Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site eneevax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!qantel!dual!lll-crg!gymble!umcp-cs!eneevax!gyuri From: gyuri@eneevax.UUCP (Gyorgy Fekete) Newsgroups: net.micro.atari,net.micro.amiga Subject: Amiga and ST (important comparisons!) Message-ID: <377@eneevax.UUCP> Date: Fri, 4-Oct-85 00:43:15 EDT Article-I.D.: eneevax.377 Posted: Fri Oct 4 00:43:15 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 6-Oct-85 05:41:47 EDT Distribution: net Organization: U of Maryland, EE Dept., College Park, MD Lines: 113 Xref: watmath net.micro.atari:1270 net.micro.amiga:320 I am trying to forward this, but twice before I was unsuccesful... So here it is, with a bit of delay... Date: Tuesday, 24 Sep 1985 23:53:23-PDT From: umcp-cs!seismo!allegra!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-cgvax2!boiko (Michael Boiko MKO2-2/KO2 264-3626) To: seismo!allegra!umcp-cs!eneevax!info-st (Distribution list @ST) Subject: More ST vs Amiga info...... Status: R Here's a note I came across yesterday that you all might be interested in reading. It sums up some of the thoughts an Amiga/ST developer has about the Amiga vs ST comparison question. The one question should be if the ST is that good (and I feel it is) why isn't the Computer media/trade mags. falling all over it. What's going on!! By the way I have had an ST for about 2-3 weeks,and I think it's one of the best bargains to come along in a long time..... Once again I would appreciate someone posting this to micro.net.atari, since I'am still having problems posting notes. Thank You Mike Boiko ============================================================================== Msg#: 0053 Lines=15 Sent: Sept 23,1985 at 10:11 PM To: DR. MICHAEL MITCHELL From: JOHN DEMAR Subj: st MICHAEL: I'm sure you are a sane, rational person, so I'll continue... I'm a software/hardware developer and an electronics engineer. I've seen and used computers from $50 to $5Million and have designed VLSI chips for 6 years at GE until starting my business last year. So, the following is said from technical expertise and not first-impression judgments from marketing "fluff"... I own (or have owned) both the Atari 520ST and Amiga PC. I've given them both a good bit of work and inspection, including o/s design and hardware architecture. Here are some facts and my conclusion: The Amiga's graphics IC's are very powerful in their own right and the sound/io chip definitely gives nice synthesized music. But, that is where the power stops dead. However, since people respond emotionally to sight and sound, the demos are easy to catch someone's eye. Inside the Amiga, there is very little true support for the power of a 68000 cpu In the low res mode, those fantastic graphics chips steal almost 70% (yes!) of the possible CPU time that the 68000 could be using to do real computer things like calculate, move/sort data, and plot graphics on your screen. Since the complicated screen data for the Amiga must come from the same ram on the same bus as the CPU, there are excessive wait-cycles imposed on the 68000. This, together with the CPU speed that is 10% or more slower than the Atari 520ST, the Amiga does not come close to the true power and useful capabilities of the ST. Inside the ST, you will find MORE custom IC's than the Amiga and MORE powerful chips 'off the shelf' than the Amiga. This adds up to a real optimized, fast and versatile computer. First, there are a pair of chips working together to optimize data bus and screen data access. The memory controller prefetches 16-bit data directly for the 68000 and also places screen data onto a separate bus for the screen refresh chip. This operation only steals 8-18% of the available true CPU time. Further into the hardware, the 520ST has three serial ports, RS-232, midi, and keyboard. All of these are handled separately from the concern of the 68000 and all in hardware. The 520ST has a 68901 interrupt controller that keeps track of 16 separate events in the system with very little intervention of the CPU (this chip is really a necessity in a true 68000 architecture and is missing in the Amiga). Now, the best feature and performer in the ST design is the custom disk DMA controller which transfers data to the RAM without using the CPU and does this at a rate of 1.3Megabytes per second! This IC also helps the Western Digital floppy controller and makes for the fastest micro computer disk access that I have ever seen. The ST brings in a 32K file in less than 4 seconds, including drive start up, directory search, etc. The Amiga takes almost 20 seconds!! Maybe you like waiting, I don't. Not to mention the optimized set-up that the DMA chip has for adding low-cost, fast peripherals like Hard drives and CD Roms. The Amiga uses the amiga has a non-standard disk configuration and does much of the disk support in software (ie. slow). The drives have slightly more capacity than the the ST's DS drives (880K to 720K) but this is at the expense of speed. The Amiga directory format (or lack of) is done much like a commodore-64. In fact, to get a directory, the Amiga goes out and finds a program called DIR, loads it and goes back searching! Now that I have started into the topic of software, I have more bad news for you. Intuition is graphically and color-wise more advanced than GEM or the MAC but fails to perform as a real user interface. The windows are poorly configured and move with flicker. I rate the MAC slightly higher then GEM in usefulness but GEM on the ST is much faster and more predictable for the user. The Amiga OS(s) are full of bugs and are clumsy to use after using GEM for 3 months. As far as real software goes, the ST already has many useful programs and there are more developers working on ST projects than Amiga. (I hope plan on mostly games!)... As a programmer, I found the 520ST documentation to be very well written and complete. And, if something was unclear, Atari was very open and very helpful. On the other hand, the Amiga has a great deal of documentation but things change everyday. Worst of all, you have to be God or Electronic Arts to talk to anyone at Commodore. They simply are not professional people. To finish off here, I would like to say a couple of BAD things about the ST... The case could be nicer and they should have picked easier-to- find connectors for the monitor and drive ports. Besides that, I think (and over 50,000 others think) that the Atari 520ST is most powerful and elegantly configured computer ever made. Also, I feel that Atari will sell more computers than any other company has ever sold to date. This is not solely due to marketing hype (like the C-64) but from true value and power that was never offered before. Save $1000 and take a vacation next summer.... buy an ST. Sincerely, John DeMar, QMI.