NOT Atari ST vs Amiga,

[JamesD]

We should get them all in a room together talking to each other. Hmmm... sounds like a good idea for a YouTube video.

 

Mac: "Hello, welcome to Macintosh"

 

Apple ][: "I'm an Apple II. Is anyone else out there?"

 

Amiga: " This is Amiga speaking"

 

Mac: "Oh yes, you're the colorful one but you're kind of blurry."

 

Amiga: "I have hardware-accelerated graphics so you'd best just step off."

 

Mac: "Perhaps, but 4 out of 5 desktop publishers think I'm sexy."

 

Apple ][: "I'm an Apple II."

 

Mac: "I am aware of that."

 

Amiga: "Yes. I detect an Apple logo on your exterior casing."

 

etc...

If you are going to have a bunch of computers argue, you might as well throw in an Atari 8 bit, C64, and a few others.

Just make the conversation degrade into insults like a topic on a forum.

[Keatah]

The Apple II is the smart one for not expending efforts in a useless forum fight.

[nd2003grad]

Thank you to some of you for answering my question ha ha Ha

[JamesD]

The Apple II is the smart one for not expending efforts in a useless forum fight.

The Apple II is the least powerful so it doesn't have any room to talk.

[JamesD]

The story behind the demo.

http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Intro_Demo.txt

[+OLD CS1]

I cannot really compare the two, personally. My grandfather had a 520ST when I was younger and it was the first graphical machine I ever used. He used it for CADD, and I used it with Aegis Paint (or whatever it was called,) programmed on it in GFA BASIC, and played a bunch of games on it. Later on I got an Amiga and found that it has been able to keep up with me for most of my life: for everything I ever wanted to do there was something Amiga to do it. Drawing or graphics? Music (including MIDI?) Games? Programming? Telecom and Internet? Yup, and more!

 

Even today I have USB2.0, Ethernet networking with other machines, Internet access, SVGA output (DVI is available,) and more.

 

Because of my grandfather and my lack of use experience, for me the ST absolutely would start as nostalgia. It is not likely to replace my Amiga as my use of Amiga is well-cemented and it would not behoove me resource-wise to divide my productivity between multiple machines. Much like why my MorphOS MacMini sits mostly unused except for things that I need to do faster than my 50MHz 68060.

[nd2003grad]

STE seems next to impossible to get a hold of compared with, say, Amiga 500. I now have two 500's, and I think that's my baby now. After some research, it seems to me the big advantage to ST is music--which seems, in turn, to be pretty easily overcome on an Amiga. Since I'm a musician (who isn't much into computers/synth stuff), I'm kind of interested to toy with Amiga in that capacity. In the end, I think it would be best for me to stick with one on this machine. There doesn't seem to be the same difference that you see with, say, 800XL vs. C64 vs. Speccy.

[Polymorph]

Well, I own an Amiga 500, an Atari 1024STm, and several Apple IIgs' and my favourite *overall* machine is......<drum-roll>... the Apple IIgs.

 

Now before everyone shoots me down, here is my take on things:

* overall for games, I don't think you can beat the Amiga - it has the best support for a games machine with dedicated hardware to help push the pixels and audio around. It also has a great library of games.

* in 2nd place for games, would be the Atari ST - it has a fast 68000 CPU (some games actually run *quicker* on the Atari than on the Amiga) and a Yamaha 2149 FM Synth chip which was a popular off-the-shelf audio chip used in many arcade games, the Spectrum, and even an Apple II with a Mockingboard (the Yamaha chip is essentially a AY-3-8910). It also has a great library of games.

* in 3rd place for games, would be the IIgs no doubt. An unfortunate side effect of supporting 8 bit Apple ][ software was that graphics operations were always limited to a 1Mhz bus speed making games programming difficult. Regardless of this, some talented programmers did develop good games for the IIgs by using "unusual" programming techniques designed to get the most out of the hardware. This is why even with the machines limitations, there are many awesome demo's, and why there exists a port of Wolfenstein 3D for the IIgs (yes an accelerator is pretty much mandatory though). The IIgs had a small (in comparison to the Amiga and Atari ST) library of games. The IIgs had graphics resolutions comparable with the Amiga (better than ST?), and a better sound chip than the Amiga - the venerable Ensoniq 5503 DOC - which has 32 voices, and like the Amiga, could be easily expanded to handle MIDI devices. If anyone is interested to see what games/software is available on the Apple IIgs, go to http://www.whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za/

 

So why is the IIgs my favourite *overall* machine? In one word, "slots". It maintained Woz's ideals that a system should be expandable and open (although "open" to a much lesser degree than the 8 bit Apples due to the increased hardware complexity, and you had to purchase the technical manuals separately). The IIgs is like any other Apple II - a tinkerers playground with 7 general purpose slots and one dedicated RAM expansion slot. There are many cards that have and continue to be developed that expand the capabilities of the original machine. There are accelerators, Ethernet cards, RAM cards, flash storage devices (the best being the CFFA3000 IMHO), etc, etc... I am guessing that this would also be possible with the big-box Amiga's too, but I am not aware of that scene since I only have an Amiga 500. And of course the IIgs's trump card is that it can run 99.9% of all 8 bit Apple II software as well (some quote this in excess of 10,000 titles).

 

So if you are solely into games, I'd probably sell out my childhood (I grew up with Apple's) and recommend an Amiga or failing that an Atari ST. But if you want a machine that has a bit of everything, the Apple IIgs get's my vote.

 

 

Cheers,

Mike