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Poll: How bad was the Atari ST, really?
How bad was the Atari ST, really?
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    Thread: If you are really honest, how bad do you really think the Atari ST was?
    Graham Humphrey 22:06 6th March 2009
    Originally Posted by Bloodwych:
    512MB RAM seemed like a dream in 1986.
    That's because it was
    [Reply]
    toomanymikes 20:23 18th March 2009
    It did have cool f keys I suppose...
    [Reply]
    Harrison 23:53 18th March 2009
    I actually quite liked the ST keyboard overall. It had quite a soft feel and quite quiet. Quite a contrast to Amiga keyboards which have quite a hard travel and a bit noisy to type on. However I now use Microsoft keyboards which feel nearly the same as Amiga keyboards to type on and are just as noisy too. So I must prefer the Commodore approach... but that is really the first time I've actually thought about it.
    [Reply]
    woody.cool 15:43 2nd April 2009
    Dare I mention it, but I've recently acquired some ST hardware!
    One thing that sticks out with me, is how shit the in built OS is.

    On top of this, the STFM has horrible sound, using the same chip as the Spectrum did
    The STE is an improvement though, but at absolute best, it's equivalent to an early A500.
    [Reply]
    Harrison 16:20 2nd April 2009
    Yep, the STs GEM desktop OS is horrible on the ST. I was used to the Acorn Arch's Risc OS before getting my original Atari STFM back in 1987 and the first time I used GEM it felt very limited compared to the Arch.

    As mentioned by an ST fan elsewhere on the forum, the ST's OS has come along since then. The official GEM OS never really got that much better other than adding support for more drives, coloured folders etc. It was after market homebrew development that eventually brought multitasking OSs and different Desktop environments to the ST. However this are not official, and it is a bit like running Linux, or something else on an Amiga. It's still not the actual system's OS. Which in the ST's case wasn't good.

    Did you know that GEM OS was actually a PC OS that run on top of DOS? It was selected by Atari for the ST at the last moment as they didn't have an OS for it.

    As for the sound. Yes it was 3 channel mono on the original STFM. However it could do more than the Sprectrum. You could play samples easily for example. And it had great sound for chip tunes. These tend to spund clearer and crisper than chip tunes on the Amiga due to the Amiga's sound being more suited to sampled sound playback. However the sound isn't any match for the Amiga. (ST fans always like to point out the MIDI ports, but lets face it. These are ports to control external expensive music equipment to make music, and these capacities are not standard without the extra hardware plugged in).

    The STE did make a big improvement, but it was clear Atari would finally trying to improve the ST to make it level with the Amiga. 4 channel stereo sound, and simm sockets for up to 4 meg of ran on the motherboard. Plus an upgrade to the custom chipset with a built in blitter. But the STE was too little, too late. The STFM already had the majority share so games had to continue to be developed for both, so STE sound and other advantages were never taken advantage of as much as they should have been.
    [Reply]
    woody.cool 16:29 2nd April 2009
    Originally Posted by Harrison:
    Did you know that GEM OS was actually a PC OS that run on top of DOS?
    Yep, I was alrady aware of this.
    I had an old PC that I acquired .... it had GEM as the GUI on it.
    It promptly got removed in favour for getting some extra RAM chucked in it and Windows 3.11 installed on the Hard Drive.

    Originally Posted by Harrison:
    The STE did make a big improvement, but it was clear Atari would finally trying to improve the ST to make it level with the Amiga. 4 channel stereo sound, and simm sockets for up to 4 meg of ran on the motherboard. Plus an upgrade to the custom chipset with a built in blitter. But the STE was too little, too late. The STFM already had the majority share so games had to continue to be developed for both, so STE sound and other advantages were never taken advantage of as much as they should have been.
    I always feared that this was the case with the STE.
    Like you say, too little, too late!

    As far as I'm concerned, the ST (& STE) will never be as good as the Amiga, but the Atari machines still hold a warm nostalgic place in my heart (not quite as warm as the Amiga though)
    [Reply]
    Harrison 16:01 9th June 2009
    A bit of a shock to some, but I've also recently acquired some Atari hardware too! An Atari 520STFM, identical to the one I used to own years ago. Brings back some memories, but most of all it was quite a shock to actually use on for real again and realise how inferior they really are to the Amiga.

    The one thing I do like about the ST is that it gives the feel of real retro computing. The system wasn't as cutting edge as the Amiga by a long way, but the chip tunes and borders around the screen displays all add to the retro feel from the 8-bit and early 16-bit era and it does create a nice warm feeling of nostalgia. Just not as warm as when using an Amiga!

    Still... it gives me chance to play around with the ST exclusive games, and to explore the ST demo scene in some more detail than I ever did before.

    And I'm after more ST hardware now too! I'm looking for an 1040STE! I wanted one of these at the time when I was originally an ST owner, and it would be nice to get hold of one.
    [Reply]
    quackmore 00:14 10th June 2009
    OMG! This is the 9287349852739 argument of ST vs Amiga I've seen!

    Here are the facts:

    Atari ST (not STe or Transputer, etc):
    Had superior DTP & professional music development (REAL music sequencing, not just 8-bit arcade)

    Amiga 500:
    Superior sound & graphics output by FAR!

    There you go! Anymore upset about this issue is dumbb (notice the double b) LOL!
    [Reply]
    Harrison 03:07 10th June 2009
    This topic isn't about the vs arguments. It is asking if you, as an Amiga user, are really honest, how did the ST really compare and stack up against the Amiga? And we all know the truth. The Amiga was and always will be a long way ahead of the ST. Forget the software available for it in terms of DTP or MIDI, I'm talking the actual system hardware. The ST was quite a joke in this regard.
    [Reply]
    Dexther 07:15 10th June 2009
    In my humble opinion
    Atari st was a good car.
    But soppoeriva a video chip is not just adequate soundchip and I did not like that much in digitization.
    For the games I saw miracles and also bad things
    For the rest a mother for the amiga.
    But the concept amiga was the development of the machines.
    Therefore not entirely comparable since the Atari and Amiga base.
    [Reply]
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