Atari ST vs. Amiga

[kool kitty89]

Looks like atari is fast becoming a 'non brand', if anything is to be extrapolated from the last link

 

Or you could be misinterpreting data....

 

"amiga" is spanish for "female friend"

 

Note the large number of searches coming from Brazil and Mexico

Oh, wow, I feel really stupid for overlooking that too. So obvious...

[oky2000]

400 USD brand new amiga 1000, you sure you don't mean 1400 usd, after all i seem to remember silica shop selling a1000's for 1500 gbp (and even that was if you traded in your old

 

$400 USED with NO trade-in (my point being is that it was cheaper or on a par with the ST's at the time). It did not even come with a box. Just the system, keyboard and binder with the OS's in it. Only thing I might be hazy on is the year. I know for a fact though that it was either Dec. of '86 or Dec. of '87. Okay, so maybe it was '87, but I remember thinking the computer was "cheap" then, yet to expand it beyond 512kb was outrageously EXPENSIVE! About the same cost as the computer! lol So I did end up selling it in favor of a brand new A500 w/ 1MB for less than $700 delivered and it came w/ a 1084's monitor too. I purchased that via mail order... Montgomery Grant I believe.

 

And no, nobody is forgetting Amiga's roots. For me, that's not the issue at all. I'm talking dollar for dollar value here. For me, I never really considered the ST "competition" to the Amiga. Spec for spec, the Amiga provided more bang for the buck. Yes, it *was* expensive when it was first released and you were looking at a brand new computer purchase. But I was in that camp that had already gone through 2 A8's and a C64. Commodore's reputation as a computing and gaming platform is what sold me on the Amiga hands down. Atari's jumbled and mixed up mother goose way of handling retailers and rehashing/rebranding the same old obsolete shite did not sit well with me as a consumer. Contextually, doesn't matter who designed and invented the Amiga - the computer kicks ass either way (to me, I recognize it as an Amiga product, NOT a Commodore product). IMHO, if Atari had released it instead of Commodore, it may have never taken off as well as the platform did and might have been killed off sooner. We can all agree that the writing was on the wall for both Atari AND Commodore anyway. The fact that Tramiel jumped ship like that was the death knell. He represented obsolete business practices in an arena he had no longer had a "right" to be in. Times were changing - yet he did not. Typical and natural of us as we turn into old men

 

Hmmm interesting point about Atari from an intelligent and open minded A8 owner about Atari as a company. I think given the fact the 400/800/XL/XE/XEGS had proved by 1987 that Atari 8bits were the same flawed design in fancy cases being peddled every couple of years would put me off too.

 

The A1000 was officially no longer in production so a lot of dealers off-loaded them at below A500 prices I remember. And as I only know of one game out of 1000s that only works on the A500 and not an identical memory and KS version of the A1000 is a crack copy of Ghosts and Goblins I didn't see why people wouldn't buy it except for fear of parts availability years later as any consumer would buying end of line machines in a sale.

 

As for Tramiel I think he got used to the luxury of all the bought in Commodore companies/IP like MOS etc making VIC-II and SID for peanuts compared to what it would cost TI/Atari/Tandy/MSX consortium/Apple etc. He probably regretted leaving Commodore but I guess seeing as it was his company and only Irving Gould's financing he should have been given free reign on choosing the retail price of the C64. I think from memory he wanted to make the C64 $199 and £125 or something and then introduce what we know as the Commodore 16 at $50-60 to wipeout all opposition companies in a Walmart style below cost market share ware....which would have worked.

 

What we ended up with was a cash strapped Jack trying to resurrect a dead company like Atari, and Commodore run by some short monkey (Ali Medhi) who didn't know his elbow from his a-hole by the time Commodore had the Amiga. At least Apple learned from their mistakes with Mac 1,2,3 almost bankrupting them and bringing Jobs back to the helm of the good ship Apple (who's design over sanity ethos has worked a treat for Apple keeping them in the black ever since)

 

It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic that today I can ONLY have Apple or MS Windows machines....the two worst choices of the 80s and 90s!! Bit like saying you can have an Edsel or a Pinto...what a choice LOL

[oky2000]

I did stay loyal to the A8. Like anyone else would have. I bought an ST. There was no way to know that was an error until later. And yes - it was an error. Other than cost, there would have been no reason to buy an ST with the Amiga out. It just goes to show that when you trust a brand you expose yourself to mistakes.

 

I'm still loyal to my 800XL. I'm still loyal to my ST's, Falcon, STacy, Jaguar, and Lynx.

 

Being loyal to one doesn't need to mean being disloyal to the other, in any sense.

 

If you want to insist that buying an ST was an error for you personally, that's fine. I

won't argue with that. But if you try to insist that buying an ST was an error, period -

well then you and I are gonna disagree all day long.

 

I couldn't afford an Amiga. Let alone an Amiga with a monitor. Get out of town - that

was a rich mans game. I got my ST, with floppy, mouse and color monitor for $799.00, when

the A1000 was going for 1500.00 by itself! Ugh!. I had to work long and hard just to save

up the money for the ST. Worth every darned penny it was too.

 

I'll sum it up for me - the ST did the vast majority of what the Amiga did, for substantially

less cost.

 

Maybe if Commodore had released an A500 type model at the same time the 520ST came out, for

approximately the same price, I *might* have chose a different path (but I doubt it). But

they didn't, and I didn't...and so many others didn't...

 

Good day.

 

A1000 purchasers @ those sort of prices were required to actually start paying off the huge investment it took for Commodore to acquire exclusivity of that chipset like it or not. ALL early adopters pay through the nose, how many people bought a 360 or PS3 on launch day at full price? It's no different.

 

The Amiga's advantages were however quite specific, a lot of animation/graphics based businesses naturally did buy into it for obvious reasons, but it was never going to become mass market at that sort of price....so many people waited a while whilst saving for their next 'home computer' in the EU (PCs were nowhere in home sales in the mid 80s, people wouldn't piss on a PC in 1986 as a home computer unless the boss was paying for it so you could do overtime for the company you worked for at best)

 

I think the ST was the right machine at the time, however it was not revolutionary really. Graphical GUI had been done before, colours/resolution were good but not a quantum leap in technology, sound was awful, CPU had been used by other companies for about 18 months already etc. It was the natural evolution of a home computer like the Amstrad/Schneider CPC in Europe and with the STM/STFM it was a good choice of home computer. However in contrast the Amiga delivered photo-realistic images at full PAL/NTSC vertical resolution, a desktop pre-emptive multi-tasking GUI and OS package, a sound system that could play back Fairlight samples, the best genlockable and chroma key solution ever made....etc. This is why when a respected journalist like Guy Kewney from Personal Computer World magazine said quite clearly there has never been a machine so superior to all others that the only decision you have to make is if you can afford it not whether you should own one....as oppossed to the opinions and un uncorroberated 'facts' of some old fanboy who ran some fleabit operation selling Atari kit in the 80s which means FA compared to such knowledgeable and respected industry people working for probably the worlds most professional and unbiased magazine dedicated to computers of all types from home to PCs.

 

As for games, well there are certain game types (ie the ones the A8/C64 excel at0 that the ST will struggle with due to lack of specific custom graphics/audio hardware...but then again at this time thanks to the sheer power of the 68k CPU new game styles were emerging to make use of the much higher CPU bandwidths that CPU afforded, so we began to see excellent new game styles or massively improved versions of old game styles (solid 3D polygon games like Powerdrome are just Wipeout's little brother really, no less amazing for the time, ditto with massively complex and advanced parsers in the Magnetic Scrolls adventure games and things like Dungeon Master).

 

To be honest probably the only Atari machine I will never bother to purchase is Jaguar, whatever the technical abilities may be implied by demon coders, that for me is one machine that has no software I personally wish to run EVER. At least there was a handful of good games or applications on all other Atari machines and ditto for all Commodore machines (and just about every manufacturer who has at least some machines I like in their product range...how else would I end up with 100+ computers and consoles! ha ha)

[kool kitty89]

It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic that today I can ONLY have Apple or MS Windows machines....the two worst choices of the 80s and 90s!! Bit like saying you can have an Edsel or a Pinto...what a choice LOL

What about Linux?

You'd still be running it on a platform evloved from IBM's 1981 standard, but it would have nothing to do with MS Windows. (andbesides, Macs now use that same architecture, can run PC OSs natively, and you can even get OSX to run on a PC -very carefully )

 

I think the ST was the right machine at the time, however it was not revolutionary really. Graphical GUI had been done before, colours/resolution were good but not a quantum leap in technology, sound was awful, CPU had been used by other companies for about 18 months already etc. It was the natural evolution of a home computer like the Amstrad/Schneider CPC in Europe and with the STM/STFM it was a good choice of home computer. However in contrast the Amiga delivered photo-realistic images at full PAL/NTSC vertical resolution, a desktop pre-emptive multi-tasking GUI and OS package, a sound system that could play back Fairlight samples, the best genlockable and chroma key solution ever made....etc. This is why when a respected journalist like Guy Kewney from Personal Computer World magazine said quite clearly there has never been a machine so superior to all others that the only decision you have to make is if you can afford it not whether you should own one....as oppossed to the opinions and un uncorroberated 'facts' of some old fanboy who ran some fleabit operation selling Atari kit in the 80s which means FA compared to such knowledgeable and respected industry people working for probably the worlds most professional and unbiased magazine dedicated to computers of all types from home to PCs.

Yeah, but as superior as it was, it didn't push into the broad mass market in the US (management/marketing was definitely a factor, and then again the ST had a comperably small market share as well -with both being far more mainstream in UK/Europe). But compared tot he leading contemporary standard computers, IBM/compatibles and Apple's Macintosh, the ST was definitely damn good and very affordable. (the best PC contemporary probably being Tandy's 1000 line -aimed at affordability, better color capabilities than lower end PCs, and much better sound than a PC speaker -roughly comperable to the ST probably a little weaker, plus designed to work via RF or composite video in addition to RGB -and I'd mention PC Jr, but it didn't persist for nearly as long)

 

 

To be honest probably the only Atari machine I will never bother to purchase is Jaguar, whatever the technical abilities may be implied by demon coders, that for me is one machine that has no software I personally wish to run EVER. At least there was a handful of good games or applications on all other Atari machines and ditto for all Commodore machines (and just about every manufacturer who has at least some machines I like in their product range...how else would I end up with 100+ computers and consoles! ha ha)

There are a few good/unique games on the Jaguar, soem of which ended up being ported, but some of those degraded in translation. (T2000, Rayman -arguably, etc) Doom on the Jag has better lighting/shading than any other console port (and way better than DOS), only modern sourse ports beat it in that respect. (and most other console ports use the same modified level/map set -PSX Ultimate doom adds later expansions though -original PSX doom does not)

I'd say BattleSphere alone merits the purchase of the system, but it's so rare/expensive that kills it for any but the most dedicated collectors and Jaguar fans. (if that game could be gotten for a reasonable price it might give me real insentive to get one for the prices they now go for -at prices 3-4 years ago, I'd probably be all over it) Phase Zero is simply amazing, a horrible shame it was never finished/released. (also too bad other developers at the time didn't push for such rendering methods -the Jaguar blitter is great for voxels -and the results are simply stunning)

[HiroProX]

Personally, the main interest I have in the ST line is they offer a glimpse at a "route not taken". When the IBM PC was on the drawing board, the MC68000 was considered as a choice for CPU, though the (in my opinion cripple-beyond-all-hope) i8088

[+poobah]

This is the thread that never ends....

 

Back in the day, I bought an ST because it was what I could (barely) afford.

The Amiga had better specs, but it cost a shit ton more money (remember these are 80's dollars).

If you wanted a 68K platform and weren't wealthy, the ST was your choice.

Same price, no question, buy an Amiga

 

Problem is you are comparing a Toyota Camry with a Lexus LS

The Lexus is more refined and better engineered, but costs twice as much, and in the end, they are both Toyotas.

 

feel free to /s with ST/Amiga/68K

 

Cost does trump technology if it is too far from the knee in the curve.

 

And heck yes, I'd take a 68K over an x86!

[Zogging Hell]

I think the real reason that the Amiga eventually won the race with the ST is that rabid Amiga owners carried on talking up their machine till most ST owners committed suicide and the rest fell into comas!

[frogstar_robot]

I think the real reason that the Amiga eventually won the race with the ST is that rabid Amiga owners carried on talking up their machine till most ST owners committed suicide and the rest fell into comas!

 

To the point that there is still a modern day AmigaOS but it is the computing industry's zombie. It shambles about the landscape chanting "braaaaaaaaaaiiinnns!".

[+wood_jl]

Let's be honest here.. There wasn't really a power problem with the Amiga 500 and an external floppy or 2. The 500 PSU had plenty enough power for the A500, an extra 512M and an extra floppy. (I never had 2 external floppies hooked up to mine for an extended period, but it never gave me problems for ..er.. disk backup sessions..).

 

Now, if you got a sidecar expansion with HD/RAM (or just HD, those old SCSIs ate AMPs), the standard Amiga PSU wasn't really up to par. You "could" do it with some, but you were risking problems. However, the good sidecars came with their own power, or you could buy a larger PSU. I bought a "Bigfoot" PSU when I got my sidecar HD for my 500.

That's good to know, then. I just saw the one (for sale) with the PC power supply, and figured it must have been that way for a reason.

 

Also, the PSU for the 1200 was weak. Too weak for the system. It was good for a 1200 and an external floppy, but everyone I know who had any kind of expansion for it used an A500 PSU or some other external.

 

When I got my 1200 recently, the guy said "It doesn't have the original PSU. It has an A500 one. Sorry." I was like.. "Well, OK I suppose I'll still take it."

 

This, of course, reminds me of one of the "problems" preventing me from returning to the 16-bit generation - "Which one to get?" With the A8 and C64 you can run anything. ST or STe? There isn't a single model that will run everything. I'm assuming it's the same with the Amiga - 500 for old games and 1200 for new games? All these ROM and/or OS versions. It just seems like it would take lots of time, money, and desk space (more than one machine, each) to be able to run *everything*. I'd like to hear that I'm wrong about this....

[+wood_jl]

I was in RemoWilliam's boat as well and had a similar setup. I spent a year saving up to get that machine and sold some of my A8 gear to get a 24-pin printer later which is far from being a superficial "credit card consumer". At the time, I had gotten to see and play with an ST at a friend's house and appreciated various ways it was an upgrade over my 800XL. All I knew of Amigas was what I saw in the magazines. I appreciated that the Amiga appeared to be step up in some ways but I didn't have that same chance to get to know one personally. Even if I had gotten the hots for an Amiga I really WOULD have had to wait another year to have one. As it was, most upgrades to my 520STFM were out of reach too. Unless you were fortunate enough to have some sort of paying job or indulgent relatives, computing in the 80s was a hard hobby to have on a 15 year old's pocket money.

 

It was perfectly rational to decide the ST was capable and affordable and buy on that basis.

 

This is exactly as it was for me. The ST was a *huge* purchase for me, and I was 15 or 16 at the time. I was also trying to save up for my first car (1974 VW Super Beetle) at the same time, and take on new expenses like gasoline and insurance. While other kids were spending their money partying and getting laid, I was barely able to get this computer, after selling A8 and everything else, unfortunately. There was no way in hell that I could have spent more than that; couldn't really even afford the ST back then.

Edited January 25, 2010 by wood_jl

[desiv]

This, of course, reminds me of one of the "problems" preventing me from returning to the 16-bit generation - "Which one to get?" With the A8 and C64 you can run anything. ST or STe? There isn't a single model that will run everything. I'm assuming it's the same with the Amiga - 500 for old games and 1200 for new games? All these ROM and/or OS versions. It just seems like it would take lots of time, money, and desk space (more than one machine, each) to be able to run *everything*. I'd like to hear that I'm wrong about this....

 

That is an issue. For games, the OS doesn't matter too much, as most game (all I've seen) are OS independent on the Amiga. But ROM version is an issue, as is hardware platform.

 

Most people get an Amiga 500, which will play 90%+ of the games. I don't know of any games that "require" a higher ROM version, but there are many that require a lower ROM version (1.3 covers most of the games). So, if you want an updated ROM for your OS (which you probably would IF you want to use it for something other than games), you'll want a kickstart switcher. Either hardware or software.

 

Now, the Amiga 1200 includes AGA and there are some games that require that. But the AGA chipset does break a few games. Luckily some smart engineer thought of it. When booting the Amiga 1200, you can hold down both mouse buttons and you get a boot menu screen where you can choose the old (non-AGA) chipset and disable some caching features, select PAL/NTSC, etc... If you combine that with a boot disk that boots the 1.3 ROM, you can run almost every game. But it's a few steps.

 

There's a program called WHDLoad that makes this even easier IF you have some extra memory for your 1200. Basically, you can run the game with any of those settings (including telling it to run that game with the 1.3 ROM) and it runs the game from a HD. My Amiga 1200 doesn't have any extra RAM tho, so I'm not using it. (Actually, you can use it on some games without the extra RAM, I got one to work, but you really need the extra RAM to get that to work.)

 

So, if you want most games, you should get an Amiga 500 with 1.3 ROM. If you want virtually all games, you can get a 1200. And a 1200 with a HD and RAM and WHDLoad will get almost all games much more easily.

 

I can see why this is confusing to people.

I have to admit, I was looking into getting an Atari 800 (always liked the look of them), but started reading about some games might need more memory than it can provide. People saying I needed something like the 130XE or XEGS, but would they play all the old games? Slowed me down just enough that something else shiny attracted my eye and I don't have one yet... I'll get back to doing research on that later. But I can see where that whole issue is very confusing for people.

 

I've not looked at it with the ST. I know it has different TOS versions and configs, but I'm not sure how that affects game compatibility. I was given a 520STf, and that's when I found out that some STs didn't support composite/TV out (not an STfm). That was pretty frustrating. It's just sitting in a closet. Yeah, I could get a cable and hook it up to my VGA monitor, but that's hires only, and not most of the games... Oh well..

 

desiv

[+wood_jl]

It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic that today I can ONLY have Apple or MS Windows machines....the two worst choices of the 80s and 90s!! Bit like saying you can have an Edsel or a Pinto...what a choice LOL

What about Linux?

You'd still be running it on a platform evloved from IBM's 1981 standard, but it would have nothing to do with MS Windows. (andbesides, Macs now use that same architecture, can run PC OSs natively, and you can even get OSX to run on a PC -very carefully )

I'm going to have to second the Linux suggestion. I've been using the most recent 2 versions of "Ubuntu" Linux, and it's just amazingly complete, stable, and free. As a long-time Windows user, it's a bit much to just switch directly. Yeah, it's a little different. I first had it on my "old" computer next to the Windows machine. After that one died, I set up "dual-boot" with WinXP on my main machine. Over the last year, the number of times I boot into Windows has been very steadily decreasing. Yet it's there if you need it - for certain software or peripheral use. I **highly** recommend doing it this way. Especially, you can protect your fragile/unsecure Windows by doing your browsing in Linux.

 

To be honest probably the only Atari machine I will never bother to purchase is Jaguar, whatever the technical abilities may be implied by demon coders, that for me is one machine that has no software I personally wish to run EVER. At least there was a handful of good games or applications on all other Atari machines and ditto for all Commodore machines (and just about every manufacturer who has at least some machines I like in their product range...how else would I end up with 100+ computers and consoles! ha ha)

There are a few good/unique games on the Jaguar, soem of which ended up being ported, but some of those degraded in translation. (T2000, Rayman -arguably, etc) Doom on the Jag has better lighting/shading than any other console port (and way better than DOS), only modern sourse ports beat it in that respect. (and most other console ports use the same modified level/map set -PSX Ultimate doom adds later expansions though -original PSX doom does not)

I'd say BattleSphere alone merits the purchase of the system, but it's so rare/expensive that kills it for any but the most dedicated collectors and Jaguar fans. (if that game could be gotten for a reasonable price it might give me real insentive to get one for the prices they now go for -at prices 3-4 years ago, I'd probably be all over it) Phase Zero is simply amazing, a horrible shame it was never finished/released. (also too bad other developers at the time didn't push for such rendering methods -the Jaguar blitter is great for voxels -and the results are simply stunning)

 

Hmmmmm....I'm kind of in the same boat. I'm not "anti" Jaguar, and I think it's cool that people like it and still develop for it. I bought a new one for (I think) $200. I'd just never been so disappointed in anything Atari before. Whether it was the "fault" of the hardware or the software didn't matter - it was just disappointing. T2K and Aliens vs Predator were definitely cool, though. I ended up selling it and getting a Playstation. I play "Tempest X3" on the Playstation and that pretty much fills my T2K need - especially since it supports the Playstation Mouse for analog control. I'd consider getting another, but I don't have a 7800 either and I think I might get one of those ahead of another Jag. It certainly would have to be cheap, so no Battlesphere. PSX Doom (and Final Doom) is so fast and smooth, and the controller so good (strafe on shoulder buttons) that it just really can't be knocked.

Edited January 25, 2010 by wood_jl

[kool kitty89]

Personally, the main interest I have in the ST line is they offer a glimpse at a "route not taken". When the IBM PC was on the drawing board, the MC68000 was considered as a choice for CPU, though the (in my opinion cripple-beyond-all-hope) i8088

Not to get into the whole "CPU wars" thing (which gets even worse with 8-bit MCUs in the mix), but wasn't one problem with the 68k architecture soem compatibility issues between the original 68000 and 68010/020 and later (beyond the issue of software using the upper addressing byte for things not intended -not a problem on the 68EC020 anyway)? Plus, wasn't the 80286 at an advantage over an equally clocked 68000 (or 68010 even), in terms of speed/power? (not programming ease/effeciency)

I know you get into tons of other issues comparing the later contemporaries as well (020/030 vs 386, 040 vs 486, 060 vs 586(Pentium)) And of curse, motorola's shift in effort towards RISC designs and Apple's shift to PPC probably had soem impacts on that. (but the massive PC market driving Intel. AMD, Cyrix, etc to develop more advanced x86 compatible CPUs played the bigest part)

 

Hmmmmm....I'm kind of in the same boat. I'm not "anti" Jaguar, and I think it's cool that people like it and still develop for it. I bought a new one for (I think) $200. I'd just never been so disappointed in anything Atari before. Whether it was the "fault" of the hardware or the software didn't matter - it was just disappointing. T2K and Aliens vs Predator were definitely cool, though. I ended up selling it and getting a Playstation. I play "Tempest X3" on the Playstation and that pretty much fills my T2K need - especially since it supports the Playstation Mouse for analog control. I'd consider getting another, but I don't have a 7800 either and I think I might get one of those ahead of another Jag. It certainly would have to be cheap, so no Battlesphere. PSX Doom (and Final Doom) is so fast and smooth, and the controller so good (strafe on shoulder buttons) that it just really can't be knocked.

Yeah, the support was never strong enough, the market would have needed to have been completely full of outstanding programmers and development firms willing to take the risk given the circumstances. (as it was, there were a few, like Carmak etc)

I don't know a ton about this, but it does seem like Atari Corp management were largely to blame for a lot of the problems (technical and otherwise), possibly Sam Tramiel specifically. Others on the board also have commented that things appeared to start slipping downhill in general after Sam took over. (who knows what might have happened with Jack staying at the helm longer -same thing could be said for Commodore though...) Another possible factor (for the lynx as well) is Michael Katz leaving Atari (became President of Sega od America in 1989 -albeit replaced about a year later by Tom Kalinske); I know even less about this, but from what I unserstand he was in chage of marketing for the games/consoles at Atari corp and given that the 2600 Jr and 7800 did surprisingly well given the circumstances (limited advertizing budget, very limited new software released, and Nintendo's domination in the US) so I can only immagine that he could have been a positive force handlign future game console marketing. (definitely experienced in the video game industry -Coleco in the eraly handheld years, Mattel with Intellivision, then Atari Corp -later Sega of course --creating the "Genesis Does!" campaign BTW and pushign for tie-ins with celebrities liek Joe Montana and Michael Jackson)

[frogstar_robot]

I can see why this is confusing to people.

I have to admit, I was looking into getting an Atari 800 (always liked the look of them), but started reading about some games might need more memory than it can provide. People saying I needed something like the 130XE or XEGS, but would they play all the old games? Slowed me down just enough that something else shiny attracted my eye and I don't have one yet... I'll get back to doing research on that later. But I can see where that whole issue is very confusing for people.

 

 

A 130XE covers more of the territory than anything else because of the 128K ram. The number of things that won't run on it are low and they are obscure. There is a Translator disk that takes care of most of those but dedicated A8 fans often install mods that allow switching different ROM oses in. That isn't absolutely necessary but is nice. Even the titles that won't run usually have versions that have been tweaked to run on XL/XE. Getting a 400/800 able to run the gamet of XL/XE titles on the other hand is a more difficult proposition though we do have someone here who made a "personality board" to do it.....that board is a one off and may or may not become a purchasable kit.

 

There are some 80 column boards and such that only an 800 can use but such hardware add-ons weren't common. So for running all the classic A8 titles, a 130XE with translator disk probably covers all the ground you'll ever need. That's "classic" A8 titles. Of course there is also a NTSC/PAL split. "Back in the day" you just used the one appropriate to where you lived and never missed how the other half lived. Today's Internet Enhanced 8-bit Hobby is a bit more interesting. Though a PAL machine seems able to run most the interesting titles. Eastern European demo coders often mod their XLs and XEs to as much as 576K of bankswitched ram and write demos and games to it. The forums here have all the dope on how to do that if interested.

Edited January 25, 2010 by frogstar_robot

[JamesD]

Personally, the main interest I have in the ST line is they offer a glimpse at a "route not taken". When the IBM PC was on the drawing board, the MC68000 was considered as a choice for CPU, though the (in my opinion cripple-beyond-all-hope) i8088

Not to get into the whole "CPU wars" thing (which gets even worse with 8-bit MCUs in the mix), but wasn't one problem with the 68k architecture soem compatibility issues between the original 68000 and 68010/020 and later (beyond the issue of software using the upper addressing byte for things not intended -not a problem on the 68EC020 anyway)? Plus, wasn't the 80286 at an advantage over an equally clocked 68000 (or 68010 even), in terms of speed/power? (not programming ease/effeciency)

I know you get into tons of other issues comparing the later contemporaries as well (020/030 vs 386, 040 vs 486, 060 vs 586(Pentium)) And of curse, motorola's shift in effort towards RISC designs and Apple's shift to PPC probably had soem impacts on that. (but the massive PC market driving Intel. AMD, Cyrix, etc to develop more advanced x86 compatible CPUs played the bigest part)

Actually, the incompatibility issue was mostly 1 instruction which was privileged on 68010 and up but not on the 68000.

The ROM Kernel Manuals specifically warned against using it and to use a ROM call instead but many game writers ignored or never bought the manuals. It mostly impacted games from Europe. There was a program that would patch the instruction and it worked on most of the unprotected software.

 

There was also a compatibility issue with some games that didn't wait for the blitter to complete before trying to start a new one. The code would work fine on an unexpanded 68K machine where the blitter and CPU shared the same buss, but just adding FASTRAM to a system could break that code since the CPU wouldn't automatically wait anymore. You could patch the program to load into CHIPRAM and that usually fixed it but copy protection could prevent that as well.

The problem wasn't the Amiga, it was developers.

 

As for the cpus...

 

The 80286 had higher clock speeds than the 68020 but at the same clock speed I thought they were similar with Motorola having a slight advantage in code efficiency. Other than clock speed I think the intel/Moto chips were pretty comparable speed wise up to the 486. At that point the larger internal + external cache and much higher clock speeds really created a gap in performance.

 

Ultimately, I think Motorola's internal culture prevented them from keeping up.

The same thing happened a few years later with cell phones. Motorola went from being the leader to last place.

Motorola had even shot themselves in the foot years earlier with 8 bit CPUs. The 6800 team wanted to build a new chip, management said no and the engineers left to build the 6500/6502. Can you imagine where Motorola would have been in the 8 bit market if those engineers hadn't left to build the 6502? Now there is a good starter for a what if topic!

 

FWIW, at one point a dual 68030 board was developed for the Amiga 3000 but management killed it... along with the 3000+ with the built in DSP chip. CBM management wanted the next C64 and they were too blind to see that CPU speed was driving the market. If a multi-cpu + dsp system had been introduced I think Amiga could have kept up for a while, but the OS needed an overhaul to add protected/virtual memory and the shift to 3D/GPUs would have required another big change.

[HiroProX]

Personally, the main interest I have in the ST line is they offer a glimpse at a "route not taken". When the IBM PC was on the drawing board, the MC68000 was considered as a choice for CPU, though the (in my opinion cripple-beyond-all-hope) i8088

Not to get into the whole "CPU wars" thing (which gets even worse with 8-bit MCUs in the mix), but wasn't one problem with the 68k architecture soem compatibility issues between the original 68000 and 68010/020 and later (beyond the issue of software using the upper addressing byte for things not intended -not a problem on the 68EC020 anyway)? Plus, wasn't the 80286 at an advantage over an equally clocked 68000 (or 68010 even), in terms of speed/power? (not programming ease/effeciency)

I know you get into tons of other issues comparing the later contemporaries as well (020/030 vs 386, 040 vs 486, 060 vs 586(Pentium)) And of curse, motorola's shift in effort towards RISC designs and Apple's shift to PPC probably had soem impacts on that. (but the massive PC market driving Intel. AMD, Cyrix, etc to develop more advanced x86 compatible CPUs played the bigest part)

Actually, the incompatibility issue was mostly 1 instruction which was privileged on 68010 and up but not on the 68000.

The ROM Kernel Manuals specifically warned against using it and to use a ROM call instead but many game writers ignored or never bought the manuals. It mostly impacted games from Europe. There was a program that would patch the instruction and it worked on most of the unprotected software.

 

There was also a compatibility issue with some games that didn't wait for the blitter to complete before trying to start a new one. The code would work fine on an unexpanded 68K machine where the blitter and CPU shared the same buss, but just adding FASTRAM to a system could break that code since the CPU wouldn't automatically wait anymore. You could patch the program to load into CHIPRAM and that usually fixed it but copy protection could prevent that as well.

The problem wasn't the Amiga, it was developers.

 

As for the cpus...

 

The 80286 had higher clock speeds than the 68020 but at the same clock speed I thought they were similar with Motorola having a slight advantage in code efficiency. Other than clock speed I think the intel/Moto chips were pretty comparable speed wise up to the 486. At that point the larger internal + external cache and much higher clock speeds really created a gap in performance.

 

Ultimately, I think Motorola's internal culture prevented them from keeping up.

The same thing happened a few years later with cell phones. Motorola went from being the leader to last place.

Motorola had even shot themselves in the foot years earlier with 8 bit CPUs. The 6800 team wanted to build a new chip, management said no and the engineers left to build the 6500/6502. Can you imagine where Motorola would have been in the 8 bit market if those engineers hadn't left to build the 6502? Now there is a good starter for a what if topic!

 

FWIW, at one point a dual 68030 board was developed for the Amiga 3000 but management killed it... along with the 3000+ with the built in DSP chip. CBM management wanted the next C64 and they were too blind to see that CPU speed was driving the market. If a multi-cpu + dsp system had been introduced I think Amiga could have kept up for a while, but the OS needed an overhaul to add protected/virtual memory and the shift to 3D/GPUs would have required another big change.

 

Pretty much covers what I was going to say about 68000 vs. 680x0 compatibility.

 

As for the i80286, the closest Moto equivalent is actually the MC68012, as it had the protection ability present in the MC68010 and added VM support. The 68020 was comparable to the i80386DX. The MC68RC030 at 40 and 50MHz respectively encroached on i80486SX performance levels at the lower end, and the MC60LC040 matched the 486SX and SX2 CPUs. And the 68RC040 was the equal of the 486DX. Now the MC68EC020 is an interesting animal, as it has the full 32-bit data bus, but a 24-bit address bus, it's usually considered comparable to the i80386SX, even though unlike the 386SX is has a full 32-bit data bus.

[atarian63]

Personally, the main interest I have in the ST line is they offer a glimpse at a "route not taken". When the IBM PC was on the drawing board, the MC68000 was considered as a choice for CPU, though the (in my opinion cripple-beyond-all-hope) i8088

Not to get into the whole "CPU wars" thing (which gets even worse with 8-bit MCUs in the mix), but wasn't one problem with the 68k architecture soem compatibility issues between the original 68000 and 68010/020 and later (beyond the issue of software using the upper addressing byte for things not intended -not a problem on the 68EC020 anyway)? Plus, wasn't the 80286 at an advantage over an equally clocked 68000 (or 68010 even), in terms of speed/power? (not programming ease/effeciency)

I know you get into tons of other issues comparing the later contemporaries as well (020/030 vs 386, 040 vs 486, 060 vs 586(Pentium)) And of curse, motorola's shift in effort towards RISC designs and Apple's shift to PPC probably had soem impacts on that. (but the massive PC market driving Intel. AMD, Cyrix, etc to develop more advanced x86 compatible CPUs played the bigest part)

Actually, the incompatibility issue was mostly 1 instruction which was privileged on 68010 and up but not on the 68000.

The ROM Kernel Manuals specifically warned against using it and to use a ROM call instead but many game writers ignored or never bought the manuals. It mostly impacted games from Europe. There was a program that would patch the instruction and it worked on most of the unprotected software.

 

There was also a compatibility issue with some games that didn't wait for the blitter to complete before trying to start a new one. The code would work fine on an unexpanded 68K machine where the blitter and CPU shared the same buss, but just adding FASTRAM to a system could break that code since the CPU wouldn't automatically wait anymore. You could patch the program to load into CHIPRAM and that usually fixed it but copy protection could prevent that as well.

The problem wasn't the Amiga, it was developers.

 

As for the cpus...

 

The 80286 had higher clock speeds than the 68020 but at the same clock speed I thought they were similar with Motorola having a slight advantage in code efficiency. Other than clock speed I think the intel/Moto chips were pretty comparable speed wise up to the 486. At that point the larger internal + external cache and much higher clock speeds really created a gap in performance.

 

Ultimately, I think Motorola's internal culture prevented them from keeping up.

The same thing happened a few years later with cell phones. Motorola went from being the leader to last place.

Motorola had even shot themselves in the foot years earlier with 8 bit CPUs. The 6800 team wanted to build a new chip, management said no and the engineers left to build the 6500/6502. Can you imagine where Motorola would have been in the 8 bit market if those engineers hadn't left to build the 6502? Now there is a good starter for a what if topic!

 

FWIW, at one point a dual 68030 board was developed for the Amiga 3000 but management killed it... along with the 3000+ with the built in DSP chip. CBM management wanted the next C64 and they were too blind to see that CPU speed was driving the market. If a multi-cpu + dsp system had been introduced I think Amiga could have kept up for a while, but the OS needed an overhaul to add protected/virtual memory and the shift to 3D/GPUs would have required another big change.

By the time either Atari or Amiga moved past the 68000 , it was just too late, by then nobody cared that much and had mostly moved on or were happy with a 68000 gaming system.

[HiroProX]

 

By the time either Atari or Amiga moved past the 68000 , it was just too late, by then nobody cared that much and had mostly moved on or were happy with a 68000 gaming system.

 

My A500 had a MC68000 for about, 8 days. I hacked a MC68012 into it after that. But I didn't by it for games.

 

But then, I liked my multitasking comic-book OS. And I've owned Atari ST's, mostly thrift-store rescues after I upgraded from the A500 to an A3000UX, and frankly, TOS/GEM was a bit of a thin tea.

Edited January 26, 2010 by HiroProX

[kool kitty89]

Actually, the incompatibility issue was mostly 1 instruction which was privileged on 68010 and up but not on the 68000.

The ROM Kernel Manuals specifically warned against using it and to use a ROM call instead but many game writers ignored or never bought the manuals. It mostly impacted games from Europe. There was a program that would patch the instruction and it worked on most of the unprotected software.

OK, so it wasn't all that problematic. (was there any such issues with the x86 family?)

 

There was also a compatibility issue with some games that didn't wait for the blitter to complete before trying to start a new one. The code would work fine on an unexpanded 68K machine where the blitter and CPU shared the same buss, but just adding FASTRAM to a system could break that code since the CPU wouldn't automatically wait anymore. You could patch the program to load into CHIPRAM and that usually fixed it but copy protection could prevent that as well.

The problem wasn't the Amiga, it was developers.

That's specific to the Amiga hardware though, not the fundamental CPU architecture. (the latter effecting the ST -and MAC- as well)

 

The 80286 had higher clock speeds than the 68020

You mean 80386, right?

 

Motorola had even shot themselves in the foot years earlier with 8 bit CPUs. The 6800 team wanted to build a new chip, management said no and the engineers left to build the 6500/6502. Can you imagine where Motorola would have been in the 8 bit market if those engineers hadn't left to build the 6502? Now there is a good starter for a what if topic!

Yep, that or if MOS had continued to develop the 650x family. (rather than WDC later doing that to some extent) They seemed to have been OK with the 68000 in that respect (a good number of licenced producers like Hitachi and Signetics), that changed with the 020 though. (which also had implications on the cost/price competitiveness against intel chips -possibly part of the reason it took so long for the Amiga and ST to have 32-bit CPUs standard)

 

FWIW, at one point a dual 68030 board was developed for the Amiga 3000 but management killed it... along with the 3000+ with the built in DSP chip. CBM management wanted the next C64 and they were too blind to see that CPU speed was driving the market. If a multi-cpu + dsp system had been introduced I think Amiga could have kept up for a while, but the OS needed an overhaul to add protected/virtual memory and the shift to 3D/GPUs would have required another big change.

They should definitely have kept pushing the high-end market with more advanced models. (in addition to the low-end consoles) Atari should have probably pushed for a higher-end unit earlier as well. (ie Mega -and again, they could have foregone the blitter and pushed for faster CPUs alone -working on getting an upgraded shifter and some decent audio out sooner too) Then again, Commodore was a bit late getting the low end A500 out too. (kind of the opposite, especially with the MEGA 1 and A500 apearing around the same time)

 

 

 

 

Now the MC68EC020 is an interesting animal, as it has the full 32-bit data bus, but a 24-bit address bus, it's usually considered comparable to the i80386SX, even though unlike the 386SX is has a full 32-bit data bus.

I think there's a rather distinct difference with the 386SX and 68EC020, the EC020 still has the onboard I-cache and full bus width of the standard 020, just more limited addressing, so it retains the performance of the full 68020. (other than being limited to 16.7 and 25 MHz models -with the 68020 available up to 33 MHz)

 

By the time either Atari or Amiga moved past the 68000 , it was just too late, by then nobody cared that much and had mostly moved on or were happy with a 68000 gaming system.

Yeah, both were late to introduce 32-bit systems (standard -not upgrade kits), bot skipped the 68020 as well (albeit the A1200 used the EC020). That and both seemed to have ignored advancing PC standards (especially Atari who seemed to be playing catch-up with Amiga-like features rather than pushing for more CPU power and something comperable to VGA), leaving Amiga as a separate company (ie not buying them outright) made enhancing the Amiga architecture a bit less straightforeward for Commodore as well.

And again, it seems like Commodore was a bit late getting the low-end console Amiga (500) out there, and conversely Atari was lae getting a high-end unit out (Mega). Cost reducing the Amiga may have taken a bit of time, and even if it had been available a year or so earlier, it probably would still have been rather expensive. (not outstandingly cheaper than the A1000)

The ST on the other hand should have been easy to shift toward a more high-end/professional system, box form factor, more expandability (RAM slots, probably a standard expansion bus connector/slot too), that and maybe a higher-end keyboard, but especially offer faster CPUs standard (up to 12.5 MHz -maybe have 8, 10, and 12.5 MHz versions available) plus a built-in 720 kB disk drive standard plus a place provided for an onboard HDD would be nice. (having the 360 kB SS drive around at all kind of screws things up -establishing a lower common denominator to support -or frustrating uers with those drives when software in that format is less available) Maybe they should have put a bit more emphesis on cartridge based software for really low-end users if anything, and had the 720 kB drives as the smallest capacity standard.

[atarian63]

 

By the time either Atari or Amiga moved past the 68000 , it was just too late, by then nobody cared that much and had mostly moved on or were happy with a 68000 gaming system.

 

My A500 had a MC68000 for about, 8 days. I hacked a MC68012 into it after that. But I didn't by it for games.

 

But then, I liked my multitasking comic-book OS. And I've owned Atari ST's, mostly thrift-store rescues after I upgraded from the A500 to an A3000UX, and frankly, TOS/GEM was a bit of a thin tea.

Actually that would make you a rare animal, beside I am not talking upgrades which did not sell well BTW, I am talking stock machine, by that time in the life cycle of both machines, pc's had mad great inroads,so much that most people did not even notice the more powerful ST and amiga machine.

The comic book o/s still did help to sell amigas but you would hardly notice as most were sold as a consold and bypassed the o/s/. Tos gem was so much easier.

[atarian1]

This is the thread that never ends....

Yeah, I know. I guess the Amiga fanboys here are tired of their Amigas and have boost their low self-esteem and egos by making up stuff about the ST to entertain themselves. Sad...

[atarian63]

Actually, the incompatibility issue was mostly 1 instruction which was privileged on 68010 and up but not on the 68000.

The ROM Kernel Manuals specifically warned against using it and to use a ROM call instead but many game writers ignored or never bought the manuals. It mostly impacted games from Europe. There was a program that would patch the instruction and it worked on most of the unprotected software.

OK, so it wasn't all that problematic. (was there any such issues with the x86 family?)

 

There was also a compatibility issue with some games that didn't wait for the blitter to complete before trying to start a new one. The code would work fine on an unexpanded 68K machine where the blitter and CPU shared the same buss, but just adding FASTRAM to a system could break that code since the CPU wouldn't automatically wait anymore. You could patch the program to load into CHIPRAM and that usually fixed it but copy protection could prevent that as well.

The problem wasn't the Amiga, it was developers.

That's specific to the Amiga hardware though, not the fundamental CPU architecture. (the latter effecting the ST -and MAC- as well)

 

The 80286 had higher clock speeds than the 68020

You mean 80386, right?

 

Motorola had even shot themselves in the foot years earlier with 8 bit CPUs. The 6800 team wanted to build a new chip, management said no and the engineers left to build the 6500/6502. Can you imagine where Motorola would have been in the 8 bit market if those engineers hadn't left to build the 6502? Now there is a good starter for a what if topic!

Yep, that or if MOS had continued to develop the 650x family. (rather than WDC later doing that to some extent)

They seemed to have been OK with the 68000 in that respect (a good number of licenced producers like Hitachi and Signetics), that changed with the 020 though. (which also had implications on the cost/price competitiveness against intel chips -possibly part of the reason it took so long for the Amiga and ST to have 32-bit CPUs standard)

 

FWIW, at one point a dual 68030 board was developed for the Amiga 3000 but management killed it... along with the 3000+ with the built in DSP chip. CBM management wanted the next C64 and they were too blind to see that CPU speed was driving the market. If a multi-cpu + dsp system had been introduced I think Amiga could have kept up for a while, but the OS needed an overhaul to add protected/virtual memory and the shift to 3D/GPUs would have required another big change.

They should definitely have kept pushing the high-end market with more advanced models. (in addition to the low-end consoles) Atari should have probably pushed for a higher-end unit earlier as well. (ie Mega -and again, they could have foregone the blitter and pushed for faster CPUs alone -working on getting an upgraded shifter and some decent audio out sooner too) Then again, Commodore was a bit late getting the low end A500 out too. (kind of the opposite, especially with the MEGA 1 and A500 apearing around the same time)

 

 

 

 

Now the MC68EC020 is an interesting animal, as it has the full 32-bit data bus, but a 24-bit address bus, it's usually considered comparable to the i80386SX, even though unlike the 386SX is has a full 32-bit data bus.

I think there's a rather distinct difference with the 386SX and 68EC020, the EC020 still has the onboard I-cache and full bus width of the standard 020, just more limited addressing, so it retains the performance of the full 68020. (other than being limited to 16.7 and 25 MHz models -with the 68020 available up to 33 MHz)

 

By the time either Atari or Amiga moved past the 68000 , it was just too late, by then nobody cared that much and had mostly moved on or were happy with a 68000 gaming system.

Yeah, both were late to introduce 32-bit systems (standard -not upgrade kits), bot skipped the 68020 as well (albeit the A1200 used the EC020). That and both seemed to have ignored advancing PC standards (especially Atari who seemed to be playing catch-up with Amiga-like features rather than pushing for more CPU power and something comperable to VGA), leaving Amiga as a separate company (ie not buying them outright) made enhancing the Amiga architecture a bit less straightforeward for Commodore as well.

And again, it seems like Commodore was a bit late getting the low-end console Amiga (500) out there, and conversely Atari was lae getting a high-end unit out (Mega). Cost reducing the Amiga may have taken a bit of time, and even if it had been available a year or so earlier, it probably would still have been rather expensive. (not outstandingly cheaper than the A1000)

The ST on the other hand should have been easy to shift toward a more high-end/professional system, box form factor, more expandability (RAM slots, probably a standard expansion bus connector/slot too), that and maybe a higher-end keyboard, but especially offer faster CPUs standard (up to 12.5 MHz -maybe have 8, 10, and 12.5 MHz versions available) plus a built-in 720 kB disk drive standard plus a place provided for an onboard HDD would be nice. (having the 360 kB SS drive around at all kind of screws things up -establishing a lower common denominator to support -or frustrating uers with those drives when software in that format is less available) Maybe they should have put a bit more emphesis on cartridge based software for really low-end users if anything, and had the 720 kB drives as the smallest capacity standard.

actually the floppy being 360k made no diff really, most items early on were 360k but in aretty short period of time most stuff required a dbl sided drive and it was no problem as most users had long ago purchased one or it had come standard in their ST. 1040 being the most common type.

[atarian1]

This, of course, reminds me of one of the "problems" preventing me from returning to the 16-bit generation - "Which one to get?" With the A8 and C64 you can run anything. ST or STe? There isn't a single model that will run everything. I'm assuming it's the same with the Amiga - 500 for old games and 1200 for new games? All these ROM and/or OS versions. It just seems like it would take lots of time, money, and desk space (more than one machine, each) to be able to run *everything*. I'd like to hear that I'm wrong about this....

 

That is an issue. For games, the OS doesn't matter too much, as most game (all I've seen) are OS independent on the Amiga. But ROM version is an issue, as is hardware platform.

 

Most people get an Amiga 500, which will play 90%+ of the games. I don't know of any games that "require" a higher ROM version, but there are many that require a lower ROM version (1.3 covers most of the games). So, if you want an updated ROM for your OS (which you probably would IF you want to use it for something other than games), you'll want a kickstart switcher. Either hardware or software.

 

Now, the Amiga 1200 includes AGA and there are some games that require that. But the AGA chipset does break a few games. Luckily some smart engineer thought of it. When booting the Amiga 1200, you can hold down both mouse buttons and you get a boot menu screen where you can choose the old (non-AGA) chipset and disable some caching features, select PAL/NTSC, etc... If you combine that with a boot disk that boots the 1.3 ROM, you can run almost every game. But it's a few steps.

 

There's a program called WHDLoad that makes this even easier IF you have some extra memory for your 1200. Basically, you can run the game with any of those settings (including telling it to run that game with the 1.3 ROM) and it runs the game from a HD. My Amiga 1200 doesn't have any extra RAM tho, so I'm not using it. (Actually, you can use it on some games without the extra RAM, I got one to work, but you really need the extra RAM to get that to work.)

 

So, if you want most games, you should get an Amiga 500 with 1.3 ROM. If you want virtually all games, you can get a 1200. And a 1200 with a HD and RAM and WHDLoad will get almost all games much more easily.

 

I can see why this is confusing to people.

I have to admit, I was looking into getting an Atari 800 (always liked the look of them), but started reading about some games might need more memory than it can provide. People saying I needed something like the 130XE or XEGS, but would they play all the old games? Slowed me down just enough that something else shiny attracted my eye and I don't have one yet... I'll get back to doing research on that later. But I can see where that whole issue is very confusing for people.

 

I've not looked at it with the ST. I know it has different TOS versions and configs, but I'm not sure how that affects game compatibility. I was given a 520STf, and that's when I found out that some STs didn't support composite/TV out (not an STfm). That was pretty frustrating. It's just sitting in a closet. Yeah, I could get a cable and hook it up to my VGA monitor, but that's hires only, and not most of the games... Oh well..

 

desiv

 

Wow. More drivel and false information from bored Amiga fanboys. I guess I should not be surprised now.

 

First of all, if you want to run every ST game out there, you get TOS 1.0. If you have a later version of TOS, you can use SELTOS.PRG to load up a TOS 1.0 image file. You can also go the hardware route and get a TOS switcher so that you can have multiple versions of TOS in your machine at a flick of a switch. There are hacks of this on the net.

[oky2000]

I think the real reason that the Amiga eventually won the race with the ST is that rabid Amiga owners carried on talking up their machine till most ST owners committed suicide and the rest fell into comas!

 

Nope the real reason the Amiga eventually was more successful than the ST was for two reasons....

 

1. The time delay between launch of the orignal ST chipset and the STE chipset meant it was mostly ignored by the big mainstream software companies producing Atari games...so the games were always going to be inferior even if you bought an STE because the extra hardware was rarely the target machine for the game code.

 

2. The price of the Amiga fell year on year, as did the number of games which weren't just simple ST ports, with companies starting to at least attempt to use the features of the Amiga chipset (although most arcade ports were complete crap compared to original games from smaller publishers with less money to blow on coin-op licences)

 

So in essence Atari software didn't really improve as much as it should have as companies failed to write STE specific games (which in turn led to a lack of people bothering to purchase the STE over the STFM obviously....repeat...rinse...cycle), whereas on the Amiga front the games generally improved whilst the cost of the hardware dropped.

 

I bought both anyway, and neither really for games. I was interested in computer graphics and animation and these were the natural choices (IIGS was too rare in the EU, Mac was black and white, PC I had no interest in for technical reasons as well as lack of design elegance). I got the STM in early 86 and the Amiga around xmas 86. The loose rom chips were a real pain in the ass though!

[desiv]

Wow. More drivel and false information from bored Amiga fanboys. I guess I should not be surprised now.

 

First of all, if you want to run every ST game out there, you get TOS 1.0. If you have a later version of TOS, you can use SELTOS.PRG to load up a TOS 1.0 image file. You can also go the hardware route and get a TOS switcher so that you can have multiple versions of TOS in your machine at a flick of a switch. There are hacks of this on the net.

 

What is your problem here?

 

Point out one thing I said that was false or "drivel" as you call it!

You mention some things about TOS compatibility, but I stated that I hadn't used the ST and didn't know what affect, if any, there was on compatibility. So that can't be it.

 

So what, exactly, did I say that offended you?

 

desiv

Edited January 26, 2010 by desiv