Atari 8bit is superior to the ST

[atariksi]

bloody hell u are off AGAIN.

 

having 1970s hardware graphics chips in it does NOT under ANY circumstances mean that the A8 is better than the ST at games in general....

 

If you're arguing that it's chips from 1970s so must be inferior to ST's chips. That's not a valid argument as many hardware aspects don't exist on later platforms; take the example of Thinkpad 770ED vs. your generic Toshiba, Dell, etc. laptop during same era. Thinkpad 770ED @266Mhz had genlocking, video in, video out, frame capture, video acceleration etc. built in so that only later 1Ghz based laptops were able to do some of it in software.

[PeteD]

hmm translucency window on Amiga, you mean like adding a bitplane, making the extra colours be "translucent" versions of the lower 1/2 of the palette and then moving that bitplane around with the hardware. Yeah, takes loads of cpu.

 

 

Pete

[atariksi]

Heres a question for you ST fanboys:

 

If the AMIGA hardware is not superior to the ST hardware, then explain this:

 

A 68000 based AMIGA can emulate a 68000 based ST at 80-90% "true speed" with nothing more than a 37k emulator program, and a copy of the TOS ROM image..

 

Not even the "Mighty HADES 060" Can even begin to emulate even the crappiest AMIGA..

 

note: before some smart-ass comments on this, I am well aware that you can compile UAE under linux for just about any platform.. Try running it on anything less than about a 500mhz machine, and see how useable it is...

I have an Amiga emulator for my ST, had it for many many years. Has a cartoon desktop gui just like Amiga and like the Amiga when you do much it just "gurus" .

This was a joke emulator back in the day. though it was much like the amiga at release.

 

Amiga would have problems with emulating ST's 640*400 noninterlaced mode or stuff like Spectrum 512 to it's exact points of palette changes given the difference in clock frequencies.

[Crazyace]

AtariKsi is right though - there are things on the 8 bit Atari that are superior to the ST - even though I don't feel the need to prioritise joystick reading as much.

Having 16 shades of each colour is nice for certain effects - and the mixing of colours via GPRIOR is an excellent bonus. But the reds on the 8 bit suck, and there are no unsaturated colours.

I could imagine a straight forward evolution of Antic/GTIA to a 16 bit machine being way more capable than the ST , 4x memory bandwidth would allow 160 pixel by 256 colour modes as well as 320x16colour and 640x4 colour - and Antic would have both character and bitmap modes. But the Amiga showed the real way forward , emphasizing the blitter objects and bitmap graphics over character mode graphics and hardware sprites.

[PeteD]

AtariKsi is right though - there are things on the 8 bit Atari that are superior to the ST - even though I don't feel the need to prioritise joystick reading as much.

Having 16 shades of each colour is nice for certain effects - and the mixing of colours via GPRIOR is an excellent bonus. But the reds on the 8 bit suck, and there are no unsaturated colours.

I could imagine a straight forward evolution of Antic/GTIA to a 16 bit machine being way more capable than the ST , 4x memory bandwidth would allow 160 pixel by 256 colour modes as well as 320x16colour and 640x4 colour - and Antic would have both character and bitmap modes. But the Amiga showed the real way forward , emphasizing the blitter objects and bitmap graphics over character mode graphics and hardware sprites.

 

And I wouldn't disagree with him if he a) gave the full story when he makes his "superiority" statements so people less technical could make their own mind up if that actually meant it was superior and b) didn't try to wheedle out of it when I ask for proof or clarification on things where he's blatantly only telling 1/2 the story.

 

I'd also agree with true statements like A8, having a char based screen can actually draw 8x8 pixel blocks faster than ST because it's LDA STA (anything from about 6 to 12 cycles depending on the instructions used) where the ST would have to work on bytes, if limited to mono, only 1 bitplane but it's 8x the data on a 4x speed cpu with slower memory access. But then you can't equate that with everything to do with screen updates, there are faster ways to do larger areas on ST such as the movem.l instructions and then you'd start to outweigh the amount of data per clock the A8 can do for a larger area of data. Saying that, there are faster ways to do the 8x8 as well.

 

 

Things like mixing colours is possible on ST/Amiga by using a bitplane for what the PMG would do on A8, ST being limited to 4bitplanes would mean you'd be limited to 8 colours + 8 for the "mixed" part but it's still capable of doing it.

 

 

It's all swings and roundabouts if you compare every facet of what the hardware can do, but the initial list of 5 A8 superiority points "and anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong" just doesn't hold water.

 

I'm not arguing because I don't like Atariksi, not because I prefer the ST over the A8 (I'd be doing ST coding now instead of A8 if that was the case), not just to be pig headed but to make sure when someone is claiming something by listing a bunch of technical stuff that some people reading may have no clue about that they actually get the full facts. Like saying an A8 sprite routine is LDA STA HPOS.

 

 

 

Pete

[Rybags]

Atari 8-bit embodies all of what it meant to be an Atari.

 

The 6502 and Pokey was at the heart and sole of many of their arcade games up to the mid 1980s and beyond.

GTIA and Antic showed some roots from the older TIA and the genetic heritage continued through with the Amiga.

 

Play certain older Atari sounds and you know instantly that it's an Atari, either arcade, 8-bit or 2600.

 

On the other hand, the ST is the foster child hastily aquired to substitute for the true successor.

 

ST doesn't really do it for me... turn it on and it feels like you're just using an old PC running a Beta version of Win3.1

[+poobah]

I love the continued arrogance and ego that he knows more than anyone else because the rest of us (at least 2 professional game developers who started in the industry in the 80s) can't possibly know about the workings of an ST or God forbid an A8. LMAO

 

 

Pete

 

Amen.

Raise your hand if you were *paid* to write A8 and ST software during those machine's heyday

(/me raises hand!)

 

OK, can't resist one retort....

If your code is spin locking waiting for an ST joystick packet, you need to find a new career.

Edited December 13, 2009 by poobah

[Thorsten Günther]

And I wouldn't disagree with him if he a) gave the full story when he makes his "superiority" statements so people less technical could make their own mind up[...]

 

Well, I may be along the people who are "less technical", but I have made up my mind about atariksi's "arguments" quite a while ago and know very well of what they are full of.

 

To start an approach relying less on technical aspects, here's some in-game pictures of titles existing on both machines:

 

The Pawn

 

 

 

Gauntlet

 

 

 

Rampage

 

 

 

Nebulus/Tower Toppler

 

 

 

International Karate/World Karate Championship

 

 

 

 

I know which ones look better to me, but then I am not that technical.

 

Thorsten

Edited December 13, 2009 by Thorsten Günther

[GroovyBee]

All I see are lots of boxes with MobyGames in and a screenshot of Nebulous.

 

EDIT: Scratch that! There are real pictures now.

Edited December 13, 2009 by GroovyBee

[Thorsten Günther]

All I see are lots of boxes with MobyGames in and a screenshot of Nebulous.

 

Yep, apparently MobyGames has some sort of protection against links - just replaced those links with ones from atarimania.com, atari.st, thelegacy.de and atarilegend.com (much better sites anyway).

[PeteD]

Gauntlet for one shows how an ST can handle a 16 colour scrolling game with sprites moving fairly smoothly (not sure if it's pixel movement for the sprites) Vs the A8 where they're character software sprites (ie not really software sprites at all), moving in char steps (at least as far as I can tell, my bad if I'm wrong), no masking with the background all in "mono" colours. Not only does the ST look better, it's technically pissing on the A8 version with all it's "superior" char based sprites and PMGs.

 

 

Yeah, we know, bad coders

 

 

Pete

[atariksi]

And I wouldn't disagree with him if he a) gave the full story when he makes his "superiority" statements so people less technical could make their own mind up[...]

 

Well, I may be along the people who are "less technical", but I have made up my mind about atariksi's "arguments" quite a while ago and know very well of what they are full of.

...

You did Chewbacca defense. You didn't even address the arguments.

 

To start an approach relying less on technical aspects, here's some in-game pictures of titles existing on both machines:

...

And if you ACTUALLY read this thread, I already agreed games like Pawn, King's Quest, etc. would be superior on ST. But where have you addressed the 5 items I mentioned. Nowhere.

[atariksi]

I love the continued arrogance and ego that he knows more than anyone else because the rest of us (at least 2 professional game developers who started in the industry in the 80s) can't possibly know about the workings of an ST or God forbid an A8. LMAO

 

 

Pete

 

Amen.

Raise your hand if you were *paid* to write A8 and ST software during those machine's heyday

(/me raises hand!)

 

OK, can't resist one retort....

If your code is spin locking waiting for an ST joystick packet, you need to find a new career.

 

Believe it or not joysticks were used for a lot more things than just reading joysticks in the 1980s. They had all sorts of devices for joystick ports and these ports were standard amonst many machines. But feel free to compare ST ports with PBI ports or something like that. Have you ever heard of a joystick recorder? I guess not-- it records the motion of the joystick and plays it back as in a "replay mode". I happen to write one of those and for that fast polling of the joystick is required not just a 60Hz read. And add to that the fact that keyboard/mouse signals are coming in through the same ikbd interface.

[Thorsten Günther]

Gauntlet for one shows how an ST can handle a 16 colour scrolling game with sprites moving fairly smoothly (not sure if it's pixel movement for the sprites) Vs the A8 where they're character software sprites (ie not really software sprites at all), moving in char steps (at least as far as I can tell, my bad if I'm wrong), no masking with the background all in "mono" colours. Not only does the ST look better, it's technically pissing on the A8 version with all it's "superior" char based sprites and PMGs.

 

The A8 would look even worse if I took "Gauntlet II" on the ST as a reference, which was programmed much better on the ST (much smoother scrolling and lots of samples from the arcade). I also didn't compare the "The Pawn" title screens (in 512 colours on the ST) due to the fact that the A8 version does not have one!

 

The only game I ever came across that was better on the A8 was "Kennedy Approach", and this was not due to the "technical advantages" of the A8, but due to the laziness of Microprose who did completely omit the voice samples - which generate the atmosphere of the game - from the ST version!

 

Thorsten

[atariksi]

...

The only game I ever came across that was better on the A8 was "Kennedy Approach", and this was not due to the "technical advantages" of the A8, but due to the laziness of Microprose who did completely omit the voice samples - which generate the atmosphere of the game - from the ST version!

 

Thorsten

 

You are full of crap. Any game employing hardware collision detection, hardware sprites, scrolling, overscan, etc. plays like crap on ST. I have played some of these so your claim that "only game" is just your biased and limited experience.

 

By the way, read post #283 where I mentioned King's Quest would be superior on ST. But why does it matter-- you have already seen every single game ever done on both machines and came to the conlusion there's only one that the A8 does better.

[atariksi]

All I see are lots of boxes with MobyGames in and a screenshot of Nebulous.

 

EDIT: Scratch that! There are real pictures now.

 

Screenshots don't tell the story for many games like Joust, Boulderdash, etc. Sure, you can get good looking visuals, but there's a lot more to a game than what it looks like. Even EGA on PC had games that looks pretty good, but with lack of other hardware support, they usually had shearing, flicker, delayed collision effects, etc. etc. Perhaps, people should have gotten an EGA machine which does 16 colors up to 640*350 rather than an ST.

[PeteD]

Hardware collision detection does nothing more than "something hit something" as I tried to point out on that "other" thread in a game such as Gyruss where the aliens are made from PFs and the bullets are made from PMGs the hardware can only tell you a bullet hit a PF, it's then up to the software to tell you which thing it hit. You also have to read those registers constantly to check them, that becomes even more of a chore with a "multiplexer". So unless you only ever have each alien made from a different PF and each bullet made from a different PMG you have to do software check AS WELL. A reasonably well crafted collision routine in 68000 would be just as fast.

 

 

Pete

[GroovyBee]

Screenshots don't tell the story for many games like Joust, Boulderdash, etc. Sure, you can get good looking visuals, but there's a lot more to a game than what it looks like. Even EGA on PC had games that looks pretty good, but with lack of other hardware support, they usually had shearing, flicker, delayed collision effects, etc. etc. Perhaps, people should have gotten an EGA machine which does 16 colors up to 640*350 rather than an ST.

 

The ST games used to double/triple buffer the display which meant they avoided shearing and flicker.

[Thorsten Günther]

Screenshots don't tell the story for many games like Joust, Boulderdash, etc. Sure, you can get good looking visuals, but there's a lot more to a game than what it looks like. Even EGA on PC had games that looks pretty good, but with lack of other hardware support, they usually had shearing, flicker, delayed collision effects, etc. etc. Perhaps, people should have gotten an EGA machine which does 16 colors up to 640*350 rather than an ST.

 

The ST games used to double/triple buffer the display which meant they avoided shearing and flicker.

 

Did atariksi really write that? Oh, this guy is so good - he didn't even bother to boot the games in STEem prior to posting his next "argument".

 

 

Thorsten

[FastRobPlus]

And I wouldn't disagree with him if he a) gave the full story when he makes his "superiority" statements so people less technical could make their own mind up[...]

 

Well, I may be along the people who are "less technical", but I have made up my mind about atariksi's "arguments" quite a while ago and know very well of what they are full of.

 

To start an approach relying less on technical aspects, here's some in-game pictures of titles existing on both machines:

 

The Pawn

 

 

 

Gauntlet

 

 

 

Rampage

 

 

 

Nebulus/Tower Toppler

 

 

 

International Karate/World Karate Championship

 

 

 

 

I know which ones look better to me, but then I am not that technical.

 

Thorsten

 

While similar, the second image edges out the first in most of those examples.

[+poobah]

Believe it or not joysticks were used for a lot more things than just reading joysticks in the 1980s. They had all sorts of devices for joystick ports and these ports were standard amonst many machines. But feel free to compare ST ports with PBI ports or something like that. Have you ever heard of a joystick recorder? I guess not-- it records the motion of the joystick and plays it back as in a "replay mode". I happen to write one of those and for that fast polling of the joystick is required not just a 60Hz read. And add to that the fact that keyboard/mouse signals are coming in through the same ikbd interface.

 

I don't understand your rabid joystick obsession.

 

Stick/mouse/keyboard are all very low speed devices, it's mind numbingly stupid to spend resources sampling them at high rates. If you have some specialized application that requires very high speed joystick ports, the ST isn't your box (or more precisely has other ports better suited to the task). In your specific case, I would think that a well documented low speed serial interface would make implementing a "peripheral emulator" much easier.

 

In the 30 years I've been using A8's, I've seen a few non-joystick things plugged into the A8 joystick ports, including hard disks, modems, low speed loggers, and similar devices. The ST has ports specifically for those devices, unlike the A8.

[atariksi]

Screenshots don't tell the story for many games like Joust, Boulderdash, etc. Sure, you can get good looking visuals, but there's a lot more to a game than what it looks like. Even EGA on PC had games that looks pretty good, but with lack of other hardware support, they usually had shearing, flicker, delayed collision effects, etc. etc. Perhaps, people should have gotten an EGA machine which does 16 colors up to 640*350 rather than an ST.

 

The ST games used to double/triple buffer the display which meant they avoided shearing and flicker.

 

Did atariksi really write that? Oh, this guy is so good - he didn't even bother to boot the games in STEem prior to posting his next "argument".

 

 

Thorsten

 

You forgot to address the argument again. Figures-- you have to beat around the bush since you have made the most absurd claim in this topic so far. That the only game that A8 is better at is because some ST person screwed up. You didn't understand the point here either.

[atariksi]

Screenshots don't tell the story for many games like Joust, Boulderdash, etc. Sure, you can get good looking visuals, but there's a lot more to a game than what it looks like. Even EGA on PC had games that looks pretty good, but with lack of other hardware support, they usually had shearing, flicker, delayed collision effects, etc. etc. Perhaps, people should have gotten an EGA machine which does 16 colors up to 640*350 rather than an ST.

 

The ST games used to double/triple buffer the display which meant they avoided shearing and flicker.

 

EGA also has a way of double bufferring using pages, but it didn't help there games nor did it help out the ST. You have to have the time to render the frame within 1/60 second to prevent it not just because you have a way of toggling frame buffers that you automatically get flicker-free results. And even if you had the time to render the frame within the 1/60 second, it still doesn't make it equal to A8 since then we still need to consider which machine took less time to do it. Oh yeah, I didn't play the games on an emulator but on the real machine-- perhaps someone set the emulator to high speed and didn't see the flicker/shearing.

[+DarkLord]

...

The only game I ever came across that was better on the A8 was "Kennedy Approach", and this was not due to the "technical advantages" of the A8, but due to the laziness of Microprose who did completely omit the voice samples - which generate the atmosphere of the game - from the ST version!

 

Thorsten

 

You are full of crap. Any game employing hardware collision detection, hardware sprites, scrolling, overscan, etc. plays like crap on ST. I have played some of these so your claim that "only game" is just your biased and limited experience.

 

By the way, read post #283 where I mentioned King's Quest would be superior on ST. But why does it matter-- you have already seen every single game ever done on both machines and came to the conlusion there's only one that the A8 does better.

 

Thorsten has posted games that show what he thinks....and I agree.

 

In all fairness, I'm still waiting for the 8bit crowd to post the

list of games (or apps) that show the 8bits technical superiority over

the ST...

Edited December 13, 2009 by DarkLord

[atariksi]

Believe it or not joysticks were used for a lot more things than just reading joysticks in the 1980s. They had all sorts of devices for joystick ports and these ports were standard amonst many machines. But feel free to compare ST ports with PBI ports or something like that. Have you ever heard of a joystick recorder? I guess not-- it records the motion of the joystick and plays it back as in a "replay mode". I happen to write one of those and for that fast polling of the joystick is required not just a 60Hz read. And add to that the fact that keyboard/mouse signals are coming in through the same ikbd interface.

 

I don't understand your rabid joystick obsession.

...

Actually, I just listed that as one of the A8 advantages, but don't you see the logic that everything adds up in time-- hardware collision detection, scrolling, joystick, overscan, etc.

 

Stick/mouse/keyboard are all very low speed devices, it's mind numbingly stupid to spend resources sampling them at high rates. If you have some specialized application that requires very high speed joystick ports, the ST isn't your box (or more precisely has other ports better suited to the task). In your specific case, I would think that a well documented low speed serial interface would make implementing a "peripheral emulator" much easier.

...

Sorry, I am not just talking about my case. And no a low-speed interface is worse for peripheral emulation in software. The faster the interface the less time you spend and can do other things. You don't need to sample at high rates-- the A8 joystick is always ready whereas on ST it's not. QED.