Atari ST vs Amiga vs Apple 2gs vs PC

[+OLD CS1]

The Mac wasn't aimed at competing with the Amiga or the Atari ST. That was the Apple IIGS's job. And the IIGS was indeed a 16-bit system. it used the 65816, a 16-bit CPU.

 

As the story goes, Jobs showed up at the Amiga office one day and said he saw nothing there which was a threat to Apple or his Mac. Shortly thereafter a color Mac came into existence.

[Keatah]

I posted an 8-bit version of this question a few months back which was extremely helpful for me to decide on a computer to get. I'm certain its helpful for others too. If you ask me, it's you who are coming off as quite a jerk. Just because you feel it's pointless and subjective (which aside from the cosmetic design aspects, it's not) doesn't mean others won't find it helpful and informative.

Indeed. VS threads are important because they invite all sorts of opinions and viewpoints into the discussion. Some of which some of us may not have considered.

Edited October 23, 2018 by Keatah

[phoenixdownita]

Y'all replying posts from 2013 .... necro-bump.

The 2 accts you reply to have not logged since 2015 and 2016 respectively.

[shoestring]

 

I wonder what would have happened if the X68000 had been included here. Would it have won the "hat trick" of graphics, speed, and sound?

 

It's totally useless as a computer IMO. It had no suitable "line drawing mode" as the Amiga or other computers had, the gfx chipset was strictly tile based, suitable for games but not suitable for GUI applications as proven by SX-Window. Dragging and refreshing Windows on SW-Window is painfully slow.

[+OLD CS1]

Y'all replying posts from 2013 .... necro-bump.

The 2 accts you reply to have not logged since 2015 and 2016 respectively.

 

Other people can, do, and will read the thread, and they are all entitled to my opinion. I am pretty good at thread necromancy, though I was not the first in this case and generally I do not go trawling through old threads just for fun... it just kind-of happens.

[shoestring]

 

As the story goes, Jobs showed up at the Amiga office one day and said he saw nothing there which was a threat to Apple or his Mac. Shortly thereafter a color Mac came into existence.

 

[carlsson]

So "best graphics" is one of many multi-faced criteria. Even picking best gaming graphics can be difficult, depending on which types of games you want to play. For 2D mazes, platforms, shoot 'em ups etc, perhaps the X68000 beats them all (and given its price, on par with the Macintosh and like 5-6 times that of a basic Amiga or ST, it really should beat the crap out of the competition). For 3D wireframes and other renderings, perhaps the tile based system is more of a problem than a strength. As mentioned, for business graphics it would suck but perhaps for Japanese business men you'd buy a NEC, a different Sharp, a Fujitsu or even a foreign computer like some IBM PC compatible or Macintosh.

[Zap!]

When it comes to mice, the IIGS sure came in last. One button in 1986? What was up with that?

[shoestring]

Apple argued that it would be too confusing for the average user. Just having 1 button meant that the user did not have to remember which mouse button to press.

[+slx]

The IIgs was an intriguing machine I did not even know about in mid 80s Europe but probably a dead end CPU-wise as the 65C816 seems to be a bit strange to program compared to the 68K. The backwards compatibility it allowed was not that important for the mass market as new software came along that eclipsed the 8bit stuff the 65C816 could have run in functionality.

[Zap!]

Apple argued that it would be too confusing for the average user. Just having 1 button meant that the user did not have to remember which mouse button to press.

 

I knew that to be true in the early 80's, but I am very surprised that they didn't evolve for years later. Sometimes I think that they didn't give the consumer enough credit with mice. Just look at their IIGS Training Disk. Hilarious looking back, they really though people would have a big learning curve with the mouse.

[Keatah]

I looked upon the IIgs as a "super II" or something. Something to expand my BBS operations. But graduation and other things eclipsed it and the //e was sic'd upon me for years to come.

 

As far as anything else vs PC, there was and is no competition.

[CaptainBreakout]

Just to weigh in, I thought I should offer some memories of the time...which 16-bit community to get into and be a part of was a big question for both me and my parents. I was about 12 or so.

 

We looked at all the options. Amiga had the nicest screen shots on the boxes, but we didn't know anyone else with one. Atari was already a has-been word. Both of these were relatively cheap options, but it bothered us there was no backwards compatiblity (Amiga wouldnt touch a C64 program, and Atari same thing with 400/800 software). To us, it looked like those companies weren't interested in supporting their user base for the long term.

 

PC was the one that looked the most 'serious'... And probably would be the best choice for a bunch of reasons... But fell short for us with at least two... It was VERY expensive, and unless you bought several cards and hardware (all also very expensive) and shelled out for the fastest CPU and memory you could afford... You were stuck with something underwhelming, and couldn't keep up with the newest stuff in the boxes at the software store. Plus there was a myriad of graphic, sound, and memory standards that seemed to go in different directions for compatibility.

 

Also, the PC was a bear to learn how to use. MS-Dos was cryptic to say the least. The whole thing, even with "clones" (which added to the platform uncertainty and forced one into another camp) was all very expensive.

 

My family went with the Apple IIgs. Backward compatibility and standard competitive features lead the choice. What worked against it was the price tag. Still expensive like the PC, but you supposedly got everything in one shot with no questions about whether your particular hardware choice was going to be abandoned or not. I seem to remember it was something like $1,850 (which equates to about 3.5 billion in today's currency). It suffered from the usual Apple price snob factor... Meaning it was roughly 3-5 times what it really could cost, but back then the product loyalty wasn't at the fervor of today... Also thanks to Apple Corp having a split personality between their venerable and education-community standard Apple II line head to head with their own slick-as-(black&white)silk Macintosh line.

 

Anyway the price tag and half-assed company support naturally cut its market share down significantly. I was one of the many IIgs users who would get excited about practically ANYTHING announced for the platform, software developers being so understandably reluctant to enter the market given the relatively small user base.

 

Oh, and the CPU was underpowered. Apple made the choice to NEVER offer faster CPU models... Which should indicate Apple's desire to doom the model to failure all along. I mean, what other computer company has ever done that?

 

A good indicator to 3rd party developers to stay off the platform, right?

 

It's odd that 3rd party developers took it upon themselves to actually develope the hardware and take the platform into their own hands... Transwarp and Zipchip come to mind.

 

My family and I stayed die-hard IIgs fans long into its twilight. Big Red Computer Club had lots of weird mostly unfinished demos and games available, which we would order every few months. We watched the magazines that supported the IIgs die off one by one.

 

Eventually we got a compaq 486. By then the PC hardware configuration was mostly standardized.

 

What can you take away? At the time, unless you were rich and crazy, you could only get behind one platform. There were plusses and minuses. A major factor was who you knew who also had your platform. There was no internet, as we know it. Platforms didn't talk to each other until the very end. One could find great games and software on any of them, or at least learn how to enjoy them.

 

My favs on the IIgs were Silpheed, Rastan, Gnarly Golf, The Immortal, Crystal Quest and several more. I also managed to do the layout and publish my middle school "newspaper" on Publish-it! - making me very l33t at the time and king of the 8th grade computer science class.

 

Did that make the IIgs the best? Um... Well, I thought so then anyway. Stats be damned.

 

Still, when I saw Star Control 2 on my friend's 386, I was ready to pitch the whole rig just for a shot to play that game at my house (Xenocide didn't cut it). Allegiances can change suddenly.

Edited November 15, 2018 by CaptainBreakout

[Zap!]

I can't compare the Amiga, because I've never owned one. Hopefully one day soon, I've wanted one since high school. I've had an Atari 1040 STe since 1991, and have since moved on to a Mega STE. Within the last month I've gotten am Apple IIGS, and have been messing with it a lot lately. So, let's compare a few things.

 

1) Operating system: I love TOS, it's what I grew up with. Having it built-into the ROM is a huge advantage IMO. I was very surprised that the IIGS did not do this. I'm assuming Amiga has it built-in. Big advantage Atari.

 

2) Graphics: I give the edge to the STE. It's a lot closer if it's the regular ST. With stills, advantage IIGS due to the 4,096 vs 512 colors (regular ST). Speed goes to the ST, and with the STE's blitter the gap widens.

 

3) Sound. Even the STE doesn't come close. IIGS' sound chip is amazing for its time.

 

4) Mice and joysticks: The mice feel similar, but I'll always take two buttons over one, so the ST wins. As for joysticks, Apple's were fantastic. Atari's could have used more buttons.

 

5) Looks: That's entirely opinion. I like both's looks, but the Mega STE is truly one hot computer.

 

6) Charm: On the surface, The ST has more charm, helped with a super-strong PD/Shareware library and Dungeon Master, duh. 'Nuff said? No, because the Apple II has level-10 charm, and 99% of its games will work on a IIGS by adding a 5.25" floppy. A lot of this is opinion too, however.

 

7) Other: A huge plus on the IIGS was Apple II backwards compatibility. It would have been nice to have Atari 8-bit compatibility on the ST by adding 5.25" floppy drive connection and a special chip, but it would have made it much more expensive.

 

Conclusion? They're both awesome, and I'm glad to have both. Having an Ultrasatan on the STE and a CFFA3000 on the IIGS makes me a happy camper.

[carlsson]

The Amiga (all models except the 1000) has Kickstart in ROM, but that is only half of the OS. In order to use it, you need to boot from floppy or hard disk either to CLI or more commonly, load Workbench. Most of the libraries are on disk too, so without a bootable media you won't get anywhere with an Amiga unlike the ST.

[Keatah]

The Amiga's "OS" was becoming complex enough to warrant ALL of it be stored in one single location. Like ROM or EEPROM, or disk.

 

Dividing Kickstart, Libraries, DOS, Commands, Drivers, Intuition, and other stuff among various storage media was retarded (though perhaps a necessity bitd). It made version control a pain in the ass and made one reluctant to upgrade.

 

With the PC all you had to do was worry about having a certain version of MS-DOS, usually the latest. Or if you were doing Windows, then the flavor of Windows, 3.1, 95, 98, 3.11, NT, and so on.

[The Usotsuki]

I think the Apple IIgs actually had part of its GUI in ROM too. I'm curious how much could be exploited without loading ProDOS-16 or GS/OS.

[Zap!]

So ST for the ROM win! Is the OS built-into the ROM in the X68000?

[Nebulon]

Graphics - Amiga

Speed - Atari ST and later the PC (towards the end of the 80s)

Sound - Amiga

Gaming Library - Amiga

Business Library - PC

Cosmetic Design - Atari ST

Expandability - PC

Price - Atari ST

[Keatah]

Other people can, do, and will read the thread, and they are all entitled to my opinion. I am pretty good at thread necromancy, though I was not the first in this case and generally I do not go trawling through old threads just for fun... it just kind-of happens.

It doesn't even matter if you were first or not, just reply as usual. No need for justification. The other option is to create a new thread on the same topic, THEN you get someone complaining there is an existing thread. So, yeh, thread-cop wannabes.

Edited November 19, 2018 by Keatah

[power]

I can't compare the Amiga, because I've never owned one. Hopefully one day soon, I've wanted one since high school. I've had an Atari 1040 STe since 1991, and have since moved on to a Mega STE. Within the last month I've gotten am Apple IIGS, and have been messing with it a lot lately. So, let's compare a few things.

 

1) Operating system: I love TOS, it's what I grew up with. Having it built-into the ROM is a huge advantage IMO. I was very surprised that the IIGS did not do this. I'm assuming Amiga has it built-in. Big advantage Atari.

 

2) Graphics: I give the edge to the STE. It's a lot closer if it's the regular ST. With stills, advantage IIGS due to the 4,096 vs 512 colors (regular ST). Speed goes to the ST, and with the STE's blitter the gap widens.

 

3) Sound. Even the STE doesn't come close. IIGS' sound chip is amazing for its time.

 

4) Mice and joysticks: The mice feel similar, but I'll always take two buttons over one, so the ST wins. As for joysticks, Apple's were fantastic. Atari's could have used more buttons.

 

5) Looks: That's entirely opinion. I like both's looks, but the Mega STE is truly one hot computer.

 

6) Charm: On the surface, The ST has more charm, helped with a super-strong PD/Shareware library and Dungeon Master, duh. 'Nuff said? No, because the Apple II has level-10 charm, and 99% of its games will work on a IIGS by adding a 5.25" floppy. A lot of this is opinion too, however.

 

7) Other: A huge plus on the IIGS was Apple II backwards compatibility. It would have been nice to have Atari 8-bit compatibility on the ST by adding 5.25" floppy drive connection and a special chip, but it would have made it much more expensive.

 

Conclusion? They're both awesome, and I'm glad to have both. Having an Ultrasatan on the STE and a CFFA3000 on the IIGS makes me a happy camper.

 

We're on an Atari forum here so this might be unpopular and your admitted non-use of an Amiga means your opinion borders on invalid.

 

as someone who owned an ST and then an Amiga i can tell you the Amiga beat the ST quite soundly in basically everything except cosmetic design - but the ST had one of the worst keyboards since the 400.

 

I'm firmly in the Atari 8 bits > Commodore 8 bits and Commodore 16 bits > Atari 16 bits camp.

 

More to the point the fact that many Amiga games were gimped to account for the ST made matters even worse. Then the STE just rubbed salt into the wound - this is the machine they should have released from the get go and even if it was faster almost no one used because of the base ST. However it still lacked decent sound, something that dogged Atari forever.

 

TOS vs Workbench is subjective but I fall on the Workbench side - especially when you use later versions.

 

Peripherals, the pack in Atari mouse and Amiga mouse are both average - however Commodore released a much much better mouse with later machines. Something Atari never did.

 

IIGS? I can't comment. They seem ok. Never saw one at the time.

[Zap!]

 

We're on an Atari forum here so this might be unpopular and your admitted non-use of an Amiga means your opinion borders on invalid.

 

as someone who owned an ST and then an Amiga i can tell you the Amiga beat the ST quite soundly in basically everything except cosmetic design - but the ST had one of the worst keyboards since the 400.

 

I'm firmly in the Atari 8 bits > Commodore 8 bits and Commodore 16 bits > Atari 16 bits camp.

 

More to the point the fact that many Amiga games were gimped to account for the ST made matters even worse. Then the STE just rubbed salt into the wound - this is the machine they should have released from the get go and even if it was faster almost no one used because of the base ST. However it still lacked decent sound, something that dogged Atari forever.

 

TOS vs Workbench is subjective but I fall on the Workbench side - especially when you use later versions.

 

Peripherals, the pack in Atari mouse and Amiga mouse are both average - however Commodore released a much much better mouse with later machines. Something Atari never did.

 

IIGS? I can't comment. They seem ok. Never saw one at the time.

 

I agree that my opinion on the Amiga is invalid. Perhaps I was misunderstood, but I only did an "Atari ST vs. Apple IIGS" comparison. I did not include the Amiga. I have nothing against it at all, in fact I'm currently looking for one locally.

[power]

 

I agree that my opinion on the Amiga is invalid. Perhaps I was misunderstood, but I only did an "Atari ST vs. Apple IIGS" comparison. I did not include the Amiga. I have nothing against it at all, in fact I'm currently looking for one locally.

 

prepare to see and hear some of your old fave 16 bit games in a whole new light.

 

anything that was developed on Amiga then ported over to ST was almost always cut down and not as good.

 

And if you get one of the later systems, just wait until you use Workbench 2 and up.

Edited November 19, 2018 by power

[Zap!]

 

prepare to see and hear some of your old fave 16 bit games in a whole new light.

 

anything that was developed on Amiga then ported over to ST was almost always cut down and not as good.

 

And if you get one of the later systems, just wait until you use Workbench 2 and up.

 

Cool, I can't wait. That's the thing about me, I am very open-minded on these sorts of things, and truly love all of my old computers. Although I've never used an Amiga, I have seen the comparisons on YouTube and their versions look great. Can't wait to own one and an X68000 one day.

[Nebulon]

Addressing a few tidbits here and there from various posts:

 

1) Both lead designers of the Atari 800 worked on the Amiga (Jay Miner and Joe Decuir).

 

2) Amiga 1000 software runs on the Amiga 500, so that's two years worth of software already built-up for the A500.

 

3) There are things the Amiga audio chip can do that a lot of people don't realize. We already know it can be split to 8-channels in software, but there's more stuff than just that (much of it in hardware).

 

Links and info:

 

 

Audio: Define waveform (digital oscillator as sine, triangle, square, or custom), append one waveform with another, sum the four digital oscillator waveforms together or play them separately, modulate one with another, use as four independent audio state machines with its own DMA. This is all happening in hardware and there are special commands provided for this. Plus, the recording quality is very good for an 8-bit sampler and approaches the quality of a 12 or 14-bit sampler when coupled with a 68030.

https://archive.org/stream/Amiga_Hardware_Reference_Manual_1985_Commodore_a/Amiga_Hardware_Reference_Manual_1985_Commodore_a_djvu.txt

 

Example of Amiga audio chip approximating an analog synth using defined wave shapes (essentially a DCO-generator):

https://www.blitter.com/~nebulous/otherworld/MP3/JS_Bach%20-%20Brandenburg4%20(Amiga).mp3

 

I understand that the IIGS has a great DCO implementation. However, I'm not sure how it compares in both quality and handling of sampled audio.