Dauber Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 I think there are some things to consider. InkyAtari pointed me to this thread. I'm a bit ignorant in the ST area in that the only ST experience I've had was with his ST520 and ST1040, and all for a grand total of about five minutes... But a few things I should de-mythisize... Myth: Amiga is limited to 4096 colors. Truth: True, for the 1000, 500, 2500, 2000, 600 and 3000 -- providing you don't actually upgrade the computer. False for the 1200 and 4000, which have a much bigger palette; something like a million colors with the possibility of displaying 256,000 of 'em at once. Now...all of the Amiga models, save the 600 and the 1000, can be upgraded with graphics cards that put it up to today's standards so you can have a 16.7-million color screen with a resolution of up to 1600 x 1200. Myth: Amiga is limited to 4 channels. Truth: Again...can be upgraded with a 16-bit or 24-bit sound card, for the most part. Now...exactly how expandable is the ST series, and can it run with today's current equipment? Most of the Amigas are highly expandable thanks to Zorro II and Zorro III busboards, and some of them now have working PCI slots to take any Soundblaster-compatible soundcard, any of the current graphics cards, SCSI controllers, etc. Just an example, here's my Amiga setup: -- circa 1992 Amiga 4000, which I had Software Hut put into a tower a coupla years ago. -- The Amiga 4000's motherboard RAM is limited to 16 megs, which I have totally populated with four 4-meg 72-pin SIMMs, and I also have the chip RAM maxed out at a whopping 2 megs. However...with Zorro slots and accelerators, you can expand the RAM pretty much as much as you want. The accelerator card I have can take up to 128 megabytes of RAM, which I long ago maxed out. -- Picasso IV 32-bit graphics card, set to 1024x768, running off of a current Samsung SVGA monitor. -- A year ago I put in the Highway card, which was the first-ever USB option for Amiga. Yup, that's right...for about a year, USB has been available to Amiga users now. The day I got the card I went to Target and got a $40 CompactFlash reader so I wouldn't have to use the slow serial connection for my digital camera. -- Three hard drives...one SCSI, two IDE... -- High-density 1.76-megabyte floppy drive. [Yup....Atari and Wintel folks are limited to 1.44, and Mac users can't get more than 1.6!] -- this was standard in the Amiga 4000, but I had a rare exception that only had double-density, and I recently upped this... -- Prelude sound card...16-bit, full-duplex recording. This thing has more inputs than I can shake a dead giraffe at. I have the sound from an external CD burner going into it as well as my four-track, the Amiga's own built-in sound et al. -- Norway NIC This isn't all, but you get the idea. Also, Amigas have PowerPC accelerators available. Are any Atari ST models this upgradable? If not, then this isn't really a fair argument. One thing I WILL say that the Atari ST always had over the Amiga: built-in MIDI. Heck, to get a MIDI card for the Amiga doesn't cost much, like $40, but it still must be nice to have it built-in... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+davidcalgary29 Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 Yes, with so many models (ST and Amiga) to compare, arguments of comparison can get very complicated. I'd much rather see THIS debate: "what system is the true successor to the Atari 800 -- the Amiga 1000, or the Atari 520ST?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Sauron Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 I don't see too much of a point in debating the upgradeability of the Amiga vs. ST. Most of the merits we debated were from back when they were viable systems and were readily available for sale (pre-1994). It's not like either system is a viable option for modern computing demands (and no, they're not), so debating about which one has USB is pointless. Also, keep in mind that the Amiga has had a parent company still around after all of this time; the ST has NOT. You guys have had two professionally developed and released OS updates, whereas TOS development stopped when Atari discontinued their computer line. So whether or not it's a "balanced" debate isn't even worth bringing up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted July 19, 2003 Share Posted July 19, 2003 As 1 counter point - With the Mega ST series and on up various graphic cards were available to enhance the resoultion of the machine. There was a 1024x768 card availalbe for the Mega ST line. The TT, STE and Falcon all supported higher resolutions and had their own cards that could be plugged in. Having said all that and being a 1040 and Mega 2 owner I was always jealous about the options available on the Amiga. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted July 19, 2003 Share Posted July 19, 2003 I'd much rather see THIS debate: "what system is the true successor to the Atari 800 -- the Amiga 1000, or the Atari 520ST?" I see no question there... The AMIGA is the idealistic successor to the XL/XE. There is the chipset at first, the serious Operating System at second... Only the FALCON would fit somehow into "successor" to the 8-Bits.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jon-paul Posted July 21, 2003 Share Posted July 21, 2003 I'd much rather see THIS debate: "what system is the true successor to the Atari 800 -- the Amiga 1000, or the Atari 520ST?" The Amiga is much closer, Virtualy the same design team usuing the same design philosophy as the Atari 800. Or so i have been lead to belive. Corrections anyone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ayreon Posted July 21, 2003 Share Posted July 21, 2003 nope, can't argue about that in any way Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jon-paul Posted July 21, 2003 Share Posted July 21, 2003 One thing I WILL say that the Atari ST always had over the Amiga: built-in MIDI. Heck, to get a MIDI card for the Amiga doesn't cost much, like $40, but it still must be nice to have it built-in... But the Atari cost on average 100£ less than the equivelent Amiga throughout their life span. Most people never used their atari's for midi work, they used them for games and word-processing, maybe a little art or DTP, and in rare occations e-mail you can only compare the two machines from 2 or 3 points of view, I was comparing one way as between the two now as retro machines that could be brought up to a semi-modern usable standard (EG for me, its a hard disk on top of the standard set-up). You could compare between the two machines new out of the box. Or you can compare between the two on techical niceities which make next to no difference between the two machines for the day-to-day user. On the first one i feel the late Amiga's win (specificly the 600/1200, i'm ignoring the big box amiga's as they were never that common in the UK). hard drives a sinch, extra memory, easier to get hold of, only that pesky disk format to spoil the fun. Only the comparitively Rare Falcon from the atari range can compare due to its also havng an IDE interface. On the other two comparisons, not much to choose, except the price, the Atari was always about 100£ cheeper than the 'equivelent' Amiga. In those days, £100 was a LOT of cash. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted July 21, 2003 Share Posted July 21, 2003 But the Atari cost on average 100£ less than the equivelent Amiga throughout their life span. I bought the 1040STF for about 1600DM + 400DM for the SM124 This was an amount of 1250$ in that time... 18 months later, I needed to sell that thing... for about 800DM ...Man I had really enough of the PLING...PLING, big borders and Monitor-Changing. I bought an AMIGA 2000 then for about 2200DM incl. Monitor and I was happy. If I had bought directly an AMIGA+ Mon. for about 2800DM (18 months before) I would have had saved an amount of 200DM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clint Thompson Posted July 21, 2003 Share Posted July 21, 2003 Yes... a hard comparison when you throw a A4000 at a 1040ST (esepcially considering the 8+ year difference as well) The Falcon would be more appropriate to compare to the A4000. Course so far there is no comparison for me... I thought getting an A4000 would be like well, real exciting and a change of pace of all my Atari stuff... not true... The 3.0WB on the Amiga feels so weak and UGLY. It does have a higher res mode and the screen can zip around faster but so can the Falcon when using NVDI (which I STILL can't seem to get installed right without halting my system) It took me about 15 mins to get a CD running on my Falcon, easy as cake! However on my Amiga 4000, it took around 8 hours at LEAST, and that's having help from several other guys. I was just about to throw the A4000 out the window after all the chaos I went through with it, but I got the CD working. Now... more problems even, can download games but it appears to crash on a lot of things and most programs require special files that doesn't seem to be already in my system, bah.. what a pain. Even now, after wanting and trying to get a grip on the Amiga I still think I may end up selling it and just add more gear to my Falcon =) *anyone up for a Amiga 4000 w/toaster trade for some Falcon stuff? Clab, whatever! PM ME * ah well... as much as I wanted to really like Amigas too... :sigh: A CT60 doesn't sound all too bad really.... I mean, really! Clint Thompson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari_Owl Posted July 22, 2003 Share Posted July 22, 2003 Now...exactly how expandable is the ST series, and can it run with today's current equipment? Most of the Amigas are highly expandable thanks to Zorro II and Zorro III busboards, and some of them now have working PCI slots to take any Soundblaster-compatible soundcard, any of the current graphics cards, SCSI controllers, etc. Just an example, here's my Amiga setup: Eclipse for the Falcon allows connection to any PCI card. As with Amiga however there has to be drivers for thm which kind of reduces how many can actually be used. http://users.vianet.ca/~joshua/ -- The Amiga 4000's motherboard RAM is limited to 16 megs, which I have totally populated with four 4-meg 72-pin SIMMs, and I also have the chip RAM maxed out at a whopping 2 megs. However...with Zorro slots and accelerators, you can expand the RAM pretty much as much as you want. The accelerator card I have can take up to 128 megabytes of RAM, which I long ago maxed out. Falcon Mainboard 14Mb (2Mb of the 16Mb are mapped for hardware). with AB40, FX, CT2, etc lots of Fast Ram can be added (not sure how much is the limit. With CT60 up to 512MB Fast Ram. (Mine has 128 or 256 depending on whether i decide i need more in the PC or the Falcon) -- Picasso IV 32-bit graphics card, set to 1024x768, running off of a current Samsung SVGA monitor. From the above site. Eclipse graphics card feeding Dell 21" Ultrascan at 1280x1024x16bit at 70Hz. -- A year ago I put in the Highway card, which was the first-ever USB option for Amiga. Yup, that's right...for about a year, USB has been available to Amiga users now. The day I got the card I went to Target and got a $40 CompactFlash reader so I wouldn't have to use the slow serial connection for my digital camera. Not absolutely certain here, i think the USB is being worked on for Falcon/ST/TT but not ready yet. I see that Milans have USB ports I see there is a USB project for 8bit Ataris -- Three hard drives...one SCSI, two IDE... My set up 5 Hard Drives [4 SCSI, 1 IDE] 1 CD 1 CD-RW 8x4x24 -- Prelude sound card...16-bit, full-duplex recording. This thing has more inputs than I can shake a dead giraffe at. I have the sound from an external CD burner going into it as well as my four-track, the Amiga's own built-in sound et al. Falcon (circa 1992) had 16bit built in, with a DSP to allow real time effects during recording and playback. D2D recording. ADAT 8 track recorder via the DSP port. At the time, not just now. This isn't all, but you get the idea. Also, Amigas have PowerPC accelerators available. Are any Atari ST models this upgradable? If not, then this isn't really a fair argument. PowerPC project seems to have gone nowhere, but CT60 is out with a 66 or 72MHz 68060 processor. Thats Pretty quick. One thing I WILL say that the Atari ST always had over the Amiga: built-in MIDI. Heck, to get a MIDI card for the Amiga doesn't cost much, like $40, but it still must be nice to have it built-in... It is. And it always was. Oh and the good OS was another good thing. And the excellent programming tools. And the good desktop And the better WP, DTP, Music, Database, Spreadsheet software Falcon (since we're comparing 1992 machine with 1992 machine rather than 1992 vs 1985 for a change) is capable of being brought to as close to todays standards as an Amiga 4000. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted July 22, 2003 Share Posted July 22, 2003 Yes... a hard comparison when you throw a A4000 at a 1040ST(esepcially considering the 8+ year difference as well) I must have something missed. Where - in this thread - was a 1040 ST compared to the AMIGA 4000? I just compared the 1040 ST with the AMIGA 2000 ... and this is a fair bit in every way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari_Owl Posted July 23, 2003 Share Posted July 23, 2003 Yes... a hard comparison when you throw a A4000 at a 1040ST(esepcially considering the 8+ year difference as well) I must have something missed. Where - in this thread - was a 1040 ST compared to the AMIGA 4000? I just compared the 1040 ST with the AMIGA 2000 ... and this is a fair bit in every way. No it isn't. Amiga 2000 was the big box and enhanced REPLACEMENT after 2 years for Amiga 1000 and therefore is only really comparable with a Mega ST, NOT a 1040. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted July 23, 2003 Share Posted July 23, 2003 Yes... a hard comparison when you throw a A4000 at a 1040ST(esepcially considering the 8+ year difference as well) I must have something missed. Where - in this thread - was a 1040 ST compared to the AMIGA 4000? I just compared the 1040 ST with the AMIGA 2000 ... and this is a fair bit in every way. No it isn't. Amiga 2000 was the big box and enhanced REPLACEMENT after 2 years for Amiga 1000 and therefore is only really comparable with a Mega ST, NOT a 1040. There is no difference between the 1040 STF and the MEGA ST exept the Case and the separate Keyboard. Ok... the MEGA ST has batteries... In the time the 1040 ST was shipped, the AMIGA 2000 was there too. You can compare the AMIGA 500 with the 520 ST and compare the 260ST with the AMIGA 1000. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted July 23, 2003 Share Posted July 23, 2003 Dont forget the 'Blitter' and Card slot - The Mega had a few nicities but the Amiga 2000 was where the Mega should've been............ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jon-paul Posted July 24, 2003 Share Posted July 24, 2003 Yes... a hard comparison when you throw a A4000 at a 1040ST(esepcially considering the 8+ year difference as well) I must have something missed. Where - in this thread - was a 1040 ST compared to the AMIGA 4000? I just compared the 1040 ST with the AMIGA 2000 ... and this is a fair bit in every way. No it isn't. Amiga 2000 was the big box and enhanced REPLACEMENT after 2 years for Amiga 1000 and therefore is only really comparable with a Mega ST, NOT a 1040. There is no difference between the 1040 STF and the MEGA ST exept the Case and the separate Keyboard. Ok... the MEGA ST has batteries... In the time the 1040 ST was shipped, the AMIGA 2000 was there too. You can compare the AMIGA 500 with the 520 ST and compare the 260ST with the AMIGA 1000. I feel there's nowt much differance between an Amiga 500 and a 2000 performance wise. The main difference was in expandability, the 500 expanded along the desk like some creeping creature and the 2000 should have expanded inside the box. So comparing the Atari 1040 with the Amiga 500 (most seem to have shipped with the memory upgrade that took it to 1 meg), and the Possibly the 2000 with the Mega may be the fairest comparison. The 500+, 3000, and 600 all used the ECS chipset for graphics so may have no direct comparison in the ST range. The Falcon and the 1200 may be fair comparisons. The falcon out of he box seemed superior, but its availability was nowhere as good as the 1200. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inky Posted July 24, 2003 Share Posted July 24, 2003 If I may just put my two cents in here.. When comparing two machines, I think it's more honest to compare the models that happened to be released in the same timeframe. If the A2000 had holograms in 1989, and the Atari Falcon didn't have them until 1995, that' not a good comparison, because you couldn't GET the Falcon in 1989. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjlazah Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 Yes... a hard comparison when you throw a A4000 at a 1040ST(esepcially considering the 8+ year difference as well) The Falcon would be more appropriate to compare to the A4000. Course so far there is no comparison for me... I thought getting an A4000 would be like well, real exciting and a change of pace of all my Atari stuff... not true... The 3.0WB on the Amiga feels so weak and UGLY. It does have a higher res mode and the screen can zip around faster but so can the Falcon when using NVDI (which I STILL can't seem to get installed right without halting my system) It took me about 15 mins to get a CD running on my Falcon, easy as cake! However on my Amiga 4000, it took around 8 hours at LEAST, and that's having help from several other guys. I was just about to throw the A4000 out the window after all the chaos I went through with it, but I got the CD working. Now... more problems even, can download games but it appears to crash on a lot of things and most programs require special files that doesn't seem to be already in my system, bah.. what a pain. Even now, after wanting and trying to get a grip on the Amiga I still think I may end up selling it and just add more gear to my Falcon =) *anyone up for a Amiga 4000 w/toaster trade for some Falcon stuff? Clab, whatever! PM ME * ah well... as much as I wanted to really like Amigas too... :sigh: A CT60 doesn't sound all too bad really.... I mean, really! Clint Thompson Well me being heavily into the Amiga and especially the 4000, I recently got a Falcon030 to check out. I was not impressed. My 4000 is a lot better than the Falcon030. Of course I totally upgraded the 4000 with a 68060 at 60Mhz, 256MB RAM, 24bit Video Card, and AmigaOS 3.9. Thats like comparing a Atari 800 to a Falcon030 IMHO!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Sauron Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 The Falcon wasn't Atari's counterpart to the A4000. In fact, they never released one, although one was certainly planned. The Falcon more directly competed with the A1200, as they were both marketed as low end machines of a new product line. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwiliteZoner Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 Maybe you Amiga owners can help me out on this one. A buddy of mine had a 500 back in the day and nearly threw it out several times due to the system always crashing. Now, if you can't run anything due to system failures this debate is pointless Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jon-paul Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 Maybe you Amiga owners can help me out on this one. A buddy of mine had a 500 back in the day and nearly threw it out several times due to the system always crashing. Now, if you can't run anything due to system failures this debate is pointless answers apparently here:- http://www.eeggs.com/items/1039.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 Maybe you Amiga owners can help me out on this one. A buddy of mine had a 500 back in the day and nearly threw it out several times due to the system always crashing. Now, if you can't run anything due to system failures this debate is pointless See the difference. Two computers both having their bugs. One has a very good multitasking OS and crashes by defective Software because the Software uses privileged commands. The other System has a simple graphics environment and no multitasking and crashes by unkown errors.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inky Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 Maybe you Amiga owners can help me out on this one. A buddy of mine had a 500 back in the day and nearly threw it out several times due to the system always crashing. Now, if you can't run anything due to system failures this debate is pointless See the difference. Two computers both having their bugs. One has a very good multitasking OS and crashes by defective Software because the Software uses privileged commands. The other System has a simple graphics environment and no multitasking and crashes by unkown errors.... I think he was being sarcastic.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Han Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 Will the ST vs Amiga war never end ... .. Personally I liked/hated both. I owned an Atari ST myself, used for games, MIDI and graphics. And at work I had an Amiga 3000, doing 3D animations and broadcast graphics... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inky Posted July 25, 2003 Share Posted July 25, 2003 Will the ST vs Amiga war never end ... .. Personally I liked/hated both. I owned an Atari ST myself, used for games, MIDI and graphics. And at work I had an Amiga 3000, doing 3D animations and broadcast graphics... One time on the local public access cablechannel, the Amiga they used crashed, and it displayed a Guru Meditation on channel 34 all weekend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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