Do not mock my hatred of the ancient enemy, or I will execute ten Atari STs.

You have been warned.
[Reply]

Go ahead. The less STs left in the world, the more likely retro fans will be forced to buy an Amiga and convert.
[Reply]

I like the way you think.
Convert the heathens to the one true religion eh?
[Reply]

Exactly. The old ST fans are only sticking to their beloved machines because they haven't been shown the light. All they need is a healthy bit of persuasion in the form of a power surge, a puff of smoke, and no more ST!
[Reply]

Who'd have thunk it. Fundalmentalist Amigans. Sending in thier suicide disks to blow up the infadel ST's. What do you get when you die? A 100 mint games? A 1260?
[Reply]

The holy SharkPPC.
[Reply]

Hallo guys.

Just thought Id butt-in here, but I am an Atari owner.

I have :-

TT - 10+26MB 030 @ 32Mhz - Nova

Falcon - 14+256 060@110Mhz - ATI Rage 3D

Both are fairly well specced systems, the TT currently Running Magic&Jinnee and the Falcon running MiNT.

Plus a few various STs in one flavour or another, but who cares about them?

I would like to make one small note and leave.

Too many people judge the Atari machines based on the first ever ST, and assume that all ataris are the same as the next one.

Like the Amiga, this is simply not so!

Some Atari machines and their clones ( Yes, even teh Atari has a number of clones because Atari themselves are no longer around, there are still planty of users who still support it fully ) have developed into some seriously powerful machines indeed... Just like the Amiga.

I notice that many dont like GEM. Thats fine.Im not sure I know many that truly do like it, but this too has developed beyond all expectations. My own personal favourite O/S for the Atari, is Magic and the desktop I chose is Jinnee. Still based on the GEM enviroment of course but infinitely different at the same time.

I cannot comment on what desktops and Operating systems there are for the Amiga because I simply dont know, but the Atari has many different Operating systems not only its own built in one, and has a number of Desktops too, all giving their 2p's worth, so if you dont like GEM, then ou can chose any number of alternatives, and oyu can customise the look and feel of most of these desktops to how you want them to look, so can even get to the point where you wil find it hard to know if oyu are still on an Atari, or if you are running MacOS8 or 9 or even X or Windows, or Linux... My own desktops are very sparse and are incredibly boring, but then so are my Windows and Linux PCs Desktops. I prefer functionality to pretty eye candy that does nothign to improve my work.

Anyway, Im talkign crap now.

Basically I love my Ataris. Always have done and always will. I loved my Amigas too, but only for gaming. I stuck with the ST for work and the Amiga for play...I sometimes wonder how I would feel if I had gone with Amiga instead of Atari, and I often ask myself would I still have an Amiga as my main Machine like I have my Ataris or will I have moved to PC / Mac?
[Reply]

Interesting to hear some comments from a still devoted Atari fan. Voice from the dark side!

It is interesting that you mentioned you used an ST for business and an Amiga for games. And I have to ask why? I owned an Atari ST for a few years (1987-1991) before finally getting my first Amiga, although I had used Amigas a lot before this. As you can imagine I managed to collect a lot of software for the ST before getting the Amiga, but once I had used Workbench 2 I instantly ditched the ST completely. GEM is just not compariable to the Amiga's Workbench and the quality of the software even more so. The ST was a great 16bit machine for me at the time, but once I had experienced the Amiga there was no going back. It was just inferior in all aspects. Very close in capabilities but lacking the heart and soul of the Amiga.

However it is interesting to read about different OSs for the ST and continued development after the demise of the system. Do you have any links to more information about the more recent activity in the ST world? And do you know if some of these other OSs can be run via emulation, so I can have a play around and see what they are like.
[Reply]

I will have to scrub my eyes with a brillo pad after reading that heretic nonsense.
Although I do sense someone wants to be invited to the side of light.

Come into the light, try AOS3.9, you know you want to.
[Reply]

The quote you gave is very accurate in relation to the whole battle between the Amiga and ST. Those fighting for the ST had mostly never actually used an Amiga so didn't really know both sides of the argument. They just clung to their machine because it was the one they owned and loved because they had used and learnt everything about it.

GEM just doesn't compare to Workbench at all. GEM is quite a fixed and restricted OS with very limited customisation or the ability to do much more than it offers out of the box when you boot the system. In contrast the Amiga's Workbench offers a huge level of customisation, allowing every aspect of the OS to be altered to the users needs, and far ahead of any other OS at the time, with Workbench 2 and higher offering a feature set far in advance of GEM in every regard. It is just a shame that more didn't actually ever get to experience it.

And even more so for the large percentage of Amiga owners back in the day who never used Workbench! Mad as that sounds a lot of people did just use their A500 like a games console, sticking the game disk in and booted directly into the game. Never needing to use Workbench other than the one failed attempt shortly after buying the system when all new users tried to use Workbench to copy a game disk! Everyone did that I'm sure.
[Reply]