Atari ST versus Commodore Amiga in pictures

[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?

[Flashlab]

Tramiel bought Atari when he got kicked out of C=. He knew about Amiga and wanted to buy it; it's just that C= made a better offer in the last minute. We'd call that sniping nowadays I guess!

Anyway that is where the link lies between Atari and Commodore.

Tramiel was the founder of C= in 1954. In the 60's they started to make calculators and in the 70's they started with home computers.

Atari was sold in 1996 by Tramiel and has been nothing but a brand ever since and changed hands more than one time. It has nothing to do with the old Atari. Even Commodore still exist as a company selling PC's.

[DigitalQ]

Again, this isn't about Commodore vs. Atari companies; but rather the Amiga vs. the Atari ST computers.  While Atari as a company played a relatively minor role in the history of the Amiga, the Amiga 500 computer would have happened whether or not the Atari ST computer line ever existed.  There was market demand for an Amiga 1000 in a Commodore 128 case, which Atari had no control over.

[monami]

would it have happened without jay miner?

atari and amiga are strange bedfellows indeed!

[Flashlab]

@DigitalQ

Exactly.

On this topic I believe that the ST may have had more units in the market in the beginning it lost the race around 1990/1991 when Amiga took over the market.

[monami]

from amiga history: 1991.

"1991: Standing still

The deep cracks in Commodore turn to huge tidal waves as many people loose faith in the market. Commodore launch a low-end upgrade to the A500 - the Amiga 500 plus - without informing anyone that they were shipping the product and the CDTV was canceled."

[Flashlab]

Yes, and the point being?

They had already beat the ST by then. Now the race was against PC and we all know how that ended.

[monami]

beat st? they had 2 years in the market before the a500 if thats what we are discussing was released. then came their best ever the falcon. alot of amigas were sold on word of mouth that was just hype in my opinion. i remember asking people after being critised for having an st. "i bought my st for music it has an interface and good music support. why should i buy an amiga, i don't think i had much of a reply."

[Flashlab]

Here we go again:

Introduction Atari ST: 1985
Introduction Amiga 500: 1987

There are your two years difference. In 1990/1991 Atari had lost its lead. In the Netherlands you couldn't buy Ataris anymore in these days in mainstream retail shops. Around 1994 Amigas got the same fate.

I'm not here telling you what was better; just what happened. If you still crave your Atari feelings and ignore history, that's not my problem.

[monami]

did you have any sales figures to go with it?

[Flashlab]

No, I don't have exact figures but main retail presence should tell you something. Also what you say is hype does sell machines; look at the Wii.

In my youth in my neighbourhood there was one ST kid and dozens of Amiga kids. This scenario is for the Netherlands around 1990 till 1992. I have no reason to think it was very different in the rest of Europe.

Because you insisted I looked up some numbers:

Around 4 million STs sold worldwide. Amigas around 6 million. Source is the dutch Wikipedia. I don't know how reliable that is. I haven't written the article in case you wonder. I guess my neighbourhood wasn't very Atari minded.

[monami]

it was. the amiga was a late comer as far as i was concerned. and was a gamble. atari had established itself very well.

in 1993 atari gave up supporting the falcon and moved on to the jaguar console. they got beat out by all the others. as we know. it happened to amiga too? but at least they were in the right direction...

i mentioned atari history as you see from what i read first computer game/ console. handheld, employees and half a million clams! i don't know how much commadore did for amiga seems to me atari was always somewhere in their history. even if it was only influence. they were a force to be reckoned with. and thats why i see their a500 as a direct assult on what was established and successful. usurping if it is such a word. i always felt it was clever marketing did get kids saying oh do you know how many colours you get on the screen? at the time amiga users were very annoying!if the atari wasn't such an authority why was it always compaired to the amiga?

[Flashlab]

You're of course entitled to your opinion but I think you have  weird way to interpret history.

Also you want to keep comparing Amiga to Atari and again you talk about the history of Atari which has nothing to do the ST itself. That makes no sense. Atari was a different comapny then (remember the buy out of Tramiel). And oh Neverwinter Nights has even less to with Atari history than the ST. It seems to me that the marketing people at the different Ataris have at least done a good job to convince you.

It seems to me that you don't know very much about Commodore (spelling the name correctly for starters) and what they have done in computing history. If you insist that Amiga is a copy of the ST and not the other way around then fine but don't expect me to agree.

To end this pointless discussion; here is another mention of the "war".

[DigitalQ]

Again, the confusion.  Amiga, as a computer platform, was not a late comer.  However, in the low end 16 bit home computer market, the Atari ST had a head start over the Amiga 500.  With the Amiga 500, it was simply state-of-the-art, cutting edge, high-technology from 1985 trickling down as it ought to over a period of two years.  The Atari ST was never state-of-the-art or cutting edge; it was dated the day it was released, but it was priced as such and was a good value in 1985.  Superior Amiga technology trickled down, but the Atari ST never really improved until it was too late.

The A500 was not a gamble; it came out to meet market demand.    Many people, including myself, were not all that impressed with the Atari ST and decided to wait for the cheap Amiga to trickle down and arrive.  Others opted for a Commodore 128 instead of an Atari ST, to take advantage of the established software and hardware base.

As for the hype; the Amiga was the wonder computer of the 1980's.  It was capable of doing things nothing under $10,000 could.  You could call it hype or marketing.  I call it genius.

[monami]

and even so was made by ex atari employees. and backed by atari at one point...

[Flashlab]

And the point being?

Noone denies that here. Noone denies Atari for what they did in computing history. You seem to be an Atari fan boy two decades too late.