What is the best 16-bit computer?

[GasMonkey]

Some would say marketing makes the best computer and experience would back this up. However, this is an argument that is rather boring and lack emotion.

 

From power, graphics, sound and other aspects, what do you consider to be the best 16-bit computer/model ever made?

 

The price wars from the early 80s reduced the number of entrants into this category and saw the further rise of the Intel-based, or Wintel systems -- boo...

 

However, true pioneering was still in the non-wintel world.

[Rybags]

Amiga. Easy.

 

If the STe was the "release" ST, and it had sprites, multitasking OS and a few other features, then it might have taken that title.

[tjlazer]

Amiga 1200 takes the cake with the Falcon030 a close second.

[Warriorisabouttodie]

A good argument could be made for the ST, but I gotta go with the Amiga too. It was an amazing platform in it's day. I loved my Amiga and would probably still be using one if they still made them.

[thrax]

All the 16-bit computers had their strength and weaknesses. You also need to compare the computers available at the time it appeared. One can't compare a falcon to an amiga 1000 or compare an amiga 3000 to a 520st.

 

The macs of the day were pretty state of the art but VERY expense. The macs available during the 16 bit days had the best OS but you had that tiny (albiet high resolution) 9" monitor. The color mac II was just not in the same price league.

 

The last most 16 bit apple II, the IIGS, had and excellent graphics, a whopping 15 sound channels. It also had great expandibility options (8 slots) plus backward compatibility with the 8bit a2. But it was way overpriced and was clear it was going to be discontinued. Apple could of easily put in a motorola chip to make it faster but they wanted people to switch to macs. Apple had only made it to compete with the first ST an Amigas and didn't make any further models.

 

The atari st just gave the best bang for the buck period. Both the atari and amiga had little software when they came out. I remember some people buying an atari with the spectrum adaptor to be able to run mac softare at a way lower price (without sound). This was a good for them since it took a little time for both atari and amiga to develop software packages. And as many have mentioned it had MIDI built in. I always thought the computer media/magazines always emphazed the higher colour counts on the amigas too much. Not all 16 bit computer users cared exclusively about gaming.

[+remowilliams]

Best is somewhat of a nebulous term and the comparisons are further muddled by all the various models in each line, but it probably has to be the Amigas overall. The STs however were a close second in some areas and were undoubtedly the best bang for your buck. Thanks to the ST I was able to join and enjoy the 16 bit era back then and still have money to live on.

 

Power without the price!

[thomasholzer]

Amiga for me

[Christos]

This is a discussion going on since 1985 and there can be no consensus. My view? This one

[GasMonkey]

All the 16-bit computers had their strength and weaknesses. You also need to compare the computers available at the time it appeared. One can't compare a falcon to an amiga 1000 or compare an amiga 3000 to a 520st.

 

The macs of the day were pretty state of the art but VERY expense. The macs available during the 16 bit days had the best OS but you had that tiny (albiet high resolution) 9" monitor. The color mac II was just not in the same price league.

 

The last most 16 bit apple II, the IIGS, had and excellent graphics, a whopping 15 sound channels. It also had great expandibility options (8 slots) plus backward compatibility with the 8bit a2. But it was way overpriced and was clear it was going to be discontinued. Apple could of easily put in a motorola chip to make it faster but they wanted people to switch to macs. Apple had only made it to compete with the first ST an Amigas and didn't make any further models.

 

The atari st just gave the best bang for the buck period. Both the atari and amiga had little software when they came out. I remember some people buying an atari with the spectrum adaptor to be able to run mac softare at a way lower price (without sound). This was a good for them since it took a little time for both atari and amiga to develop software packages. And as many have mentioned it had MIDI built in. I always thought the computer media/magazines always emphazed the higher colour counts on the amigas too much. Not all 16 bit computer users cared exclusively about gaming.

 

Keep in mind that the Macs did not have multitasking until OS X came out, before that they used task switching at best. I'd say teh Atari ST and Amiga had better OSs. The Amiga had pre-emptive multitasking, but it did not have any memory management, which caused some apps to take down the whole system.

 

Also, the Atari STs had built in Midi -- something the Amigas never had. Odd that they never added that as it is one of the things that had the Sts sell very well.

 

I think the Apple IIs would have gone far if it was not for the Mac. It's amazing as the Mac almost never happened after the Lisa failed so badly.

 

So true that each platform did have its strengths. If Commodore had teamed up with Newtek, I think that might have made a difference.

[doctorclu]

Silicon Graphics Workstations. Well, just wanted to be different.

 

Amiga I'm thinking. But then, when I think of 68K machines and not 68030 machines... and the latter processor is what I've used in the Amiga world, then it gets a bit tough.

 

I used Macs during the 68K days. Soo much fun. For the most part black and white, but then I went from a Mac Plus to a Performa 550, which was a 68030 machine.

 

And I remember getting an ST from the local Atari club to do the newsletter. They gave me two monitors, I started using it like a Mac in black and white mode, but then someone suggested I plug up the color monitor. I was very impressed that the ST had the high res and color modes so early on. Here's the thing, and correct me if I'm wrong...

 

Starting basically out of the gate (1984-1986 era...) All started with 68K processors...

 

Mactinosh - Black and white, a good high res, a lot of software.

 

ST- A high res mode, plus graphics modes for low 16 color, med 4 color. Smaller software library, but had games, and could emulate the Macintosh with Spectre (eventually up to System 6.08) Midi support.

 

Amiga - From my tinkerings, nice color modes, I don't remember a high res mode as crisp as the macintosh. Apparently they did since I remember the Amiga having a Macintosh emulator AND a ST emulator. Good graphics software.

 

Even though I'm in an Amiga club now, I don't know the early Amiga days all that well. Maybe I need to plug up my Amiga 500. So anyway, what were those 68K days of the Amiga like? I'll take that in and decide from there.

 

But at the moment, I think the Macintosh had good applications, stable, and just rock solid. Had some games (I played hours of Arkanoid, Cap'n Magneto, and Dark Castle) while I was working to get through college. So believe it or not, I think kinda hedging toward the Mac.

 

And here is one more thing as I'm learning with the Amiga... the portable solution which the Amiga had none. The ST and Amiga 500 you could put up like midi keyboard and toat places... still needed a monitor. The Mac.. you pick up the box on the handle on the top and take places. (That and a few disks, the keyboard, mouse, and a external floppy drive.) I used to tout my Mac to the school library and plug in at a table. Luckily at some point I got a Newton.

 

Hmmm... is the Newton a 16 bit machine?

[carmel_andrews]

Didn't the Later MSX's have Midi Ports...I could have sworn they did

 

As karl from AEX pointed out elsewhere on this forum...The ST died after Shivji left the company about 1987/88 Added to the fact that Atari were suffering from the Dram shortage problem and the fact that Atari were using the money they were making on the ST to shoring up Federated group, which they'd recently bought out and constantly draining money from Atari (not that it was making that much)

 

And Anyway, Commodore were having similar if not the same problems that Atari were, since after the sale of Amiga to Commodore, the original Amiga engineers slowly but surely started jumping ship due to commodore's inability to market the machine properly, and way too slow to advance developing future amiga technologies

 

The main problem with Commodore and Atari and their 16bit machines were, was that they were essentially focusing on a very small narrow market and too 'niche' for the likes of IBM and Apple to even take an interest in...

 

If CBM and Atari were even serious about their 16bit machines they would have taken a leaf out of what IBM were planning to do with the PC (i.e. allowing other companies to doing their own versions of the hardware) and instead of wasting millions of pounds in suing CBM over the amiga, Tramiel should have just swallowed his pride and forced commodore to honouring the existing agreement the Amiga had wth Atari, allow Atari to manufacture the own version of the 'Amiga' chipset and have an agreement in place to technology share future developements of the chipset (therefore saving on R&D costs) and whichever version of the chipset was most successfull after 2-3 years, they would share that chipset and make an Joint o/s that would work on both companies machines (ofocurse allowing of a certain amount of 'backward compatibility with both companies existing o/s's)

 

At least that way the likes of IBM/Apple might have had some decent competition

 

The other mistake that both CBM and Atari made is too much of the software base were Games Based, they should have left the 'games' thing soley on the likes of the c64/128 and the A8 series and focussed the St/Amiga things solely for more serious use/applications

[iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin]

I have had an Amiga 500. I used it only for playing......aaaah Ultima III-V, Bard´s Tale I+II, Wings, Great Giana Sisters, Paradroid 90, Their fines hour, Zac McCracken, Maniac Mansion, Indiana Jones........

 

I played a lot of great stuff on this machine..........

[doctorclu]

Newton is 32 bit. Oh well.

 

My vote is for the Macintosh. That was the machine I needed in college, it did an excellent job, and even had some games to boot. It had color early on, and many graphical and sound artists have sworn by Macs even in earliest times.

 

The fact that Amiga and ST emulated Macs show this to be true.

 

Macs did not emulate ST's or Amigas early on, because apparently what Mac had worked.

 

Macs as a box were easily luggable, and they had other portable solutions, from the 68020 portable, to a variety of laptops. Let's face it, the Macintosh Duo was just cool.

 

My vote, Macintosh. The best choice I could have made when replacing my Atari 400 computer in 1989.

[Tickled_Pink]

When I got my STFM, it was the same price as the Amiga (£400), but came with a shitload of games. In the end, though, it was a tough decision as to which one to go for. In the end I chose the machine that had the built-in MIDI.

 

I suppose that one way of deciding upon which is the best machine is the same as you would any PC today - which one is the best for your needs. If you were a gamer then the Amiga had the better spec. If you were a musician then the ST had the better spec. And if you were a programmer ... the ST was also the better machine. It was far more accessible than the Amiga's OS. I learned more programming the ST in 68000 assembly than from any other computer.

[cdoty]

The X68000 is probably the best 16 bit computer, but very few people outside Japan (or inside Japan from the sounds of it) had one. The Amiga would be my pick of the more commonly available computers.

 

The Acorn Risc (Archimedes, etc) machines were quite impressive, but lacked the dedicated hardware of the X68000/Amiga. Learning to program on a Risc chip would help now, as the ARM chip is taking over.

 

The Mac has to get an honorable mention because of the upgrade path from a 68000 to PowerPC (and beyond). The Amiga can 'now' do something similar, but it isn't as smooth an integration as the Mac.

Edited December 16, 2007 by cdoty

[JamesD]

Amiga 1200 takes the cake with the Falcon030 a close second.

Ahem... the title says 16 bit.

The 1200 uses the 68EC020 which is 32 bit.

The Falcon030 uses a 68030 which is 32 bit.

 

Amiga 2000.

Accelerater slot, expansion slots, video board slot, bridge card slot...

[+wood_jl]

Many good points. Memorable thread for those who lived out those days. I had an ST in those days. Thought the Amiga was interesting, but I really didn't like the "look and feel" of the O.S. "Zzzzzz" when it's busy? Is it sleeping or working?

 

I am, however, going to write off all that stuff....

 

.....my vote is for the SUPER NINTENDO. Clearly 16-bit. Show me graphics on ANY of those systems that is superior to games like "Donkey Kong Country" and I'll be convinced. Those graphics hand all the 16-bit computers their asses. First time I saw one, I realized that consoles weren't to be pissed on by computer gamers anymore.

 

 

Now, where do the keyboard and mouse plug in so I can call SNES a computer?

[stirrell]

I flirted with both the Atari and the Amiga back in those days (I had an Amiga 500 but wound up going with an Atari 1040Ste and used it through my first few years of college (so up to the mid 90s). I liked the Amiga but I liked the Atari a bit better for these reasons:

 

1. If you had a one floppy system, the Atari was a good choice because TOS was in ROM. I remember being frustrated with the amount of disk-swapping on the 500.

 

2. GEM seemed a little cleaner and made a little more sense to me than Amiga's Workbench. I can't quantify that in any way, but I just found the Atari easier to get "into".

 

3. Atari software seemed to adhere more to a consistent user interface to me. Maybe this is just my foggy memory, but it seemed like the the Amiga had some pretty funky, unique interfaces for programs. The Atari programs seemed to be fairly consistent. Of course, I am sure that the Mac had the most consistent interface - Apple seemed to have pretty good standards for developers to keep things the same for users. The Mac was too expensive for me, though.

 

4. The Atari, at them time, I believe was a little cheaper. It seemed like I was getting better value.

 

All of that said, I thought the Amiga was more impressive as a games machine. And I probably leaned toward the ST because I had a 2600 and then an 800XL and then an XEGS. So there was brand loyalty. It is a shame that the ST and Amiga were not more successful because they were much better values than Macs and PCs of the day, IMO.

[tjlazer]

Amiga 1200 takes the cake with the Falcon030 a close second.

Ahem... the title says 16 bit.

The 1200 uses the 68EC020 which is 32 bit.

The Falcon030 uses a 68030 which is 32 bit.

 

Amiga 2000.

Accelerater slot, expansion slots, video board slot, bridge card slot...

 

 

Thats right they are 32-bit, my bad. Well my vote is for the original Amiga (ie 1000/500/2000 series). One could argue they were 24bit! LOL

Edited December 23, 2007 by tjlazer

[ggn]

Being the Atari zealot that I am, and considering that I grew up along with my STe (sole computer I had from 1990 to about 1998), I definitely go for that! Screw anything else

[BSA Starfire]

Well the amiga for games for sure. The ST for colour and a nice easy to use OS, the mac for the great OS and some superb apps, I had access to all at the time with macs at work, ST at home and Amiga owned by friends, hated the amiga os, too much CLI MS-DOS type stuff, ST sound was poor & limited colours and mac was mono so they all had there downsides too

[tjlazer]

Well the amiga for games for sure. The ST for colour and a nice easy to use OS, the mac for the great OS and some superb apps, I had access to all at the time with macs at work, ST at home and Amiga owned by friends, hated the amiga os, too much CLI MS-DOS type stuff, ST sound was poor & limited colours and mac was mono so they all had there downsides too

 

I am partial to the Amiga and Atari ST series that's for sure. They were very similar back in the day. Heck, most early games from Europe were ported from the ST to the Amiga! (Which pissed off Amigans that's for sure!)

Edited December 23, 2007 by tjlazer

[phil_vr]

I will give another vote to the ST.

 

It had the best price around, came always packed with games (I had the 520STFM that came with the Powerpack with 20 games and 3 programs), very good games, it was handy to musicians with the MIDI and the specialized music programs it came with, and pretty much very easy and straightforward to work with.

 

I remember the little quirks of the Amiga having users with 1mb upgrades to have to "degrade" with a switch (usually fitted on the side) that would allow many games that didnt work with the 1mb expansion to run. And I find this a bit annoying in all.

While on the 1040 ST, you would throw anything you wanted and it would run.

 

And disk swapping was far more of a nightmare on the Amiga.

 

And dont get me wrong here, I loved the Amiga and still do, and I do consider the graphic capabilities innovative and a step beyond everything else.

 

But to the main 80's/90's user, it really didnt mater much. Both computers were delivering awesome games and only purists would oppose number of colors or scrolling techniques.

 

And the STFM model sported a killer combination of built in RF Modulator and MIDI, so people would just buy the deck computer and hook it up on a TV (thats what I did for 4 years before getting an Atari specific monitor due to TV burnout).

So that boosted sales and the "value without the price" even further.

 

And since there cant be a strict "BEST 16BIT Computer" title to none, I will just say that the most advanced computer powerwise was the Amiga (in the 500 and 500+ forms), while the best value all around computer ever was the ST (with its best incarnation in the STFM form).

Edited December 29, 2007 by phil_vr

[atarian63]

Amiga. Easy.

 

If the STe was the "release" ST, and it had sprites, multitasking OS and a few other features, then it might have taken that title.

We were an Amiga and ST dealer back in the day. The Amiga multitask was a joke especially on the release machine, customers used to crash it all the time. Maybe if the Amigahad been an Atari as it was intended to be and not cludged up by Commodore.. We sold both Systems and the St was the big seller hands down.

 

Atari ST easy, plus is could later on do mac and PC, best of all worlds. it really was power without the price!

 

Atarian63

[marakatti]

games: Amiga 500

 

all-around homecomputer that does everything from games to pro-quality mono dtp-stuff and studiowork: Atari 1040STe with switchable TOS 2.06 upgrade

 

professional graphicswork: Apple Macintosh