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What caused you to change (Atari/non-Atari) platforms?


Xebec

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Hey folks, I'm a US resident who "went" from Atari 800 platform (several variations) --> Atari ST (520ST, 1040ST) --> PC (an XT and then a very expensive 486, both in 1990).

 

Although I used each platform for a variety of things it was games that had me more or less mentally migrate away from each platform. Those games were:

 

2600 --> "Dad, I want an Atari 800" = Miner 2049er ~ 1983

800 --> ST = SunDog then Dungeon Master (then the 800 saw little use) ~ 1986-1987

ST --> PC = MechWarrior (playable on XT), Gunship 2000 (80486) (+ ST HDD died) ~ Late 1990

PC --> "Strictly PC" - original Unreal (caused me to sell or box up any consoles I owned). ~ 1998

 

I was curious what applications or games caused others to switch and heavily "move away" from an earlier Atari platform.

 

I should note I was a big BBSer all through these transitions up to late 1994 so that also helped shape what software I had access to , to make those transitions.. I was also very lucky my Dad sprung for a very expensive 80486 in 1994 (sorry Dad!), combined with a soundblaster and VGA kinda put the ST out to pasture.. I kinda wish I had seen an Amiga in it's full glory around the later ST time frame as I suspect that's the platform I might have chosen for a while before going fullbore on the PC with Unreal.

 

 

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I purchased my Atari 800 with my own paper route money in 1980. Used that for 10 years. Purchased my Mega 2 ST in 1990 right after I got married. Used that for 5 years. Forget what I did with the Atari 800. Something tells me I sold somehow but since Internet was not out then (well as we use today), not sure how I sold it. LOL. Around mid 1990s when the Ataris and AMigas died off, I needed a Pro system, and moved to Mac. Quadra 800AV was my 1st. Then had many Macs from that point on. Got back into using Ataris sometime mid 2000s, maybe 2005. Even got into Amiga around 2010 and own AmigaNG based system now.

 

So it was not a particular app for me but needed something modern that could handle internet and online worlds that we all love now.

 

Macs did that well and were cool. Easy switch for me.

 

Never liked Windows but did use at work. Used Macs at home.

 

TJ

Edited by AtariSociety
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I switched and upgraded computers to follow coalescing standards. The x86 PC seemed most adept here, and I was right. Eventually the PC would seemingly import, export, read, write, and emulate everything all the while enforcing consistency and supporting interchangeability better than everything else.

 

But mainly everybody had one, including professionals at NASA and JPL, my workplace, my buddies, the schools.. It was everywhere.

Edited by Keatah
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I went from Atari 2600, to STFM, to Falcon pretty much. Though never really saw any games for the falcon. Then all the mags vanished and that pretty much marked the end of it for me (no internet back then, not like it would have likely helped). PDL's vanished not long after so just no way to get any software. Atari died not long after, so the only active platform which seemed popular was the PC market.

 

So I built a 286SX25 or 386 back in the day can't remember. Was built from peoples spare bits mostly. Got doom running on DOS played it for ages. Then a guy at work said he got his PC on the internet with windows 3.11, So I updated my machine with modem to get on the internet. One day it just stopped seeing the modem, nobody could figure out why, reinstalled many times, gave up in the end and built a new PC with windows 95 on. Back on the net, then access to online multiplayer games.. better games, more power year after year.

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Started off with a 800 with Star Raiders and was hooked. Got a 520ST with TOS on disk when they first came out, later a Mega2 ST and then a Falcon. In the mid 90's Atari abandon their users so I put all my stuff in storage and got a Win95 machine. That was that and I was done with Atari with exception of the Jaguar. I was pretty disappointed in Atari. I went to college and got a degree in computers and got an associates in electronics. Ended up working in Digital imaging for over a decade. Because I worked on computers for a living, I hardly ever turned on a computer at home. Its funny, I went from a computer addict to a casual user. The PC world just was not as exciting as the Atari world was in the 80's.

Edited by Umberto
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Indeed, in some cases just one SW title could make man to get new computer, but I guess that it's not typical.

This is capitalism, and ideas that Atari did it all because of users are pretty much naive. First thing is profit, if there is no money, company stops manufacturing, developing. That's happened with Atari too. Initial aim was very good, but they were slow with development, in my opinion. Falcon would be big hit somewhere in 1989, most likely. 1992 was too late for such specs and price.

Exciting computers ? For me it was almost always some excitement in all this, mostly because I always assembled them myself as much possible it was, and did some mods, upgrades. That was even with PCs. I got some MicroStar mbo for AMD Duron, but could not change CPU clock ratio, so looked CPU datasheet, and added some DIP switches, resistors on mbo to achieve that, then could overclock it over 50% .

Well, today it is less possible, for sure, but I still have my Ataris to do some HW nastyties :)

Edited by ParanoidLittleMan
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The Dot Com crash in the early 2000's killed my job. Starbucks and the Dot Coms were over 70 percent of our business and we lost that. So a career change happened and I started driving truck. This gave me a break from computers. To make a long story long I got the computer bug again. So in 2006 or so, I pulled out my Atari stuff and have been playing ever since. I have one desktop PC, XP based and keep up with the latest tech by getting the wife and I a new laptop every year. I play some modern games but I enjoy the retro stuff more.

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I have 2 long-lived XP keeper machines. And then every year or so spend a little bit on getting last-years tech at bargain prices in order to stay updated. We don't really care about the quality of these, they're disposable appliances.

Agreed, they are passing off a lot of junk these days. I got a laptop a couple years ago with no access doors to upgrade anything! cheep junk

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Agreed, they are passing off a lot of junk these days. I got a laptop a couple years ago with no access doors to upgrade anything! cheep junk

So.. a macbook? :D

 

I started with an Atari 2600, then 800XL+1050, then sadly I was mucking about inside the 1050 (we got a happy upgrade) and when I put it together, I think I got the chip in one pin off... well sent the drive off for repair to a shop that never returned it.. next computer was some old monochrome thing we inherited from my grandparents that we barely used... during the Sega Master System time frame... then we got the second release Genesis when it came out (the one with Sonic), then onward to the Mega STe, which I used for a few years, getting onto the internet on a shell account around 1993. When the drive finally died, I was computerless until my parents bought a Packard Bell around '95.. what a piece of crap, but I did get a TT030 after that, but most of the software wouldn't work... so it lay dormant until this year when I got back into Atari and checked to make sure all my crap still worked.

 

Always hated Windows and have been getting better and better at Linux since 1997/8.

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When I recently discovered Apple didn't share the necessary information to integrate MACs into NASA's infrastructure I immediately built myself a time machine and went back to tell myself never buy MACs. That's how I ended up Amiga and then soon enough i486. I set the machine for the return journey to end just after I built it and used it, thereby giving me a chance to destroy it and leave no trace.

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Agreed, they are passing off a lot of junk these days. I got a laptop a couple years ago with no access doors to upgrade anything! cheep junk

Laptops, better said notebooks aren't know because being upgradeable. Usually you can only expand RAM, put faster CPU.

 

What is to worry with nowadays desktop computers is fact that HW compatibility is much better than SW one. It means that you can put some older card in your brandnew motherboard, but OS and drivers will not support it. And that is actually intentional. They just want to force you to get new card, even when old one could perfectly do the job. It happens with every new Windows version. No older Radeon drivers for Win10 - so throw away your 7+ years old card, which perfectly works with full HD ? Fortunately it can be solved with little effort in some cases. But overall it is as with everything this days: short lifetime cars, refrigerators. etc.

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Throw away society. Printers are a huge sign of this... when it is cheaper to buy a new printer than it is to buy new ink cartridges.

 

I asked about Macbooks because they started soldering everything in, so you can't even upgrade memory... sounds like the olden days when all of them did that because memory was too expensive to upgrade anyhow, plus it is cheaper to not have sockets, and you can make it thinner (whoch Apple is obsessed with)

 

I can kind of see why rich snobby people would have bought Apple, but they had always seemed the least capable machines up until Atari and Commodore died. Now you still have to spend 1k more for a less specced machine if you want macOS.

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Atari 800 from, 79 to Atari ST 85

ST to PC 94

Sold Amigas though my business but never wanted one personally, did eventually buy one (a500) to use as a game console only, in 2005,tried a cd32(also 2005) and it was horrible.had to buy a keyboard and floppy to make it have access to regular amiga games.

Still have my ST, STE and Megas setup. never really liked or was ever excited about PC's,just needed them, don't like them for gaming, just for work and managing files. Lousy joysticks at the time and still today,cant stand keyboard gaming. they work fine for a mame box though, just nevr could capture the excitement of the ST Atari days with a PC.

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I went from the 8biit line to the ST. After that, it was Atari all the way up until

we got Internet access in our county. So about 1999-2000, I built my own

'Nix box (Mandrake distro - anyone remember them?) and used it. Been

using Linux ever since but of course I still have a handful of Atari's around,

always will.

 

I do have -1- Windows machine that I keep for the rest of the family (wife - work

needs, daughter - student stuff).

 

Otherwise, I don't think I'd have even that one Win box. :)

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Throw away society. Printers are a huge sign of this... when it is cheaper to buy a new printer than it is to buy new ink cartridges.

 

Ain't that the truth! Ink jet or laser anymore. At least with ink jet printers, you don't feel as bad since the print heads get funky after a while - if not easy to replace anyway. Then again, the imaging drum on a laser goes bad before long too.

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