Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: Gaiyan on July 09, 2004, 02:08:07 PM
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I registered on Amiga.org just to post this message. Our dear Doomy has found refuge at www.atari-forum.com and is pissing me off. I just thought some people here might find some of his posts amusing...
http://www.atari-forum.com/search.php?search_author=DoomMaster
Joshua.
PS. Never mind my inclination toward Atari. I have been lurking around Amiga.org for years now looking at Amiga's progress which is quite impressive.
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Welcome!
LOL @ Doomy.. yea he's a character. I'm also Pro-*classic* Amiga but I'm not going to start a Atari vs. Amiga war. hehe
I've never used a Atari, I'll have to read up on it on the web, although I have seen a few good games screenshots.
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The ST is a better games machine, dont ask why. This is just my opinion, and I have used A500/600/1200 to compare against. I just get more excitement from the ST.
Workbench is a nicer opersting system though, TOS isnt very pleasant. The only good thing about it is the nicer background and the fact that it loads from chip and not a disk although it takes a while.
But I solved this problem - by simply inserting a disk on startup with no data on it.
It makes it boot straight into TOS instead of waiting around 30 seconds watching a white screen. :-)
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Welcome Gaiyan, I've had an Amiga for about 14 years but I always had a soft spot for the ST. I always found it a very nice system to use.
Yeah, Doomy's been here for a while and although some of his posts had been pretty controversial to say the least, he's toned his act down lately here.
Does he do random smileys on the Atari forums too?
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Thanks all for the warm welcome.
Yeah TOS is pretty brutal looking but the later versions are better and some alternate desktops are very nice.
TOS loads up in a flash from chip if you have a disk in the drive. It doesn't have to be empty as long as it's not a bootable disk.
I have not used an Amiga ever in my life... I don't know how that has been possible. I'd love to give it a shot. I am envious at the game selection of AGA games compared to the Atari Falcon's.
PMC,
Doomy seems to have the smileys going on the Atari Forums too, yes.
Joshua.
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@Gaiyan
Welcome! Amiga and Atari must join forces in these difficult times..
More than 10 years ago I also almost buyed a 520st but I ended up choosing the Amiga because it had better sound. :-)
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Gaiyan wrote:
Yeah TOS is pretty brutal looking but the later versions are better and some alternate desktops are very nice.
TOS loads up in a flash from chip if you have a disk in the drive. It doesn't have to be empty as long as it's not a bootable disk.
Hi Gaiyan,
I remember the vivid green desktop quite well on my mate's 520ST. The OS was pretty snappy though and not having to load it from disk was a bonus. Me and my mate used to spend hours attempting to design demos on our ST and Amiga systems back in the day...
I'd be interested to see the alternative desktops though, maybe you could post some pics here?
Feel free to have a look round and ask whatever questions you wish, especialluy given you're an Amiga newbie and all.
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http://www.atari-forum.com/search.php?search_author=DoomMaster
strange, didn´t find the word "professional" in these posts. :-D
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Hi Gaiyan,
I registered on Amiga.org just to post this message.
That sounds kind of childish to me. Are you still mad at me? I am really sorry, I did not mean to upset you so much. I am glad to see that you like the Amiga computers too. See, we both like the Atari ST and Amiga. They are both great machines. :-D
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Damn.. I find myself agreeing (sp?) with doomy.. I must be sick.. :-D ;-)
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Hoya!
I once had a 520 ST and I think it was quite a terrible computer. GFX were ok but sound-wise it was a joke compared to the A500.
95% of the time, games were better on Amiga.
Be funky
M A D
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@Gaiyan
Welcome to the asylum, as someone used to say a lot here :-)
You don't have to be an amiga user to be a member :-D
Yeah TOS is pretty brutal looking but the later versions are better and some alternate desktops are very nice.
I gather there was a MultiTOS too, right? I seem to recall it was a preemptive multitasking kernel.
TOS loads up in a flash from chip if you have a disk in the drive. It doesn't have to be empty as long as it's not a bootable disk.
I often toyed with the idea with a bootable PCMCIA card disk to put workbench on, but never got around to it :-)
I have not used an Amiga ever in my life... I don't know how that has been possible. I'd love to give it a shot. I am envious at the game selection of AGA games compared to the Atari Falcon's.
I never used an atari, but for some time now I've had the urge to get a Falcon just to see what can be done on the machine. Also, those CT60 cards have got to be good :-D
No doubt AROS 68K could be ported to it, not to mention those PCI atari clones (Hades?) They looked pretty neat to me.
So what's happening with the old Atari platform these days?
I think there's no room these days for the old atari v amiga thing. We're equally beleagured in the rise to success of the PC ;-)
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But doomy, I thought you only used Amigas and C64s and were an executive for Commodore.... I feel.... BETRAYED :sob :sob
j/k
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Can someone post a few URLs to some JPGs for Atari games, desktops
etc.? I don't think I've ever seen a Falcon game or operating system.
I heard the Falcon can take Jaguar pads though which is cool, I wonder
if the OS supports all those buttons!
:-)
The Falcon must be very capable in the MIDI/Tracker field surely?
I doubt the ST was a better games machine than the Amiga, the Amiga
had over 4,000 games for it not to mention Aminet's collection of PD
stuff. All I remember seeing on the ST is Lemmings and Putty!
;-)
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Hi jeffimix,
But doomy, I thought you only used Amigas and C64s and were an executive for Commodore
Actually, I love all computers. I have owned, operated, repaired, and upgraded EVERY type of personal computer that has ever been made. I have been working with computers since the very first personal computer hit the market. The first computer that I ever bought for myself was a Commodore Vic 20, but I used the earlier computers before that. My two favorite computers of all time are the Atari ST and the Commodore Amiga. I also like the Commodore 64, 128D, and the older Macintosh computers.
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Hi MAD,
I once had a 520 ST and I think it was quite a terrible computer. GFX were ok but sound-wise it was a joke compared to the A500.
Did you try using your Atari 520ST's MIDI ports? If you have a MIDI keyboard hooked up to an Atari ST computer many games will automatically play it and the music sounds much better. The Amiga computer does not have built in MIDI ports, so it must rely on it's sound chip to do all the work of sound processing. The Amiga computer was released six months AFTER the Atari ST, so of course it is going to be slightly better.
95% of the time, games were better on Amiga
NOT TRUE! The Amiga is more powerful then the Atari ST, but that does NOT mean that the Amiga is a better computer. In fact, even though I love my Amiga compters, I find myself using my Atari St computers more. I use my Atari ST computers about 60% of the time and my Amiga computers about 40% of the time. :-D
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NOT TRUE! The Amiga is more powerful then the Atari ST, but that does NOT mean that the Amiga is a better computer. In fact, even though I love my Amiga compters, I find myself using my Atari St computers more. I use my Atari ST computers about 60% of the time and my Amiga computers about 40% of the time. :-D
So, you need more time to get the work done on the Atari ST than on the Amiga? No wonder. :lol: :-D
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Hi drHirudo,
So, you need more time to get the work done on the Atari ST than on the Amiga? No wonder.
NO, a stock Atari ST is actually faster then a stock Amiga. The Amiga runs at 7.1 MHz and the Atari ST runs at 8 MHz, .9 MHz faster then the Amiga. Also, I actually like using my Atari ST computers more then my Amiga computers, but I love them both. :-D
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@BoingBoss
Do you have both your Atari and Amiga computers on the Internet?
If so what is the Atari internet software like
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BoingBoss wrote:
I have owned, operated, repaired, and upgraded EVERY type of personal computer that has ever been made.
So, how did you like the FM Towns machines? Was the Acorn Electron nice, or did you prefer the BBC Micro over it? What about the Commodore MAX? What kind of upgrades did you do to that?
Please be a little more rational in your claims.. You most likely haven't used EVERY type of personal computer ever made. Most weren't even available in Canada.
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NO, a stock Atari ST is actually faster then a stock Amiga. The Amiga runs at 7.1 MHz and the Atari ST runs at 8 MHz, .9 MHz faster then the Amiga. Also, I actually like using my Atari ST computers more then my Amiga computers, but I love them both
Your correct, and being an Atari expert you could also agree it may have had a chance to show that extra difference in gaming, but did it? well not when the ST went anywhere near sampled sounds, the difference was lost and then some.
As said in a previous thread, the Amiga started to shine when it stopped getting ports from the ST and the game developers started to dig into that fantastic hardware available.
The Amiga demo scene always had that :-)
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The Amiga computer was released six months AFTER the Atari ST, so of course it is going to be slightly better.
:juggler:
Odd, being as I was flipping through a magazine of that era and it had an AtariST review that said it might give the Amiga and Mac a run for their money :insane: . Meh, who cares anyhow. :mickeymouse:
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Doomy,
Yes, The Amiga was slower, but the Amiga used custom coprocessor chips to aid the CPU, so in reality the Amiga was faster. That is why the games on the Amiga are better and smoother.
From what I remember the Amiga needed to be slower anyway because of Video timing? Been way to long...
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Hi HopperJF,
Do you have both your Atari and Amiga computers on the Internet?
I do not have any of my Amiga computers or my Atari ST computers on the internet because I have a Pentium 4 PC for that kind of stuff. I use my Amigas for playing classic Amiga games, video work, and music. I use my Atari ST computers for playing classic Atari ST games, MIDI music, animations, and classic Macintosh emulation.
Anotherwards, I use my Amigas and Atari STs for FUN. I use my PC for making money and for work. :-)
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Hi jeffimix,
Odd, being as I was flipping through a magazine of that era and it had an AtariST review that said it might give the Amiga and Mac a run for their money
Are you sure you read that magazine article right? Because the Atari ST DID come out six months BEFORE the Amiga did. I should know, I was one of the very first people to buy one. :roll:
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Hi TjLaZer,
Yes, The Amiga was slower, but the Amiga used custom coprocessor chips to aid the CPU
The Atari ST computer also had custom chips to aid its CPU. :-D
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BoingBoss wrote:
Hi TjLaZer,
Yes, The Amiga was slower, but the Amiga used custom coprocessor chips to aid the CPU
The Atari ST computer also had custom chips to aid its CPU. :-D
They didn't do anywhere near as good a job, though.
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Hi B00tDisk,
They didn't do anywhere near as good a job, though.
Actually, they did just as good a job. Both the Atari ST and the Amiga computers were made really well and they do what they are suppose to do. The Amiga was mainly designed to do video work. The Atari ST was mainly designed to do MIDI work and classic Macintosh emulation. And both have excellent games to play. :-D
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@Doomy
One question. Why do you always refer to it as my "Pentium 4 PC"? As a PC owner myself, I'd be way too embarrased to admit owning one of Intel's worthless fan-assisted room heaters :-D
After all, as a professional, you can't be using one of those CRAP intel TOYS for your work, can you?
Go and buy yourself an Athlon64 based system - it'll "blow the doors off" any P4 system :-D
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Hi Karlos,
Go and buy yourself an Athlon64 based system - it'll "blow the doors off" any P4 system
Actually, my Pentium 4 PC does everything that I want it to do accept run Blood and Shadow Warrior without crashing. I am going to down-grade my machine back to a Pentium III, 500 MHz. That was the best processor I every used. EVERYTHING worked on it and worked really well. I still use Windows 98 Second Edition because I like it better then Windows XP. In fact, I do NOT allow people using Windows XP to enter my game rooms at Kali Game Server. I have placed a NO Win XP sign on my game rooms.
Karlos, Why should I upgrade to a newer processor when the one I have now works just fine? You guys are never satisfied. I on the otherhand am perfectly happy with what I have (just as soon as I down-grade to a Pentium III, 500 MHz processor). :-D
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BoingBoss wrote:
Karlos, Why should I upgrade to a newer processor when the one I have now works just fine?
Because the green processor pixie says so? :-D
You guys are never satisfied. I on the otherhand am perfectly happy with what I have (just as soon as I down-grade to a Pentium III, 500 MHz processor). :-D
Surely, you, the DoomMaster, you want to play Doom3, don't you? Feck, I know I do! It should be out sometime next month allegedly. It sure as hell won't enjoy a P3 500 from what I've read :-D
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Doomy
The point is the Amiga had better coprocessor chips that aided the CPU better, faster, that is why when comparing a Amiga 500 to a Atari 520ST, the Amiga seemed faster, and had better games. The blitter in the Amiga alone made a hugh difference. Even comparing it to a Atari 520STE the Amiga 500 is superior. Don't get mad, this is the harsh truth. Of course you cannot compare ST ported games, as they both ran exactly the same expect for the sound, it was always better on the Amiga! ;)
Come on man! Even you admit the Atari ST is the second best computer of the 1980's! What is the best again? ;)
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Doomy, funny, if the ST was designed to do Mac emulation, why does it suck so bad at doing it? Shapeshifter on the Amiga, a software only emulator, along with a 020, 030, 040 or 060 blows the doors off any Atari ST/TT Mac Emulator! ;)
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>> The Amiga was mainly designed to do video work.
The Amiga was supposed to be a games console...
>> The Atari ST was mainly designed to do MIDI work and
>> classic Macintosh emulation.
Midi? Designed? Midi = Serial port... don't think so.
>> And both have excellent games to play.
So did the C64..
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BoingBoss wrote:
Hi Karlos,
Go and buy yourself an Athlon64 based system - it'll "blow the doors off" any P4 system
Actually, my Pentium 4 PC does everything that I want it to do accept run Blood and Shadow Warrior without crashing. I am going to down-grade my machine back to a Pentium III, 500 MHz. That was the best processor I every used. EVERYTHING worked on it and worked really well. I still use Windows 98 Second Edition because I like it better then Windows XP. In fact, I do NOT allow people using Windows XP to enter my game rooms at Kali Game Server. I have placed a NO Win XP sign on my game rooms.
Karlos, Why should I upgrade to a newer processor when the one I have now works just fine? You guys are never satisfied. I on the otherhand am perfectly happy with what I have (just as soon as I down-grade to a Pentium III, 500 MHz processor). :-D
That's it! I'm upgrading my AthlonXP to a 486 system!!!
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The Amiga was supposed to be a games console...
Erm, yeah, I'm sure a A1000 was the world's most expensive games console. Having good games came as a side effect of having great graphics capabilities ... it was designed as a multimedia computer, it's the same as the way an MPC2 spec PC was ideal for Doom when it was launched.
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I recall reading about Amiga history. What I remember is that Jay Miner and others were developing a game console and being funded by a group of doctors. The bottom fell out of the gaming industry so they started writing an OS so they could market Amiga as a computer. Same difference I guess. That's about when C= stepped in and bought it. Think Jack Tramiel ( Atari ) who was running C= at the time was pivotal. C= had $ trouble and was bailed out by Irving Gould. Gould ( bean counter ) and Tramiel had a fight and Tramiel left to go to Atari. That was the beginning of the end.... Somebody correct me if I'm wrong... :)
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@yogisumo
The Atari ST came with two midi ports built-in, in addition to a standard RS-232 serial port (among other ports). Of course it was designed to do midi. Buy some no name cables and hook straight up to your Roland.
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Before we have an Amiga vs. Atari ST flamewar, I have to know - is everybody on this thread an American?
See, Atari's slogan (at least here in the USA) back in 1985 was:
America: We built it for you!
I'm not sure if they meant the United States of America, North America, or the Americas in general. But given the popularity of the ST in Europe, I always wondered - what was Atari's slogan overseas? Did they say:
Europe: We built it for you!
or did they say: We tell the Americans that we built it for them, but hey Europe, just between you and me, we actually built if four you. Promise not to tell.
All I'm saying is I don't want to get into another gloabal ST vs Amiga flamewar until I know if we are debating "built for America STs" vs Amiga, "built for Europe STs" vs Amiga, or "some other kind of STs" vs Amigas.
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FastRobPlus wrote:
Before we have an Amiga vs. Atari ST flamewar...
Huh?
All I'm saying is I don't want to get into another gloabal ST vs Amiga flamewar until I know if we are debating "built for America STs" vs Amiga, "built for Europe STs" vs Amiga, or "some other kind of STs" vs Amigas.
What flamewar, where? I thought this site was here to talk about Amigas, not {bleep} about other systems. In any case, I kinda feel more affinity with the average ST etc user these days - After all they cling onto their retro systems like we do. Hardly 'competition'.
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What flamewar, where?
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I think there might be a law somewhere that Atari ST users and Amiga users have to fight whenever possible.
They're supposed to be natural enemies, like dogs and cats, Linux and Windows, PS2 and Xbox, 3DO and Jaguar...
I miss the Jaguar. Atari had a lot of folks absolutely conviced that Jag was a 64-bit system (adding the 68000 CPU and 16-bit co-processors)
and yes... I'm just trying to pad my posting stats.
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For whoever,
the reason the AMIGA games were better when the coders started using the hardware was a few reasons.
1) Bit shifter Copper _Led to very smooth gaming, no screen jumping. Also realy realy clever and simple way to make smooth transition and text scrolling. Even today PCs still have a hard time without expensive rendering software that does frame by frame.
2) More colours. It just had more colours able to be displayed all at once.
3) Sound - 4 channel 8 bit sound with extra 6 bit volume control. Later it was found you could actully use those bits to produce 14 bit sound form the channels.
4) multitude of hardware upgrade and expandability. Zorro side slot on 500 and trapdoor expansion led to easy path for upgrade.
5) a MIDI interface cost you $5 in parts to build and plug in and use on your AMIGA. And before some of you start complaining, I built mine in 1983 for $12
Do I think AMIGA is better than ATARI, in an over all opinion, yes. I think it was a better PC for what it had. ATARI is still a wonderful PC too. I think it's a shame neither one of them survived. One of them should have stood a chance. Now, hopefully, one WILL!!!
GO A1 :))wooot wooot!!
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Hi FastRobPlus,
I think there might be a law somewhere that Atari ST users and Amiga users have to fight whenever possible.
I was never part of that silly little war. Both sides hated me because I had both the Atari ST and the Amiga. I thought that both were great machines. :-)
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Even though I love Atari's, I always agreed that the Amiga blew the doors off the Atari. ;)
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Any computer with a serial port is "designed" to do midi. Serial communciations at 115,200 bps are not exactly demanding on a modern computer. That's the max rate of standard serial. A big 115200bps/8/1024=@14k/s(not taking into account modulation/compression speeds of modems). A midi interface is a couple of wires and connectors. How is an entire computer deemed to be "designed for midi" because it has a couple of extra wires in it. Doesn't even compare to custom chip development (aka Amiga). A midi interface.....
http://home.concepts-ict.nl/~nctnico/midi/am_midi.txt
Midi isn't exactly demanding on a computer. The one thing that Atari had was software development. And that's more chicken and egg than anything else. Weren't the Atari midi interfaces added *after* the Atari started to have a decent midi software base. The Amiga's design, conversely, did give it an inherent advantage in certain areas (ie multimedia/games/video).
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Why are you guys getting into this stupid debate about which computer is better the Atari ST or the Amiga. They are BOTH great computers that should have won the computer war. Ok the Amiga is more powerful then the Atari ST, SO WHAT, WHO CARES !!!! Does this make the Atari ST a bad computer, NO IT DOES NOT. The Atari ST is a great computer. Nuf Said !!!! :roll:
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Hi yogisumo,
Weren't the Atari midi interfaces added *after* the Atari started to have a decent midi software base.
No they were not. The Atari ST computer ALWAYS had built-in MIDI ports and IS concidered by many to be THE MIDI computer. I have one of the original Atari 520ST computers in mint condition still packed inside its original box that is also mint. It has the MIDI ports. Even though you can ADD a MIDI interface to the Amiga, most Amiga software will NOT "SEE" those MIDI ports. On the other hand since the Atari ST computer always had built-in MIDI ports most Atari ST software will automatically recognize those ports, especially games. Have you ever heard the Atari ST version of King's Quest Series and Ultima Series play a MIDI keyboard? It sounds really nice. Because of this I always have a MIDI keyboard plugged into my Atari STs MIDI ports. :-D
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Hi Karlos,
Surely, you, the DoomMaster, you want to play Doom3, don't you? Feck, I know I do! It should be out sometime next month allegedly. It sure as hell won't enjoy a P3 500 from what I've read
Doom 3 requires a fast video card which I bought specifically to be able to play this game. It will run just fine on my PC. I probably will not like Doom 3 anyway because I heard that it is based on the Halflife engine and I thought that Halflife SUCKED !!!! While most of you guys were playing Halflife Deathmatch, I was playing Duke Nukem Deathmatch. Halflife may have better graphics and sound, but Duke Nukem is a hell of a lot more fun to play. "Hail to the King, baby". :-D
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I very much doubt Doom III is based on the Half-Life game engine. The story maybe, but that would just make it a prettied up rip off of something orignial. Then again how original is having the biggest damn weapon in the game to start with and blowing away everything in sight.
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Doom 3 has it's own engine, and it ROCKS; it's better than the original!
I played all morning, before I went to work! :-D
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Besides, Half-Life ROCKS! :)
Cant wait for Half-Life 2!!!
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Half life was base on the Quake2 engine. The Quake series, Quake, QuakeII, QuakeIII, Wolfenstien, Doom, DoomII, DoomIII were all done by IDSoftware. ID games are almost a showcase for their game engine which they license to other game makers. A lot of pc games are based on the various Quake game engines. HalfLife2 is an original game engine that does not use the Quake engine. Unreal also licenses the core/engine of Unreal to other companies. Big business.
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So after I buy an Atari, I should run out an buy a midi keyboard for games?
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I did!
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Hi yogisumo,
Stating that a computer is "designed for midi" because it had a couple of $0.50 midi ports seems like an exaggeration....
Because the Atari ST has built-in MIDI ports most Atari ST software "sees" those ports and uses them. But, because the Amiga, Macintosh, and PC computers do not have built-in MIDI ports their software does not "see" the MIDI ports, so they do not automatically play a MIDI keyboard, but the Atari ST computer does. This is the reason why the Atari ST is concidered to be THE MIDI computer. Also, many professional musicians use an Atari ST computer to sequence and control their MIDI equipment. Yes, like the Amiga, the Atari ST is a great computer. :-D
Did you know that you can also hook up a MIDI keyboard to a PCs sound card and most PC games will play the music through it instead of the speakers? It sounds really awesome! The normal sound SFX will still play through the speakers, but the music will be played on the MIDI keyboard. Here's what you do:
Hook up a MIDI cable to your sound cards game-port. Then plug a 5-pin DIN MIDI cable from the MIDI-IN on the keyboard to the MIDI-Out on the PC MIDI cable. Next, setup your game to play the music on 330 instead of 620. Make sure that this is also set up in your Multimedia Prefs in Windows. Finally, turn on the MIDI keyboard, load up the game and enjoy. Make sure that the MIDI keyboard that you buy has GENERAL MIDI printed on it not MIDI. General MIDI is 16 voices. MIDI is only 4 voices. Most MIDI music is created with 16 voices (the Drums are usually on track 10). So, if you try to play these MIDIs on a 4-voice keyboard they will sound like crap. So, get yourself a General MIDI keyboard. The cheaper ones sell for between $200 to $300. You folks that own a PC and play games on that PC should try this, I think you will like it. :-D
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Hi TjLaZer,
I have a feeling that me and you are going to wind up being good friends. :-D
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@BoingBoss
General MIDI sucks ;-) Yamaha's XG level 2 MIDI totally "blows the doors off it", but is totally backwards compatible with it at the same time.
I have heard no soundcard that has the quite the clarity of a good quality tonegenerator when it comes to MIDI playback.
/me likes my rackmount.
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Hi Karlos,
General MIDI sucks Yamaha's XG level 2 MIDI totally "blows the doors off it", but is totally backwards compatible with it at the same time.
OK. :crazy:
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*looks at his Hardware Yamaha XG Synth PCI board*
i would care to differ about that second comment ;-))))))
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I think you can play FF7's music like that... too bad it don't work on WinXP (*looks saddened*)
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locutus wrote:
*looks at his Hardware Yamaha XG Synth PCI board*
i would care to differ about that second comment ;-))))))
Well, Yamaha XG based midi daughterboards do sound very good - much better for musical apps than any soundblaster derivative. I've used DB50XG and SW60 XG in the past and they do stand out for MIDI.
However, my MU100R (once a flagship product but now replaced by the even more powerful MU128) runs rings round both of them - due to the much larger wavetable rom & higher quality samples, 32-part (individually assignable through 2 seperate 16-channel inputs) playback, more advanced filters, greater number of dedicated DSP units, per part EQ etc. Even good old Paula audio sounds great fed through the A/D inputs and processed with the rest of the mix. OctaMED soundstudio is the perfect tool for me in this respect :-)
Lastly, the virtual Accoustic synthesis unit has to be heard to be believed ;-)
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@yogisumo
>>I'm not trying to trash the Atari. I could care less. It just seems to be a little ridiculous to deem a computer to be "designed" for midi because of an extra connector or two on the back of the machine.
Actually, I think Doomy may have to have some credit here. It is well known that because of these extra ports(midi)in the back and year this was all released, made the ATARI the music choice for the time.
Infact, any serious musician with key had one. Cubase was written for and origionally developed for the ATARI and this little computer was considered to be the "Standard" at that time for any serious sequencing and control of midi devices. It's either that or big $$$$$ and I mean big! remeber it's not 2004 :)
Cubase is now written and still WIDLY used but now on PC as MIDI is very common and MIDI 2 is strating to take off as MIDI is too slow and restrictive.
SO really, your just snobbing off the ATARI for having those extra ports is a little short sighted and un informed. But hey!! now you know. :)
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Doomy,
Why do you say that? Well we both like Amiga and Atari ST computers... ;)
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Back when I first started shopping for a computer ( late 80's ), everybody used to tell me that the Mac was "the" midi computer. I met a couple of people that were talking up the Atari but not many. I know that I passed it up at the time. A MacII with 020 and greyscale monitor was @$10,000 Canadian at the time. The Atari was <$1000 and an Amiga 2000 was @$2000. A PC(386/EGA) was about $3500. The choice seemed pretty clear to me.
As far as midi, the Amiga wasn't the first choice for a lot of people but it did have some software. I met a guy in Alberta that was using an Amiga 1000 to run his light show and all his keyboards/drum machines with SoundScape which is how I first knew of the Amiga. Anyway, I looked at the Atari and I wanted an all around computer that would be good at everything and the midi ports on the Atari weren't enough to convince me to buy one.
I suppose if low cost midi computer was my primary concern, the Atari might have been a better choice but at the time I was basically taking a break from the music biz. @5 years on the road was starting to get monotonous.
It hardly matters now though does it? :( Thanks to CommodeDoor, the Ameoba is no longer... and for that matter.. either is the Atari.
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@yogisumo
That would be EPIC(biz entity) in regards to Unreal(product)...
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Did you know that you can also hook up a MIDI keyboard to a PCs sound card and most PC games will play the music through it instead of the speakers? It sounds really awesome! The normal sound SFX will still play through the speakers, but the music will be played on the MIDI keyboard. Here's what you do:
I feel I must point out here that while it is true that you can do this (being a musician, I do do this), VERY FEW modern PC games use midi files for their music. You will mainly see it in Japanese adventure games (Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and most Hentai CD-ROM games) and that's about it unless you look in the public domain gaming world. However if you have a good quality keyboard I can't recommend doing this enough because when the benefit is there, it is much better.
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jeffimix wrote:
I think you can play FF7's music like that... too bad it don't work on WinXP (*looks saddened*)
There's a patch available to run Final Fantasy VII on XP, and it also enables 4x(I think) antialiasing. It doesn't always work though. FF 7 is one of the most hardware dependent games released over the past 7 years, there's a LOT of video card and operating system configurations it doesn't like. Also gotta try win98 compatibilty mode, it works for some people.
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General MIDI sucks Yamaha's XG level 2 MIDI totally "blows the doors off it", but is totally backwards compatible with it at the same time.
errrr...ummm....k.
you do realize that Yamaha's XG is an EXTENSION to GM Midi, and not a replacement or alternative right?
In the end it's just important to remember that being XG or even GM compatible has nothing to do with how good your playback sounds, just whether or not a given MIDI sequence can be played back correctly(which of course could indirectly affect how good something sounds).
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I have heard no soundcard that has the quite the clarity of a good quality tonegenerator when it comes to MIDI playback.
/me likes my rackmount.
Apex Pro from AVM Technologies was a Kurzweil synth in soundcard form for ~$200 in 1997...OUTSTANDING MIDI playback, also had a complete instrument editor.
Guillemot also released several high quality sound cards for amateur audiophiles/musicians with high quality MIDI playback also in the same price range, usually with Yamaha chipsets.
Of course Soundblaster is crap, and all of the general gamer sound cards don't have any decent sound generation either, but these cards weren't designed with that in mind, they're more interested in getting higher sample/playback rates with higher s/n ratio.
/me likes my K2600 :-P