Crappy comparison of Amiga 1200 vs Atari Falcon

[NorthWay]

Amiga ChipRam R/W 32bits (MB/s):  3.020 / 5.330 (SysSpeed)

No. Just no. Don't use crappy software when you want to get your facts right.
The hw bandwidth is 7MB/s read/write. Use 'bustest' to check how good your cpu is at getting the full bandwidth (I can't remember what the plain 1200 does, but it should be close to the theoretical max).

Just looking at the sysspeed page linked shows so many baloney numbers that you have to shake your head. Please don't use syssped if you want to check Amiga memory speeds.

[Pyromania]

I tried TOS a few times and it was the worst OS  I ever used.

[BozzerBigD]

TOS on the ST was my first GUI experience and was fine for what it was. Nothing compared to AmigaOS obviously but I have to say using MacOS 9 with the Puck iMac Mouse was absolutely soul destroying, unresponsive and the mouse was the worst I've ever used. It put me off Macs for another 8 years!

[kovacm]

No. Just no. Don't use crappy software when you want to get your facts right.
The hw bandwidth is 7MB/s read/write. Use 'bustest' to check how good your cpu is at getting the full bandwidth (I can't remember what the plain 1200 does, but it should be close to the theoretical max).

hm, ok. But I quote sysspeed numbers since they are better than BusTest. I am pretty sure that something is wrong with these BusTest numbers that I found on internet (can someone verify them on stock A1200?):

Falcon ST-Ram R/W 32bits (MB/s): 5.345 / 6.488 (nembench)
Amiga ChipRam R/W 32bits (MB/s): 3.900 / 3.900 (bustest)
Amiga FastRAM R/W 32bits (MB/s): 10.900 / 16.4MB/s

---
Regarding price, I found info in old Usenet thread link:

Base Amiga = 300 UKP
Base Falcon = 600 UKP  (for the 1 MB)
Base Falcon = 900 UKP  (for the 4 MB / 65MB harddrive)

Amiga = 1/2 to 1/3 cost of Falcon

I tried TOS a few times and it was the worst OS  I ever used.

I guess because of this there were many desktop replacement/extension and few different operating system for Atari (all TOS compatibile): Geneva, MagiC!, MultiTOS/MiNT. They improve every aspect of OS over TOS.

And they looks nice on modern hardware - http://www.atari.sk/download/PICs/zview_beta7.jpe

[Kronos]

GEMDOS / TOS from start have support for Accessories.
Accessories are programs that are available from main application so TOS from start could run few !

If it had been anywhere near real multitasking, it would have been multitasking.

Sound more like the cooperative "multitasking" seen in some versions of 68k MacOS and just like MacOS at that time TOS was heading for a deadend.

Sure solutions could be found, but they allways were compromises between performance, reliability and compability.

AmigaOS3.x on the other hand was pretty much state of the art when it came to consumer OSes and could hold it's water against Win3.x and only got left behind a few years later.

None of the 3 multitasking OSes you mentioned were available/fully useable at the time the Falcon was released.

[matthey]

AmigaOS3.x on the other hand was pretty much state of the art when it came to consumer OSes and could hold it's water against Win3.x and only got left behind a few years later.

Windows 3.x was 16 bit and not even an OS yet (GUI for MS-DOS). Universal mouse support and drag and drop were new features. IMO, Windows didn't catch up until about Windows 2000. Windows may have looked better on paper by features before that where the AmigaOS 3.x was underrated because of lack of certain features but was more responsive, more flexible and more user friendly.

[Kronos]

Win3.x was what was available when the A1200 and Falcon came out, making it the right measure.

TOS failed even by that measure, AOS.3.0 was "state of the art", wether it was just as good or better than Win does not really matter.

[NorthWay]

Amiga ChipRam R/W 32bits (MB/s): 3.900 / 3.900
Amiga FastRAM R/W 32bits (MB/s): 10.900 / 16.4MB/s

I think 0.19 is the most up to date version of bustest btw.
Never had a 1200 so I only remember my 4000/CS060 which did near as much 7MB/s and something like 40-50MB/s to fastram. (Been a while since it was alive so I can't say for sure about the fastram.)

A number of cpu cards handled write-combining and pipelining/delayed writes pretty bad and had worse numbers than a stock machine...

[Iggy]

GEMDOS / TOS from start have support for Accessories.
Accessories are programs that are available from main application so TOS from start could run few programs at same time. Basic for multitasking was there from start but roas was long!
Eventually Atari got three major multitasking OSs: MagiC!, Geneva and MultiTOS (MiNT). Latest have even memory protection.

More about evolution and insides about TOS: http://www.fultonsoft.com/category/atari-st/revisiting-gem-for-the-atari-st/



not sure why Falcon would be useless in any field?!

here you have Atari software database with screenshots and some animations: http://milan.kovac.cc/atari/software/

there are software for any field!

Although not TOS compatible, there is also a port of Microware's OS9 multi-tasking/multi-user operating system for early Atari 68K based machines.
Although it is doubtful that that would run on a Falcon.

[Iggy]

Win3.x was what was available when the A1200 and Falcon came out, making it the right measure.

TOS failed even by that measure, AOS.3.0 was "state of the art", wether it was just as good or better than Win does not really matter.

Actually quite true.
I was working with 68K systems when Win 3.0 was in its beta stages (we had early copies provided by IBM).
Although primitive, Win3.1 did give PCs some parity with the Amiga once the MPC standard was more widely adopted.
And the ST couldn't match either system.

You guys have to remember that while somewhat inferior, MPC based systems had many of the features that the Amiga processed (and a few they didn't).

Its not any big surprise to me that one of the big backers of the MPC standard was Tandy.
They also produced some of the first MPC systems.
Remember, they had a good working relationship with Motorola (so good in fact that they requested and got a specific upgrade to the 6847 VDG used in the Color Computer - the 6847T1, note the "T" designation, AND they had some help in designing the custom chip that replaced that in the Color Computer 3).
How do I know that?
I had phone access to their engineers directly (remember, we were developing 68K based systems) and they were pretty free with information.

So...in case you don't know where this is going...one of the early backers of the Windows based MPC standard was quite familiar with Motorola based systems and you can be assured that they were aware of the Amiga.

In fact, the Amiga was the standard I think they were aiming at, not other PCs.

[Iggy]

...Eventually Atari got three major multitasking OSs: MagiC!, Geneva and MultiTOS (MiNT)...

As well as operating systems originally intended for the Sinclair QL and its descendants like SMS2.

[psxphill]

As well as operating systems originally intended for the Sinclair QL and its descendants like SMS2.

I'm surprised nobody ever ported amigaos to it.

[Linde]

Today, a DSP would never be put in a general purpose computer as they are limited in what they can do and difficult to program.

That depends on what you mean by general purpose. A lot of home users use their computers for multimedia or games, and some have sound cards in their computers for this purpose, and these will usually contain a DSP. For example, if you had a Sound blaster from the late 90's or later you had a DSP in your computer, and some modern graphics cards have them. The Playstation 4 has one, although it's a quite a stretch to call that a general purpose computer.

Of course, the very name "DSP" implies a non-general purpose, but practically speaking, sound and graphics processing should be covered.

[Iggy]

I'm surprised nobody ever ported amigaos to it.

Well. that is not an open OS...
Come to think of it, I can't think of anything other than an Amiga that will run AmigaOS (outside of emulation).

[Kronos]

There is the Draco (and even some early version of the Casablanca )

Problem is that AmigaOS needs atleast the CIAs to work at all and either the rest of the chipset or massive patching (CGX/P96) to be really usefull.

Quite a difference to running MacOS or TOS on an Amiga where all you needed was the ROM-images and a few mild patches.

[matthey]

That depends on what you mean by general purpose. A lot of home users use their computers for multimedia or games, and some have sound cards in their computers for this purpose, and these will usually contain a DSP. For example, if you had a Sound blaster from the late 90's or later you had a DSP in your computer, and some modern graphics cards have them. The Playstation 4 has one, although it's a quite a stretch to call that a general purpose computer.

A DSP on sound cards was more common before modern CPUs which have more processing power and DSP like functionality, especially SIMDs. There still is the possibility of off-loading the CPU but most audio processing only uses a few percent of a modern medium to high performance CPU's processing power. An SIMD often has more performance than a DSP albeit at a higher cost. Perhaps the PS4 is trying to save electricity as consoles need to be more power efficient and a DSP wins over an SIMD here. However, the PS4 likely has multiple SIMD units which could do more complex audio processing faster and the overall hardware cost could be reduced by a small amount. It would be interesting to hear why the PS4 engineers included the DSP. I wouldn't be surprised if it was because they used an existing off the shelf mature audio design which included a DSP. There are probably DSPs on motherboard integrated PC audio hardware for this reason. Newly designed general purpose computers are unlikely to get an off the shelf DSP like the Falcon or A3000+. Many people seem to still want a DSP when they would be much better off with a faster CPU and/or SIMD. That was my point even if my use of "never" was perhaps too harsh.

Of course, the very name "DSP" implies a non-general purpose, but practically speaking, sound and graphics processing should be covered.

A DSP can be used for some graphics processing and they are efficient but most are not particularly flexible or fast. An SIMD is a better choice for graphics as it is more powerful, more flexible and generally easier to program. We have modern graphics processors and hardware which are more powerful yet. Audio processing is mostly simpler, more repetitive and less processor intensive which is perfect for a DSP. Still, there are many reasons why a DSP processor chip would not be used in a completely new design.