So did you ever have an atari computer?

[number6]

@JimS

How can we forget "Computer Eyes" for the 8bit?

#6

[pyrre]

Whether 8 bit or the ST and its offshoots ?

When I got my amiga (late 92) atari had all but disappeared from stores where I grew up (Denmark). Never knew anyone who had one, never saw them in stores, nothing.

So a few years ago when I read about this rival to the amiga, I got curious, and I've been researching them quite a bit.

Anyone had one?

A friend of mine had an atari st.
After playing stuntcar racer on his atari i sneered my ass off of the crappy graphics... and i never considered an atari after that.
All though the atari had 16bit sound. music making was not of my interest as a gamer...

[Christian Johansson]

I only had an Atari Portfolio, some of my friends had one too.

[save2600]

I've owned and used early every Atari product ever made, including all of the various 8-bit computers and some of the 16-bitters. Tried getting back into 'em within the last couple of years in fact, but just couldn't. Even had the SIO2PC device, which was brilliant - but compared to other computers of the past which I still use (Commodore and TI mainly), the Atari stuff just isn't as compelling. I will say though, there's some really cool stuff going on homebrew wise out of Poland for the A8's.

[orb85750]

Got a 2600 when it first hit the market.  ....and that was the end of my Atari experience.  I did love the machine, of course.  How could I not?

[JimS]

@JimS

How can we forget "Computer Eyes" for the 8bit?

#6

Actually, I did forget it. Until you mentioned it. ;-) How about the speech synth that used a TI chip interfaced to the joystick ports? Built one of those.... Or how about trying to do color printing by using multiple passes with 4 different ribbons on a dot matrix printer...
... the bad ole days.....

[number6]

Actually, I did forget it. Until you mentioned it. ;-) How about the speech synth that used a TI chip interfaced to the joystick ports? Built one of those.... Or how about trying to do color printing by using multiple passes with 4 different ribbons on a dot matrix printer...
... the bad ole days.....

Okidata?

And before Yosemite evaluation board SAM, we had S.A.M. (software automated mouth) for the software end of audio.

Ah...and there was an 80 column screen through XEP80, that late hardware addition. Sadly s/w support was coming to an end for all things Atari at that point, and they never exploited it fully.

#6

[JimS]

Okidata?

And before Yosemite evaluation board SAM, we had S.A.M. (software automated mouth) for the software end of audio.

Ah...and there was an 80 column screen through XEP80, that late hardware addition. Sadly s/w support was coming to an end for all things Atari at that point, and they never exploited it fully.

#6

Yep, there were a lot of things never fully exploited... it was a lot like the Amiga in that respect. Plus it got stuck with the 'game machine' stigma like Amiga.

I remember looking at the schematics for the 800 and seeing i/o decodes with the same addresses as the Apple ][... I always wondered if they planned an Apple IO card expansion unit for the 800.  The parallel bus on the XL never did see much use either. Although I think the ATR80 plugged in there, but that was after I moved on to Amiga.

[number6]

Yep, there were a lot of things never fully exploited... it was a lot like the Amiga in that respect. Plus it got stuck with the 'game machine' stigma like Amiga.

I remember looking at the schematics for the 800 and seeing i/o decodes with the same addresses as the Apple ][... I always wondered if they planned an Apple IO card expansion unit for the 800.  The parallel bus on the XL never did see much use either. Although I think the ATR80 plugged in there, but that was after I moved on to Amiga.

That's another thing of course. The whole thing was so open, that almost anyone who wanted to participate...could.

I still wonder if any of the Atari interrupt structure and tricks influenced Jay Miner in his future thinking about Amiga. I've never researched that.

Hmm..found a couple of interesting posts about Atari and C64 from the Jay Miner era.

http://www.ann.lu/comments2.cgi?view=1042886350&category=news

Comment #6 about 256 simultaneous colors on screen through use of display list interrupts would be similar to what we saw as "Dynamic HighRes" on the Amiga. This pretty much froze all other operations on Atari, and I recall even mouse movement on Amiga destroyed the display.

Comment #8 would indicate some early bit manipulation to extend the color palette in exchange for a speed penalty...sounds a bit like what occurred with HAM modes on Amiga.
What do you think?
 
#6

[ErrethAkbe]

I did...and still do!  I had an Atari 2600 gaming system for a few years, which I sold to buy a Commodore PET 2001 (8K RAM, on-board cassette).  I sold that and got an Atari 800, which I still have and it still works, believe it or not.  In fact, I had the thing powered up and running as recently as 6 months ago.

It was a great computer; far better graphics than the competing Apple II series and at a lower price. Eventually I upgraded it to have 48K of RAM, two floppy disk drives and an 80-column card.  I sold it to a friend, used the money to buy my Amiga 2000 and eventually bought the Atari back from the guy I sold it to.  That was 15 years ago and,  as I said, it continues to work to this day alongside my original A2000.

One of the main reasons I bought the Amiga was because I knew Jay Miner had gone to Commodore from Atari and a lot of the custom chips in both systems were designed by him.

[Heiroglyph]

I've owned a lot of Atari computers over the years.

A 2600 with the BASIC cart
400, 800, 1200XL, XEGS (I still have the GS)
520ST

Even though I mainly used my C64 in the 8bit days, I loved the Atari's too.

Same thing with the A500 and the 520ST, both great machines.

[XDelusion]

I own a ton of 8-bits, and they are all heavily modified!

[Xanxi]

Who is actually using a Falcon here?

[nicholas]

I used to have a Lynx in the early 90's.

My little handheld miggy!

[Pentad]

I'm trying to remain objective and not offend anyone:

I could never understand how the Atari people could compare their technology to the Amiga.  Jack wanted an off the shelf based computer and the ST fit that requirement.  However, without the many custom chips and advanced OS of the Amiga, the ST line could not compete.

I remember seeing the Amiga Boing! demo on the Atari and it took all its power to do it.

However, I wish I could talk with the actual Atari developers because I have had two questions in my mind all these years that I wish I knew the answer too...

1.  Why on Earth would a company that is building a new computer go against the CPU manufacturer (Motorola, obviously) and use instructions that may not be in the next version of the chip??   If you don't know what I'm talking about, TOS uses instructions in the 68k that Motorola warned would not be in future versions (010,020,030, etc...).

Unless you rewrite or patch TOS (causing compatibility problems) you can't use a newer CPU.

This is why you could not get a MegaMidgetRacer or put in a 68010 for the Atari ST.  You could get a sped up 68k but that was about it.

As a CS Professor and a developer, I cannot fathom why you would do this.  I can't imagine a situation during development that going this route was the best solution.


2.  Why would you have an off switch for the blitter?   I mean is there a moment where you go "Boy, I wish this program would run slower so lets have the CPU do more work..."

Then you do an 030 based Atari computer with a new TOS with nice features and gut the blitter entirely so you can call it your Graphics Workstation.  


I know Commodore made some really dumb mistakes too so I don't want to sound like a 'fan boy' but these are just issues that I wondered 'bout.

Cheers!
-P

[Hammer]

I still recall CU Amiga's "It's an Atari" statement and Amiga 500 vs Atari STE debates at school.

To answer TC's question, I haven't used an Atari computer. My first 8bit computer was a Commodore Vic-20.