Why is the ST never mentioned in documentaries?

[Keatah]

I wish I knew about them back in the day for gaming and such because they are awesome computers! Not really sure why they never took off in the US, probably the rise of Mac and Windows machines of the era left little room in the market for competing platforms. Even Amiga's I encountered in my youth were only used for 2D animation at my local schools computer lab.

 

Mmm.. there are several ideas on why this happened. Marketing, market saturation, compatibility, lack of business software, Atari = Toys'n'Games, and others.

 

I feel the Amiga and the ST had difficulties making inroads because of the expandability of their base architecture. All those custom chips prevented major speed increases without complete redesigns of the logic board. And a redesign would take a lot of resources and probably throw compatibility to the wind.

 

16-bit was also a transitional period where there was little focus on functionality and big focus on appearances and possibilities. This is evidenced throughout the spectacular advertising surrounding the Amiga.

 

8-bit machines were highly developed and still quite functional, especially with all the peripherals software investments already having been installed. 16-bit wasn't compelling enough to convince people to make the jump. Except for the MAC. I believe it to have been the only successful 16-bit rig aside from the IBM PC. The IBM PC was in a whole different league with quality industrial hardware. The MAC exploded onto the scene with a nice GUI.

 

 

 

Look at how history gets rewritten (by exclusion of facts much of the time) in this country anymore. That and the phenomenon of amnesia people have about the past... little wonder Amiga and Atari being just a couple of casualties of history that way.

 

Extremely sad and I liken the phenom to music. You listen to the radio all day long and the jockey's never fail to let you know when you're listening to something obvious... like the Beatles. But the one time you hear something new(to you), refreshing and good for a change, think they can be bothered to let you know who the artist was? Nope! Never fails.

 

One of the reasons I don't do pulp radio much. It results in frustration.

 

 

Do you mean documentaries about the history of games? I think you do because there are very few documentaries about the history of office machines. There's not as much nostalgia about word processors and spreadsheets, and the people who used them were older at the time- we tend to feel a lot of nostalgia about things we did in our teens.

 

The ST was considered a great gaming machine for a few years from 1985, but 4 or 5 years later other machines and consoles were selling better and getting exclusives that used custom hardware that the ST couldn't keep up with, and at the high end PC sound and graphics were beginning to leave them all far behind, so the ST wouldn't have been first choice for gaming by then.

 

Sure there is! There's a whole thread here on AA about vintage and simplistic word processors.

 

I also tend to view the 16-bit era as a rapid transitional time frame. 16-bit software was going to take time to develop. Much longer than time allowed - 32-but was right around the corner. A lot half-heartedness was the theme of day for 16-bits. Such a narrow time frame.

 

Furthermore, 16-bit machines didn't provide much improvement in gaming aside from more sprites and colors. And there was little to no improvement in word processing or business applications when compared to established 8-bit ecospheres.

 

People that were going to give up a well developed 8-bit environment that worked expected something whiz-bang! And 32-bits provided this.

[galax]

 

Sure there is! There's a whole thread here on AA about vintage and simplistic word processors.

 

I didn't say there was no nostalgia, I said there was "not as much". I love using old word processors etc. myself, but how many threads on AA and similar sites are devoted to vintage games relative to vintage word processors? 100 times as many, 1000 times?

 

 

Furthermore, 16-bit machines didn't provide much improvement in gaming aside from more sprites and colors. And there was little to no improvement in word processing or business applications when compared to established 8-bit ecospheres.

 

Interesting that you had 8-bit WYSIWYG word processors with fast in-memory spell check because I never saw them. You had 8-bit software like Calamus, Papyrus, CyberPaint, DA's Vector, Papyrus, Autoroute, CAD-3D, Cubase, Notator? At the time the jump to 16 bit felt like a huge leap forward in speed and memory, and usability.

 

[+DarkLord]

 

Sounds like time for a second updated edition!

 

Agreed!

 

You know, while I also do not think of the ST as a "console", I would have thought that the

fact that one of the most influential dungeon games of all time, Dungeon Master, which

originated on the Atari ST, would have made it a strong candidate for inclusion, beyond

just a brief mention...

[+DarkLord]

 

Good, then don't buy it. You don't have to agree that the 20 platforms chosen were the most important game playing platforms ever. The book is historically complete and mentions everything worth mentioning, it's just that a large part of the story is told through the lens of the 20 most important platforms. I'm actually quite happy with how it turned out. If you're not (even though you haven't read it), it's really no big deal.

 

Please understand though, when you say "worth mentioning", that is *your* opinion, and you as an acknowledged expert in the field, are entitled to it.

 

Just don't expect everyone (especially in an Atari forum!) to agree with you. That's perfectly understandable, right?

[+DarkLord]

At least he said the ST gets generous mentions throughout the book. Lets face it... if you're talking 16-bit computer gaming, be a trifle redundant to spend much time on the ST when you've already focused on the Amiga.

 

-edited for content-

 

I'll save the lazy ST ports to Amiga rant for some other time, but it really is true that you hardly ever saw any real ST ads or heck, even stores that sold them BITD. The Amiga seemed to be in the news and in computer mags quite a bit more comparatively. Growing up in Chicagoland, wasn't a single store that I was aware of that sold ST's, whereas there were at least 4 local to me that carried Amiga's and its software.

 

This must be one of those "regional" things...because I rarely had any exposure to the Amiga while the ST was dominant in my area.

[Bill Loguidice]

 

Agreed!

 

You know, while I also do not think of the ST as a "console", I would have thought that the

fact that one of the most influential dungeon games of all time, Dungeon Master, which

originated on the Atari ST, would have made it a strong candidate for inclusion, beyond

just a brief mention...

 

Dungeon Master was talked about in Vintage Games, though. Lots of platforms that didn't make it in Vintage Game Consoles had some nice games in their libraries.

[Bill Loguidice]

 

This must be one of those "regional" things...because I rarely had any exposure to the Amiga while the ST was dominant in my area.

 

It probably was. For the most part, Amiga was dominant in the US, even in the major retail chains like Electronics Boutique.

[Bill Loguidice]

 

Please understand though, when you say "worth mentioning", that is *your* opinion, and you as an acknowledged expert in the field, are entitled to it.

 

Just don't expect everyone (especially in an Atari forum!) to agree with you. That's perfectly understandable, right?

 

Again, in the clearly indicated scope of the book, I challenge anyone to come up with a platform that wasn't mentioned in some manner, either in its own dedicated chapter, or elsewhere throughout the book. I do acknowledge though that there probably are some Euro- and Japanese-centric platforms missing from the book, but again, they're not in scope, even though there's a good chance I personally own them (and probably enjoy them). As for an Atari forum, AtariAge has expanded well beyond that long ago, and it's not like the Atari 2600 and Atari 8-bit computers don't have their own dedicated chapters in the book, nor are other Atari platforms not mentioned throughout. They are.

 

To my mind, it's important to remove as many personal biases as possible from works like the one I did. The key games in Vintage Games and the key platforms in Vintage Game Consoles were VERY carefully chosen. You can rest assured that there's a good reason for not only including whatever is included, but also not including what wasn't included.

Edited February 13, 2016 by Bill Loguidice

[+DarkLord]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have game sales numbers/figures for the years 1985 through, say 1987/88?

 

I'd be curious to see what platforms sold the best during those years.

[+DarkLord]

 

Dungeon Master was talked about in Vintage Games, though. Lots of platforms that didn't make it in Vintage Game Consoles had some nice games in their libraries.

 

Was it talked about from the perspective of the Atari ST, the original platform that it was developed and released on? Thanks.

[+DarkLord]

 

It probably was. For the most part, Amiga was dominant in the US, even in the major retail chains like Electronics Boutique.

 

Unless you walked into any musically related shop/store.

[+DarkLord]

 

Again, in the clearly indicated scope of the book, I challenge anyone to come up with a platform that wasn't mentioned in some manner, either in its own dedicated chapter, or elsewhere throughout the book. I do acknowledge though that there probably are some Euro- and Japanese-centric platforms missing from the book, but again, they're not in scope, even though there's a good chance I personally own them (and probably enjoy them). As for an Atari forum, AtariAge has expanded well beyond that long ago, and it's not like the Atari 2600 and Atari 8-bit computers don't have their own dedicated chapters in the book, nor are other Atari platforms not mentioned throughout. They are.

 

To my mind, it's important to remove as many personal biases as possible from works like the one I did. The key games in Vintage Games and the key platforms in Vintage Game Consoles were VERY carefully chosen. You can rest assured that there's a good reason for not only including whatever is included, but also not including what wasn't included.

 

Probably didn't make that as clear as I meant to, when I said an Atari forum, I meant that you were in the Atari ST *section* specifically.

[Fletch]

Though I think Bill is right that the ST isn't one of the top 20 platforms of all time for gaming, I do think Midi-Maze and Dungeon Master ought to hold a special spot as some of the most influential games on any platform.

[Bill Loguidice]

 

Was it talked about from the perspective of the Atari ST, the original platform that it was developed and released on? Thanks.

 

The game was talked about in passing in the Diablo and Ultima chapters. The ST version was listed amongst the platforms, which is how it was for each of the countless hundreds of games mentioned in the book. Again, Vintage Games was more about the games themselves than the platforms, so there was rarely talk of a specific platform unless it had a direct influence on how a game was developed, how it was received, etc. I believe the Atari ST was listed 16 times as hosting one of the games in the book.

[Keatah]

Interesting that you had 8-bit WYSIWYG word processors with fast in-memory spell check because I never saw them. You had 8-bit software like Calamus, Papyrus, CyberPaint, DA's Vector, Papyrus, Autoroute, CAD-3D, Cubase, Notator? At the time the jump to 16 bit felt like a huge leap forward in speed and memory, and usability.

Cyberstudio1.gifnotate21.gifHigh_Papyrus_031.jpgenglandmap1.jpgscreenshot.cyberpaint1.gif!PIC0061.png

 

 

I'll grant that 8-bit rigs didn't have all those feature-filled applications. Much of 8-bit functionality was bare-metal and "manually-operated" and managed by the user. But IMHO 16-bit had the power to present advanced never before seen features to the population, though nowhere near enough to make them significantly more useful. The real usability increase would have to wait till the PC & Windows bandwagon got rolling.

 

I'd like to grant the jump in memory too. But I can't because by the time 16-bitters were on the market my Apple II had 6MB ram. And the IIgs could be expanded to 8MB.

[Bill Loguidice]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have game sales numbers/figures for the years 1985 through, say 1987/88?

 

I'd be curious to see what platforms sold the best during those years.

 

There aren't perfect numbers anywhere, but I generally go by Jeremy Reimer's research up to 2012: http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/08/from-altair-to-ipad-35-years-of-personal-computer-market-share/1/

 

According to his data, from 1985 - 1987, the Atari ST and Amiga were virtually tied, with the ST winning in 1987, its best sales year. From 1988 - 1995, it was all Amiga, with a doubling or more of sales over the ST series each individual year by 1989, with 1991 being the Amiga's best year and having almost 3.5x the sales of the ST series. Interestingly, the Commodore 64 handily outperformed both the Amiga and ST until 1990, when it lost out to the Amiga. It wouldn't beat the Amiga in sales again until the C-64s final year of sales in 1993, when Amiga sales started to drop significantly until its final sales year of 1995. Of course, IBM PCs and clone outsold everything else by a wide margin starting in 1985 and never stopped. 1984 was the last year another computer platform beat IBM PCs and Compatibles and that was the C-64, which had its best year, virtually tied with its 1985 and 1986 years. Of course the Macintosh also outsold both the Amiga and Atari ST for its entire run, even making Amiga sales seem insignificant by 1992 (it beat C-64 sales by 1990). Of course, even in its best year, the Macintosh wasn't even remotely close to IBM PC and Compatible sales. So yeah, it's all relative.

[Omega-TI]

As an American I can say I NEVER saw an Atari computer growing up until I started getting into them on this site a few years back now. I think in North America they were really a niche machine in certain industries.

 

 

I remember with great sadness when one of our core TI-99/4A group members bailed on us and got one of these...

 

 

I was kind of envious after seeing what it could do, but I had too much financially tied up into my TI. He also had a brother who was the president of some user group in southern California who quite literally sent him HUNDREDS of diskettes, all with stuff that seriously out-classed anything my TI had. I imagine the Atari ST was on the order of magnitudes better than the computer show above. I think I'l go peruse YouTube and see what I can find.

 

Still, nostalgia brought me back to the poor abandoned TI.

[almightytodd]

My recollection, was that in the U.S., the 1040 ST was the first computer with a megabyte of RAM for under $1,000... ...but it was still "just" under $1,000 for a computer... ...in 1985 dollars (Thats over $2,200 2016 dollars!). So what would you do with this computer? Play games with it? If this year... ...Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo announced a new $2,000 game console... ...but it's a REALLY good console, but it's $2,000... ...how well would it sell?

 

I recall there was an add-in card that would let you run Macintosh software (...but you needed a "grey-market" ROM for it?) and there was some software or something that let you run IBM compatible DOS programs on it... ...I don't know. It did Desktop Publishing. It had MIDI so musicians could use it for sequencing synthesizer music...

 

Now to be fair, I think a decent Macintosh system was still well over $2,000 and IBM compatibles were in the range of $2,000 to $8,000 depending on the configuration. It was like, this was all brand new technology in search of ways to create a competitive business advantage over rival businesses that were slow to embrace the new technology.

 

In our current era of $50 Kindle Fires, Raspberry Pi's, and the $9 "CHIP", I think it's easy to forget that in the early years of personal computing, you either had to be an entrepreneur taking a gamble, a fairly wealthy person with spare money to spend, or someone so passionate about new technology that you were willing to shift your priorities and spend ridiculous amounts of money to own the computers of this era. I think the media coverage was a reflection of the economic realities of the time.

Edited February 13, 2016 by almightytodd

[atarian1]

 

This must be one of those "regional" things...because I rarely had any exposure to the Amiga while the ST was dominant in my area.

 

It's ignorance. He is an Amiga enthusiast, so he is blind to other computer stores besides Amiga stores. That is why he claims there were no Atari stores in the Chicago area. UGH. It's claims like this that make me wonder if save2600 ever went outside.

 

Reality is, I recall several stores that sold Atari ST computers in the Chicago area because of their ads that I see in Atari magazines. Unless they were ghost stores or something. There were at least two large active Atari user groups in the area too - CLAUG (ChicagoLand Atari Users Group) and SCAT (Suburban Chicago ATarians). There was a photo in one magazine that showed CLAUG being given one of the first production Atari 520STs for their help at Summer CES back when there were 2 CES shows per year in different cities. CLAUG was actually incorporated into a company - CLAUG Inc. No one would do that unless they have some serious membership numbers.

 

I find it hard to believe that there were no Atari dealers in a region with that many user groups and members.

[Keatah]

I'm not even an ST enthusiast and I knew of 3 shops that had a complete lineup.

[calimero]

You see it all the time in these mainstream documentaries or sites claiming to be historical references to the evolution of computing. Seem to glaze right over the all important years of 1985-1990 when it comes to the ST or Amiga.

 

Best tribute to Atari and Amiga software is to show world how much modern software start it's life on Atari or Amiga. I started thread "Programs born on Atari, Amiga, Mac..." at atari-forum.

 

I also make site as tribute to old Atari software link and youtube promo video.

 

There is lot of people that started programing on ST in 80s and mid 90s and than move forward. ST played very important part in computer history but it is not obvious to majority of people. You need to show them that e.g. 3D Studio Max start it's life on Atari 800XL and than ST... or that Feflow (first finite-element groundwater simulation software with a full graphical user interface) was made on ST and today it is link.

 

Many people does not know such facts... they are superficial.

[+save2600]

I'm not even an ST enthusiast and I knew of 3 shops that had a complete lineup.

Sure, could be that I was unaware of them - but thought I had a good general awareness of these things, which is why I find it fascinating that living where I did, all these ST shops were elusive to me. So, what were the shop names and in what cities?

 

As an aside and besides all the places I shopped in the 80's between Lake and Cook Counties, wife worked at Software Etc. at Lakehurst Mall that had zero ST software, but had Amiga. Would frequent Babbages at Northbrook Court & Hawthorn Mall - zero ST software, but had Amiga. Same with Electronics Boutique at Gurnee Mills and Randhurst. Had an Amiga computer store in Mundelein, one in Vernon Hills, one in Wheeling, DesPlaines, Arlington Heights and 2 in Niles. UFP Computers in Woodridge, MicroED in Chicago and PixelVision also in Chicago. Just to name a "few" but yeah, guess I never went outside.

 

If there were *any* ST stores in Lake County, I'll be dipped!

[atarian63]

It's not surprising it's often barely mentioned. It ultimately didn't make much of an impact in the US, and even the Amiga, which was at least a high profile, if distant, second, to PCs and Compatibles in their respective eras, barely gets a mention.

 

It's not necessarily something to take personally. If you consider that the collective we in this type of community know our history well and champion all eras and all platforms, it's not realistic to expect that same amount of care or interest outside of our community or for things targeted to general audiences or more general aspects of our history. In theory, if there were histories on things we weren't necessarily interested in, like say the history of cars or the history of a sport, etc., we wouldn't necessarily care about or even know the difference if it wasn't completely exhaustive, while dedicated fans would.

 

In my own case, I make a point of knowing about and acknowledging as much as possible (and owning as much as possible from all eras and territories), but even in my own work I've had to make concessions. In my documentary, Gameplay, there are only brief mentions of Amiga and ST stuff. That was not by design, but rather for practical reasons. If you have to tell the history of everything to the present day in about 90 minutes, some things have to get sacrificed for the more important/impactful bits of the story.

 

It was the same thing with the platforms included in one of my books, Vintage Game Consoles. There was only room for 20 platform-specific chapters, and, while the Amiga made the cut, the ST didn't for various reasons. It still received generous mentions throughout the book, but it didn't quite make the cut to be a featured platform. If we were able to fit say, 25 platform-specific chapters in the books, it would have almost certainly made the cut.

Stvfar outsold Amiga during the first few years of that era and while Amiga may have been significant it was an error not to covers St imo.Also why I avoid publications that misrepresent that era in that way.

[atarian63]

 

There aren't perfect numbers anywhere, but I generally go by Jeremy Reimer's research up to 2012: http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/08/from-altair-to-ipad-35-years-of-personal-computer-market-share/1/

 

According to his data, from 1985 - 1987, the Atari ST and Amiga were virtually tied, with the ST winning in 1987, its best sales year. From 1988 - 1995, it was all Amiga, with a doubling or more of sales over the ST series each individual year by 1989, with 1991 being the Amiga's best year and having almost 3.5x the sales of the ST series. Interestingly, the Commodore 64 handily outperformed both the Amiga and ST until 1990, when it lost out to the Amiga. It wouldn't beat the Amiga in sales again until the C-64s final year of sales in 1993, when Amiga sales started to drop significantly until its final sales year of 1995. Of course, IBM PCs and clone outsold everything else by a wide margin starting in 1985 and never stopped. 1984 was the last year another computer platform beat IBM PCs and Compatibles and that was the C-64, which had its best year, virtually tied with its 1985 and 1986 years. Of course the Macintosh also outsold both the Amiga and Atari ST for its entire run, even making Amiga sales seem insignificant by 1992 (it beat C-64 sales by 1990). Of course, even in its best year, the Macintosh wasn't even remotely close to IBM PC and Compatible sales. So yeah, it's all relative.

Yes,note during that time St shifted focusvto Europe and there were huge St supply problems here in the US,we reluctantly had tomsell more amigas by late 89 a500 helps as itvreally saved Amiga from failure or being the also ran as a1000 was way overpriced

[Foebane]

Wow, the sheer ARROGANCE of the OP is outstandingly outrageous in its offensiveness!

 

Do they have a massive inferiority complex?

 

Then again, I know how they feel, as I too have to endure the sheer lack of coverage of the Atari 8-Bit line on YouTube videos. The Amiga may be Jay Miner's ultimate achievement, but I still have a massively soft spot for the A8s.