Atari Falcon 030 Tower

[Harrison]

Some of you might shoot me for posting this, but what the hell!

I just spotted an Atari Falcon 030 computer in a tower case conversion on ebay.

For those of you that don't know, the Atari Falcon was the last computer in the Atari ST range before Atari ditched all home computer development to concentrate on their next console, the Jaguar. The Falcon was a pretty nice machine, but had it's original design been fully seen to fruition it wuld have been even better. Instead Atari had to rush it to market because they knew they were going to end home computer development. Originally it was going to be in a modular case with separate keyboard, similar to the Atari TT, but to save time and money they used an Atari 1040ST case instead. Some key features included a dedicated DSP chip and a 68030 CPU.

Anyway if you want to take a look at this towered Falcon auction, it is here. (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ATARI-Falcon-030-Computer-in-Tower-Case-with-HD-CDROM_W0QQitemZ350019590722QQihZ022QQcategoryZ4193QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)

[Zetr0]

Some of you might shoot me for posting this, but what the hell!

I just spotted an Atari Falcon 030 computer in a tower case conversion on ebay.

For those of you that don't know, the Atari Falcon was the last computer in the Atari ST range before Atari ditched all home computer development to concentrate on their next console, the Jaguar. The Falcon was a pretty nice machine, but had it's original design been fully seen to fruition it wuld have been even better. Instead Atari had to rush it to market because they knew they were going to end home computer development. Originally it was going to be in a modular case with separate keyboard, similar to the Atari TT, but to save time and money they used an Atari 1040ST case instead. Some key features included a dedicated DSP chip and a 68030 CPU.

Anyway if you want to take a look at this towered Falcon auction, it is here. (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ATARI-Falcon-030-Computer-in-Tower-Case-with-HD-CDROM_W0QQitemZ350019590722QQihZ022QQcategoryZ4193QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)


I currently have this in my fleabay watches, although not interested in owning it, it is still interesting to see what a bit of history will fetch at the dogs...

[Harrison]

I've always been interested in owning some of the later systems in the Atari ST range. Because I was an Atari ST owner before the Amiga I do still have some interest in the system, even though the ST is very inferior to the Amiga in many respects, the GEM OS especially.

Out of all I would really like to own an Atari TT though. I remember following its development in the ST magazines at the time and wishing I could afford one. At the time that machine looked really good.

[sarek2k]

@Zetro would like nice in a silver spray job eh ;)

i just can't do beige anymore :doh2:

[Harrison]

For an Atari ST is should really be a matt light grey instead of silver.

[Buleste]

(As SC) You can never have too much beige!!!!

[TiredOfLife]

Very excessive for a heretical, blasphemous doorstop.

The standards of moderating are dropping again.

Where's me rope, I can feel a hanging may be in order.

[Buleste]

Very excessive for a heretical, blasphemous doorstop.

The standards of moderating are dropping again.

Where's me rope, I can feel a hanging may be in order.

There are standards in the moderation??????? If that were true Submeg would never get a post in.

[Harrison]

Or that TiredOfLife guy. He never seems to take anything seriously! ;)

[v85rawdeal]

That would leave me with more chances to finally win Poster of the Month!

[TiredOfLife]

Or that TiredOfLife guy. He never seems to take anything seriously! ;)

Do not mock my hatred of the ancient enemy, or I will execute ten Atari STs.

You have been warned.

[Harrison]

Go ahead. The less STs left in the world, the more likely retro fans will be forced to buy an Amiga and convert. :thumbs:

[TiredOfLife]

Go ahead. The less STs left in the world, the more likely retro fans will be forced to buy an Amiga and convert. :thumbs:

I like the way you think.
Convert the heathens to the one true religion eh?

[Harrison]

Exactly. The old ST fans are only sticking to their beloved machines because they haven't been shown the light. All they need is a healthy bit of persuasion in the form of a power surge, a puff of smoke, and no more ST! :nogood:

[Buleste]

Who'd have thunk it. Fundalmentalist Amigans. Sending in thier suicide disks to blow up the infadel ST's. What do you get when you die? A 100 mint games? A 1260?

[TiredOfLife]

Who'd have thunk it. Fundalmentalist Amigans. Sending in thier suicide disks to blow up the infadel ST's. What do you get when you die? A 100 mint games? A 1260?

The holy SharkPPC.

[FatRakoon]

Hallo guys.

Just thought Id butt-in here, but I am an Atari owner.

I have :-

TT - 10+26MB 030 @ 32Mhz - Nova

Falcon - 14+256 060@110Mhz - ATI Rage 3D

Both are fairly well specced systems, the TT currently Running Magic&Jinnee and the Falcon running MiNT.

Plus a few various STs in one flavour or another, but who cares about them?

I would like to make one small note and leave.

Too many people judge the Atari machines based on the first ever ST, and assume that all ataris are the same as the next one.

Like the Amiga, this is simply not so!

Some Atari machines and their clones ( Yes, even teh Atari has a number of clones because Atari themselves are no longer around, there are still planty of users who still support it fully ) have developed into some seriously powerful machines indeed... Just like the Amiga.

I notice that many dont like GEM. Thats fine.Im not sure I know many that truly do like it, but this too has developed beyond all expectations. My own personal favourite O/S for the Atari, is Magic and the desktop I chose is Jinnee. Still based on the GEM enviroment of course but infinitely different at the same time.

I cannot comment on what desktops and Operating systems there are for the Amiga because I simply dont know, but the Atari has many different Operating systems not only its own built in one, and has a number of Desktops too, all giving their 2p's worth, so if you dont like GEM, then ou can chose any number of alternatives, and oyu can customise the look and feel of most of these desktops to how you want them to look, so can even get to the point where you wil find it hard to know if oyu are still on an Atari, or if you are running MacOS8 or 9 or even X or Windows, or Linux... My own desktops are very sparse and are incredibly boring, but then so are my Windows and Linux PCs Desktops. I prefer functionality to pretty eye candy that does nothign to improve my work.

Anyway, Im talkign crap now.

Basically I love my Ataris. Always have done and always will. I loved my Amigas too, but only for gaming. I stuck with the ST for work and the Amiga for play...I sometimes wonder how I would feel if I had gone with Amiga instead of Atari, and I often ask myself would I still have an Amiga as my main Machine like I have my Ataris or will I have moved to PC / Mac?

[Harrison]

Interesting to hear some comments from a still devoted Atari fan. Voice from the dark side! ;)

It is interesting that you mentioned you used an ST for business and an Amiga for games. And I have to ask why? I owned an Atari ST for a few years (1987-1991) before finally getting my first Amiga, although I had used Amigas a lot before this. As you can imagine I managed to collect a lot of software for the ST before getting the Amiga, but once I had used Workbench 2 I instantly ditched the ST completely. GEM is just not compariable to the Amiga's Workbench and the quality of the software even more so. The ST was a great 16bit machine for me at the time, but once I had experienced the Amiga there was no going back. It was just inferior in all aspects. Very close in capabilities but lacking the heart and soul of the Amiga.

However it is interesting to read about different OSs for the ST and continued development after the demise of the system. Do you have any links to more information about the more recent activity in the ST world? And do you know if some of these other OSs can be run via emulation, so I can have a play around and see what they are like. :)

[TiredOfLife]

I will have to scrub my eyes with a brillo pad after reading that heretic nonsense.:mad:
Although I do sense someone wants to be invited to the side of light.


Hallo guys.

I cannot comment on what desktops and Operating systems there are for the Amiga because I simply dont know



Come into the light, try AOS3.9, you know you want to.:yesyes:

[Harrison]

The quote you gave is very accurate in relation to the whole battle between the Amiga and ST. Those fighting for the ST had mostly never actually used an Amiga so didn't really know both sides of the argument. They just clung to their machine because it was the one they owned and loved because they had used and learnt everything about it.

GEM just doesn't compare to Workbench at all. GEM is quite a fixed and restricted OS with very limited customisation or the ability to do much more than it offers out of the box when you boot the system. In contrast the Amiga's Workbench offers a huge level of customisation, allowing every aspect of the OS to be altered to the users needs, and far ahead of any other OS at the time, with Workbench 2 and higher offering a feature set far in advance of GEM in every regard. It is just a shame that more didn't actually ever get to experience it.

And even more so for the large percentage of Amiga owners back in the day who never used Workbench! Mad as that sounds a lot of people did just use their A500 like a games console, sticking the game disk in and booted directly into the game. Never needing to use Workbench other than the one failed attempt shortly after buying the system when all new users tried to use Workbench to copy a game disk! Everyone did that I'm sure.

[FatRakoon]

Actually, I am lucky in that I had both Amigas and Ataris way back in... crikey... I had just started colledge so that was 20 years ago!!!

Anyway, the ST v the Amiga at the time sure, GEM was poor... It was close to being fowl Im not going to argue that one out, and it was very bland compared to Amigs WorkBench, but like the amiga, GEM has developed. It is absolutely nothing like it used to be... Or rather to be fair, the replacement desktops you can get for the Atari, might at first glance, look like GEM, they are far, far from it.

Sure, the AES is still GEM based, the VDI is still GEM based, but the whoel OS is nothing like it.

My preferred O/S on my Ataris is MAGIC ( v6.2 )
My preferred Desktop is JINNEE ( v2.5 )

Now, both of these are still commercial, however a very popular free OpenSource O/S is MiNT... It seems that the preferred Desktop for MiNT is THING.


Both MiNT and Magic are fully preemptive Multitasking OSes and both have completely left the standard GEM years ago in the dark ages.

MiNT is based on UNIX originally and since Linux has taken a foothold in the PC world, MiNT has also developed too... For example, an Atari running MiNT, can use any combination of Atari, Windows, or Linux partitions as it feels like, it can also run a great deal of Linux, or rather "X" based softwware, and this is alongside the Atari software... Kind of like users who run Linux, can use WINE to run Windows programs, but this is an Atari running Linux programs without the need for wine, plus as I said, it can use Linux, windows and Atari partitions just fine.

Magic can use FAT16/FAT32 Partitions and Atari Partitions but not linux/minix ones.

To say that Ataris these days is still using GEM is just like saying the Amigas all use the classic WorkBench from the A500 - its a complete lie and quite frankly ridiculous and just stupid to even consider it.

When I show people my Atari, they call me a liar and say its a Mac or a PC but they cannot accept that its an Atari.

Too man ypeople seem to assume that all Ataris are the ST but like the Amiga has changed from the A500, the ST has also changed too!

---

Yes, GEM is restrictive right out of the box, but then so is WorkBench.

GEM is only meant to be a GET-U-Going Setup, this is where replacement Desktops come into it ,and which is why there are so many of them, much like Linux.
I myself as I say prefer Jinnee, and I will give you a handfull of perfect examples... AS this is how I have mine setup.

I right click on a WAV file, a Contect menu pops up... I can

CONVERT ( to a number of other Sample formats, or maybe MP3 or OGG )
MAKE MONO/STEREO
Simply play it back with some other program ( I have setup GEMJING )
Plus the other thigns such as DELETE etc.

I have set up scripts to do similar thigns with other filetypes such as converting or opening up various PICCIES etc...

All with tiny scripts

I have written tons of the most useless junk, but there is almost nothing that I cannot do with any file all from the Desktop, and all in just a click or two.

No, I have to openly admit however, that the built-in GEM on all Ataris is not very nice at all, and I think I stopped bothering with even trying to use the built-in GEM sometime around 1990 and even before that I never cared for it.

Thats one area the Amiga really was better, but really guys, the replacement desktops left the Amiga behind in almost every respect because they did exactly what the original GEM failed to do.

So, check out JINNEE or its older version EASE - both of these can use Windows, Linux or MAC Icons and both are fairly customisable, Jinnee with its scripting even more so.

In terms of Power, there is nothign in them even today... Both the Amiga and the Atari I am sure, both have clones, some based around the 680x0 up to wherever that is now? - and both have clones based around teh coldfire project which are what 300MHZ?

Both have graphics cards, the atari very much seems to be based around ATI, I myself have an ATI RAGE but I have only last week bought myself a 4xPCI Slots adapter which has built-in driver support for the ATI 7000 and 7500 cardsso that will help out in not needing a VGA Switcher

Both can use Extra SoundCards, I could use a Creative SBLIVE or AUDIGY and aparently the XFI too ( What for? ) but I myself see absolutely no reason to bother and I am perfectly happy with the OnBoard stuff and an FDI unit for the Optical Audio

I have a mate who lives up the road, who is an Amiga fanatic... We both have laughs at each other in the pub, Me at his Amoeba and him at my TiTTy ( I also have An Atari TT too, that he calls my titty although the falcon is the real beast ) and we have both realised somehting... Both the Amiga and the Atari are NOTHING like we thought they were... He could not believe that my Atari could do half the thigns it could and many things it can do taht the Amiga could not, but again, his amiga can do this that my Atari could not, and in both cases, we both agreed that this was only down to the fact that our software list was limited and that they are both more than capable of doing anything that we wanted them to... Within reason!

Atari Emulation:-

Nah, I got to be completely honest with you, but Atari Emulation is really only based around the ST, and even then, its really only for playing back the old ST games.

This is somehting thats lacking massively if you ask me.

A few EMualtors to try are STEEM, SAINT, PacifiST, NoSTalgia, GEMulator My favourite I suppose )

Annoyingly even the ones like STEEM do allow vistual screen modes, they still dont allow more than 16 Colours - Im not up on emulators though... Never seen a need to since I have the real thing.

Oh, and of course UAE also emulates the ST too!

Ok, so they will only emulate the shitty ST screen modes, but at least if you get them up and running nicely, you can install Magic & Jinnee or even MiNT & Thing and then once you see them running, you will see just how far the Atari really has come...

---

Oh, one more thing before I go... Here is a great trick to show people that no other computer platform does... As far as I know anyway...

I use Magic & Jinnee as I said.

Now, lets just say that I am working on a WebPage of some description...

I select VIEW SOURCE, and my HTML Editor comes up... I use QED Text Editor ( Bit like NotePad I suppose )

I start typing, and automatically, in the background, I can see the webpage changing... AS I type!!! - Cool.

The changes I am making in the source code, are automatically beign sent to the HTML Viewer.

WOW, ok, what about Pictures then? - I choce to view the picture instead, and then I do summat to it, and the picture on the WEBPAGE gets changed to!!! - Sweet or what?
Sod it, I didnt want to do that, no problem, I just dont save it and bingo, the picture goes back to how it should be!!! - Windows does not even do that... Full control of all programs and full interaction with each other even though they are not in any way linked to each other!!!

I suppose you have to see it to understand, but its somehtign that no one else has ever seen before or since except those who have a proper Atari.

[Harrison]

I've not used them but I have seen many screenshots and read quite a bit about the replacement OSs and desktops for the ST. Definitely a huge and impressive improvement over GEM and as you say it is hard to believe they could be running on the same platform.

However have you seen or used the more recent versions of the Amiga's Workbench, now called Amiga OS? A classic amiga running Amiga OS 3.9 or a PPC Amiga running Amiga OS4?

Even the 1991 Workbench 2.04 was a huge leap forward from the older more limited Workbench 1.3 that was included with the A500. But even 1.3 showed up GEM.

Personally from looking at the alternative OSs for the ST, they are a huge improvement, but still not up to the standard of a well customised Amiga! ;)

Plus you forgot to mention one little detail. The ST's hardware is far inferior to the Amiga's and that will never change. ;) he he.

BTW, the comments about live editing between applications is very interesting and possibly the one saving grace of your fight for the ST in this thread. ;) Although, while not system wide, Adobe/Macromedia applications on the PC/Mac are cross linked with live editing possible between them. And Dreamweaver allows live preview of pages as they are developed.

[Buleste]

For me the only experiance i have of Atari computers is through the hatari emulator for OS4 and that can only really emulate the ST and STE so i'm stuck with GEM. It's great to hear that the Atari's are still developing and still have just as many nutjobs as the Amiga community does.

[Harrison]

That is very true. These days both platforms are mostly used by existing enthusiasts and it is great to see dedicated users still trying to squeeze as much as they can out of them.

For me is highlights just how little today's computers are being pushed in comparison. Imagine what could be squeezed out of a PC if it were really pushed to its limits. Instead a games developer will just write for a faster graphics card and CPU to save development time.

About the only platforms pushes as far are games consoles, where the fixed hardware introduces similar restraints as the life of the platform progresses and developers try to get more and more from them.

[quackmore]

In regard to ST hardware being inferior, this is true when it comes to games but not serious applications. I was a music major way back when laser printers had very little or no RAM so it took FOREVER on my Amiga to print a score. My ST would print the first page almost immediately because of the DMA port. Also, without the MIDI ports being standard, the Amiga didn't have the music software I needed. From a musician, desktop publishing and student's point of view, the hardware was better on the ST hands down (except for games of course).

I can see why people would think the A500 had better hardware than the ST because of the hardware sprites, colors, etc., but when it came time to actually get some work done, I had to be more realistic.

[Harrison]

Hi quackmore and welcome to classicamiga. :)

Great opening post to make on an Amiga board to get the juices flowing! ;) It might be years on but the ST vs Amiga debate continues, even though we all know full well how much more advanced Amiga hardware was compared to the off the shelf components that made up the ST.

The STs hardware was very inferior to the Amigas. The ST has to process everything though it's CPU, whereas the Amiga's identical CPU has the backup of a custom chipset of other dedicated chips that can be called on to process graphics, blitter, music, disk access etc... leaving the CPU to get on with other things.

The graphics and audio capacities of the Amiga were far ahead of the ST (and anything else at the time). Graphics software things like 3D bitmap editing and 3D rendering were far ahead of anything the ST could manage, and many other areas of productivity software were just as far ahead of anything the ST could manage.

As you mentioned, the ST to do well in two areas of productivity software... MIDI sequencing and DTP. The ST enjoyed DTP due to Atari building in the monochrome hi resolution screenmode that tied in with a dedicated Atari monitor. This was far cheaper than Apple Macs at the time so quickly became a poor mans systems for DTP. However DTP software did exist on the Amiga too, and it wasn't any worse that ST DTP software. Pagestream for example was a great DTP program on the Amiga.

The other, MIDI sequencing, was entirely down to Atari building in midi ports. The Amiga was just as capable of the same music tasks, but you needed to buy a MIDI expansion that connected to the parallel port. Developers seemed to miss this point and due to the ST getting Cubase the rest is history. The Amiga enjoyed MIDI applications such as Bars and Pipes but once the STs were in the recording studios it was game over for MIDI.

Now a music mod tracker. That is a whole different thing. No other system at the time could compete with a decent MOD tracker, composing 4 channel stereo 8-bit music tracks using real audio samples sounded great, and the mod tracks still sound great today. The ST hardware couldn't compete with that. With its 3 channel mono yamaha chip. Atari tried to fix this with the 4 channel stereo added to the STE, but that was late into the ST life.

Your final point about harddrive and laser printers is a fair one to some degree. The ST enjoyed the fact that Atari also made laser printers so they obviously built an Atari specific connector in with direct support for their own printers. They were always going to give that an advantage. Commodore in contrast didn't really made printers in the way Atari did, but then laser printers were not really commonplace back then anyway. The inclusion of the HD port was also an interesting one. However remember that the Amiga A500 had a full side expansion slot that allowed full CPU accelerators to be connected, as well as SCSI HDDs, more memory, CD-Rom drives etc... making the Amiga far more expandable than the ST.

I'm afraid that ST owners can argue until they are blue in the face, but the truth is that the Amiga hardware is far more advanced than that of the ST, and it only enjoyed MIDI and DTP superiority due to a couple of extra ports included on the ST. Hardware wise it wasn't even close.

[quackmore]

Thanks for the warm welcome and in depth reply!

I think everything you've said is pretty accurate and I agree with everything except "more advanced" statement. Keep in mind, those ports/interfaces WERE considered advanced hardware back then.

So the Amiga had more advanced graphics & sound hardware, and the ST had more advanced hardware which pertained to music and DTP.

The problem with the whole "debate" thingy is that these were not similar computers, they both had their strengths and weaknesses. Anybody who can honestly say that one is better than the other in every single way possible, hasn't really thought it though.

It's funny if you think about it, we wouldn't even be having this discussion had Commodore installed those few cheap interfaces on the A500... Or, if Atari would have used the Amiga design in the first place which I heard they were supposed to do.

I've gotten rid of most of my Amiga's and Atari's, I still have 1 1040ST and 1 A500. Although I still have my Falcon CT60, I just sold my A4000 to a friend. Neither of them have been used in years (aside from booting them up) I'm sad to say.

So, I hope by frequenting this and other boards, I'll get motivated into getting back into things instead of just sitting on my PC laptop.

[Harrison]

Had Commodore included the additional ports the ST had then yes...it could be very different and the Amiga might have also ruled the recording studio, which would have left the Atari where? Dead in the water.

I personally don't view a few extra ports as meaning the ST had more advanced hardware. The Amiga could easily gain these ports by using relatively inexpensive expansions. What made the Amiga far more advanced over the ST was the internal hardware design which was 10 years ahead of any other computer.

It had much better memory handling than the ST, and even an A500 could be expanded to 9MB. Plus expansion port built in for the direct expansion of CPUs, HDDs, more ram etc... which was hard to do on an STFM for example. But the true killer feature of the Amiga design has to still be multitasking. Right from the first A1000 in 1985 the Amiga had fully hardware mulitasking, meaning many programs could be loaded at once and all running at the same time. No other computer could do that at the time, or for many years. Look at the Mac for example. It couldn't multitask at all until OSX came out! But the Amiga took that ever further. Not just being able to have multiple programs running at once, but also each running in their own screen with its own resolution and colour depth, with each screen stacked up one behind the other, and the ability to pull down the screens between each in realtime. Even modern PC graphics cards can't do this.

Any advances in multitasking and other additional features the replacement OSs and desktops have on the ST are all software based. The Amiga does this at the hardware level. And some aspects of this are still considered advanced even today.

The ST's internal hardware is by comparison very primitive and a bit if a joke.

[TiredOfLife]

Wasn't a case of Atari supposed to be using the Amiga design.
Jack Tramiel was offered it but he didn't see the need for a 16 bit computer at the time.
Commodore got second pick so to speak.
Atari then did a U turn and tried to play catchup.

If Jack had been a bit more forward thinking, I don't think m$ was have had the easy ride to dominance they have enjoyed.

No early days of competiton between the Atari and the Amiga could have given a bigger lead in the computing race.

The same arguement could also be laid at the door of Commodore.
The AGA machines were a cut down version of what the engineers had developed and want to produce.

[Harrison]

Well, the Amiga is the true successor to the Atari 8-bit systems as both were designed by Jay Minor. It was only when Atari refuses to accept Jay's idea to develop a new chipset for a 16-bit system that he left Atari and formed Hi-Toro to design the chipset himself. Atari then tried to buy back the rights to the Amiga, and even partly funded its development. But we know what happened next.

Therefore the Amiga is the true 16-bit Atari, although I don't think it would have been as good had Atari won and taken over development of the Amiga. The OS for one probably would have suffered. Although Atari might have added MIDI ports and possibly some other Atari specific ports.

I still think Commodore securing the Amiga was the better outcome. But we will never know what might have been different has Atari secured it instead.

I also agree regarding the AGA chipset, but that is later in the life of the Amiga. The A1000/A500/A2000 was the true original Amiga, and that delivered what Jay wanted at the time. The AGA chipset should have been released much sooner. Wasn't it ready when the A3000 was released? Or soon after. And the AAA chipset would have changed Commodores future I'm sure. But that is all in the past and impossible to change now. Atari made bad development decisions with the on going development of the ST, just as much as Commodore did with the Amiga.

[quackmore]

I didn't mean for this to turn into a debate, my apologies if I caused it to stay off-topic. However, it seems that if I post on an Atari board about Amiga's abilities, people get angry and when I post on an Amiga board about ST abilities, people get defensive.

I'm not denying that the A500 is an overall better personal computer than anything else out on the market when it was released, because it was! It reminds me of my old Atari 800, and that 800 was my most favorite computer of all time.

Here is what I AM saying. When the A500 was first released, it had more advanced hardware for graphics, sound, etc than ANY cell phone, word processor or dedicated sequencer that came out that year. But back around then, I considered the cell phones to have more advanced hardware for making wireless phone calls. MIDI and the DMA laser printing interface was far more "advanced hardware" on the ST than the sound/RCA & parallel printer ports on the A500.

"Advanced hardware" doesn't just pertain to co-processors, it can also be interfaces & ports. Would your ever rip out your USB, SATA and IDE stuff and once again use only RS232 and parallel ports for all of your IO?!

And adding the ports/interfaces to an A500 doesn't help much. Consider the Sega Genesis CD/32X. Since these attachments didn't come with it from the factory, it didn't get as much support as the Saturn because the Saturn HAD the CD and 32X features built in out of the box. Also, the A500 was already expensive enough without having to buy add-ons.

The only exception I can think of atm is the Video Toaster. I think that's a well supported add-on simply because there wasn't any competition (that I know of). My only regret is that I didn't get one for my A2000 or A4000 back in the day.

To sum up, there is no debate at all! To me, everything is clear. Then again, I'm the type of person to take advantage of a situation instead of being "stuck". I chose to own both Amiga's AND Atari's, so I came out ahead of most people I knew. :cool:

PS: Then again, I didn't see the purpose of owning a Mac or PC, especially since both were so easy to emulate :p

[Harrison]

We like a good debate here. And generally you will find Amiga owners to logically argue their case, whereas the Atari ST owners will get anger because they have to heavily defend their lessor system! ;) :lol:

I noticed you are from San Diego, and that really does explain your point of view between the Amiga and ST. In the US the Amiga was never marketed well and Commodore tried to sell it as a business machine. In contrast over here in the UK, and the rest of Europe, Commodore UK marketed the Amiga much better, showing how ahead of any other system the Amiga was for Multimedia, Video, Music, Animation and Gaming.

The UK and German were by far the largest markets for the Amiga and it far outsold the ST in these countries.


Here is what I AM saying. When the A500 was first released, it had more advanced hardware for graphics, sound, etc than ANY cell phone, word processor or dedicated sequencer that came out that year.

Try the next 10 years! ;) And this is true. The Amiga architecture and system capability wasn't reached in the PC market until the 90's, almost 10 years after the first Amiga was released. Quite amazing to thing the Amiga hardware design was that far ahead of anything else at the time.


MIDI and the DMA laser printing interface was far more "advanced hardware" on the ST than the sound/RCA & parallel printer ports on the A500.

"Advanced hardware" doesn't just pertain to co-processors, it can also be interfaces & ports. Would your ever rip out your USB, SATA and IDE stuff and once again use only RS232 and parallel ports for all of your IO?!

I disagree. Interfaces are not hardware in terms of the abilities a system has. They are just interfaces to communicate between different hardware. These days if a PC doesn't have a certain interface like SATA ports what do you do? You don't stop using a PC and find another system with SATA ports. You buy a card and add the ports by expanding it. Exactly what the Amiga users did and still do.

Here in Europe laser printers were very rare. Too expensive for home users to buy, so the ST's SMA laser printing interface was a completely unused port in Europe. And a MIDI port is only a serial connection to hook up and send data to MIDI compatible music hardware. Nothing special and nothing advanced. A MIDI box for the Amiga only cost £20 too so not expensive.

But if you want to compare interfaces, did the ST have a full interface slot that could be used to access CPU, memory etc...? Nope! Did it have a memory expansion slot for easy memory upgrades? Nope. I think these things are far more important to the wider overall market compared to MIDI and DMA printer ports, which you have to agree will only be useful and needed by a very small percentage of the overall userbase.


Consider the Sega Genesis CD/32X. Since these attachments didn't come with it from the factory, it didn't get as much support as the Saturn because the Saturn HAD the CD and 32X features built in out of the box.

That is a really bad example. Sega just dropped the ball after the Genesis (Megadrive in Europe) and all of the add-on CD-Drives, 32bit units etc were just stupid and a complete waste of marketing time, effort and expense. And the Saturn was a complete disaster. Well in Europe it was at least. Badly underpowered compared to the Sony PSX and it sold badly.

The Dreamcast though. That is another matter. Sega got it right with their final console and it remains one of my favourite consoles to this day. First with internet gaming built in, and the vivid graphics still look great.

Regarding the MegaCD again for a second. Another reason its a bad example is because any CD based format was not doing well when the media was first launched. Philips CDi, 3D0, Sega MegaCD, Amiga CD32, and even PC games struggled to find a market with the new Multimedia buzz word at the time. The world was just not quite ready for CD based games, and the developers were not actually quite sure what to do with all the extra space on the discs to begin with. With 16-bit systems they didn't need all that extra space to store game data. It was only when the 32-bit systems launched that CD storage sizes finally made sense.

[quackmore]

1. "Amiga owners to logically argue their case, whereas the Atari ST owners will get anger because they have to heavily defend their lessor system!"

This is what I mean by defensive. :p You should really just trust me on this since I have both machines. One isn't better at EVERYTHING than the other. I CAN safely say that the A500/ST was better at EVERYTHING than Mac's and PC's though.

2. "I noticed you are from San Diego, and that really does explain your point of view between the Amiga and ST. In the US the Amiga was never marketed well and Commodore tried to sell it as a business machine."

You may know more about marketing in San Diego than I do, so I may be mistaken... But, from what *I* have seen in San Diego, the marketing went like this:

Amiga: Video/Graphics & games
ST: Music/DTP
PC: Business machine

3. "I disagree. Interfaces are not hardware in terms of the abilities a system has. They are just interfaces to communicate between different hardware."

Def (WordWeb)
Noun: interface
(computer science) computer circuit consisting of the hardware and associated circuitry that links one device with another (especially a computer and a hard disk drive or other peripherals)

Interfaces ARE hardware and very much so in terms of system abilities. Most people consider the more advanced hardware being the best when it comes to interfaces and communication.

Keep in mind, I live down the road from Qualcomm and not too far from the CES show where they show off new communications hardware technology. How does your portable device interface with your car, etc.

If interfaces, adaptors, and ports are not hardware, then what are they?!

4. "But if you want to compare interfaces, did the ST have a full interface slot that could be used to access CPU, memory etc...? Nope! Did it have a memory expansion slot for easy memory upgrades? Nope."

Are you trying to sell me things I don't need?! Which port is better for a student on a daily basis:
1. A port you can access CPU through + upgrade RAM? or,
2. A port through which you can have professional looking FAST printouts cheaply?

It doesn't matter which was more complicated and expensive to design, what mattered was which was more useful on a daily basis.

Again, to sum up:
Adding the extra ports/interfaces to the A500 was not an option. It would still not have the support or do the things I needed it to do.

I'm not a ST specific person. I'm only saying that the ST did things that other computers at that time simply could NOT do, especially for the same amount of money.

[Chewieshmoo]

May I just add in my humble opinion.....Great arguements from both sides!
Really is no right or wrong, just views from BOTH SIDES OF THE POND and also good to see you guys keeping it civil unlike the same arguement on some "other" sites!!!
:thumbs:

[Harrison]

For me there is no point in turning any argument into a flame war. I never understand that on most forums. If you are going to discuss something then use facts and your opinion to write something constructive and hopefully of interest. What is the point in posting something online otherwise? I just don't get the trolls and flamers we all encounter on many forums these days.

A forum is for discussing, to air your opinions and views about something and to read others views on the same subject. To share ideas, to have a discussion. Why use agression and arogance when a good discussion can be had? And why do so many people see the need to win arguments all of the time on forums? A topic of discussion that is about something like this topic doesn't need a true conclusion.

There are those of use who prefer the Amiga, and those who prefer the ST. The hardware capabilities are obviously evident to everyone. However the purpose that you use either system for personally has a great effect on how you view that system and how useful and good it was for your personal needs. Regardless of processing power, graphics or sound capabilities, or the type of ports it had. If a platform delivers what you needed it to do then it is the best platform for you.

And my view on the ST vs Amiga arguments is very much that all computer systems have their plus and minus points, and were/are useful in their own right. Both the ST and Amiga were very capable systems in the 80's and early 90's and allowed their users to access software that was at the leading edge of computing at the time.

Before the ST and Amiga arrived the only other platform offering anything near to the same level of usability with a WIMPs interface was the Mac, and that was way over priced and out of the reach of normal users. Regardless of the differences, both the ST and Amiga provided the first two systems capable of finally giving users truely usable OSs to do more than basic tasks and gaming.

Yes, the capabilities of the Amiga were better then the ST's as I've been stating, but a system is only ever as good as its software. Again the Amiga's Workbench was years ahead of GEM. However the Amiga didn't have Cubase and that was a cutting edge piece of software for any digital musician and for that type of computer use the ST was a better system purely because the software was there, and the Amiga didn't have anything as good to compete in that market.

In contrast the ST had nothing to match something like Deluxe Paint for 2D bitmap and animation.

It's never clear cut from a productivity software point of view.

However you could also argue that the Mac was better than the ST because it had better DTP software and a port of Cubase, for which users did need to add a MIDI expansion. However because of cost the ST remained the favourite for MIDI enabled studios and lower budget DTP.

And actually it isn't always clear cut for gaming either. While the Amiga's hardware meant that in general games developed on the Amiga were better than the same games on the ST, it also came down to the developers. There were a few ST versions of games that are better than the Amiga versions due to poor development rather than the hardware. A great example of this is Captain Blood. This game was developed on the ST originally and used it's audio capabilities to the max to create very nice sounding music and in-game sound effects. On the Amiga, the game looked and played all but identically. However the audio was somehow messed up. The music sounded muddy and muffled by comparision and the game was missing the whol of the audio for alien speach, so you never heard a single thing in those parts of the game. Players of either version would still enjoy the game but it was better on the ST.

But back to actual hardware capabilities, and again I'm talking about what the actual internal electronics can do, not what it can be connected to. The Amiga demo scene was on the main thing that really highlighted the superiority of the Amiga over the ST at the time. Demos showing what the hardware could do with graphics and sound overshadowned anything the ST could do.


You may know more about marketing in San Diego than I do, so I may be mistaken... But, from what *I* have seen in San Diego, the marketing went like this:

Amiga: Video/Graphics & games
ST: Music/DTP
PC: Business machine

The whole if the US, not just Dan Diago. The Amiga didn't get the same support as a gaming system compared to Europe. I know this based on everything I read during the Amiga years, including US magazines alongside UK ones. The Amiga in the UK marketplace was seen as the ultimate gaming system in the late 80's. And I know this isn't generally the case in the US where it had Nindendo and Sega to compete against more so than in the UK. From my observations the US gaming market was always more console orientated, whereas in the UK home computers were more popular at the time for gaming.

And later into the life of the Amiga, the US pretty much dropped gaming and centred on professional uses like video production, 3D, Animation and graphics. Whereas in the UK the gaming market just kept on expanding. And support for the platform didn't die until the mid 90's, when most of the rest of the world had already abandoned the Amiga as a viable gaming platform.

Also it is worth noting that in the UK the ST was never widely marketed for either Music or DTP. It was marketed as a gaming platform competing directly against the Amiga. And in this marketplace the ST's hardware was woefully underpowered next to the Amiga. So often I would walk into a computer store and see the same game or demo running on both platforms alongside each other and the ST versions instantly showed the inferior capabilities of the hardware. Lower quality graphics due to a much more limited grange of colours available on screen at once, no overscan so the games always had 8-bit style borders, no copper effects so the games didn't have the great multicolours gaduated backgrounds giving the effect of a lot more colours on screen, mono tinny sound compared to 8-bit stereo sampled audio... for gaming the list of reasons why in the UK the ST was easily highlighted as a lesser system than the Amiga could go on and on.

I accept that for anyone wishing to use a computer for MIDI or DTP the ST delivered exactly what they needed. For everything else the Amiga had the advantage most of the time, especially when graphics and the OS came into the equation.

And one final thing to say. The ST wasn't born with the love that the Amiga had. Jay and the rest of the development team created something special that touched every Amiga user and continues to live on with them. For me the ST just didn't do this. It was a cabably 16-bit platform and could be used for many of the same tasks as an Amiga, but it was missing something special that the Amiga had and still has to this day every time we use them. It is the reason the Amiga community is still so active and hardware and software projects continue to be worked on and enthusiasticall received by the community. I just don't see this in the ST community. And what there was of the ST demo scene was small even at its height. The Amiga demo scene in contrast was a phenominen of great proportion and continues thrive to this day.

[Tiago]

I must say i really enjoy reading this topic. :)


A great example of this is Captain Blood. This game was developed on the ST originally and used it's audio capabilities to the max to create very nice sounding music and in-game sound effects

It was the first game i saw in the ST, the music was more then fantastic, 1988 i think.
One of the best games ever in the ST i think. Jean Michelle Jarre did an excellent work.

Here in Portugal, the Atari ST was very used for sound because of midi port. Many sound studios did used it for a long time. In 1989 i remeber a lot of musitians had the Atari connected to big keyboards.
Then i remember that a lot of people start to move from ST to Amiga with midi ports.
I think (may be wrong) the Atari had better software sound programs for some years, but the Amiga just did some really nice ones to, and by the 90's they were equal in music software but i think the amiga start to take a little advantage after 1990.
but in late 80's maybe they were simillar (in software)... :unsure:
But i allways remember the Atari ST as a great sound studio, a lot of musitians used it (same with amiga, a bit later).
anyway, i think they were both great !! but the Amiga.... better :D

[quackmore]

Well it's quite easy to keep this civil since I've received such a warm welcome and inviting atmosphere! :D

I think I've had an advantage since I've owned both systems and can give a completely non-biased opinion. Also, I've had first hand exposure in professional environments with both.

For example, at game companies I've been to and worked at, A2000's were used to make video games for the Lynx & SNES.

TT030 to makes games on the Jaguar (I still have my Jaguar dev kit).

TT030 using DynaCad for mechanical engineering (at a company here in San Diego).

I've used multiple music studios which used ST's & Falcons (there was nothing like Cubase audio in the early 1990's).

I actually got my A4000 from work. It was used to make the glue screens and intros for Disney DVD's.

and the list goes on...

So you see, I don't come at this from merely from a user stand point, but from somebody who has seen first-hand what these computers actually have done professionally.


These questions are based on around 1992 or so...

Q: How can you replace an A500 with a ST when you need more on-screen colors?!
A: Buy a VERY expensive and perhaps even custom video card?!
- I don't think so....

Q: How can you replace a ST with an A500 when you HAVE to do repeatedly fast printing professionally?
A: Buy a VERY expensive laser printer with 4 megs of RAM OR a custom interface for the Amiga?!
- Same again, I don't think so...

Q: How can you replace an A2000 w/a video toaster with a ST when you're doing video production?
A: You can buy a genlock and fudge it? LOL!!!
- Please don't even try...

Q: How can you replace a Falcon running Cubase Audio to lay down audio tracks professionally with an Amiga?
A: You can buy a MIDI adaptor for the Amiga and resort to reel to reel recording, then pain-stakingly edit your tracks using the old 1960's method.
- Are you kidding?!?!?!

I rest my case!!! (unless someone keeps it going, PLEASE don't keep this going LOL)

[Harrison]

Some very good points listed in your Q/A summary and I have to agree when you look at both systems being used in the professional market place. For professional graphics and video the Amiga couldn't be beaten, and for affordable printing and music studios the ST was the best option. And I wouldn't argue with that.

The only thing I would add is that the ST was quite a budget option for the printing and DTP markets. The Apple Mac was the system that ruled both of these areas at the time and you hardly ever saw an ST or Amiga in them. Only in lower budget studios would you have possibly utilsed an ST for DTP because the Mac was so expensive.

However if you leave the dedicated professional marketplace, where the computer would be utlised for one specific task, and look at the home marketplace then things are quite different. In the home maketplace, unless you were a musician wishing to use MIDI then the Amiga's much more advanced architecture meant it was the better option for games, graphics, sound sampling, and pretty much everything else.

[woody.cool]

May I just add in my humble opinion.....Great arguements from both sides!
Really is no right or wrong, just views from BOTH SIDES OF THE POND and also good to see you guys keeping it civil unlike the same arguement on some "other" sites!!!
:thumbs:
Now, shall I start up a Commodore 64 vs Spectrum vs Amstrad CPC argument!?!:lol:

[quackmore]

Eventually the Mac ruled these areas, but not until about 1996 or so. Everyone I knew of used the Atari Falcon or dedicated embedded systems for laying down audio tracks.

Without Cubase Audio (or something like it), the Mac was worthless for laying down audio tracks. And this wasn't a software support issue, the Mac lacked the hardware to handle the job.

Back in the old days, the Mac was just an empty box (just like the PC). With co-processors for sound and a 2nd CPU (slave) especially made for digital signal processing (perfect for audio), I was able to do everything I needed on my Falcon. The Mac just simply wasn't up to the task.

As for DTP, by the mid 90's just about any computer could handle the job, handle it fast, and handle it right.

Thanks for the great conversation everyone. I'll be back from time to time especially when I resurrect my Amiga and try to get it onto the internet to grab some of those great games!

[v85rawdeal]

May I just add in my humble opinion.....Great arguements from both sides!
Really is no right or wrong, just views from BOTH SIDES OF THE POND and also good to see you guys keeping it civil unlike the same arguement on some "other" sites!!!
:thumbs:
Now, shall I start up a Commodore 64 vs Spectrum vs Amstrad CPC argument!?!:lol:

CPC FTW (Mainly because I will use the big heavy-duty monitor to smash the other computers...)

[Buleste]

An FPGA board with all 3.

[Harrison]

Sorry, but some of those final statements just made me laugh because they are so inaccurate.


Eventually the Mac ruled these areas, but not until about 1996 or so.

How wrong is that statement!!! The Apple Mac was launched in 1984, with Aldus PageMaker in 1985. And the same year the Apple LaserWriter was launched, pushing Apple to the forefront of DTP. Then in 1987 QuarkXpress was launched, and the same year Adobe Illustrator and Aldus Freeland. From this point on all newspapers and magazines used them. And to this day Adobe Illustrator is still at the forefront of illustation, and Quark only lost out to Adobe when Indesign was launched.

The ST in contrast was nowhere in this marketplace. It was a budget alternative for a few years at the end of the 80's, and definitely not anywhere near to the same level as the Mac. The Mac completely dominated the DTP market until the mid 90's when the PC started to take over.


Back in the old days, the Mac was just an empty box (just like the PC).

It's called expandable, not empty! I personally see expansion slots as very useful. Not a nagative aspect. Being able to built a system using the expansion cards you need for a task, rather than a fixed design like the ST with some hardware you might not ever use!


With co-processors for sound and a 2nd CPU (slave) especially made for digital signal processing (perfect for audio), I was able to do everything I needed on my Falcon. The Mac just simply wasn't up to the task.

Well... the Mac was with some extra hardware added! ;) And in the UK the Falcon was a non starter. Not seen in many stores and no one owned or used them. It was also a huge commercial desaster for Atari. Released in 1992 and canceled in 1993. And it's 68030 CPU was only clocked at 16MHz and although ti could address 32-bit memory, it was restricted to 16-bit memory to save money! Madness!. In the UK the Falcon was a novelty by the time is was launched, and by this point the ST and Atari were at deaths door, with Atari cancelling the ST completely in 1993. And by the time the Jaguar was released... Atari had sadly become a bit second rate, and the Jaguar was seen as a joke before it was even released. And the less said about the toilet seat add-on the better. If only they hadn't rejected Jay's design ideas for his 16-bit system Atari's history would be so different.

But please don't get me wrong. I followed the development of the ST family. I had really wanted a TT when they came out but they were over priced, and the Amiga was better. ;) And I did follow the Falcon closely, and based on the development spec I really was interested in getting one. However the final finished system was way below Atari's original design ideas and fell short by a long way. The DSP was an interesting inclusion and obviously very useful for the Audio market. However it was also possible to utilise it for so much more. But sue to the Falcon being such a disaster we never got to see it really used for much more.

I do have fond memories of the ST as a home computer. While not as powerful as the Amiga, and while containing a much more inferior OS, the ST was still capable of delivering some useful productivity software (I used to do word processing (1st Word Plus), spreadsheets, databases, graphics (neochrome), and it was powerful enough for games developers to create good versions of most games. But it was just not on the same level as the Amiga.

Atari did try to fix this with the STE, with this updating version giving the same number of colours in the system palette as the Amiga, adding a DMA sound chip that produced Stereo 8-bit audio, a hardware blitter, and support for more memory. All things the AMiga could already do in 1985! It was however far too late as games and software developers already had a large STFM market to support so had to write their software to run on the older hardware. So the much better STE hardware was never really utilised. A bit of a shame.

[quackmore]

I'm glad I made you laugh, at least you find me entertaining :D

I hope I don't ruin the humor... but I completely disagree.

The Mac was not a failure in sales or prestige, but it failed miserably in the late 80's as far as being ahead of the competition in capability.

"How wrong is that statement!!! The Apple Mac was launched in 1984, with Aldus PageMaker in 1985. And the same year the Apple LaserWriter was launched, pushing Apple to the forefront of DTP. Then in 1987 QuarkXpress was launched, and the same year Adobe Illustrator and Aldus Freeland. From this point on all newspapers and magazines used them. And to this day Adobe Illustrator is still at the forefront of illustation, and Quark only lost out to Adobe when Indesign was launched."

This did not put it ahead since other computers could run it's software!

DTP Explaination
I knew some small businesses who used the Mac and some that used the MegaST. The ones who used the MegaST also had a Specre GCR cartridge which ran EVERYTHING. Adobe Illustrator was one thing everyone was talking about that they could run on their ST only at a higher resolution, slightly faster clock speed and larger screen for the ST. Sorry, software in an empty box doesn't get you anyplace.

Music Explaination
Who would want to run the Mac software when there was WAY more ST MIDI stuff available, and a lot for free!

Show me a Mac that could lay down and edit/manipulate Audio track and samples in realtime prior to the mid-1990's.

"It's called expandable, not empty!"

Expandability is a feature, not a great hardware design. An empty AT/ATX case is very expandable but I wouldn't go bragging about it.

A good example of having great hardware AND expansion slots is the A2000. It's best to have some integrated hardware vital to the system WITH expansion available if needed. Would you take out the Amiga co-processors and hardware which makes it Amiga and leave only the 68k and slots of an A2000?! Well that's essentially what the old Mac's were.

Take for example even PC motherboards today, you see that a LOT has been integrated into the motherboards now instead of having separate cards for everything.

Best example: Compare the Apple II with the Atari 800. You'll see what I mean...

The Falcon was a non-starter. Atari failed with it like they did with a lot of things. However, many musicians made use of the audio features not available in the Mac. This was its main purpose with people I knew.

Actually, I just thought about it... and I think I come at these debates all wrong. I don't come at them with a "theoretical analysis" of what has happened, I come at them from the point of view of, "What have I actually seen or done".

Since I worked for "The Federated Group" as a teenager, we had Mac's, PC's and Atari's and worked with all three in the late 80's. Trying to use those tiny Mac screens or clumsy PC's to do layouts for out ads and store signs and specials on those slow printers was frustrating. In comparison, we could run the same Mac software if we had to on larger screened, faster computers. We ran Mac software FASTER than our Mac's did!

Then as a Music major in college, I could have bought a Mac for music. The Mac and ST software were one in the same to me since I could run Mac software, but the Mac was WAY more expensive and when the Falcon was released, it lacked the hardware to lay down audio tracks.

At video game/video production companies in the early years, the Amigas were just too far ahead of other computers to even have a choice of using anything else.

This brings us up to the mid-90's. Macintosh finally got a version of Cubase Audio in 1996 I think it was. But by this time, I was out of school. PC's were doing much better as well.

To sum up:
I come from actually "seeing" these computers in action to produce things. And not just 1 ST either, but multiple Macs, Amiga's, PC's etc. I've used them all and found some computers come with the right hardware and some don't. There may have been award winning software written for the Mac, but that didn't make it ruler of the DTP world.

[Harrison]

Actually, I just thought about it... and I think I come at these debates all wrong. I don't come at them with a "theoretical analysis" of what has happened, I come at them from the point of view of, "What have I actually seen or done".

That was actually a point I was going to make. I tend to discuss anything like this using my knowledge of the actual history of each computer system and how it sold, the software it had, and the reception and markets it was popular in.

But I do think that many people do approach such a discussion exactly as you have been. We each view the success of a system, along with how good it is/was, based on our own experiences using a computer system. And a particular computer system will either be seen as good or bad depending on each users personal needs and requirements.

So for you, you personally witnessed the ST being used far more than the Mac for DTP and music production. Whereas I didn't see this in the UK design studios I was linked to (and also through the people I knew working in them) at the time.

And you will always find fans for every computer system ever made. Because they owned and used them, and got something useful or fun from them, they retain some good memories, and therefore become a long standing fan.

[quackmore]

Well put!!!

[Mac-Falcon]

Okay, my first post and then such a flamable thread :)

At first to my person: I am an Atarian for nearly 25 years, but I owned an A500 and an A2000, too. I like both - the Amigas and the Ataris. The Amiga mainly because of it´s games and the Atari for beeing the better choice ;) for me!

But one cannot say that one system is better than the other. Not for the 1st generation of both (260/520/1040ST, A1000,A500,A2000) nor fo the last (Falcon030, TT030, A1200, A4000).

Sure the Amiga has had the better gfx custom hardware for games, but hey, back these days I had to write documents and the Atari´s 640*400 at 75 Hz looked much better and felt better for the eyes than everything my A2000 could do that way. I really hated the work bench it was damn slow and had ugly colors... Atari´s GEM looked much better than that (in monochrome mode). Sure the Amiga had multitasking out of the box, but it was slow and also strictly limited to expandable but expensive RAM! The Atari also could do a little multitasking, but only with so called "acc"s which you could run at boot and work parallel to all opened programs... You could use nearly every program as acc, by simply renaming it from .prg to .acc... But also very limited because of RAM. The Amiga CPU ran at 7,09 MHz, the Atari had 8 MHz... that was a little bit faster ;) Then as I also live in Europe (Germany) as Harrison, I have to say that it´s not true that noone used the laser printers... Everyone I knew who had an Atari had one. And the printing results were amazing at least if you see how fast it was!

The first STs did fail as gaming machines- hardwarewise, that´s true, but softwarewise as one told it´s not so easy to say...

In 1990 with STE, MegaSTE and TT the Atari had as nice gaming machines hardwarewise, but they lack of software proofs... but there are some perls out there (Sleep Walker, Obsession, etc.).

When the falcon hit the market, Atari didn´t have the money to produce enough units for the customers... I know at least 3 people who wanted a falcon back these days, but never got the chance to buy one and so bought a mac in 1996, when those got cubase audio...

Sure the falcon´s main goal was music. In 1993 no other home computer system could do audio harddisk recording with 8 tracks at once in a better than cd quality (44,9 kHz) out of the box!

And show me an Amiga from that time which can playback stereo mp3s without any additional hardware... I don´t think there´s one (maybe I am wrong at that point..., I am really not sure).

And if you take the computers and accelerators (beside ppc ones) at which speed do they run max? 66 MHz? My CT60 falcon runs stable at 100 MHz, people run them at 110 MHz and that´s really amazing!

The Amiga scene has the better clones today, but which success do they have? Not the one they deserve!

I dream that one day our scenes will unite and maybe we will get a very powerful new computer system, but everything else is just a waste of time and money :(

I mean you have the nostalgic freaks who like playing around with very old computers and you have people who do not want to use microsoft products (like me) and still use their old computers for every days work... and I really do that. But I won´t buy a clone of a dead platform for so much money I could by the latest gamer pc and use linux on it.

It´s very difficult these days... If nothing happens both scenes will die... :(

Have fun with your machines as long as possible!

[Harrison]

Hi Mac-Falcon (http://forum.classicamiga.com/member.php?u=489). Great to see another ST fan joining to add his views. As I've said before, we might be an Amiga orientated site, but we love all retro hardware and software in its own special way.

Some interesting points raised and thoughts spared.

I love the old one about the ST's main CPU being just that little bit faster than the Amiga's. That was always used as an argument between fans of each machine. And as I already mentioned previously in the thread, the ST had to process everything using that single 8Mhz CPU. The Amiga on the other hand could farm many tasks out to its custom chipset to process, leaving it to process main program data. It didn't need to handle graphics, sound etc... the custom chips did it all instead. And the hardware architecture of the Amiga is what did make it better than the quickly cobbled together, off the shelf ST.


Then as I also live in Europe (Germany) as Harrison, I have to say that it´s not true that noone used the laser printers... I could imagine that in Germany that was true, because Germans have in the past embraced the best specification hardware. However in the UK we hardly ever saw a laser printer in the 80's. Too expensive for most home users to afford.


I dream that one day our scenes will unite and maybe we will get a very powerful new computer system, but everything else is just a waste of time and money :(

I think in the last couple of years the different retro platform scenes have become much less hostile towards each other. In the past you would never have seen C64 and Amiga demo sceners sharing events with PC sceners, but now this is commonplace, and they all enjoy seeing what each can achieve on their hardware of choice.

I do however sadly think the days have gone when we will see a new powerful computer system developed and produced for us to enjoy. The PC is too well entrenched now and if we are honest, the PC is quite a modular platform, allowing us to select each component we want it to have, and have a range of OSs in addition to Windows to choose from to run on it if we wish. The Apple Mac is still hanging on, and doing OK in the niche market area they have. However I have the sense the Apple are moving forever away from the home computer market, and more dedicated to home entertainment. I think if they continues it might reach a point where they have to decide if the Mac as a platform is worth continuing, or if their online entertainment and iPod range is more important. As most know, I'm not a fan of Apple or the Mac, but it would be a sad day if the platform did end as competition is healthy. We need it for hardware, software and OS development to continue and evolve. If only a single platform and OS existed it would stagnate as there would be nothing for developers to compete against to try and keep ahead of the opposition.