The Amiga Versus Atari St War

[Chaotica]

What were your memories of the Amiga versus Atari ST war? I only ask because, living in Australia, I never got a taste of it. In fact, I don't think I have ever seen an Atari ST computer in my life. But, judging from the remarks of other retrogamers I talk to, it was quite a passionate debate in the late eighties and early nineties - people are still slugging it out at Amiga and Atari forums on the net today!

 

So, what were your memories? Enlighten me.

[Agozer]

I haven't touched and Atari ST either, but man, so many good memories of Amiga 500... Deluxe Paint 4 & Workbench for life.

[ken_cinder]

I owned an Atari ST, and I've never even seen an Amiga, EVER.

I was using my Atari ST up until Pentium CPUs came around. It was a better machine than a 486 PC by far.

I also owned an Atari Falcon, which (by looking at specs and screenies of Amiga stuff), Amiga has got NOTHING on.

 

I'd still like to check out an Amiga some day, but there is 0 justification in me buying one. And I don't enjoy emulated computers, it just doesn't feel the same.

[DreamCastLover]

The Atari ST was a good computer but the Amiga 500 was just an all round better machine with a far better selection of games(eg Monkey Island 2 wasn't on the Atari ST) IMO. I love Amigas almost as much as I love the Dreamcast hehe.

[random guy]

No competition. the Amiga was the absolute king of everything. Man I wish i hadn't gotten rid of mine! On the plus side, there's a new amiga that has come or is coming out soon, and is rumoured to have complete compatability with windows and mac programs. I don't know how that'll work, but we'll have to see.

[shortcut]

Atari St was for music, some games where ported from amiga,

but amiga was the best gaming machine, who had money for a nintendo/sega?

There where turbo cards for the last amiga machines, they could already beat the falcon .

Sad that there is nothing for Amiga games like GB64 for the C64, we have hol and bttr, thats fine, but an offline list with all Info and screenshots would rock.

[Ditto Much]

Atari St was for music, some games where ported from amiga,

but amiga was the best gaming machine, who had money for a nintendo/sega?

There where turbo cards for the last amiga machines, they could already beat the falcon .

Sad that there is nothing for Amiga games like GB64 for the C64, we have hol and bttr, thats fine, but an offline list with all Info and screenshots would rock.

I have to agree. That built in midi port made the ST an easy winner. I still know of them in studio's kicking about for this purpose. There was a time in the late 80's where every band with a keyboard had to have one. Not to say the Amiga wasn't good at it, it was just as capable for the most part, but it was centre stage on the ST.

 

An Amiga 2000 came with a 68000 and a meg of ram, but you could expand just about every aspect of it. Most people I knew ran them with 020 or 030 and with substantially more ram. This made them useful for video production and they received a cult status in this realm.

 

Personally I think the Amiga was superior in most aspects. It was more expandable and had more expansions. Its OS was more flexible and I thought more friendly to use. I thought the updates to the graphics chips also made the Amiga have a longer life span for general use.

 

The ST in the end might win out on longevity. Not to many A500 1megs still in service, I have seen a 1040ST in use in the last 12 months.

[Agozer]

What the evil bump.

[BobRedthorp]

I never even noticed a war here at the time (UK), the good old miggy was far more popular here. I owned the A500 and so did most of my mates, so I would say the Amiga is far superior, I still use the A500 sometimes, but I mainly use my updated A1200.

[Samor]

hm, I know some nice demo on an amiga of TOS crashing

I guess there was rivalry, but I think there was more rivalry between MSX2 and Amiga, mostly from the MSX side because well...an Amiga is a lot better in terms of hardware

[silVa]

I too am in Australia and never saw the war.. but Amiga kicked serious ballz!!

Even over macintoss!!

 

I just got atari ST - saved it from the dump... im sure it cant compare... maybe midi but hey, that was cheap add on to Amiga... I knew bands that used Amiga2000 w/midi....

 

A1000,3 A500,2 A2000,A3000,A4000 - all upgraded or expanded somehow

A nice collection =) (of expensive paperweights and doorstops) heheh

 

Never Forget!

[dj_geejay]

I too am from Australia and one of my mates had an ST claiming that it was the bees knees of game machines - i went over to play it once and he loaded up Double Dragon.

 

Even though neither Amiga or ST ports of DD were anything close to the arcade version - the Amiga still stomped on the ST here.

 

There was no sign of the ST in Grace Bros really and i saw more Macs than i did ST's (with demo's of Prince of Persia going, cant believe i can still remember this crap!?)

 

But anyway i got myself the A500 with expanded memory and never looked back with Lemmings, Operation Stealth and Super Cars 2 - to me there was no other computer, even though friends had crappy PCs at that time im happy to say i got an A500 (and still do just my 1084 monitor blew a transformer ) god bless WinUAE!

 

Anyway my vote as you may already know is for the Amiga!

[Gryph]

Eeeh...you really shouldn't be resurrecting old threads.

[dj_geejay]

Eeeh...you really shouldn't be resurrecting old threads.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

LOL

 

I didnt even bother to look at the date oh well it might spark atleast a little more discussion... then again maybe not!

 

My bad