of who knows what.

You just said do this this and this and you can do it. That is your entire argument. Just do this.

 

I can say you can move a planet if you just change the gravitational constant of the universe but it doesn't make it so.

An "anything is possible" argument doesn't quite jibe with the real world.

...

Hello, you can write any application on A8 if you had the memory. I didn't say anything impossible. You can page the memory to a RAM drive if there's not enough standard memory. There's enough to have a scrolling 640*400 display in memory for the preview (probably can get away with less).

 

Sure I replied to you, but that was a reply to me and the original post was about the poll and the ST could do desktop publishing and the 8 bit can't.

 

edit> actually, originally it was about the Atari 8 bit being superior in all ways and I said it wasn't. I didn't say can't do it but lets go there.

...

I mainly addressed your point that it can't do it. It can do it.

 

I know you can do a little demo here or there and say "look, we can do it too". It's another matter when you have to start putting it all together into one really big program that does everything, where you are out of page zero registers, out of stack space, have to dynamically allocate large amounts of RAM across lots of memory pages, you have to manipulate and display all of the data from within those RAM pages and everything stretches across those pages, and you don't know where any of the data is until you load it, etc...

If you're familiar with DOS, they had similar problems of not having enough RAM and they used OVL files; so as long as you have some system of memory management, you can do it. Displaying stuff is no problem.

 

...

The size of your code is going to explode and be so slow, there's no way you could manipulate the stuff on screen in response to a user.

How are you going to do desktop publishing on an application that can't possibly interact with the user?

You can't.

 

You couldn't do desktop publishing on the 8 bit in the past, you cant do it now, and frankly... nobody willing to write it means you won't even be able to do it in the future no matter what you argue. Can't can't can't can't can't

...

That's your speculation that user interaction would slow down. You can implement a GlobalLock() on some memory that's more used and page in/out some area of memory. I do it right now in my application that loads code from joystick ports as needed.

 

...

What exactly was the 8 bit era anyway? Many 8 bits were produced until the 90s.

Desktop publishing was certainly being done then and trying to exclude the time of the ST, which is the very machine you are comparing against, is absurd as that would exclude the ST itself.

...

I said it specifically-- by the time ST was introduced the RAM expansions and hard drives for A8 were available. 8-bit Era is before they started marketing 16-bit machines. Most companies were all pretty much around 1984-1985.

 

You are trying to reintroduce the "but that's too late" crap from the Atari vs C64 topic.

...

No, if you want to compare just 8-bit Era, neither IIGS nor ST would be included. But in this thread we are comparing with 16-bit machines although development and research for A8 had stopped.

 

There is no definition as to exactly what the 8-bit era was (feel free to find an exact definition and post a link, putting it on Wiki and then posting it doesn't count) and there is no mention of it in the original poll or my posts.

You are trying to introduce something that wasn't in my original argument, not in my reply and certainly not in the poll.

...

As I said, compare anything you want in this thread but topic is ST vs. A8. ST was before IIGS. If you were comparing best machine of 8-bit era, IIGS/ST/Amiga would be unfair since the companies stopped making 8-bit machines. Even Apple was busy marketing Mac rather than IIGS. As I said in other thread, IIGS was just like when the baseball game is over with you striking out with bases loaded and later you go home in your backyard and hit a few grandslams with no professionals to compete with.

 

DTP was certainly being done on the ST and the 8 bit was still being produced at that time.

And frankly, DTP was even being done years before the ST but on large expensive machines only publishers could afford.

So how the hell does the 8-bit era have anything to do with it?

On top of all that, you want to expand the 8 bit with things that weren't being done in your "8-bit era" to accomplish this and the two arguments don't even go together.

...

Wrong, I stated expansions that WERE available in 8-bit era, but I was more interested in making the statement that by the time ST was introduced. Another words, the option was there. And you can be producing 8-bit machines and yet not be doing any research/development on them.

 

I was emphasizing the point and you tried to take the discussion out of context.

"if you could" How is "if" equal to "is" all of a sudden?

Okay, so then I disagree with you. I claim you can do DTP on A8 as described above and before and in 8-bit Era as well and by time St was introduced.

 

So, you want me to stick to the ST's capabilities back in the day but you want to use POSSIBLE capabilities of the 8 bit today?

Wrong, I didn't use any 8-bit capability not available in 8-bit Era.

 

The ST program had all the features I listed back in the day. The article was to demonstrate just how good the software was and if you bothered to read my post you would see the words "The same was even more true back on the ST. It was probably the best thing out there."

I wasn't just talking about the current program.

And my point is if ST w/512K can do it, so can an 8-bit at the time using RAM expansions/hard drive.

 

So, now it's just your opinion (fanboyism I would say). But you claimed it's REALITY just a few posts ago. You list a couple of applications that are better at higher resolution and you think IIGS (or ST) has surpassed the A8 in everything. Sorry, I don't follow that type of corrupt logic. And again, learn to read. A8 had hard drives that used PBI (not serial interface) and hard drives and memory expansions. I would give you the slightly faster processor and larger palette. But if I follow your logic, all I have to do is list a few pieces of software that are inferior on IIGS and A8 would win right? How about, Pole Position, Boulder Dash, Joust, etc. I bet IIGS will have more of problem than ST with its lack of sprites, hardware scrolling, DLs, et,

Again, twisting my words to suit your argument. You took the last sentence out of the paragraph and tried to change the intended meaning.

Read the entire context. It wasn't about games at all or the IIgs being better than the Atari, it was about desktop publishing. The IIgs is the only 6502ish system that had (has) the hardware that could approach doing this that could be used as a basis for comparison against the ST. I even listed the hardware needed in the post. Not one time did I mention games or say the IIgs was better. I said "I don't see how you could possibly do it better on an Atari 8 bit" which is not the same thing.

If you make all kinds of upgrades (as you suggest) to the Atari 8 bit you really aren't going to be able to do any better than with the IIgs when it comes to desktop publishing. Read my reply and the original post and it's obvious that's what I'm talking about.

...

I didn't twist anything. You expressed your opinion and in another post claimed you are stipulating reality. If IIGS can do it, so can A8. In fact, I claim if ST can do it so can A8 and at that time. As far as I know IIGS/ST owners also had to add hard drives and other expansions.

 

I couldn't complete the reply since I got a warning message that I have exceeded the quotes...

[+wood_jl]

If you want me to say it's possible from a "super theoretical any number of man hours program" run on a "we can rebuild a machine that isn't even an Atari anymore and reality is totally thrown by the wayside computer", then I think you need your head examined because we both now it's never going to happen. Maybe if we involve one of those alternate 'what if' timelines where anything is possible because the entire history of the planet is different, otherwise I say no.

 

If you look again at Back to the Future Part II, in the scene where Doc Brown and Marty return (from 1955) to the alternate 1985 (where Bif rules the world) - I think you can see an Atari 8-bit doing serious DTP in the background of Doc Brown's lab. Jim Morrison and Elvis are smoking doobies right next to it. It's in a dark corner of the lab, so you have to look very carefully. I think it's the plans for the Flux Capacitor on-screen. :)

[atariksi]

I have no means of getting interlaced stuff of my A8 into BMP yet. I'm working on it. Here's one I posted previously that uses resolution enhancement to get 60Hz imagery at 160*240*16.

 

Your picture is pretty nice - How does it look on an A8? - It's not really 160x240x16 though - although you have done a really good job on the face.

 

Here's a version for normal ST , and a photochrome interlaced version to compare with. ( I cut out the middle 320x200 from the picture , as that shows most of the colour range )

 

It is 160*240*16 but it's pixel replicated to 320 width so all the images have same width. There's not interlaced stuff there. The new images are Kaily565.bmp and Kaliy411.bmp; the former is 16-bit RGB (5-6-5) image and the latter is my own YRGB space image compression I used in my multimedia Gita CD. It subsamples 4:1 the RGB in each axes and save the luminance for each pixel. It saves a 5-6-5 RGB for each 4*4 and then reconstructs image using only Y and one RGB in each 4*4. You effectively get 256/96 compression ratio without doing any complex Fourier transforms and the image looks just like original. You can also do a delta-modulation (lossless) with Huffman (lossless) on top for another 2:1 or 3:1 compression.

[dwhyte]

Wow... Do I ever despise people who continue to argue after losing their side of the battle and desperately grasp at tangents to try and make themselves feel better about the fact; it just makes them look infantile and foolish.

 

Anyway, continue on with this constructive, enlightening debate.

[kool kitty89]

Speaking of Microsoft, Windows 7 breaks a lot of emulators....even simple things like the the 'File'...'Open' menu is gone when you run them, what were those idiots at Microsoft thinking! I wouldn't mind but Winblowz 7 is a mildly breathed on version of Vista...not some second coming of super efficient kernal OS they claimed it would be. Nobody liked their stupid Office 2007 interface, they bought it because Office 2003 was withdrawn, so why the hell did they think an OS based on the same cheap and nasty GUI setup would be a good idea on the same klunky Kernal of Vista is beyond me. Talk about worst of both worlds...Windows 7 is the core of Vista (so XP blows it out of the water still) AND the tacky graphics of Windows ME (which nobody bought anyway let alone liked). Marketing....what would dumb idiots with money to burn do without that reassuring marketing bollox whilst making unnecessary purchases eh?

 

Agreed. I tried Win7 breifly. Seemed just like Vista to me. I used it for about a week, then GHOSTed back to XP. I couldn't really tell, but it seemed to start up a little faster than Vista, and it *may* have been a little faster than Vista in general use, but no big advantage over Vista. ABSOLUTELY no advantage over XP. Half of my stuff (various software, my scanner, etc) didn't work with it....but may not work with Vista either. That's crap. They could have made it use the XP drivers for everything, or they could have created a "driver interpreter" that reads your old driver and creates a new one, if things have changed. At least it can be dual-boot with Linux. Now I'm sorry I didn't try the emulators, but I was in a hurry to get rid of it.

Vista 32-bit (not sure about 7-32) is compatible with everything XP is natively, the only contention I've had is patches that don't work properly in Vista compared to XP, with the exception of fewer DOS programs working natively. (for old win9x stuff and such) 64-bit is another issue alltogether -not sure about XP-64. (dos shell programms apparently being dropped entirely, opposed to a few that still work in Vista-32, again a few less than XP-32)

 

If I put the letter "O" on the Atari in Gr.0 text mode and then view the same in a 800*600 VGA using a 640*400 window (so it's 2X in each direction), the "O" looks blockier than on a real composite monitor or TV.

Yep, sharp rather than blurry artifacting from composite video. (outside of an absolutely excellent comb filter or numa only display, even then there's the dot pitch limitation)

 

That is an advantage - but I think the way forward was to move away from NTSC style encodings - RGB ( even though it only have 8 bits per channel on the ST ) is a better general colour encoding system than the older atari scheme.

The ST uses a 9-bit RGB palette, right, with 3-bits per channel, not 8-bits which would be 24-bit RGB? (unless I'm misunderstanding your statement)

 

 

Whsat next...A8 vs the msx, A8 vs the zx 81, or what about A8 vs the Altair 8080

 

A8 vs MSX would probably be a rerun of the 5200 vs Colecovision threads

The difference being the later models, with MSX 2, 2+ and such. Edited January 4, 2010 by kool kitty89

[atariksi]

Wow... Do I ever despise people who continue to argue after losing their side of the battle and desperately grasp at tangents to try and make themselves feel better about the fact; it just makes them look infantile and foolish.

 

Anyway, continue on with this constructive, enlightening debate.

 

I don't know who you are taking to but you are DEAD WRONG if you think anyone here has shown that A8 palette is inferior to ST palette. If you can't understand the technical side of things, you should keep your mouth shut. Of all the thousands of images I have worked with, luminance always wins out and humans are more tolerant to errors in chroma. In fact, until I recently got a different TV, I didn't even see that the colors were so much in error by default. You nor anyone else blurting out their opinions doesn't change anything.

[kool kitty89]

In Europe...as a home machine....PC was nowhere in the DOS days....not until early 90s was it an acceptable choice (the time games were becoming VGA (ie NOT pathetic worse than C64 palette of EGA)

I'd say 6-bit RGB has definite advantages over the C64's palette, not universal of course -just as the 8-bit vs ST's palette... (the CGA/EGA/VGA default 16-color palettes are a separate issue)

 

There were yanks who got an official IBM PC for their wife and kids @ home sure (just check out something like Computer Gaming World magazine from those early days...most games were PC/C64/AppleII)

 

Asia...no idea....Australia no idea again.

In Asia there's MSX and a few other 8-bit computers which were popular (like Fujitsu's FM-7 and NEC's PC8801), then there were a few late 80s machines that didn't gain interest outside of Japan, like the Sharp X68000 and Fujitsu FM Towns.

 

LATE 1979 (if you were one of the lucky first 100) due to production problems so really 1980-1982 was it's technical reign (although horrible overpriced for the entire range and by 1982 less compromised machines look a bargain)

 

Overpriced in comparison to what competition? Apple 2? Wasn't everything "overpriced" back then?

There were more affordable home computers from the late 70s onward, not necessarily directly comperable though, but starting with the TRS-80, you've got something a LOT cheaper than an Apple II, I beleive the PET was also a good deal cheaper than the Apple II, later there's the CoCo, and finally VIC-20 and Ti-99/4 in the market. (the 99/4 being the only one on the list to have sprites and only one other than VIC to have an actual sound chip)

[atariksi]

This is completion of my reply to JamesD:

 

...

Sprites and games have nothing to do with desktop publishing.

You are trying to make this a IIgs vs 8 bit argument when it's about desktop publishing on the 8 bit vs ST in reference to the poll.

 

Not only that, I said the Atari 8 bit wasn't superior at everything in reference to the poll and gave examples to support that.

It was clear that anyone voting for #1 in the poll is wrong. I stopped short of using the word fanboy.

 

*YOU* claim I said "has surpassed the A8 in everything".

Nowhere in my posts does it say anything of the kind and I didn't even vote that way.

You are using a straw man argument and it doesn't even relate to the topic.

 

And yet you accuse *me* of not being able to read.

...

I don't really care how one votes, but it's possible that someone can vote A8 has surpassed St in everything and be right. I know a lot of people when I was building science projects who had all sorts of hardware installed in their A8 machines including one he was using to control a Robot. Obviously, he's not going to pick the ST which is lacking hardware support in most areas where A8 isn't. I don't think anyone made a sprite hardware upgrade for ST. And as far as your "straw-man" stuff, I interpreted your constant discussion about DTP to mean that you take that as some form of ultimate test. I don't. I never use DTP even today, but I do claim it's doable on A8.

 

To quote my post... "I also said you could probably do simple CAD stuff on the 8 bit. As a matter of fact, there were some simple house planner CAD programs for the Apple so I think I can safely say I'm sure of it."

I just said I'm sure you could do simple CAD stuff on the Atari because it's being done on the Apple II.

The II didn't have linearly addressed RAM either.

What the hell are you replying to anyway?

You seem to be replying to something completely different.

 

If you agree A8 can do some simple CAD stuff, fine. Then we agree. If you don't know what I'm replying to then you shouldn't be refuting.

[dwhyte]

Wow... Do I ever despise people who continue to argue after losing their side of the battle and desperately grasp at tangents to try and make themselves feel better about the fact; it just makes them look infantile and foolish.

 

Anyway, continue on with this constructive, enlightening debate.

 

I don't know who you are taking to but you are DEAD WRONG if you think anyone here has shown that A8 palette is inferior to ST palette. If you can't understand the technical side of things, you should keep your mouth shut. Of all the thousands of images I have worked with, luminance always wins out and humans are more tolerant to errors in chroma. In fact, until I recently got a different TV, I didn't even see that the colors were so much in error by default. You nor anyone else blurting out their opinions doesn't change anything.

 

Okay... First thing's first: Just how did you infer what and who I was referring to? Your stunning intellect?

 

Now you're trying to antagonize me, assuming to know exactly what and who I was talking about. Successful troll wasn't successful.

 

A few words of advice: Don't start with me. You're not speaking to a novice. Understand?

 

p.s. I honestly couldn't care less how many images you've purportedly worked on.

Edited January 4, 2010 by dwhyte

[carmel_andrews]

Atari 8bit vs ST....

 

To Quote the 'fabled' Jaguar advert ....Do the math

 

 

Atari 800/xl/xe...6502©...8bit i believe

 

Atari ST/e etc....68000....16bit i believe (but with ideas above it's station)

 

 

Anyone fancy comparing an ordinary incandescent light bulb with an energy saving equivalent and tell me which one is better?

[Crazyace]

That is an advantage - but I think the way forward was to move away from NTSC style encodings - RGB ( even though it only have 8 bits per channel on the ST ) is a better general colour encoding system than the older atari scheme.

The ST uses a 9-bit RGB palette, right, with 3-bits per channel, not 8-bits which would be 24-bit RGB? (unless I'm misunderstanding your statement)

 

Sorry, slip of the keyboard - I meant to say 8 levels, which is 3 bits per channel. Thanks for pointing that out.

[FastRobPlus]

Atari 8bit vs ST....

 

To Quote the 'fabled' Jaguar advert ....Do the math

 

 

Atari 800/xl/xe...6502©...8bit i believe

 

Atari ST/e etc....68000....16bit i believe (but with ideas above it's station)

 

 

Anyone fancy comparing an ordinary incandescent light bulb with an energy saving equivalent and tell me which one is better?

 

Was that the whole point of this pointless thread? To figure out which had more bits?

 

Man... I should have chimed in earlier...

[Crazyace]

It is 160*240*16 but it's pixel replicated to 320 width so all the images have same width.

Lot's of that picture seems to be 80 pixels replicated to 320 - only small sections look like 160 , which is why I'm not classing it as 160*240*16.

There's not interlaced stuff there. The new images are Kaily565.bmp and Kaliy411.bmp

These aren't actually A8 images though, so they're not actually relevant in any way to the topic.

[oky2000]

I can't see any credit for Shiraz doing anything with the SID or VIC-II designs....the rest is basic computer design stuff, so unless the 2 geniuses who were responsible for VIC-II or SID went with Jack (and they didn't) then doesn't mean anything

 

Think he worked on TED based machines or VIC-20..both not exactly custom chip rich

The only Shiraz reference towards C64 is the interview where he was claimed to be "the father of the C64" by Tramiel. I think Tramiel only said that to make atleast some C64 people buy the ST.

 

What, then, did he do with the ST? It would seem he was little more than a janitor at C=, by this conversation.

 

Well like I said he may have overseen the VIC20 project (PET was finished already by Chuck Peddle and nothing technical with the C64 either so just leaves the VIC20).

[oky2000]

LATE 1979 (if you were one of the lucky first 100) due to production problems so really 1980-1982 was it's technical reign (although horrible overpriced for the entire range and by 1982 less compromised machines look a bargain)

 

Overpriced in comparison to what competition? Apple 2? Wasn't everything "overpriced" back then?

 

A 48k Atari 800 in 1982 was something like 700-800 in the UK....compared to 325-350 for a C64 on launch month(looking at adverts from Computer and Video Games from 1982) and down to 299 by xmas due to huge volumes being sold by some companies. There were plenty of machines with sprites and half decent sound for half the price or less than a 48k A800 in the UK. Not saying these other machines were better, but they weren't 450 pounds worse! It was pretty much the 400 left to battle it out, and with that horrible keyboard and only 16k of RAM it was a train wreck waiting to happen for Warner.

 

Apple 2 wasn't bought by people in the EU, we don't waste our money on 8086 CGA PCs or Apple II machines for home computing, and anyway there were 100% Apple II compatible units for about 500 pounds too in the UK for 48k models In fact the PET probably sold better than a mono PC here, people loved them and even paid a premium to get one quicker!

 

Also Tramiel didn't make the same mistakes in pricing/cost of production with the ST compared to Warner owned Atari and A8 exorbitantly expensive chipset that's for sure. I'm sure however had MOS stayed with Jack not Commodore the ST would be a very very different machine...but without MOS engineers paid a salary to create exotic state of the art custom silicon in house and make at cost price he was pretty screwed. Secretly I think Jack was trying to replicate the PET not a C64 to be honest, it really is more of a serious machine than a games machine if you ignore the 512 colour palette. Sound is basic bare minimum, as is any kind of support for 2D arcade games, and yet it has just about every interface a PC had and then some and a fantastic mono 70hz 32khz hi res bespoke screen mode too. If anything the name Atari inferred gaming NOT the motherboard design or original spec sheet I suspect, this is probably the difference between the A8 and ST. One was designed as a games machine from a gaming company, the other was designed as an advanced powerful home computer with a potential for some gaming (using raw CPU grunt, as Enchanted Land proves quite clearly is possible 100% in software for 8 way 3 layer triple playfield mode arcade gaming with DLi type palette switching and scrolling to boot).

 

This is the key difference between the two machines, what they do in reality however is never always what the designers planned them to do.

 

Business is not about going over the top with specs, it is about producing the machine with the least in total and most agreeable compromises for a given price, and on price performance compared to it's rivals the ST in 1985/86 was superior to just about anything in 75% of situations compared to Amiga/PC-XT/Mac. In fact unless you really really needed to genlock or animate/draw/digitise graphics for professional purposes you really didn't need an Amiga...it was a luxury purchase of the heart otherwise. Games to really use the Amiga chipset are also quite rare....even many Cinemaware games didn't kill the system and workbench is still humming along underneath and the game launched via standard desktop just like a Windows 95 game. All they did was disable* multitasking generally.