Difference between Amiga and Atari 520?

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Ok. The gui of the ST is nicely built-in; but also hard to expand/modify. That's why Commodore has chosen otherwise (they could have put it all in ROM)
Also, hardware multitasking is STILL not a feature of todays hardware (unless you got a hyperthreading proc, though I haven't yet take a look at that).
Maybe the ST is clocked faster, productivity-wise the Amiga is way way faster because one can multitask in every way; formatting (multiple) floppies, printing documents and writing at the same time is of little concern.
The Amiga is designed from the beginning to multitask. And thus it can multitask like no other computer/os. Every programmer knows when he/she just 'glues' functionality to it's original software, it's not going to function very well.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

itix wrote:
But for comparison, what kind of upgrades were made available to A1000 at that time? There was no Amiga 500 until 1987. At that time Atari had upgraded their machines to better specs (1040, STM and STFM). Gfx and sound options were not great but ST had higher resolution without flickery (with B/W monitor only).

Cant think of any other good points for ST :-)

Yes but it also didn't have HAM, and that's a functionality less, because it can't view photo's in
reasonable quality.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

shoggoth wrote:

Also, hardware multitasking is STILL not a feature of todays hardware (unless you got a hyperthreading proc, though I haven't yet take a look at that).

What do you mean by "hardware multitasking"?

-- Peter

The copper co-processor makes it possible to use multithreading natively. No extra software needed. No cpu cycles spilled waiting.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

itix wrote:

The copper co-processor makes it possible to use multithreading natively. No extra software needed. No cpu cycles spilled waiting.

Using copper is not multitasking. Modern GPUs are more complex than copper while using GPU still is not considered as multitasking.

The copper isn't just a gpu.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

shoggoth wrote:

The copper co-processor makes it possible to use multithreading natively. No extra software needed. No cpu cycles spilled waiting. [/quote]

You'll have to explain that further. I'm fairly familiar with the Copper, but I can't see how this relates to multitasking. It's a coprocessor. It's not like it makes context-switching in the CPU any faster.

-- Peter[/quote]It has the 'wait' instruction.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

One can program a very quick scheduler when one can use already a wait commando (without making the cpu wait).

[Speelgoedmannetje]

itix wrote:

One can program a very quick scheduler when one can use already a wait commando (without making the cpu wait).

You can't because copper cannot control CPU.

Since when?
It can generate interrupts.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

"Dude" I know. But it's one way to control the CPU.
Well then, do your own research about this subject then. I got an old Dutch manual wich states that the copper can be used for multitasking.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Interrupt handling on itself indeed isn't multitasking.
But 68k on itself isn't multitasking. Yet the Amiga can do multitasking. On a low level. At 7 mHz. Go figure.