So did you ever have an atari computer?

[Hammer]

I still recall CU Amiga's "It's an Atari" statement and Amiga 500 vs Atari STE debates at school.

To answer TC's question, I haven't used an Atari computer. My first 8bit computer was a Commodore Vic-20.

[Tahoe]

I also own a ton of 8 bitters, both the XL and XE lines.

I grew up with a 2600 (when I was 10) and always dreamt of the step up: the 800XL. I bought one when I was 12.

Moving to Amiga later on was a logical choice, I just moved along with Jay Miner's technology.

The ST could never compete, nor did I ever consider buying one, even back in the day I was still only using 8bit and pondering about my upgrade.

[save2600]

@Pentad,

 I'd like to see these questions answered on the ST forum over at Atari Age. Talk about religious A8/ST fanboys over there   :laughing:

[bloodline]

I was given an ST about 14 years ago, which I found totally useless so dismantled it (I regret that now ). I wish I had kept it in working order now

I found a VCS 2600 in a bin about 3 years ago, that worked fine. I gave it to my youngest brother and he plays with it from time to time.

[Hammer]

@Pentad,

 I'd like to see these questions answered on the ST forum over at Atari Age. Talk about religious A8/ST fanboys over there   :laughing:

http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments=1&v=K4ta4OYhsEY
Running Atari's TOS on the Amiga 1000.

[vidarh]

Using an Atari was pretty much seen as treason amongst the kids I knew - we were all Commodore 64 and/or Amiga users, with some unlucky kids that had parents give them other weird machines that we pitied for their uncool parents rather than make fun of.

An Oric, a Spectrum (both referred to as doorstops), an Amstrad and a TI-99 was the extent of non-Commodore home computers I ever saw at other kids homes.

But the stores near where I lived did sell lots of other models. I remember playing with a Dragon at a store once around the time we got our Commodore 64. And later we saw lots of Amstrad and later Spectrum models which we sort of accepted but nobody wanted to buy. There might've been others on display but if so they didn't make an impression.

I can't remember ever seeing an 8-bit Atari (this was in Norway, btw.), but there were several Atari ST's on display for a few years in the largest local store. GEM was just too damn ugly, though - we were used to that from the 8-bits, but the Amiga spoiled us quickly and the Atari's on display were mostly ignored, while we were busy messing with the Amiga's or typing in small programs on the various 8-bits while the staff wasn't paying attention. One of the staff in my local computer store turned out to be a member of Crusaders for a while if I remember correctly (as did one of my group teachers at uni).

Never actually used an Atari properly. For me it was on the list of competing alternative home computers that we'd slag off based on specs from magazines.

Never wanted one at all, contrary to quite a few other home computers that I found fascinating but never or rarely got a chance to see (in the latter category you'll mostly find machines I was reading about "pre-Amiga" such as the Enterprise 64 for example, mostly because it seemed quite powerful from the ads and just quite different; as well as the BBC's and later Acorn machines - I've only ever seen an Archimedes once at a demo party; and reading about some of the various MSX machines was also fascinating).

[vidarh]

http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments=1&v=K4ta4OYhsEY
Running Atari's TOS on the Amiga 1000.

That feels a little bit like giving the poor girl a full frontal lobotomy...

[zylesea]

We had plenty 1040ST at school. I remember programing the turtle with Logo and later doing stuff with Prolog (that one was actually cool). Teacher was probably an idealistic one, but nerdy and had no chance in the course. I still remember when I just switched off an ST (the power switch was on the back side of the main unit, no PSU brick) on the opposite desk during class and the teacher was asked for help what the hell was going on and he searched and searched for that fatal error while I had to bite my lips to not ROTFL.
   
I somehow got an ST 1040 a few years later, but never used it much, my Amiga was always #1. One of my sisters had an ST 1040. I once played SpaceQuest on that maschine.

[runequester]

@Pentad,

 I'd like to see these questions answered on the ST forum over at Atari Age. Talk about religious A8/ST fanboys over there   :laughing:

Let me guess.. the fact that the processor was about an inch faster?

[save2600]

Let me guess.. the fact that the processor was about an inch faster?

.84mhz = 1".... yep, pretty much sums it up     lmao!

[Pentad]

Want to know more worthless trivia?

Andy Herzfeld and his team also disregarded Motorola's 'suggestion' about supervisor state in the 68k.  The Mac OS puts the CPU in this mode called supervisor state that allows you to do things that you normally couldn't do in normal mode (user state I believe, its been a long time).

Anyway supervisor state is more powerful (it was really for low level debugging) but its kind of slow.  I could go into technical reasons but to be blunt the CPU wasn't really meant to run in this mode all the time.

Apple went ahead and did anyway.

Jim Drew talked a great deal about why the Amiga would run the Mac OS so much faster and this is partially why.  Emplant's Mac emulation was so good because Drew patch a lot of this.

The Amiga does not run in supervisor state but many Amiga utils will allow you to jump into this (an ML monitor and low level debugger).   Action Replay, I'm guessing, did this and there was this crazy software util you could invoke by holding the joystick to the right while holding down both mouse buttons.

Worthless info but there you go...   :-)

Cheers!
-P

[save2600]

Worthless info but there you go...   :-)

Cheers!
-P

Very cool worthless info though, so thanks!  

[pwermonger]

My first "system" was a 2600 but back in the day I never had an Atari computer. I went from the 2600 to Commodore 64, then 128, then Amiga 500, 2000, 1200, 4000.
 
I was back then in the mindset of the Commodore/Atari wars. Since you generally could only aford one machine you always of course considered that the best.
 
Later after collecting a lot of Commodore, I started looking around at the competetors from the day and while looking at Atari picked up an 800XL that was a teleprompter (with all hardware and software for this). Then the top of the 8bit line, 130XE just to have the best as a comparison against the 128. Then I picked up a 1040 STE and a 520STfm (upgraded to 1MB RAM).
 
So now I have Atari reresentatives alongside my Commodores. Would love a Falcon but just too expensive.

[Drummerboy]

Yeah,

I had Atari, from Atari 2600, 5200, Atari 600XL, 65XE to 130XE.
For my taste, Atari Hardware was made of better quality than Commodore (at least XL Hardware series). In thats time i was C=64/128 too (i am still user)..But the thing was Atari never had the same succes like Commodore.
About 16Bit, 32bit, 64bit Atari computers, i never had. But i know about becouse have friends they were Atari users, with ST, Mega STE, Falcon, Lynx..
For me Amiga was much better than thats machines.. for the time, many things not have comparision.

For now i still have my Atari 2600 from 1978!! Wood Front style (i had over 200 Cartridges!)

Anyway its sad nowdays not exist in the market more Brands like Atari or Commodore..

[JimS]

Comment #6 about 256 simultaneous colors on screen through use of display list interrupts would be similar to what we saw as "Dynamic HighRes" on the Amiga. This pretty much froze all other operations on Atari, and I recall even mouse movement on Amiga destroyed the display.

Comment #8 would indicate some early bit manipulation to extend the color palette in exchange for a speed penalty...sounds a bit like what occurred with HAM modes on Amiga.
What do you think?
 
#6

It's been a long time since I looked at the Atari display... but I think you could use display list interrupts to change the color palette on each scan line... kinda like dynamic hires. I did something like it in that label printing program I mentioned. It used a hi res wysiwyg display of the label as you worked on it...but it was wider than the screen. So the custom display list changed screen mode from text to graphic mode and handled scrolling the label if needed. A little snipped of 6502 code changed the palette for the label area. If you tried that on every line, things would slow down quite a bit...

[motrucker]

I had an Atari 5200 back in 1979 or 1980 - kept it for about five years - There were some games that were ahead of their time.
Never thought much of the computers though - I went Commodore64, then 128, then Amiga....