Does the inclusion of a MIDI port on the back of your beige slab with stupid function keys actually make up for the fact that all your games are slightly worse? And GEM looks like Workbench copied in green crayon by the thick one out of The Monkees...

Oh, and we could just go and buy a serial MIDI interface anyway, so that's that argument over.

Comeback Bradders?

The ST had something the amoeba never did:

soul.

yes, thats right. It really wanted the games to be better for its owner, deep down.

I used to think 'if only Kick Off 2 had the netting drawn in the goals like the Amiga'...though i quickly fouund that hugging the machine in bed at night failed to remedy the situation.

So i contented myself with the following:

1. the ST ran at 8mhz - a full .8mhz more that the A500 (if memory serves...)

2. the ST was a staple in recording studios across the land (in fact, it got me into making music...the joys of cubase 2 and an 8 bit sampler, neither of which i ever got working properly, but thats not the point)

3. The function keys WERE cool. end of.

4. Any o.s that is called T.O.S without so much as a smirk from the marketing dept deserves credit.

5. and the GUI predates almost all others. you nugget.

6. there were cooler adverts for the ST

7. The gameplay was better on STs (god i remember that one!!)

8. the STE - ('enhanced') WAS more powerful and had better sound that the A500

9. you are a gayer.

There. 1.0 to the Bradley!

The ST was rubbish. 1-All.

ST for me, I had printer and dial up so could get in touch with my mate. God that printer was loud and you had to pull off the perforated sides afterwards.
I even had some repair virus floppy's for when you bought a dodgey game at a Carboot.
1-2.

Although I concede that the CPU speed was higher, the ST lacked the custom chip set that allowed Hold-And-Modify display of 4096 colours at once on the Amiga, and gave it better sound than the ST. The ST also lacked a blitter that gave the Amiga the edge in sprite animation, perfect for platforms and scrollers... although it did make an appearance on the STE.

Despite the ST (or STE's) ubiquity in the studio, a fair few rave/hardcore dance artists used Amigas to permeate the hit parade: Bomb the Bass and Usura spring to mind...

2 All

Which operating system is the best?

Game, set & match to Amiga methinks. OS 4.0 is out now!

I had an ST, as someone pointed out...well worth the cash just to have an OS called TOS :)

I loved my ST - a big advantage was it was a cheap home computer with a floppy drive, it played games, and it (out of the box) used the same format for 3.5 text/spread sheet files as DOS - so I could write my (part time course) essays at home, and print em out at work on the posh printer (which was the size of a mini cooper)

The Amiga always seemed more "Toy" like

..the STe could also run as a real-time pirate decoder for sky (pre digital). The set up was something to behold.

PS
My computer line of purchase has been

ZX80
ZX81
Speccy
ST
Pc
Mac

sort of "Inteligent design" evolution :)

Atari ST better than Amiga, hmmmm, nah, no way...... my argument :-

1. the ST ran at 8mhz - a full .8mhz more that the A500 (if memory serves...)

Amiga 500 ???..........Are you forgetting that they also created the Amiga 1200 ?

2. the ST was a staple in recording studios across the land (in fact, it got me into making music...the joys of cubase 2 and an 8 bit sampler, neither of which i ever got working properly, but thats not the point)

One word - OCTAMED (Along with Public Domain tunes and sound samples)

3. The function keys WERE cool. end of.

So, what difference does a few keys make, not a great deal

4. Any o.s that is called T.O.S without so much as a smirk from the marketing dept deserves credit.

Just means they had a sense of humour.

5. and the GUI predates almost all others. you nugget.

Doesn't make it better, DOS predates Windows VISTA, but, which looks the better ?

6. there were cooler adverts for the ST

Obviously because they was trying so hard to shift them, whereas Amiga's didn't need sales techniques as they just sold themselves.

7. The gameplay was better on STs (god i remember that one!!)

Hard to comment on as I didn't use my Amiga as a games machine, it was a workhorse and a damn good one at that, but, the few games I DID play gave me days/weeks of entertainment.

8. the STE - ('enhanced') WAS more powerful and had better sound that the A500

Yet again, the A500 was NOT the only Amiga in existence, whereas the Atari ST was it, that's all, no further advances.

9. you are a gayer.

Can't comment on that statement, syntax error.

There. 1.0 to the Bradley!

Make that 1.0 to Kry10, I thank you.

Yet again, the A500 was NOT the only Amiga in existence, whereas the Atari ST was it, that's all, no further advances.

Atari decided to create various models of the ST rather than A500 / A1200.
IE.
ST, 520 ST, 520 STFM, 1024ST, STE or sommat like that, I'm sure there are plenty of sites out there that will discuss ;)

Amiga, anyday.

Just to blow the Atari freaks out of the water, 2 things...

The A500 "Brute Force" 14Mhz hack.

The Video Toaster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Toaster)]

Yeh, like to see you do Babylon 5 on an ST :P :hihi:

Game set & match, Amiga.

Atari decided to create various models of the ST rather than A500 / A1200.
IE.
ST, 520 ST, 520 STFM, 1024ST, STE or sommat like that, I'm sure there are plenty of sites out there that will discuss ;)

Excuse me? I think you need to do some reading up on your Amiga history...

A1000, A500, A2000, A1500, A3000, A3000/UX, CDTV, A500+, A600, A1200, A4000, A4000T, CD32 is a rough chronology off the top of my head... as well as several that never made it to the salesfloor (A300 legend, anyone?)

...and that's just the offical releases - people have been updating the OS and their machines ever since...

I still use an Atari 1040 STe for music with a Korg M1 and a MC303. 13 years old and still going strong

Excuse me? I think you need to do some reading up on your Amiga history...

A1000, A500, A2000, A1500, A3000, A3000/UX, CDTV, A500+, A600, A1200, A4000, A4000T, CD32 is a rough chronology off the top of my head... as well as several that never made it to the salesfloor (A300 legend, anyone?)

...and that's just the offical releases - people have been updating the OS and their machines ever since...

but lets not forget

the Mega ST series

The Atari TT series

The Atari Falcon (walloped the knackers off the A1200 and possessed the most advanced audio setup of its time out of ANY computer)

The ST Book laptop

Ahh the memories of reading ST format and glowing with the knowledge that the ST was always going to be better than the amoeba.

stepney and the other commodoreans can naff off. the ST was a classic. the amiga was just a clone with nice sound.

...stepney and the other commodoreans can naff off. the ST was a classic. the amiga was just a clone with nice sound.

Which, seeing as though one of the ST's selling points was apparently the superior sound, says it all really. :hihi:

Ah this is much better fun than Mac/Windows fights :thumbsup:

but lets not forget

the Mega ST series

The Atari TT series

The Atari Falcon (walloped the knackers off the A1200 and possessed the most advanced audio setup of its time out of ANY computer)

The ST Book laptop



I'm sure you're making these up. An ST laptop?

check this out then

read em and weep (http://www.codejedi.com/blogmedia/technology/atari/st_book/stb_open_keyboard.jpg)

Which, seeing as though one of the ST's selling points was apparently the superior sound, says it all really. :hihi:

Ah this is much better fun than Mac/Windows fights :thumbsup:

incorrect - the st wasnt sold with 'better sound' - it was sold with integrated 'midi' ports, which helped it become the de rigeur machine for sequencing midi information in music studios. Until the advent of the STE the amiga had the edge in sound quality.

check this out then

read em and weep (http://www.codejedi.com/blogmedia/technology/atari/st_book/stb_open_keyboard.jpg)

That's so dope. **** it, I think you're right...

HOWEVER, once turned on, it would be undoubtedly turd-like in performance.

I had a 1040, and sold it to a musician I know. He is now SNP member of Parliament for North Tayside. :hihi:

Then I got an A1200.

Just as an experiment, I tried to open as many copies of the Wordworth word proccesser (which I prefer to MS word).

18 copies before it crashed in 2 MB of memory.

The Amiga chipset was amazing. Then I put in a 68060 accelerator with an extra 4 Meg of ram.

Excrement and sticks come to mind.

Workbench was an excellent OS.

Wish I hadn't been burgled, would still be using it now.

Plain and simple - my mate had an Amiga, I had an ST.

Did the Amiga have better sound and graphics - check.

Did my mate always spend more time round my house on the Atari ST as I had around 10,000 pirated games and he only had about 200? - check

The reason the ST was better was down to The Pompey Pirates, Automation and all the other nice little people who 'hacked, cracked and packed' 4 games onto one little 3.5" disk with a nice scrolling message and game select menu. ~Ahhhh those were the days.

Did my mate always spend more time round my house on the Atari ST as I had around 10,000 pirated games and he only had about 200? - check

There, ladies and gentlemen, you have the reason for the demise of both platforms...

I loved my Amiga 1200, complete with 68020 processor and FPU and additional memory, oh, and a 1 gig HDD which never got filled and a CD Rom courtesy of a Squirrel SCSI interface, ah, lovely, I miss those days, playing around with MUI and making 3d graphics in Cinema 4D.

hehe, CD rom via Squirrel SCSI - my A1200 has a 650 MB IDE Hard Drive, (internal) and a cable in the side where I can plug ANY ide device, (such as CD rom, Writer, DVD Rom, Zip Drive) etc -- self modified ;) - works like a charm

Also has a blitz board and extra ram ;) -- all fully working - hmm, anyone wanna buy ?

Don't tempt me, lol.

The Demo and Mod scene on the Amiga were fantastic. I didn't play many games but if there was one game and one moment in a game that really stands out it's Speedball 2 ( Ice cream, Ice cream ), how could one sample generate so much atmosphere?

The Public Domain scene was great on the Amiga too. Every Friday lunch time I would collect my £35 YTS money and go to Choice software for this weeks new discs. I had hundreds of discs full of useful PD tools.

I ended up selling the thing to take a bird on holiday. :mad: What a muppet, the bird didn't last as long as the Amiga and she was no where near as much fun. I'm sorry to have sold you my dear Amiga friend. I'm sure we'll meet again in some retro computer heaven.

I ended up selling the thing to take a bird on holiday. :mad: What a muppet, the bird didn't last as long as the Amiga and she was no where near as much fun. I'm sorry to have sold you my dear Amiga friend. I'm sure we'll meet again in some retro computer heaven.

The moral of the story being: If you swap one Amiga for another, make sure she's upgradeable.

At one point, an Amiga with a PowerPC accelerator card could run the latest Mac OS faster than anything Apple produced, while the ST was struggling with an ancient GEM interface showing its CP/M roots. Also, the Amiga API was less braindead than the ST's.

Amiga's Achilles heel was Commodore's stupidity - blowing off Sun's billion-dollar plans for the A3000/UX was an incredibly stupid thing to do, up there with Be blowing off Apple's billions. AmigaOS and BeOS - come back, all is forgiven!

at heart, i will always be a T.O.S - ER:)

Fat Agnus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Agnus) for the win!

There, ladies and gentlemen, you have the reason for the demise of both platforms...

I think the demise was probably more down to the fact that the makers never got a grip on piracy at the time. If you're a 10 year old and can only afford one game every 4 months of course you're going to swap them for free in the playground.

Plus at the time of said demise, people were moving to consoles/pc's.

the reason BOTH machines died comercially wasnt down to piracy it was the worlds readiness to move on and consoles made it bigger.

back in the day i had an ST
the majority of the music business was run with 1040 STs...indeed in the early 90s my mate was bringing me songs he'd made on tapes to check out, most sounded very josh winx - higher states of conciousness
in my loft now i have both an ST and amiga

PuressenceUK the cracking teams you mentioned can be found on the net by the way and all their discs downloaded :P

the reason BOTH machines died comercially wasnt down to piracy it was the worlds readiness to move on and consoles made it bigger.

back in the day i had an ST
the majority of the music business was run with 1040 STs...indeed in the early 90s my mate was bringing me songs he'd made on tapes to check out, most sounded very josh winx - higher states of conciousness
in my loft now i have both an ST and amiga

PuressenceUK the cracking teams you mentioned can be found on the net by the way and all their discs downloaded :P

Yes I know, great fun emulating them all :-)

^ true! - i got an st emulator a whole back and downloaded a few automation / pompey pirates disks

brought back happy memories...anyone for stunt car racer??

^ true! - i got an st emulator a whole back and downloaded a few automation / pompey pirates disks

brought back happy memories...anyone for stunt car racer??
never really got into that

i prefered the likes of dungeon master, arkanoid, pang
and remember playing / seeing mousetrap?? playing on an ST very early on in just micro once

I ended up selling the thing to take a bird on holiday. :mad: What a muppet, the bird didn't last as long as the Amiga and she was no where near as much fun. I'm sorry to have sold you my dear Amiga friend. I'm sure we'll meet again in some retro computer heaven.

That's immoral. She should have paid for you.

[QUOTE=johnbradley;2110263]^ true! - i got an st emulator a whole back and downloaded a few automation / pompey pirates disks
QUOTE]

whats the best ST emulator then. eh?

[QUOTE=johnbradley;2110263]^ true! - i got an st emulator a whole back and downloaded a few automation / pompey pirates disks
QUOTE]

whats the best ST emulator then. eh?

Mine's called STEEM I think - it's great!

Does anyone have an Atari ST that they are willing to give away / lend me?

I need to transfer some unpublish work from an Atari ST Hard disk to the WWW.

:begging: :beggingSomeMore:


On topic:

Amiga > Atari

For the record, I owned an Atari ST and I never had an Amiga.

never really got into that

i prefered the likes of dungeon master, arkanoid, pang
and remember playing / seeing mousetrap?? playing on an ST very early on in just micro once

Aye, some great games there. Also add Captive, Supremacy, Millenium 2.2 and Deuteros to the list and I am a happy bunny (still play them from time to time thanks to emulation)

Aye, some great games there. Also add Captive, Supremacy, Millenium 2.2 and Deuteros to the list and I am a happy bunny (still play them from time to time thanks to emulation)

That was a good game once you get into it. I suspect many just give up after 15 minutes due to not being arcadey.

I developed a number of games for the Amiga, it was defo superior Hardware to the ST. A very nice machine to make games for.

Also, I had a very interesting conversation with a cracker today. Someone had introduced us, and by coincidence, they were talking about a game of mine that he'd cracked and got working on a Falcon (a better Atari than an ST).

The conversation ended when I suggested he should credit me in the cracktro (the flashy intro menu bit at the start of a pirated game), and ask people to make a donation (me being the original developer of that game).

I'm not so sure he was amused!

Aye, some great games there. Also add Captive, Supremacy, Millenium 2.2 and Deuteros to the list and I am a happy bunny (still play them from time to time thanks to emulation)

Supremacy was ace, loved that game.

Wasn't Deuteros the game where you had to send probes out to other planets in the solar system, then populate them, and build up your tech? Maybe I'm thinking of another game ... was a great game though.

Supremacy was ace, loved that game.

Wasn't Deuteros the game where you had to send probes out to other planets in the solar system, then populate them, and build up your tech? Maybe I'm thinking of another game ... was a great game though.

Yup - that was the one. It was teh sequel to Millenium 2.2, which was teh same type of thing but in a smaller capacity. I spent hours upon hours playing those games, and trying to defeat the Methanoids!

Another game which pulverised all my time back in the past was Captain Blood.

That was a good game once you get into it. I suspect many just give up after 15 minutes due to not being arcadey.

Yup -I had a few mates who couldn't understand why I loved the game so much. Then again, they also gave up on Elite because they couldn't work out how to dock at the space-station - anything which seems too much of a challenge and they avoided it in favour of platformers and shoot em ups (not necessarily a bad thing, but not as immersive)


And another game to the list...

Bloodwych - similar to Dungeon Master, but with the ability to play 2 player.



I was an Atari kid - seeing as I won a 520 STFM in a Daily Mirror competition (that was a great christmas that year!). One of my mates had an Amiga, and I was jealous of some games (Pirates looked better on his machine, although played better on the ST...Amiga also had Moonstone, and the Beholder series, which made me a bit miffed) but I was more than happy with my machine.

all i can say is monkey island. amiga won? yes sir :)

all i can say is monkey island. amiga won? yes sir :)

Monkey Island also came out on the ST.

Gauntlet - Atari ST. Amiga version never surfaced despite advertising. The port was practically arcade perfect too. The Amiga was practically the only home unit which never saw a release of this game.

Star Trek: The Rebel Universe - another non=Amiga game (came out on the C64 and PC thought)

heck, even the arcade classic Joust got an ST conversion!

For all you ST-philes, the latest issue of Retro Gamer (Festive Special) has a retroinspection look at the machine, and a list of their 'perfect ten' games for it. The list is....

1: Oids
2: Xenon 2: megablast
3: Midwinter
4: Time Bandit
5: No Second prize
6: Lethal Xcess
7: Captain Blood
8: Blood Money
9: Starglider
10: Dungeon Master

I'm quite pleased to say I have them all :)

Wow - I've just been reminded (thanks to the RG article) about Midi-Maze - possibly the first multiplayer first-person shooter. It used the midi ports to network up to 16 machines for frantic multiplayer action (I only ever tried a 4 way game with a few of my mates).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI_Maze

Yeah, after some googling, I think it was probably Millenium 2.2 I was thinking of.

It was kinda cool how sending a probe out to a distant planet, it would take ages to come back to you (or the information would), so there was a big time aspect to the game..

Anyhoo ...

@Beakerzoid.

I've just finished the latest edition of a game (I develop them) of mine, this game is actually 20 years old now, and has seen releases on BBC, Electron, Amiga, GBA, and now on PC. Be great if you could give it a mention on your retro gaming forum / site.

Check it out here ...

www.qwak.co.uk (developed in Sheffield!)

Thats a pretty cool game. I love cutesy platformers (spent many a coin in the arcades on the likes of Bubble Bobble - a game which I have owned for practically every system I have ever had). Have provided a link, and will play with it for a bit and then post a review.

Have you had the game mentioned in Retro Gamer? If not, it is right up their alley for a review and it could be worth dropping them a line.


Edit: Just followed the links and saw that you worked on Nitro - hehe, I still have that game knocking around somewhere for the ST :)

Many thanks for the link Beakerzoid!

I've also just set up my own forum too, which will focus mostly on Qwak, and future developments of the brand (on PC and also I hope, more modern gaming platforms).

Yes, I developed Nitro too. The ST and Amiga versions of the game were quite different, I tended to play the Amiga version more though (ST version only scrolled up and down!).

But the ST was defo fun! By the way, I will be attending byte-back next year, which is a retro gaming event. Might be of interest to you?

http://www.byte-back.info/index.html

Cheers! :)

Many thanks for the link Beakerzoid!

I've also just set up my own forum too, which will focus mostly on Qwak, and future developments of the brand (on PC and also I hope, more modern gaming platforms).

Yes, I developed Nitro too. The ST and Amiga versions of the game were quite different, I tended to play the Amiga version more though (ST version only scrolled up and down!).

But the ST was defo fun! By the way, I will be attending byte-back next year, which is a retro gaming event. Might be of interest to you?

http://www.byte-back.info/index.html

Cheers! :)


Ooh...It is during my weeks off work, so a huge possibility I will be there. Gonna see if a few mates want a trip out to it.

But the ST was defo fun! By the way, I will be attending byte-back next year, which is a retro gaming event. Might be of interest to you?

http://www.byte-back.info/index.html



That looks interesting.

I might go too.

That looks interesting.

I might go too.

Just checked out the attendees list - a few of the RG team going to be there, so I'll be sure to track them down and challenge them to a fwe games :)

It's decided, I am going, and one of my gaming buddies is tagging along. Now to sort out accomodation :)

Cool. The more the merrier. Quite looking forward to it myself, gonna be such a blast!

Sad geek that I am! ;)

Cool. The more the merrier. Quite looking forward to it myself, gonna be such a blast!

Sad geek that I am! ;)

Nowt wrong with being a geek - and definitely nowt wrong with having a love for all things retro gaming. Look at the popularity of those compilation packs of old arcade classics for new consoles, or downloads of old games on PS3/Wii/360 (and even remakes of old classics such as 1942, or Super Stardust)

Guess we'll have a mini forum geek-meet in the bar there then :) Will have to start a thread closer to the time so we can all arrange to meet up.

Sounds good Beakerzoid! :)

The reason the ST was better was down to The Pompey Pirates, Automation and all the other nice little people who 'hacked, cracked and packed' 4 games onto one little 3.5" disk with a nice scrolling message and game select menu. ~Ahhhh those were the days.

I couldn't possibly confirm this.... :hihi:

I would say Hunter was the GTA of it's day - an amazing game. Behead the general!

SWOS = best game ever made....

Therefore

Amiga > Atari

/thread

I've got a couple of Atari STs for sale if anyone's interested?

In good working condition?

Yep. A 1040 and a 520 IIRC.

anyone got a cdtv for spares repairs.Or cd32 games

For all you ST-philes, the latest issue of Retro Gamer (Festive Special) has a retroinspection look at the machine, and a list of their 'perfect ten' games for it. The list is....

1: Oids
2: Xenon 2: megablast
3: Midwinter
4: Time Bandit
5: No Second prize
6: Lethal Xcess
7: Captain Blood
8: Blood Money
9: Starglider
10: Dungeon Master

I'm quite pleased to say I have them all :)

I had a demo of No Second Prize, always wanted the full game! :)

If i was to make a list it would probably read...

Super Hang On, Eliminator, Epyx Summer Games, F19 Stealth Fighter, Kick Off 2 (who needs nets anyway?), Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker, Supercars II, Stunt Car Racer, Speedball II, Panza Kickboxing

But that's just me.

Loved that machine!