Difference between Amiga and Atari 520?

[shoggoth]

Stopthegop,

No offence, but I don't think you have the facts right.

>That was somewhat true with the low end STs, but not so
>with its cousin, the TT030.  The concept there was a
>computer so loaded with hardware features already built-in
>that you wouldn't need to expand it.  Vintage late
>1988, Mine has:

Afaik, the TT was released 1990-91, not 1988.

>64bit memory (32 address,32 data) -- 28MB!

Yes, it's organized as 64-bits wide memory to allow the TT-shifter to access the memory fast enough. From a software perspective, it's 32-bit.

>Aftermarket memory expansion possible to 152MB!  In 1988!

Again, I don't think it was 1988. Google around.

>External ROM port
>Internal 512K ROM OS.  You can ALWAYS boot to a gui
>Independent keyboard processor
>3x asynchronous RS232 serial ports
>1 DMA rs422 port
>VGA Graphics built in
>VME slot for expansion

It did. A TT with a VME graphics card is pretty nice.

>external DMA "ASCSI" port

It also features a standard SCSI connector.

>Game cartridge port

No. It has a ROM cartridge port, but it definitely has no game cartridge port.

>Granted, the TT was expensive.  But you can't tell me that
>it wasn't state-of-the-art for its time and, imho, for
>many, many years after.  

I would agree if it had been released in '88, but it wasn't.

> forgot..
>DSP processor
>MIDI in and Out
>16 bit Stereo w/ high quality RCA jacks

This is just not true at all. The TT had the same 8-bit DMA sound as the STE, and it didn't have a DSP. There was a VME soundcard which had a 56k on it, but it didn't arrive until 5-6 years later afaik. You're confusing it with the F030, which is a completely different machine.

-- Peter

[shoggoth]

spirantho wrote:
Something to note about the 520ST - the actual 520ST is a very limited machine - it had 512KB of RAM but not only no blitter and custom chips, but the AY-8912 sound chip as used in 8-bits of the time and it didn't come with a disk drive!

It did come with a disk drive, it just wasn't built-in. The AY-8912 was an 8-bit circuit, but that's sort of irrellevant since it has nothing to do with the sound itself, just the number of data signals on the actual chip. Nevertheless, the sound sucked.

The Falcon is a really nice machine, with a pre-emptive MultiTOS and stuff on it, along with SCSI and IDE onboard. More powerful than an A1200, but no software for it practically at all.

MultiTOS wasn't falcon-only. It just shipped with it (MultiTOS was disk-based, unlike TOS).

It's hard to say if the Falcon was more powerful than the A1200, it all depends on what features you compare I guess. The falcon had a DSP and real 16-bit hicolour modes, but... the A1200 had (afaik) a real 32-bit bus. The falcon blitter sucked, in many cases it was faster to use the CPU. On the other hand, it was 030-based and features on-board PMMU. Both machines suffered from planar graphics in 256 colour modes.

The falcon had Cubase Audio, Logic Audio and some other heavyweights, but allmost no games at all. Some STE-games ran, but generally ST/STE games compatibility was pretty low.

-- Peter

[shoggoth]

You could emulate an ST on an amiga 500 but you couldnt do visa versa on an ST, says it all really!

The term "emulate" in this case isn't really 100% accurate. Afaik this was a matter of patching TOS/GEM to enable the Amiga to run GEM programs. Anything that touches the hardware directly (which was the case with 90% of all games and lots of other software) is likely to fail horribly, however.

Technically, I don't think there is anything that prevents the ST from "emulating" AmigaOS, but the patching (more like porting in this case) would need a considerable effort, and again, any application which touch the hardware directly will fail.

-- Peter

[shoggoth]

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

[shoggoth]

[/quote]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

[shoggoth]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:

shoggoth wrote:

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

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.

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

And exactly how does that help when switching contexts in a multitasking OS?

-- Peter

[shoggoth]

You can't because copper cannot control CPU.[/quote]Since when?
It can generate interrupts.[/quote]

Dude, lots of stuff can generate interrupts. Still has nothing to do with multitasking. You're confusing apples with oranges.

-- Peter

[shoggoth]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
"Dude" I know.
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.

The Copper is a nice gadget, but either you've got it wrong or we're discussing two completely different topics. According to that philosophy, triggering a few routs based on external timer interrupts would also be multitasking, which it certantly is not.

Sorry for going off topic, btw.

-- Peter

[shoggoth]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
Interrupt handling on itself indeed isn't multitasking.
But 68k on itself isn't multitasking. Yet the Amiga can do multitasking.

No, the 68k on itself isn't multitasking. It's a CPU, for god sake.

So you mean multitasking on 7Mhz is some kind of "proof" for your so called "hardware multitasking" theory? There is no such thing. There are hardware solutions which enables you to do several things simultaneously in a smooth manner. That's not necessarily the same as executing multiple tasks concurrently. It's unrelated.

On a low level. At 7 mHz. Go figure.

You're mixing apples and oranges. Are you familiar with low level 68k programming, btw?

-- Peter

[shoggoth]

TjLaZer wrote:
I would say the biggest difference is the OS.  AmigaDOS 3.x is like eons ahead of TOS 4.x, even with OS enhancements like MagiC and MiNT, etc.  But never the less, the Atari computers are fun to play around with.

TOS4.x was basically just a more colourful 030-compatible version of TOS2.x. It really didn't add anything at all, except some new calls to handle new hardware. The MultiTOS that was shipped with TOS4 machines sucked. It was (sort of) Posix compliant, though.

Later incarnations of MiNT (known as FreeMiNT) has come a long way, but that's some 15 years too late

Atari never saw the point of having good OS functionality, not even when they released the Falcon. At the time of the release of the ST, I can understand this. The Amiga wasn't known for it's pioneering OS, but rather how many colours that could be displayed on screen. This changed during the years, and the Amiga was ready for it, the ST range wasn't.

I remember the great Atari vs Commodore wars, ah the memories!!!

Yeah. Some psycho professor somewhere must have written a book about it. There must be some medical explanation for this

-- Peter