753 replies to this topic

[Tempest]

I've seen alot of 5200 vs. Colecovision threads, but not too many about Atari ST vs. Amiga. Just out of curiosity which line of computers do most people think was better and why?

Tempest

[Inky]

Ugh. Back i nthe BBS days I got into it with several Amiga peeps on this issue. Fortunatey, one became a friend (Right Dauber? )

The one area that the ST sucks in, and the Amiga shines is sound. TheST has a godawful 'bling bling' sound chip. By that I mean it actually sounds like 'bling bling' Check out Xenon 1 for what I'm talking about. The digitized sound on the ST always sounded fuzzy, but not on the Amiga.

This having been said, don't EVER take my ST from me!

[Heaven/TQA]

Atari ST (not STE!) has no

- 4 channel 8bit Digi DMA sound
- no softscrolling by hardware
- interleaved bitplanes
- no copper list
- no custom gfx modes
- no 4096 colors
- no HAM mode
- .................

but i loved my 1040STE but i love my A1200 more...

hve/tqa

[Inky]

Heaven/TQA said:

Atari ST (not STE!) has no

- 4 channel 8bit Digi DMA sound
- no softscrolling by hardware
- interleaved bitplanes
- no copper list
- no custom gfx modes
- no 4096 colors
- no HAM mode
- .................

but i loved my 1040STE but i love my A1200 more...

hve/tqa

I thought the STE had 4096 colors? I know the FM doesn't.

Of course what good is 4096 colors if you don't use it.

[Heaven/TQA]

but in HAM mode you can use nearly all 4096 colors at once... and compared to 16 colors at all very weak...

oh... i forgot the more advanced Blitter of Amiga... which can even draw lines...

and many other nice features... only what i hate is booting the workbench...

hve

[Gunstar]

the whole 4096 color thing is crap. I own both, and the Amiga may have 4096 colors, but only up to 32(16 in some modes) can be displayed at one time without special tricks anyway. The St line has a pallet of 512 to 4096, depending on the model and displays only 16 colors out of that. Being an artist, I use the "tricks" and I have to say that pictures can look damn good on either machine, regardless of the 512 to 4096 color difference. The fact is that I have a program on my 8-bit Atari that can give the user a pallet of upto 32,000 colors. SO WHAT. Palette gives you a larger choice of colors, but does not mean you can display them all anyway, and I can make pictures in 512 colors that one would be very hard pressed to see a difference in from one that supposedly uses all 4096 colors!

Sound the Amiga definately has hands down, ST digitized sounds ok though.

The Amiga has a color hi-res compared to the ST's mono hi-res, but the flickering on the Amiga hi-res screen makes it unusable as far as I'm concerned and I never use it, so it's usless to me, making both machines capable of only low-res full color images as far as I'm concerned.
Games are pretty much the same on either machine, sometimes the Amiga seems to use a few more colors, but with all the tricks game programmers use, both machines are VERY comparible and differences are so small it makes no difference to me. If you're trying to compare an A1200 or bigger Amiga fairly to an Atari, then you need to compare them to the mega STE's or TT/falcons since they are in the same class. A1000 and under is the one to compare to 520/1040st/ste's.
On the sound side, the ST has the midi ports built in if your a musician, so ST is better. As an artist I lean toward the Amiga, but the ST can do a comparible job, and I like using both. For raw power, both are equal.
If you have to have the best music and sound effects possible in a game, the Amiga is for you, if sound is secondary, then it doesn't matter since everything else about most games on both systems is equal.
bottom line (IMHO) is the same as comparing the 8-bits; it's close enough in advantages and weaknesses overall that they are pretty much equal and both are good machines in the end.

[Sauron]

The original stock ST systems had only the crappy YM sound chip, but the STE series and beyond had far superior audio capabilities to the Amiga, with graphics capabilities being pretty close, at least until the Falcon. The problem is, though, that at least 95% of the games released for the ST were geared towards the stock ST units, as those by far had the largest installed base. Granted, there were a few games that did take advantage of the advanced capabilities of the STE and up systems, but those were quite few and far between. By the time more enhanced games came out, it was already too little too late for the ST.

Having said that, the biggest advantage for the ST was price. While only being slightly behind the Amiga in some areas (and ahead in others), it was FAR cheaper. I wanted both an Amiga and ST back in the day, but could only afford the ST, as Amigas were way too expensive. Even the A500 cost about twice as much as the comparable 520ST, which gave you far more for your dollar. I like both systems quite a bit, but honestly the ST stays much nearer and dearer to my heart than the Amiga ever will.

[Atari_Owl]

Oh dear, I thought the days of this discussion were long gone.

Anyway, my take is.

I had both. Now I only have the ST and the Falcon (well except the PCs and Macs)
I developed software on both.

TOS >>>>> AmigaDOS
Seriously, messing around with that awful OS on the Amigas nearly drove me to distraction. I HATE workbench SOOOOOOOOO much . My coleague with whom i worked on most of the code expressed the exact same sentiments.

Hardware
Falcon >>> Amiga > STE > ST
No doubt the Amiga had superior capabilities. The OS just made it a nightmare to deal with them.

Games
Amiga >> ST

Art
Amiga >> ST

Everything else (Programming, Music, WP, Spreadsheet, etc)
ST >> Amiga

Regarding the 4096vs16 colours thing, that essentially true, since the 4096/512 colour displays of Quantum Paint & Spectrum 512 required a LOT of processor time to mainrain, which HAM didn't.

Cheers

[Tempest]

Quote

Oh dear, I thought the days of this discussion were long gone.

Classic arguments never die.

Tempest

[Heaven/TQA]

ehm... i have to disagree gunstar...

what about the softscrolling of the copper??? or the simpler gfx handling (bitplanes non interleaved vs. interleaved) and all the custom gfx modes like HAM, 64 halfbright etc....????

sorry... i have both machines and most conversion atari vs amiga amiga where ways better than the ST ones... sorry... you can deny the truth...

and i was a die hard 1040ste but even the amiga demos where better than the ST ones...

ok... it's unfair to compare A1200 with 520st but even 500 was better in terms of games...

you have the same ugly "borders" like c64 and on amiga you can do all the simple things which you can do on atari 8bit compared to c64... jay miner rules!

as i said... workbench sux as i prefer ROM booting...

hve

[Curt Vendel]

Tempest said:

I've seen alot of 5200 vs. Colecovision threads, but not too many about Atari ST vs. Amiga.  Just out of curiosity which line of computers do most people think was better and why?  

Tempest

Oh You are so NOT dredging this up Matt?!?!?

The ST was a beautiful bare bones, get the job done machine, a good workhorse and out of the gate it was a great, nice features, graphics, sound and memory at a dirt cheap price.

Problem is that once it was out of the gate, the firm lost focus, in fact I have a memo from one of the ST's original engineers who upon resigning from Atari, pointed out that his resignation was due to the lack of focus and future growth of the ST line and the company as a whole.

The Amiga is a darling of a machine, good graphics and sound and while Kickstart needed a kick in the butt early on and went through several iterations to get the system stable, the architecture was elegant and having legacy ties to the Atari 800 line didn't hurt either since its chipset was architected by the head of the Atari 800's chipset team.

The ST found its niche, with little thanks to Hybrid Arts who consulted on getting MIDI included into the ST design and that feature was its strength.

The Toaster was Amiga's "killer app" giving it unbelievable multimedia capabilities.

The Amiga is honestly an Atari machine, with Atari engineers, design aspects carried over from the Atari 800, and $500,000 in financing from Atari in late 1983 to bring the wirewraps to silicon, the machine is really an Atari plain and simple.

The ST was an amazing start to finish product, thanks to aggressive and concise management by Tom Brightman at Atari, the ST design stayed on course and only slipped by several months to full production release in Sept 85, only 1 year after the Tramiels came into the firm.... this is a task of monumental proportions given the fact that Atari itself spent over 18 months between its Corporate Research Group and its Atari Products Group just trying to lay out the technical details for:

"Eskimo" a portable computer
"Atari Explorer" a Notebook computer (Yup, Atari Explorer was its product name way before the Magazine!)
and while GAZA and SIERRA were in the works in Corporate Research, Atari products Group was working on a machine with spec's that made the Amiga and ST pale in comparision, Called "OMNI" this system was spec'd out to be a 3D graphics system using the AMY chip for sound and other new chips like Heather, Vivian and Penny for advanced features. The use of CD-ROM technology and many other specs....

Whats far more bizarre is the chip designs were done and in the testing phase, what happened to it and why the machine was never reviewed and completed by the time the Tramiels took over is a mystery I am working on and hopefully will answer....

More details on OMNI to come in some new pages on the Atari Museum site quite soon including memo's, and other details.


Your regularly scheduled ST vs Amiga thread now continues.....

Curt

[legeek]

I prefer the Amiga (I have my 2000HD set up and ready to go), but the ST is a nice machine as well...

Cheers,
Ben

[emkay]

Another versus thread...

I owned an ST about of 2 years and I found it was a big mistake

-for the tramiels to build that thing
-for MK to buy one of that things...

Coming from the XL , what high number of technical capcabilities was to left

DL-programming
HW-scrolling
4-voice sound
etc.

This made the ST not acceptable to me.

OK there were some very professional Applications available like CALAMUS...but they didn't enhance any "proudness" to the machine
I coded some Progs. like "XL-ST Schiffeversenken" but I never got really happy with that machine. And when Demos like from "Carebears" with the remake from C64 Knucklebusters-Soundtrack arrived, it was a clear do for me to sell the ST (can it be any more horrible?)
Then I bought an AMIGA 2000 and was happy with that System. Nearly all the XL had was inside incl. some enhancements...
AMIGAS Multitasking was the best of its time and I never saw more Guru Meditations than Bombs on the ST.
By only plugin of a ICD SCSI Controller into the Zorro 2 slot, a hard-drive found its way into the AMIGA. What an easy thing to setup the system with the hard-drive and even the drive-handling (Linux-like) schowed how powerfull the AMIGA-OS was..

[Inky]

I do have to admit that I was always jealous of the Amiga's capabilities, but I could never afford one, let alone find a local place that sold them.

[Sauron]

emkay's post is reason enough why it's a shame that Atari never seriously pushed anything other than the stock STf(m) systems. People always equate the ST series with 16 on screen colors with crappy chip music and no hardware graphics, which definitely wasn't the case once Atari moved to the STe line. The Amiga was able to blow me away with graphics (Shadow of the Beast), and impressed me with it's audio until the STe series came along.

One of my first recollections of the STe was walking into an Atari dealership in San Antonio with one of the employees playing Star Wars (original arcade adaption). They had the STe connected to a speaker system through it's stereo RCA jacks, and the sounds coming from it blew me away. I simply couldn't believe that kind of audio was coming from a computer. A friend of mine with an Amiga 2000 also had his system connected through a stereo (don't remember how exactly), yet that didn't impress me in the least. Maybe it was just my perception, but the Amiga's audio was only better than the ST's BEFORE the STe series. That continued all the way through to the Falcon, which absolutely annihilated the Amiga's still stock audio capabilities, and even had an edge in the graphics department IMO. I guess comparisons between the Falcon and the Amiga 1200 (the Falcon's closest competitor) will be done a bit more thoroughly pretty soon, as I plan on doing some tests on both myself.

[emkay]

Sauron

The ST(E) had to be there from the beginning.


The AMIGA was from the beginning the "AMIGA". Changes in the Chipset were mainly to update the Memory handling by bigger RAM-sizes.

The first real great "ST" is the Falcon, and I am still searching for a cheap offer of this phantastic machine. But, by taking a look at the mainly used OSes like Minix or freeMINT I recognize and realize, that the AMIGA had such capabilities since the KICKSTART 1.0 .

[Mendon]

I couldn't wait to hook up my STe and try out Xenon II.. man, I cranked up the volume and rocked for a couple hours with that game. Awesome soundtrack, awesome game, fantastic sound on the STe.

But methinks sound has a lot to do with the programers. For example, one of my favorite games on the ST is Millenium 2.2 and its sequel, Deuteros. On the Amiga, Deuteros sounds great and somewhat realistic but the ST version has pitiful, pitiful sound that is more irratating than anything else.

I'm sort of biased and greatly prefer the ST series. I've tried the Amiga (but not alot other than some game playing) but found its use much more user-unfriendly than the ST. The ST seemed geared for easy use; put a blank disk in the drive and BANG, yer at the desktop with its commands all ready to be used. The Amiga seemed to be more confused about whether it was trying to be a DOS machine (with command line entries) or a Mac machine (by using a mouse and icons). Of course, I found the Atari 8bits much more user friendly than the C=64.. so I guess my bias is showing.

Just my opinion.

Mendon

[Sauron]

emkay said:

Sauron

The ST(E) had to be there from the beginning.


The AMIGA was from the beginning the "AMIGA". Changes in the Chipset were mainly to update the Memory handling by bigger RAM-sizes.

The first real great "ST" is the Falcon, and I am still searching for a cheap offer of this phantastic machine. But, by taking a look at the mainly used OSes like Minix or freeMINT I recognize and realize, that the AMIGA had such capabilities since the KICKSTART 1.0 .

While that's true, the Amiga's hardware really didn't progress at all beyond faster processors and the slight enhancements brought about by the ECS chipset (slightly higher resolutions, woohoo!) until the AGA chipset. Meanwhile, the ST series actually showed progress, steadily moving from the 520 and 1040 ST, to the Mega ST, then to the STE, Mega STE, TT, and Falcon. During the entire lifespan of the Amiga, the audio hardware stayed the exact same, while the ST series moved well beyond what the Amiga could do on that end, and pretty much eventually caught up on the graphics front.

We can argue this all day, but what mattered in the end are two things:

1) The Amiga and the ST series were both good computers, and

2) Both were eventually annihilated by the PC.

I was sad to see both of them go. Commodore was the most surprising, as they seemed to come to an abrupt end, whereas Atari more or less just fizzled out. It's great seeing both communities survive in one form or another to this day, and even more surprising that the Amiga may just yet become a viable computer platform again. As it is, it's amazing to see what people can pull out of the existing hardware now. Who ever thought we'd browse the web or listen to MP3's from our old systems?

[Heaven/TQA]

emkay... this time we share the same opinion...

when i got my STe then i suddenly coded my 1st intro (simple pic+scroller+mod-music playing) i realised that the STe was nearer to my lovely 8bit but years later i got a A2000 + A1200 all with HD+030 blizzard boards and i was blown away with all the nice Aminet CD-roms with the Tons of great programs found on it...

remembering Reflections, mod-tracker, cinema 4d, deluxe paint, all nice ones... i even wanted to upgrade my 030 with a PPC board... (? seems i have to surf over to amiga sites or the official amiga site... )

falcon was great with it's DSP but far too late compared to PC.....

both companies died the same reason at the end... like in every facette of life... no real evolution....

heaven

ps. btw... my final thesis was written on a plain 4mb 1040 STE in that's write!!! saved to 3,5 DD discs! printed out on Amiga! hahaha....until late in the night... never forget that... no money for PC at that time (1998)

[Heaven/TQA]

1040STE soundoutput better than on amiga? this i can't believe... as both have 8bit DMA sample output???

best Amiga music: Tint Demo by TBL (http://www.tbl.org/)
and bomb the bass in the game the lotus esprit challenge 2...

hve

[Atari_Owl]

Quote

ps. btw... my final thesis was written on a plain 4mb 1040 STE in that's write!!! saved to 3,5 DD discs!  

....until late in the night... never forget that... no money for PC at that time

Same here, my undergraduate dissertations were written on the 1040ST and the thesis on the Falcon in LaTeX.

[Sauron]

Heaven/TQA said:

1040STE soundoutput better than on amiga? this i can't believe... as both have 8bit DMA sample output???

Check the specs. The Amiga did have 8bit PCM output, but with a max sampling rate of 25khz, whereas the STE systems had a max of 50khz. Where Atari REALLY left the Amiga behind as far as sound was with the Falcon. Full 8 channel 16 bit stereo at 50khz coupled with the DSP, where the Amiga 4000 and A1200 still had not improved upon the audio of the original A1000. Even the Falcon's graphics had a few things up on the AGA Amigas, with 256 color at 640x480 running at an acceptable speed in TOS, whereas my Amiga 1200 absolutely crawls with anything more than 32 on screen colors at that same resolution. I may be remembering the Falcon's capabilities incorrectly, but that should be fixed soon, as I should be receiving one shortly.

[Sauron]

Heaven/TQA said:

emkay... this time we share the same opinion...

when i got my STe then i suddenly coded my 1st intro (simple pic+scroller+mod-music playing) i realised that the STe was nearer to my lovely 8bit but years later i got a A2000 + A1200 all with HD+030 blizzard boards and i was blown away with all the nice Aminet CD-roms with the Tons of great programs found on it...

remembering Reflections, mod-tracker, cinema 4d, deluxe paint, all nice ones... i even wanted to upgrade my 030 with a PPC board... (? seems i have to surf over to amiga sites or the official amiga site... )

falcon was great with it's DSP but far too late compared to PC.....

both companies died the same reason at the end... like in every facette of life... no real evolution....

heaven

ps. btw... my final thesis was written on a plain 4mb 1040 STE in that's write!!! saved to 3,5 DD discs! printed out on Amiga! hahaha....until late in the night... never forget that... no money for PC at that time (1998)

One thing that seemed far more prevalent on the Amigas were accelerators. You can upgrade just about every Amiga except the original A1000 with at least a 68030 and beef up the RAM. The STs were definitely lacking in the accelerator department on that end, with most stock ST accelerators being overclocked 68000 chips. The Falcon seems to be much better in that department, though, thanks to the processor-direct expansion slot.

Heaven, if you haven't already, I'd suggest hopping on over to Amiga Inc.'s website and check out info on AmigaOS 4.0. Another good Amiga community website is amigaworld.net, which has been hosting tons of screenshots of AOS 4.0. You can often find me in #amigaworld on IRC. The only downer right now about the Amiga community is that there's a big, nastly split right down the middle, divided by those loyal to Amiga Inc, and those who support the Amiga "clone" Pegasos/MorphOS. Putting that aside, though, the people I've chatted with have been quite helpful and are very enthusiastic about the future. I've even seen some ST fans in there too.

[Heaven/TQA]

@ sauron

amiga is cool... unfortunatly laying in my flat somewhere... few weeks ago i fired my 1200 up and like an old car it needed some time to run smoothly again but now it boots fine

12mb ram, 2 CDR, 10 GB harddisc (external, or was it MB??? ), 030 42mhz board...

hmmm... should depack it in my new flat...

the specs are unbelievable low compared to PC nowadays...

and you are right... everything above 640x480x32 gets slow as hell... damned bandwith restriction of the AGA chipset...

i was reading the amiga inc. websites since they took over and was dreaming of a new amiga but unfortunatly compared to PC unbelievable expensive...

[Sauron]

Wow, sounds like you have a nice A1200 setup there! I'm wanting to eventually upgrade mine to the point where I can do some useful things with it, like web browsing but it seems like that will require at least an 040 board with a good amount of RAM, a bigger hard drive, and a CD-ROM, which is a necessity for upgrading to AOS 3.5 or 3.9. Oh yeah, need to get Kickstart 3.1 ROMs too, which aren't necessarily cheap. One unfortunate thing about Amigas is that they're still fairly expensive to upgrade and maintain, which hopefully the new hardware direction should solve, even though it's not quite there yet.

Totally off-topic, but has anyone ever looked into moving the TOS clones in the direction of PowerPC? The only upgrade path I see right now from the top end clones is to the Coldfire processor, which I'm assuming is still quite a ways away.