Atari ST vs Amiga

I never did quite figure out how to use x-copy properly i think i only ever managed to work it through trial and error! Though i was like 10 at the time.
Hard drives are a god send!

Oh and did anyone actually do any homework on there Amiga?
 
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click click click ckick. BOOOOM. insert target dick. .....................click click click click
 
LizardKing said:
Oh and did anyone actually do any homework on there Amiga?
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Yep, did several essays on mine using Wordsworth, which was exactly the same as Word 97 except it ws years earlier!

Also, I did a lot of my first year uniwork on it, both essays, and as I was doing a Media Technology degree, the video capabilities came in very handy for various video projects. I remember hand drawing some titles etc in Deluxe Paint 4 and animating each frame. Everyone else had used the rubbish equipment the university had so had very basic titles etc, my lecturer was blown away by mine!!! :o)
 
A500 owner here also (still).

It's funny reading about the "reason for having" excuse, what do kids do these days??

"Mum.. Dad.. I want a PS3/360/Wii"

"Can you do homework on it?"

"/sigh"


I do remember trying to justify my ZX Spectrum tho by 'claiming' to be doing homework with Tasword 2 and an alphacom 32 printer, oh the lies.. :D


Great nostalgia reading through the posts, some of my great gaming memories are on the A500, bought mine in '89 from Rumbelows (my god) for £399, Cannon Fodder/Elite/Another World/Stunt Car Racer/Nitro/Alien Breed coop/Silkworm. Thank god for emulators!

:)
 
i bought an amiga 500 when i started working then a year later i bought the 1200.
favourite game on it was dune 2....played it to death.
 
Progressed from a ZX Spectrum to an Atari ST > Amiga 500 > Amiga 1200.

The Amiga 1200 started my bug in upgrading. I fitted a hard drive to the thing and an accelerator card - think it was a 68030 chip on a daughter board that fitted under a flap in the bottom of the case.

Amiga definately had the edge on the ST graphically and sonically. Remember HAM Mode? 4096 colours on screen (that was the Amiga 500) the A1200 had an enhanced AGA chipset that gave over 262,000 colours on screen out of a 24bit palette.

The sound chips were defiantely better on the Amiga, though the ST had built in Midi Ports, which made it extremely popular with Musicians. I remember seeing a documentary about Peter Gabriel and nearly fell off my chair when I saw what he was doing with the ST!

Anyway - found a good Youtube video which is a homage to some Amiga games :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2ZeVXohSyo
 
knowledge123 said:
My family had an amiga 500, 600 and the 1200. Amazing machines, and fantastic to play on. The floppies were right ****s, though and I definitely remember the metal sheaths breaking off inside the machine :(
the games you could get for it~ *_* they were awesome, true masterpieces of design and, indeed, compromise, because you had to be careful what you put on the floppies as they were only 1.44mb in size, so there was none of this wasted space you young 'uns have these days. (I'm 22 btw ;) ) looking back the designers must have had a massive hernia trying to fit their games on them.
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Monkey Island 2 came on 11 disks! 11 disks without a hard drive was a painful experience, but such an awesome game it didn't matter. :)
 
Andy90 said:
Progressed from a ZX Spectrum to an Atari ST > Amiga 500 > Amiga 1200.

The Amiga 1200 started my bug in upgrading. I fitted a hard drive to the thing and an accelerator card - think it was a 68030 chip on a daughter board that fitted under a flap in the bottom of the case.

Amiga definately had the edge on the ST graphically and sonically. Remember HAM Mode? 4096 colours on screen (that was the Amiga 500) the A1200 had an enhanced AGA chipset that gave over 262,000 colours on screen out of a 24bit palette.

The sound chips were defiantely better on the Amiga, though the ST had built in Midi Ports, which made it extremely popular with Musicians. I remember seeing a documentary about Peter Gabriel and nearly fell off my chair when I saw what he was doing with the ST!

Anyway - found a good Youtube video which is a homage to some Amiga games :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2ZeVXohSyo
Click to expand...

Again a mention for the A1200. People seem to keep comparing this to the Atari ST!!! Compare it to its equivalent the Falcon 030 and see it blown away. The A1200 was a glorified A500 with an extended colour palette. HAM mode was for none moving images! Not that impressive displaying a still picture to be fair...Falcon could do 16.7m with the right programs, and a stupid amount of sound channels.

Obvious from my previous posts I'm an Atari fanboy...and proud! ;)
 
EvilFranky said:
Again a mention for the A1200. People seem to keep comparing this to the Atari ST!!! Compare it to its equivalent the Falcon 030 and see it blown away. The A1200 was a glorified A500 with an extended colour palette. HAM mode was for none moving images! Not that impressive displaying a still picture to be fair...Falcon could do 16.7m with the right programs, and a stupid amount of sound channels.

Obvious from my previous posts I'm an Atari fanboy...and proud! ;)
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The falcon cost twice as much, it's not really that fair a comparison. Besides which, didn't Atari stop making it shortly after it came out? Kind of like saying the 3DO was a great games machine - who cares? it was dead on arrival, overpriced and flopped.
 
EvilFranky said:
Woah woah woah. Lets not get carried away here :p

Multicore system?? It had a couple of specialised custom chips to do all the fancy GFX stuff. Hardly multicore!

You have to remember the original ST, which all ST's were based upon until the STE in 1989, was about 2-3 years old before the amiga arrived! The Amiga came about after one of the co-designers of the ST buggered off and formed Commodore. It not a suprise the Amiga was superior!

Anyways, if your comparing Atari and Amiga generations...Falcon 030 Vs A1200 ;)
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Er Jack Tramiel left commmodore to form his own company and took some key engineers with him. Then he bought part of Atari to market his new PC and get ahead of the Amiga, nobody left Atari to make Commodore.

Falcon 030 is often raised by Atari Fanboys, the reality was it a fast cpu, with little else. The AGA Amigas had once again a way superior architecture, but the death knoll had already been sounded for non PC compatibles at that time.


Oh and on the subject of the demo scene... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5kuYfTCGLg&feature=related

Was simply awesome at the time

I will add tho, that the best Amiga game ever, actually came out on the ST first.. Dungeon MAster, about a year ahead of the Amiga.
 
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I've fond memories of the Amiga also.
Originally had an A500 non plus.
Was a bit miffed when i bought it as the + was out and the shop had both but sold me the old one.

Anyways didn't really matter as before long i had a memory upgrade in the trapdoor and changed the graphics chip for the + version.
Memory is a little vague here but it was either the Paula or Denise chip.

I meg chip ram was an easy mod as was setting it to NTSC instead of PAL.
Just a couple of bridges to solder on the PCB.
Sound and graphics were better than the ST.

ST was a hit with a lot of folks due to the midi port though.
On it's own the sound output from the ST wasn't all that but it could control external synths, thats why musicians loved them.

The A500 got passed on to my daughter and i started messing with PC's.
It was a while though before the PC games were as good as the Amiga ones.
It took the introduction of the Soundblaster and the 3dfx Voodoo before they started to measure up

In a moment of nostalga a while back i bought a few Amiga bits from the BAY.
Got a 1200 here with an 030 and 32mb of ram.
Got a laptop HD in it, 4GB which is massive by Amiga standards.

Now and again i will load up monkey island or wings and play for a while.
Running progs from the HD isn't the same as feeding in floppies which i used to have to do with the old A500 though.

MI 2 had 12 disks from memory and was the main reason i got a second floppy for the A500.
Dam things used to 'click' all the time.
 
Monkey Puzzle said:
Monkey Island 2 came on 11 disks! 11 disks without a hard drive was a painful experience, but such an awesome game it didn't matter. :)
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Quite true MP! :cool: Many of the great adventure /point and clicks spanned more then 10 disks (Kings and Space Quest, Beneath a Steel Sky, Zak McCracken, DotT, Simon the Sorcer, Loom etc etc ). I think that Elite may have had the most ever ? I really can't remember now :( :p
 
I recall going round my bro's mates house and watching him play Dragons lair on his, not sure if he had the st or amiga though but i was gob smacked by the visuals, i know the gameplay sucked mind.
 
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