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Amiga or ST?


JohnW

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Trs-80 MC-10

Vic 20

Atari 600XL

C64 + CoCo 2 + Atari 130XE

XT compatible

520 ST

Amiga 1000

PC after that to this day.

 

All machine have their strong and weak points. All are interesting. I loved my 520 but the Amiga was more fun for me.

But in truth I prefer the simplicity of the 8bit machine more. Power on, do your stuff, power off.

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8 bit no hassle fun

STe music Madness, love it for the number of game titles and music, well the apps and add ons were the best early on.

TT030 and Amiga, very nice and some great things about both, Amiga toaster video A+... I really loved the Amiga. MultiTask Mania!

TT030 was a desktop killer for publishing and other business..

Falcon030, music monster, interesting titles, all around was better later in it's life with folks making configs for compatibility... It really should have come out built on the TT...

some great games, I still play llamazzap... am I dain bramaged?

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I went from an 600xl -> 800xl -> 520 ST. I eventually purchased an Amiga 500 as well. The ST was used for BBSing and school work (hello Magic Sac and PC Ditto) and the Amiga basically ran games. Neither machine was heavily upgraded and both were floppy systems. I had monitors for both and the ST's monochrome was amazing to stare at for hours on end.

 

I ran a trash PC until about '92 (a 20mhz '286 if I recall) - when I found myself having to decide between a Mega STE or PC for a "real" computer. I went the PC route.

 

Today I have a Mega STE, Mega 4, and a 260 ST and I like using them. I've been thinking of selling off the Mega 4 to help fund an A600 or A1200.

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Atari 800 1981

Mega ST2 1986

TT030 (used) around 1991/2

PC 1996

2nd PC 2002

IMac 2008

2nd iMac last week

 

All Ataris securely stored, all PCs donated.

 

Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk

 

When the ST and Amiga appeared I had no idea that the Amiga was the true heir of the Atari and went with the brand, which also had a bit better reputation for reliability. I didn't switch right away like my best Atari friend and started with a Mega ST. I had to pass my 800 on to my nephews, the loss being felt only after a couple of weeks and after finding out that I did not like the ST games as much as I had liked the 800 games. After a couple of years I bought a second-hand 800XL and later recovered my 800.

 

What I liked about the ST was the great flicker-free super-sharp mono screen. That suited my university word processing requirements. I never got into much programming, though, as the ST magazines did not cover programming the same way the 8-bit-magazines had done, the main reasons probably being the lack of a built-in BASIC as a "lingua franca" and the difficulty/software required to program something for a GUI.

 

Modems were heavily regulated here and so it took me a couple of years to get onto FidoNet. When the Mega ST started feeling a bit dated, I pondered between TT, Mac and PC and chose a used TT as the Mac was a lot more expensive for the same specs (and I was afraid I wouldn't find anyone to trade software with) and the PC still felt inferior. I stuck to the TT until I first surfed the Web on a friend's PC and found the experience on the TT (CAB?) to be somewhat lame.

 

All Atari consoles and further Ataris were more of a collector's buy and have seen only very light use so far. My kids play a few rounds when I get them out but don't actively ask me to do so.

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I got an Apple II in the late 70's. Then got a 400/800 as a games computer and was quite happy with it. Between the two I had the best of both worlds, productivity, education, technical, gaming, and more!

 

In the mid-80's I bought into the Amiga. Turned out to be a mistake. I was looking for arcade games, and all the press and magazine articles said the custom chips could do awesome games and more. All the fast action arcade ports (actually re-writes) weren't anywhere near what I was expecting. And the Apple II & 800 continued serving in that area.

 

Our town had little or no Amiga support and even less local BBS'es to call.

 

I wouldn't really enjoy computer gaming again till Doom came on the scene for the PC. The 486 gave me all the gaming I could ever ask for, and more! It even had arcade exact emulation of the early arcades! And of course it did productivity and word processing and DTP and BBS-Modeming far better than anything Amiga.

 

The ST had never really showed up much on my radar. I was too vested in other areas of computing and electronics to eye yet another machine. And that was that.

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I got an Apple II in the late 70's. Then got a 400/800 as a games computer and was quite happy with it. Between the two I had the best of both worlds, productivity, education, technical, gaming, and more!

 

In the mid-80's I bought into the Amiga. Turned out to be a mistake. I was looking for arcade games, and all the press and magazine articles said the custom chips could do awesome games and more. All the fast action arcade ports (actually re-writes) weren't anywhere near what I was expecting. And the Apple II & 800 continued serving in that area.

 

 

Amiga did games very well. To be honest I don't think the programmers that were porting arcade games to the Amiga really had the opportunity to take advantage of the Amiga's chipset. It was a case of getting the games out as fast as possible. The end result was a 'lazy port' from the ST or just a shitty port in general ( see Double Dragon ). There were some really good ports to the Amiga though.. Final Fight wasn't too bad, Golden Axe, Ghosts and Goblins, Silkworm, Ghouls & Ghosts and Mortal Kombat.

 

Amiga's hardware was unusual for a games system though, it had to use the blitter for everything and there was no tile based mode like in the x68000 ( you had to do it in software ) which seem to limit the machine's performance / frame rate of shooter style games down to ~25fps vs 50-60fps in the arcades. With a tiling mode in addition to a blitter, the Amiga would have been untouchable in every department. But we have to remember that the Amiga was designed with a specific budget in mind... the blitter / line drawing capabilities of the Amiga is a feature that gives us all of these amazing demos.

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Does it still count if I never actually owned an Atari 8-bit system (other than the VCS)?

 

I bought a Coco in 1983, which was ultimately replaced by my first PC in 1988 (which itself served until 1993).

 

In about 1986, a local independent computer store became the first (perhaps only) place in town to sell the Atari ST.

 

I was intrigued by the hardware, but put-off by the price. I no longer recall the specifics, but I do remember that the external floppy drive was sold separately, and it cost just as much as the computer itself! I was shocked to discover that it was a "required accessory". I was still happily using cassette tape storage on my Coco at the time; a disk drive was an unnecessary extravagance.

 

The shop went out of business within a few years, but another establishment must have picked-up support as there were two or thee ST-based local BBSs in operation in the early-1990s.

Edited by jhd
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2600 --> 800 --> 520ST.

 

I remember when my dad first switched the BBS to the ST (BBS Express 850 Pro --> BBS Express ST!); I really didn't (originally) like the ST BBS so I spent the time switching everything back to the 8bit confusing callers of the board. A week later my Dad reset it to the ST :). Later I "got" the ST, wrote a few BBS Doors with my Dad and went on from there eventually to PC. I had a great time with the ST when it matured, but when it launched vs. the relatively mature 8-bit -- my heart stayed with the 800 for a very long time.

 

Sadly the only time I ever saw an Amiga 'back in the day' was an Amiga 1000 playing the game Rogue, and also with the original terrible colors of Workbench 1.0.

Rogue didn't show off any Amiga capability, and the GUI -- being a young kid and not knowing much, seemed less polished than the ST's was on a monochrome monitor..

 

Of course now I have an A500 and an A1200 with some upgrades.. next to a Mega STE :).

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I had a 1040ST, then a (used) Mega ST4. My good computer buddy went to Amiga, and although it had better specs due to the specialized support chips, I really could see very little difference between them from a user perspective. I did like TOS far better than the early versions of Windows. But Windows kept on improving and the ST's countered by going away! I ended up using the ST Gemulator (Darek Michoka) after I finally got rid of all the ST stuff. Now, just 8-bits.

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In the mid-80's I bought into the Amiga. Turned out to be a mistake. I was looking for arcade games, and all the press and magazine articles said the custom chips could do awesome games and more. All the fast action arcade ports (actually re-writes) weren't anywhere near what I was expecting. And the Apple II & 800 continued serving in that area.

 

Our town had little or no Amiga support and even less local BBS'es to call.

 

 

 

That's a shame, most of the good BBSs were over in Europe and I couldn't really afford to call them at the time. The Amiga would have been worth keeping purely based on the demos coming out and the cool freeware apps that were around at the time ( Protracker, DPaint .etc ).

 

Games came secondary for me. A mate of mine used to call all these different European BBSs and download the latest demos and stuff like the LSD docs, Grapevine (a disk magazine ). Amiga disk magazines were the best way to get info on the latest hardware and software since the magazines in the news agents were expensive and always arrived 3 months late.

 

None of us had jobs at the time, so my mate would bring boxes of floppy disks and we'd go through them one by one over a case of beer & some fish & chips. Fun times indeed!

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Harvey's last paragraph is spot on and the one thing I always try and make plain to people about people like me and the era I'm from...

 

I grew up BEFORE home computers were out there, I grew up before hand help microchip toys toys existed, I was there before when games like Simon started to come about, a game with an electronic brain of sorts, not a computer but basic logic, before those you had wind up robots that shot sparks from its chest, board games and hand held stereo picture viewers...It was all non tech compared to today. The incoming of pocket battleships, Galaxians / Galaga clones in led little units was UNHEARD of, there were the PS4's of my era. Take a step forward and then the home computers / game units arrived like the 2600 etc and suddenly we had arcade games at home, just playing the arcade games in the arcades was amazing, Space invader was amazing, the little Dodge 'em game was stunning to us and as the items evolved it was a new day of wonder.

 

As Harvey says, we didn't foresee things like mobile phones, hell they were as unlikely as the communicators on Star Trek to us, we at best saw the big rooms of computers getting even more massive as the days went on, skpye, in your dreams mate...

 

So to people like me I lived though the whole start of this breakthrough in to a real revolution in entertainment and electronics, people coming in to this after that cannot easily perceive the massive implication it had on the world as its already about for them but to people like me there was no way all this was going to do the things it has come to do and even more than we could have imagined, it was beyond the scope of our thoughts for the average person. After that break through and Atari's were out there we started to get the idea that smaller could be better, things COULD be made even faster and better and the notion that the graphics and sound COULD be improved upon quickly.

 

The point, back then we could not even imagine the Simon game let alone what was to come and now we have become almost casual about things, the things that the early Amiga's and ST's showed has been surpassed and then some, the FMV or STR's to be iirc exact from Tekken games which looked incredible and sure we would not play games like that is now been and gone, its higher res, more polys more everything. So when we see new games on our older machines people tend to not be so wowed EXCEPT for folks from my era or near because we remember what could not be done and look at the new games with their fancy graphical quirks that they found, the clever ways to display more with better and more sound and WE look at them like they were new in the day and say WOW.

 

Sure, in real terms compared to todays leaps the new games on the old systems are now the same massive technical leap but they are in terms of that machine a huge stride onwards in ways of programming, use of compression, use of new modes etc etc etc..

 

Roll on more stuff...Its appreciated...

 

And I still prefer the Amiga to the ST :)

Edited by Mclaneinc
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True, I remember playing Simon at a mates. I got an 800XL when I was about 12 or 13 (1985ish), then an STFM 20 years later, then a MegaSTE then a Falcon. Now I have nearly every Atari ever made and not far behind in Amiga's. I have a cupboard full of C64's I have to repair, but not a lot of motivation to do it. One day...

 

For me, the Amiga is nice but the ST is smarter. When either platform got a good programmer on to a game they got good results. And when they didn't, we got shadow of the beast on the ST. It wasn't a hardware deficiency, we have seen tons of games in the ST's and Amiga's lifespan that prove that, it was programming. Both machines had aspects which made some things harder to program, but, ultimately it was down to how much effort the programmer put in and how quickly it needed to be banged out. Yes, some things were easier on one and not the other, but both could be overcome.

 

I like Amiga, I love Atari.

 

 

 

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I love what you said but Magic Boy was from Empire and they were not exactly the most praised place, Gods on the other hand was great fun and with the new version where you can swap between old and new super graphics on the fly, it will be nice to see that launched soon..

 

Sadly Nether really made any massive use of the platform it was on, especially Magic Boy, silly fun but a real 'by the numbers' game.....There are indeed some wonderful titles that took advantage of the ST (mostly 3D games)......I don't hate the ST, I just enjoyed what the Amiga had more, especially the OS which was wonderful...(cue loads of 'but it wasn't' calls....It was actually and I'm not talking the much vaunted but pretty useless (to most) multitasking, I'm talking how it could be updated and the way it worked with ease of use...

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I see the ST the same way. Such a flexible system. Once saw a Falcon, I had to have one. It really is an impressive unit. I have A1200, A3000, A4000 and CD32/SX1, but to me, the TT and Falcon just smoke them. Don't get me wrong, they are nice machines, but, Atari just got it right in the OS dept for me.

 

I used to be in an Atari/Amiga club in southern NSW, every time an Amiga owner said "you can't do that with an ST" I found some way to do it. We had a great time and I absolutely loved the dropped jaws every time I did, so did the Amiga owners. Like displaying HAM pic's, demos, or playing back MOD's or what ever. Photochrome and ye olde MOD players were amazing examples of great programming. To this day I am happy tgo sit back and watch a nice demo.

 

What do you mean by swapping out graphics?

 

BTW, for me, the 800XLis still the one I love the most, even if it gets used the least. I nearly forgot, I got a 130XE in between the XL and the ST. Damn it looks good next to a Falcon.

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I like the game, not so much the game play. I'm not that into platformers but they are a good example of good programming.

 

I was a huge fan of Millennium 2.2, Sim City, Stunt car racer, Vroom, Thunderhawk, F-16, F1GP, No second prize, Lotus, but I didn't mind Golden Axe, R type, SWIV or Xenon.

 

Most of the games that were adapted to the ST, I still preferred on the XL/XE. Like Alternate reality, Apshi, F-15 strike eagle etc.

 

Pity they didn't make more effort with the original games before converting to the Amiga. Or vice versa. As has been mentioned before, just down to budgets and talent I guess. I'd love to see a proper shadow of the beast conversion.

 

 

 

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Going by the long list of hardware - that most have had - you bought it for it's intended usage.

 

But it's only in the area of arcade type games - that the ST and Amiga really didn't deliver en masse. Sprites and scrolling.

Sure there were some exceptions - that did deliver high quality results.

Xenon was overrated - those which deliver lots of sprites - showed how jerky they can be - and scrolling screens on the ST were always windowed - not delivering full screen.

 

Of course what the computers could do - would be the 3D games, simulations and strategy type games, etc.

 

For those who wanted their arcade fix - and authentic home arcade versions - you had to go towards the hardware which can deliver that. Games consoles with the hardware to deliver.

Sure the Amiga was the most capable - but only a few took the time and effort to showcase this. An early example being Battle Squadron - that critics panned. It would have been nice to see what their next game would be like? But I don't think Battle Squadron was 'successful' to encourage them to try harder....

 

Though the major difference I think is - was - that it was the professional development teams versus the amateurs? How many worked on Super Mario World - compare the many levels in that (96?) versus any other platformer that tried? But of course - you really can't make such comparisons - which would be unfair to. But that would be the reason also why StreetFighter 2 was such a dismal result - if you had to compare it's versions. Was that a one example? I think there are others to list...

 

Harvey

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You just contradicted yourself with Hawkquest, Harvey. icon_biggrin.gif More polish on that number than the Queens silver. But, for the most part that is what I was getting at. Budget and talent. Big budgets buy big talent, and lots of it.

 

Is there much difference between the ST and Amiga? Not really much that couldn't be overcome with software.

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Thank you for the compliment - I never got any feedback on HQ from games players - and wondered if our time and effort spent on it - was appreciated or not?

 

I do remember XR-35 on the Amiga - impressive looking - but it really didn't have the playability to it - needed further playtesting to get it playing better? (Maybe HQ falls into the

same category?)

 

You have only to play Zelda on the SNES to see what a professional team can really do?

 

(Better not mention how someone converted it's graphics to the C-64 - hidden within a demo. Wouldn't have thought that was possible BitD.)

 

Harvey

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I see the ST the same way. Such a flexible system. Once saw a Falcon, I had to have one. It really is an impressive unit. I have A1200, A3000, A4000 and CD32/SX1, but to me, the TT and Falcon just smoke them. Don't get me wrong, they are nice machines, but, Atari just got it right in the OS dept for me.

 

 

In may case, I'd have to vote for Amiga OS 2.06 and up. I can't really think of another OS that performs at its level prior to Windows 95 (other than perhaps IRIX). Heck, there's things that an A4000/040 running AmigaOS 3 or 3.1 can do that even Win95 has trouble doing.

 

Having said that, MultiTOS looks pretty nice running on the Falcon. However, since I've never had the opportunity to put it through its paces, I can't really say which OS is better. If a buddy of mine hadn't sold his Falcon, I'd be able to try it out.

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In may case, I'd have to vote for Amiga OS 2.06 and up. I can't really think of another OS that performs at its level prior to Windows 95 (other than perhaps IRIX). Heck, there's things that an A4000/040 running AmigaOS 3 or 3.1 can do that even Win95 has trouble doing.

 

This belongs to Kickstart 1.x aswell. Memory usage and availability starts to get better with Windows NT. But NT wasn't able to offer gameplay.

The 1st OS from Microsoft that took it equal in usage to Amiga OS is Windows 2000. Real 32 Bit Memory access and DirectX allowed Gaming .

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The Amiga blew me away, the same way the Atari 800XL blew me away years earlier - and the same way the Atari 2600 blew me away before that. I didn't know anything about Jay Miner or the history of the computer companies. I just knew that those were the ones that most impressed me.

 

Unfortunately, I couldn't afford the Atari 2600, but a friend had one and I always managed to get myself invited over to play. I didn't see an Atari computer until 1984 - a year after I got the cheapest computer I could find at the time, a 16K TRS-80 Colour Computer II. A friend had an 800XL and I repeatedly got myself invited over to his house to play. I didn't get to play with the C64 until a year after that and although it was far better than my CoCo II, it didn't really impress me as much as the 800XL had done. All my favourite games looked and played better on the Atari. (this was 1985/86, before the more impressive later C64 games, which I never saw - because by that time I had an Amiga)

 

I first saw the Amiga when... once again, a friend got one. I went with him to pick out a game and I grabbed the box for Shadow of the Beast. I couldn't believe the screenshots. I thought they were faked or weren't part of the actual game play. I basically forced him to get the game. When we went back to play it, I was stunned. I just had to get an Amiga!

 

I walked 3km each way in the middle of winter to work at a job I hated just so I could save up. (I vividly remember while walking to that miserable job, a dump truck swerved into a giant puddle of dirty slush deliberately to drench me. Fun times.)

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