Atari ST versus Commodore Amiga in pictures

[jlariv8957]

AFAIK Atari never used anything present on the Amiga exept the processor.

When Commodore bought Amiga, Atari had to faced 2 problems: they lost the successor to their 8bit line of computer and they couldn't compete with one of their main competitor.
So they had to go fast, very fast: bringing a completely new computer in months, this is one of the reason why Atari used off-the shelf compoment for the ST. When the A1000 came out, the Amiga team was working for 2-3 years on the project.

As you: the demo is neat but misses many other things that made the Amiga the best computer of it's time.

[odin]

@monami:
Amigahistory.co.uk has a rather nice write-up of the whole history of Commodore. In short the boss of C=, Jack Tramiel, was booted out of C= just before C= bought Amiga. Jack Tramiel became head honcho of Atari and tried to acquire Amiga. He became somewhat pissed off when C= managed to snatch up Amiga and he created an 'Amiga killer' from off the shelf parts which became the Atari ST. So you see why there was somewhat animosity between the two camps =).

[monami]

@tomas

according to the history the amiga... i am concerned with the mainstream machine the amiga 500 not the others. the direction was to follow atari's lead and get computers in the home market and compete on that playing feild not with mac or pc which didn't seem successful as the cost was too high. the history says atari st was out in 1985. the a500 was out in 1987. a deliberate attemp to usurp the success of the st. and basically seemed to copy it's format. even the all in one style. unlike the a1000 or a2000. and add just a touch more to it. ie. the 800k floppy etc.

"1987: "We sell to the masses, not the classes"

This year saw the first major system upgrade with the release of the high-end Amiga 2000 and the low-end Amiga 500."

it was the a500 that is compaired to the st... like i say the hardware is 2 years later. it doesn't seem a fair playing feild for comparison. thats the way i remember it. :-)

[DigitalQ]

monami:

In actual fact, the Amiga 500 was, essentially, an Amiga 1000 with a full 512k of RAM and Kickstart 1.2 burned into a ROM.  Technically speaking, it didn't offer anything that you couldn't do with an Amiga 1000.  It was put in a case that very much resembled the Commodore 128; so much so that, at a glance, it can be difficult to tell the two machines apart.  It was the utilization of 2 year old technology and design concepts already in place with the Commodore 128 that made it price-competitive in the low-end 16 bit market.

In this picture, we can see clear similarities between the 64c, the Commodore 128, and the Amiga 500:



The Commodore 128, the inspiration behind the Amiga 500's design, predates the Atari ST by a full year.

The Amiga 500 and Amiga 2000 were both released at about the same time, and they addressed the demands of customers.  The Amiga 500 was for those demanding a low-cost, "Affordable" Amiga; while the Amiga 2000 was for those demanding an Amiga with better expandability.  The A2000 broadened the appeal of the Amiga to a whole new market for Commodore (you know, the Mac and PC one you claimed they didn't think was successful); while the A500 was a logical upgrade path from the 8 bit Commodores.  Atari should have seen this coming and made a better, more competitive ST during those two years.

[gdanko]

mdivancic wrote:
Ignore the ST -v- Amiga stuff. The amazing thing is how good the programers did with the limited hardware. Very cool to see...

They were both wonderful computers and the war, while fun at the time, is silly. Let's just enjoy them for what they were.

[monami]

from the history:

"The Atari continued to beat the Amiga in the market for several years, in part, due to Commodore's focus upon the high-end market. It is only when the Amiga 500 was launched that Commodore were able to beat Atari in the home computer market." mmm...

also from the history:

"The Commodore Amiga was officially launched in September 1985 for £1,500. The world's first Amiga magazine - Amiga World - was launched soon after. At the time this price was a major detractor that placed it in the high-end region occupied by the Apple Macintosh. In comparison, the Atari ST was selling for less than half the price. It was later recognized that this was Commodores' first mistake. Rather than promoting the Amiga as a professional machine, they sought to replicate the success of the Atari ST. However, the Atari ST had built a steady market since its launch that made it a difficult adversary, with the Amiga playing second fiddle to the ST regarding game releases."

you say the amiga 500 is comparable to the st as the 1000 is basically an a500 and it was released at the same time... i take that point. but what about any other bits of hardware added. ie. any kind of custom chips to the a500 in that 2 years?

[DonnyEMU]

I have owned both an ST and an multiple Amigas.. The Amiga was always more expandable for memory had more colors/voices/more denser color palettes and resolutions.. A true Multi-tasking OS thru the majority of it's existance.

The ST was a Macintosh clone based on GEM with good DTP, but sucky word processing  (yeah the Amiga wasn't much better for that).

As far as better, who went out of business first? I would say that would be Atari...

They both hit different audiences but the Atari folks always had Amiga envy, not the other way around.. Piracy was a bigger problem on the ST.. Again different audience, and no video toaster crowd buying high end applications.

[Flashlab]

The first 500 has the same custom chipset as the 1000; OCS. Later came ECS but that didn't add any spectacular differences.

[DigitalQ]

monami,

The source you cite is the opinion of the writer.

I think we need to put a little perspective on this.  When the Amiga was first introduced in 1985, it could do things that nothing under $10,000 could do at the time.  You would have to spend upwards of $20,000 to get the same functionality as the Amiga 1000.  Because of this, the Amiga 1000 was a great success and made a huge impact on the computer industry.  It was so advanced, comparisons to the Atari ST seemed absurd.

At the time of the release of the Amiga 500, CBM's general manager, Alfred Duncan, was quoted as saying, the Amiga 500 represents "a computer that retails for about half as much as the Amiga 1000 yet retains all of the performance capabilities - including advanced graphics and video, four-channel sound, built-in speech synthesis, and multi-tasking -- in a lower priced unit."  With the exception of the ROM-resident kernel (the Amiga 1000 used a kickstart disk, but I believe ROM solutions were made available), it was, for all intents and purposes, an Amiga 1000 computer system stuffed into a Commodore 128 case.  It had the exact same chipset and capabilities.  Just as the Amiga 2000 was an Amiga 1000 with the ROM-resident kickstart and an open archetecture with seven internal slots.

Fact is, the Amiga outclassed everything in its day, including the Atari ST.  Fact is, the Amiga 500 would have happened regardless of the existence of the Atari ST, as it follows the same evolutionary path as Commodore's 8 bits (Commodore PET > Vic 20 = Amiga 1000 > Amiga 500).  Technology trickles down, and all-in-one computer designs were mainstaples of the home computer industry since the 1970's when we had the Apple II, Vic 20, and Atari 400.

[alexh]

DonnyEMU wrote:
As far as better, who went out of business first? I would say that would be Atari...

You would be wrong.

Commodore went out of business and filed for bankruptcy in April 1994

Atari Corporation effectively went out of business in February 1998 when it sold off it's IP and name to Hasbro.

[monami]

well some of it comes to personal preference. ie. i liked the look of the st over the amiga 500. grey over beige. those diamond style keys were at least unique and stylish to my eye where the a500 was just a keyboard. and of course built in midi. although i do like the a500. but on paper at least I have to say the computer came out 2 years later. are you sure nothing was added to it? i must be the only one out there that liked gem...

as far as who went bankrupt first is no argument. i would offer who was more successful in terms of product. or financial gain. i'm sure they must have generated more profit in their time. i don't know the figures but atari vs amiga not commadore is atari hands down? they had a longevity in the market well exceeding the amiga. founded in 1972. and in terms of product... well how many products can you name? from pong up to neverwinter nights. i remember those arcade machines with the name atari on fondly.

and without atari amiga couldn't have happened? from the history it seems the experience at atari was the springboard for the amiga. and most of the employees have had past dealings with the company one way or another... it seems to me amiga va atari was their best publicity vehicle using their name. very much like the sega takes ages one?

[Flashlab]

You're comparing Atari to Amiga not Commodore? And then you say that Atari have been there longer? You're not seriously saying that 8 bit Ataris have anything in common with their ST successors, are you? Just because they were called Atari doesn't make them one family.

In your logic all predecessors to the Amiga from Commodore should also count; the C64, Vic20, PET etc. They're from the same company. Heck, Commodore was founded in 1954. Does that make them the winner?

[Methuselas]

Lemmink wrote:
Windows has no fans, it only has hostages :lol:

Windows has fans!!!! I've got *TWO* of them in my box, as we speak, to help run all that bloated code!!! :lol:

[Methuselas]

-D- wrote:
SWEET video... though when I tried to show my g/f, she rolled her eyes, walked away and said it was "lame"... WTF?? :lol:

You know, D....my ex-fiancee was the exact, same way....


Until she saw Super Frog. *THEN*, I couldn't get her *OFF* my A1200.  :evil:

[DigitalQ]

I said the Amiga 500 would have happened without the Atari ST.  Clearly, Atari as a company played a big role in the early days of 8 bit computers and game consoles and did their part to shape the industry that was to come.  However, the impact of the Atari ST computer was really only noticed in the music industry, where the ST found its niche.  The Amiga, on the other hand, had a dramatic effect on the entire computer industry.

As for who died first; we're talking about platforms here, not companies.  The Atari ST platform died around 1990 or so after the release of the Mega STE and the ST Book.  Amiga was still a viable platform for four years after that up until when Commodore went bankrupt, and still sees development and sales to this day.

[monami]

i can't name a cbm product from 1954 can you? i'd have to look it up. i felt we were talking brands and home computing. if you are going to chain companies together you may as well say amiga is atari as their employees and funding for the amiga came from atari and without them it would have not happened. i am only following the history as written: from the year 1984.

"Only Atari Inc. (managed by Warner at the time) made a serious offer for the Amiga custom chips, loaning $500,000 to keep the company alive while a license agreement was constructed. In a 1992 interview, Miner indicated the deal was a last ditch attempt:

    "Atari gave us $500,000 with the stipulation that we had one month to come to a deal with them about the future of the Amiga chipset or pay them back, or they got the rights. This was a dumb thing to agree to but there was no choice.""


hasbro bought out atari and they are still selling?