How many Mac users in the UK?
PeterD
are 30 million Mac users in the UK, but I'd like to have some basis for
claiming that. Anyone have any idea how many Macs there are here?
--
Pd
SteveH
Highly unlikely given a population of around 60 million......
I suppose it's _possible_ that there's 30 million Macs out there, but
only a small proportion of those will be PPC systems, which is likely to
blow your argument out of the water also.
--
Steve H 'You're not a real petrolhead unless you've owned an Alfa Romeo'
http://www.italiancar.co.uk - Honda VFR800 - MZ ETZ300
VW Golf GL Cabrio - Alfa 75 TS - Nissan Primera 2.0SLXi - COSOC KOTL
BoTAFOT #87 - BoTAFOF #18 - MRO # - UKRMSBC #7 - Apostle #2 - YTC #
Woody
I have 7 working macs. Therefore by simple extrapolation I can tell that
there must be at least 420 million macs in the country :)
--
Woody
Steve
1gb5zlp.1wqyhw019szbpwN%pd....@dsl.pipex.invalid, "PeterD"
<pd....@dsl.pipex.invalid> wrote:
Well, there's me to start off with. Anyone else?
(This thread could get quite big)
:-)
Steve.
Mike Jenkins
According to this:
http://www.macnn.com/news/21925&startNumber=10
Apple have a 2.5% marketshare in the UK as of November 2003.
--
Mike Jenkins
Dreamcast / Gamecube FAQs - http://www.kwik-e-mart.org
Mike's Auctions: http://makeashorterlink.com/?F20712757
Bella Jones
We could make it grow quicker by declaring the number of people we know
who own a Mac.
--
bellajonez at yahoo dot co dot uk
PeterD
> PeterD <pd....@dsl.pipex.invalid> wrote:
>
> > I want to make the case for a multi-platform CD by pointing out there
> > are 30 million Mac users in the UK, but I'd like to have some basis for
> > claiming that. Anyone have any idea how many Macs there are here?
>
> Highly unlikely given a population of around 60 million......
I know. Just being hopeful.
> I suppose it's _possible_ that there's 30 million Macs out there, but
> only a small proportion of those will be PPC systems, which is likely to
> blow your argument out of the water also.
Didn't I mention 68000 as one of the platforms I want this CD to
support?
--
Pd
PeterD
> On 24/3/04 6:07 pm, in article
> 1gb5zlp.1wqyhw019szbpwN%pd....@dsl.pipex.invalid, "PeterD"
> <pd....@dsl.pipex.invalid> wrote:
>
> > I want to make the case for a multi-platform CD by pointing out there
> > are 30 million Mac users in the UK, but I'd like to have some basis for
> > claiming that. Anyone have any idea how many Macs there are here?
>
> Well, there's me to start off with. Anyone else?
"I asked at the interweb who uses Applemacs, and everybody did."
--
Pd
SteveH
Sorry - I sort of assumed that any dual-format CD you'd be releasing
these days would be PPC only......
Does it help that I have <counts> 8 working Macs in the house?
Steve
"Bella Jones" <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
But it wouldn't be accurate, surely there would be people counted twice?
(But, large numbers are good)
Steve
Bella Jones
> On 24/3/04 6:52 pm, in article 1gb61ps.iyfv6o1vulidxN%m...@privacy.net,
> "Bella Jones" <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
> > Steve <postm...@127.0.0.1> wrote:
> >
> >> On 24/3/04 6:07 pm, in article
> >> 1gb5zlp.1wqyhw019szbpwN%pd....@dsl.pipex.invalid, "PeterD"
> >> <pd....@dsl.pipex.invalid> wrote:
> >>
> >>> I want to make the case for a multi-platform CD by pointing out there
> >>> are 30 million Mac users in the UK, but I'd like to have some basis for
> >>> claiming that. Anyone have any idea how many Macs there are here?
> >>
> >> Well, there's me to start off with. Anyone else?
> >>
> >> (This thread could get quite big)
> >
> > We could make it grow quicker by declaring the number of people we know
> > who own a Mac.
> >
>
> But it wouldn't be accurate, surely there would be people counted twice?
>
> (But, large numbers are good)
I actually sent that post before meaning to. There is probably a fairly
good '6 degrees' factor here, as anywhere, so sooner or later we would
find we knew Mac-owners in common. And PC owners as well. And
non-computer owners too. Hell, We Are One.
;-)
Chris N
your target market, unless your making a free cd for the cornflake packets
or something
Chris
"Mike Jenkins" <usenet_...@kwik-e-mart.org> wrote in message
news:1gb61jw.tn4mkqtkxmyoN%usenet_...@kwik-e-mart.org...
Peter Ceresole
m...@privacy.net (Bella Jones) wrote:
>Hell, We Are One.
Speak for youself, lady.
--
Peter
Bonge Boo!
<postm...@127.0.0.1> wrote:
>> I want to make the case for a multi-platform CD by pointing out there
>> are 30 million Mac users in the UK, but I'd like to have some basis for
>> claiming that. Anyone have any idea how many Macs there are here?
>
> Well, there's me to start off with. Anyone else?
>
> (This thread could get quite big)
Depends what you are going to author with; but if you use PDF, HTML, Flash
or Director making it "make compatibile" is no more difficult that pressing
a button.....
PeterD
> > Didn't I mention 68000 as one of the platforms I want this CD to
> > support?
>
> Sorry - I sort of assumed that any dual-format CD you'd be releasing
> these days would be PPC only......
Did I mention I like both kinds of music - country AND western?
Seriously, when I say multi-platform, I mean it must be readable in a
Commodore 64 tape drive, and a CP/M 8" drive, as well as a TRS-80 ROM
read/writer.
No, actually seriously, OS9, OSX, Windahz 95, 98, 2000, Me, XP, NT,
Linux, VMS and Burroughs 8000 would do.
--
Pd
PeterD
Well the problem is that the moron who put the CD together did it with
Flash and somehow managed to make it Windahz only.
The files are .swf and will open in Quicktime Player, the mouse turns
into a browser hand over the buttons, the buttons click, but the wmv
movies never load, presumably because they're wmv.
Quicktime or MSIE or Safari will play the .swf,
WMP or VLC or XPlayer will play the wmv,
but nothing seems to be able to play the swf AND the wmv.
Shite bloody format.
Don't Macromedia do a player?
--
Pd
Luke Bosman
I know loads (x). Most are on this group but I know three who aren't.
How many people use this group (y)? Just work out y(x+3) and we'll have
the answer.
Luke
Bella Jones
> We did this two years ago, I'm sure.
We did. But it's Ok to be cyclical now and again, isn't it?
Wayne Stuart
Oi! Why no Amiga support? This is unacceptable! :-v
--
This message was brought to you by Wayne Stuart - Have a nice day!
Drew McLellan
> Well the problem is that the moron who put the CD together did it with
> Flash and somehow managed to make it Windahz only.
Gah! Flash is far and away the easiest tool to make a
platform-independent CD in. There's no excuse for it not to work. If it
doesn't he hasn't done his job properly.
drew.
Woody
David Kennedy
So that would mean, what exactly ? That 50 percent of people have a Mac?
Not sure that it's quite that high yet.
There may well have been 30 million Macs sold since 1984 though.......
--
David Kennedy
r@y
> Quicktime or MSIE or Safari will play the .swf,
> WMP or VLC or XPlayer will play the wmv,
> but nothing seems to be able to play the swf AND the wmv.
> Shite bloody format.
>
> Don't Macromedia do a player?
Yes. It's called Flash Player and is available on 99% of desktop
computers as a browser plugin. Which is why a flash movie is, or should
be, platform independent.
--
to email me please go here
http://www.dream-weaver.com/email.html
Alex Taylor
That is wrong. I have 20 working Macs in my house, therefore there must
be 1200 million Macs in the country.
--
Alex Taylor
Woody
OK - so we have a figure. there are somewhere between 420 and 1200 million
macs in the country.
So everyone must have at least one :)
--
Woody
Alienrat Design Ltd
www.alienrat.com
Jon B
I could really throw the figures out and say I'm in charge of 80 ;)
--
Jon
jon.br...@btinternet.com
PeterD
> PeterD wrote:
>
> > I want to make the case for a multi-platform CD by pointing out there
> > are 30 million Mac users in the UK, but I'd like to have some basis for
> > claiming that. Anyone have any idea how many Macs there are here?
> >
>
> So that would mean, what exactly ? That 50 percent of people have a Mac?
AAAAAARRGGHH! How ridiculous does a number have to be before people
realise it's hyperbole?
It's called exaggeration, being silly, frivolous, partisan, biased,
bending the truth, making things up...
> Not sure that it's quite that high yet.
Nor am I.
> There may well have been 30 million Macs sold since 1984 though.......
Not in the UK.
--
Pd
PeterD
Do you do Flash development? Does anyone here do Flash?
Multi-platform CD-ROM presentations combining video and a bit of text
with arrows stringing it all together?
Recommend anyone who does? I won't be paying a million for a few minutes
of animation, but it's a paying job.
--
Pd
Jim Stewart
Nope, you won't convince them to boot anything beyond 7.x
8.0 required a 68030 (040?), 9.x is PPC only, IIRC.
David Kennedy
>
>
>>There may well have been 30 million Macs sold since 1984 though.......
>
>
> Not in the UK.
>
Hyperbole..........
Sir Chewbury Gubbins
> I want to make the case for a multi-platform CD by pointing out there
> are 30 million Mac users in the UK, but I'd like to have some basis for
> claiming that. Anyone have any idea how many Macs there are here?
Are there 30 million *people* in the UK?
Choobs
--
Sir Chewbury Gubbins <chewbury...@nelefa.org>
Knight of the Wholly Gnarly Widget
http://www.nelefa.org
X Kyle M Thompson
> Are there 30 million *people* in the UK?
What? Course there are, twice that.
You might be thinking of Afghanistan :)
kt.
--
I'll get you any deal that you like
Ten sweets for a mountain bike you like
Wayne Stuart
> On Tue, 30 Mar 2004, Sir Chewbury Gubbins wrote:
> > Are there 30 million *people* in the UK?
>
> What? Course there are, twice that.
>
> You might be thinking of Afghanistan :)
A mistake often made. :-v
Rowland McDonnell
RISC OS, anyone? What about my ZX81? And surely you need to support
the full range of Apple computers - not just both sorts of Mac, but the
Apple 1, Apple ][, Apple ///, and Lisa as well?
I take it the CD will work on a 128K thin Mac?
Rowland.
--
Remove the animal for email address: rowland....@dog.physics.org
PGP pub key 0x62DCCA78 Sorry - the spam got to me
http://www.mag-uk.org
UK biker? Join MAG and help keep bureaucracy at bay
Rowland McDonnell
> PeterD <pd....@dsl.pipex.invalid> wrote:
>
> > I want to make the case for a multi-platform CD by pointing out there
> > are 30 million Mac users in the UK, but I'd like to have some basis for
> > claiming that. Anyone have any idea how many Macs there are here?
>
> I have 7 working macs. Therefore by simple extrapolation I can tell that
> there must be at least 420 million macs in the country :)
I think we've got 4 working Macs almost ready to use, and, erm,
_several_ others, all of which are in at least semi-working order[1].
The number of aksheral Macs in the UK ain't much of a guide - how many
of us have an accretion like that?
Rowland.
[1] One day, they'll be up and running and all networked and lovely
with a BBC Micro and/or Apple ][ in the equation somewhere. They all
laughed at me and said I was mad, but I'll show them, I will.
zoara
> Apple ][, Apple ///
I always wondered about this. Why the odd characters?
-z-
--
"I didn't expect the voice of karma to be called Bob."
-- Giles, uk.comp.sys.mac
PeterD
> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>
> > Apple ][, Apple ///
>
> I always wondered about this. Why the odd characters?
Think Different.
--
Pd
Rowland McDonnell
> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>
> > Apple ][, Apple ///
>
> I always wondered about this. Why the odd characters?
Ask Apple. But Apple ][ and Apple /// is `how it was always done in the
official literature'. I've got the Applesoft ][ Basic Programming
Reference Manual sat in front of me now, copyright 1978, and Applesoft
][ is what it says on the front (but not inside, I should note).
Oh boy. `Booting DOS' in the DOS 3.2 manual. How to install a disc
drive controller card and connect yer floppies. Oh boy oh boy oh boy.
Rowland.
(who also has the Apple Integer Basic manual)
Rowland McDonnell
Nope, because The Steve wasn't illiterate back in the 1970s. He knew to
think differently back then.
Chris Ridd
1gbhk2x.322me0b2dtkwN%real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet, "Rowland
McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
> zoara <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
>> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>>
>>> Apple ][, Apple ///
>>
>> I always wondered about this. Why the odd characters?
>
> Ask Apple. But Apple ][ and Apple /// is `how it was always done in the
> official literature'.
Aren't they just ASCII-art representations of the labels on the machines?
<URL:http://apple2history.org/museum/computers/a2_plusclose.html>
<URL:http://perso.wanadoo.fr/petite.collection/HTMphotos/photosAIII.htm>
Cheers,
Chris
zoara
> zoara <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
> > Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
> >
> > > Apple ][, Apple ///
> >
> > I always wondered about this. Why the odd characters?
>
> Ask Apple.
Yeah. I wondered if anyone but Apple actually knew the reason.
> But Apple ][ and Apple /// is `how it was always done in the
> official literature'. I've got the Applesoft ][ Basic Programming
> Reference Manual sat in front of me now, copyright 1978, and Applesoft
> ][ is what it says on the front (but not inside, I should note).
'k
> Oh boy. `Booting DOS' in the DOS 3.2 manual. How to install a disc
> drive controller card and connect yer floppies. Oh boy oh boy oh boy.
Heh, cool.
zoara
> Aren't they just ASCII-art representations of the labels on the machines?
>
> <URL:http://apple2history.org/museum/computers/a2_plusclose.html>
>
> <URL:http://perso.wanadoo.fr/petite.collection/HTMphotos/photosAIII.htm>
Hmmm. On the machines, they do look a lot more like stylised roman
numerals....
Chris Ridd
"zoara" <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
> Chris Ridd <chri...@mac.com> wrote:
>
>> Aren't they just ASCII-art representations of the labels on the machines?
>>
>> <URL:http://apple2history.org/museum/computers/a2_plusclose.html>
>>
>> <URL:http://perso.wanadoo.fr/petite.collection/HTMphotos/photosAIII.htm>
>
> Hmmm. On the machines, they do look a lot more like stylised roman
> numerals....
Perhaps my mind is just warped, but the Apple II logo really does look like
][ to me. The Apple III logo is more obviously /// though with quite tight
kerning :-)
Cheers,
Chris
Flavio Matani
> On 24/3/04 6:07 pm, in article
> 1gb5zlp.1wqyhw019szbpwN%pd....@dsl.pipex.invalid, "PeterD"
> <pd....@dsl.pipex.invalid> wrote:
>
> > I want to make the case for a multi-platform CD by pointing out there
> > are 30 million Mac users in the UK, but I'd like to have some basis for
> > claiming that. Anyone have any idea how many Macs there are here?
>
> Well, there's me to start off with. Anyone else?
>
> (This thread could get quite big)
it could if you put a separate posting for each mac. Jon B would be
doing nothing else for a few days
--
flavio matani
guitar tuition and performing
homepage.mac.com/flavio_matani/guitar/
Flavio Matani
> > > Seriously, when I say multi-platform, I mean it must be readable in a
> > > Commodore 64 tape drive, and a CP/M 8" drive, as well as a TRS-80 ROM
> > > read/writer.
> > >
> > > No, actually seriously, OS9, OSX, Windahz 95, 98, 2000, Me, XP, NT,
> > > Linux, VMS and Burroughs 8000 would do.
> >
> > Oi! Why no Amiga support? This is unacceptable! :-v
>
> RISC OS, anyone? What about my ZX81? And surely you need to support
> the full range of Apple computers - not just both sorts of Mac, but the
> Apple 1, Apple ][, Apple ///, and Lisa as well?
>
> I take it the CD will work on a 128K thin Mac?
no Apple GS? no Atari ST?
Flavio Matani
> "Mike Jenkins" <usenet_...@kwik-e-mart.org> wrote in message
> news:1gb61jw.tn4mkqtkxmyoN%usenet_...@kwik-e-mart.org...
> > PeterD <pd....@dsl.pipex.invalid> wrote:
> >
> > > I want to make the case for a multi-platform CD by pointing out there
> > > are 30 million Mac users in the UK, but I'd like to have some basis for
> > > claiming that. Anyone have any idea how many Macs there are here?
> >
> > According to this:
> >
> > http://www.macnn.com/news/21925&startNumber=10
> >
> > Apple have a 2.5% marketshare in the UK as of November 2003.
> >
> > --
> I think the more important thing to investigate is the % of mac users in
> your target market, unless your making a free cd for the cornflake packets
> or something
>
> Chris
now there's a thought
Flavio Matani
> >> So that would mean, what exactly ? That 50 percent of people have a Mac?
> >
> > AAAAAARRGGHH! How ridiculous does a number have to be before people
> > realise it's hyperbole?
> > It's called exaggeration, being silly, frivolous, partisan, biased,
> > bending the truth, making things up...
>
> The word you're looking for, Peter, is 'Marketing'.
second time you mention this in this thread... obsession?:)
Flavio Matani
> X Kyle M Thompson <Ky...@buggrit.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 30 Mar 2004, Sir Chewbury Gubbins wrote:
> > > Are there 30 million *people* in the UK?
> >
> > What? Course there are, twice that.
> >
> > You might be thinking of Afghanistan :)
>
> A mistake often made. :-v
or worse. There's Watford high street on a week-end night, where only
the brave dare thread (and the drunk louts and their screeching
screaming girlfriends, and the club bouncers with no neck and suits two
sizes two small and the police in vans in all the side streets waiting
to march down in riot gear....)
Jon B
> Steve <postm...@127.0.0.1> wrote:
>
> > On 24/3/04 6:07 pm, in article
> > 1gb5zlp.1wqyhw019szbpwN%pd....@dsl.pipex.invalid, "PeterD"
> > <pd....@dsl.pipex.invalid> wrote:
> >
> > > I want to make the case for a multi-platform CD by pointing out there
> > > are 30 million Mac users in the UK, but I'd like to have some basis for
> > > claiming that. Anyone have any idea how many Macs there are here?
> >
> > Well, there's me to start off with. Anyone else?
> >
> > (This thread could get quite big)
>
>
> it could if you put a separate posting for each mac. Jon B would be
> doing nothing else for a few days
And then if we get the person from Virginia Tech involved, he might be
able to do it quicker, at least theirs are all in one room, mine are
spread all over the UK, the furthest one being down on the south coast,
the most northerly I think is just north of Edinburgh.
--
Jon
jon.br...@btinternet.com
zoara
> Sir Chewbury Gubbins wrote:
> > PeterD <pd....@dsl.pipex.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >> I want to make the case for a multi-platform CD by pointing out there
> >> are 30 million Mac users in the UK, but I'd like to have some basis for
> >> claiming that. Anyone have any idea how many Macs there are here?
> >
> > Are there 30 million *people* in the UK?
>
> There are 6 million souls.
Ah, "souls".
PeterD
S'not warped, that's exactly what it's supposed to look like.
And was often written that way too.
--
Pd
PeterD
> I take it the CD will work on a 128K thin Mac?
Absolutely, with a couple of notes:
1. You have to manually trim the CD to the size of a 3.5" floppy, and
encase it in the appropriate plastic sleeve.
2. Thin Mac? Vs what? There was no 128 Fat Mac.
--
Pd
Rowland McDonnell
> Chris Ridd <chri...@mac.com> wrote:
>
> > Aren't they just ASCII-art representations of the labels on the machines?
More or less. But why did they chose those labels and then choose to
represent 'em like that in publicity material? That's the query for
Apple.
> > <URL:http://apple2history.org/museum/computers/a2_plusclose.html>
> >
> > <URL:http://perso.wanadoo.fr/petite.collection/HTMphotos/photosAIII.htm>
>
> Hmmm. On the machines, they do look a lot more like stylised roman
> numerals....
Not on the Apple ][, they don't. At least not on the two in my loft.
I'm not sure I ever saw an Apple /// in the flesh. Apple 1s didn't come
with cases (or power supplies, keyboards, etc.)
Rowland.
Rowland McDonnell
> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>
> > > > Seriously, when I say multi-platform, I mean it must be readable in a
> > > > Commodore 64 tape drive, and a CP/M 8" drive, as well as a TRS-80 ROM
> > > > read/writer.
> > > >
> > > > No, actually seriously, OS9, OSX, Windahz 95, 98, 2000, Me, XP, NT,
> > > > Linux, VMS and Burroughs 8000 would do.
> > >
> > > Oi! Why no Amiga support? This is unacceptable! :-v
> >
> > RISC OS, anyone? What about my ZX81? And surely you need to support
> > the full range of Apple computers - not just both sorts of Mac, but the
> > Apple 1, Apple ][, Apple ///, and Lisa as well?
> >
> > I take it the CD will work on a 128K thin Mac?
>
> no Apple GS? no Atari ST?
It's Apple ][ GS, innit? And yes, no Atari ST. Atari computers were
dreadful if you ask me. Underpowered, overpriced, and junky[1]. Most
of the old-style home micros from the US were a bit pants - the Apple ][
being an honourable exception.
Rowland.
[1] ISTR £200ish would get you a Commodore Vic 20 at the same time £235
would get you a BBC Model A (launch price, before they went up to £299).
The Vic 20 gave you all the power, capacity, and flexibility of a ZX81
with an expensive case, proper keyboard, built-in cassette drive - at
merely four times the price, which put it in the `expensive' home
computer price range when it belonged in the `cheap' home computer price
range.
X Kyle M Thompson
> > Perhaps my mind is just warped, but the Apple II logo really does look like
> > ][ to me. The Apple III logo is more obviously /// though with quite tight
> > kerning :-)
>
> S'not warped, that's exactly what it's supposed to look like.
> And was often written that way too.
Was it someone here I was having this discussion with on
Wikipedia after I changed all instances of ][ to II and /// to
III in the Apple section? Yonks ago, mind.
Flavio Matani
> > > RISC OS, anyone? What about my ZX81? And surely you need to support
> > > the full range of Apple computers - not just both sorts of Mac, but the
> > > Apple 1, Apple ][, Apple ///, and Lisa as well?
> > >
> > > I take it the CD will work on a 128K thin Mac?
> >
> > no Apple GS? no Atari ST?
>
> It's Apple ][ GS, innit? And yes, no Atari ST. Atari computers were
> dreadful if you ask me. Underpowered, overpriced, and junky[1]. Most
> of the old-style home micros from the US were a bit pants - the Apple ][
> being an honourable exception.
oh, i don't know. I had an Atari ST simply because they then (1987 or 8)
cost a third of what a Mac cost and there was no way I could afford or
justify the expense. Also the built in Midi. There are prof. musicians
around, like a member of the german electronic band Winterkälte I was
speaking to last year, who still use STs for sequencing. There is the
legend that the timing in ST midi is better than in more modern
computers. So, junky it perhaps was but it allowed me to do stuff when i
couldn't have dreamt of buying myself a Mac, when I was busking in the
tube and playing cheap restaurants (although the way things are going i
can see i'll probably have to busk in the tube and play cheap
restaurants again....).
in the old days it used to be said that you first needed to think what
you needed to do with the computer, find out what applications there
were and only then consider the platform, this might be a case of that,
or rather have been then.. it's all long in the past anyway
Woody
> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>
>>>> RISC OS, anyone? What about my ZX81? And surely you need to
>>>> support the full range of Apple computers - not just both sorts of
>>>> Mac, but the Apple 1, Apple ][, Apple ///, and Lisa as well?
>>>>
>>>> I take it the CD will work on a 128K thin Mac?
>>>
>>> no Apple GS? no Atari ST?
>>
>> It's Apple ][ GS, innit? And yes, no Atari ST. Atari computers were
>> dreadful if you ask me. Underpowered, overpriced, and junky[1].
>> Most of the old-style home micros from the US were a bit pants - the
>> Apple ][ being an honourable exception.
>
> oh, i don't know. I had an Atari ST simply because they then (1987 or
> 8) cost a third of what a Mac cost and there was no way I could
> afford or justify the expense.
Same here. Actually up until I had my Atari ST(s) I had never heard of a
Macintosh and when I had it was just some overpriced american computer with
too small a screen, no built in midi ports, no games, expensive software
which was hard to find.
> Also the built in Midi. There are
> prof. musicians around, like a member of the german electronic band
> Winterkälte I was speaking to last year, who still use STs for
> sequencing. There is the legend that the timing in ST midi is better
> than in more modern computers.
Probably not legend. Most of ataris success was down to the simple idea of
including midi ports. It was the first mainstream computer with midi ports
and enough memory to do something with them. Also the interupts for the midi
ports went down deep. I would imagine that most of the ataris still in use
today are connected up to synths running cubase (or steinburg 24).
> So, junky it perhaps was but it
> allowed me to do stuff when i couldn't have dreamt of buying myself a
> Mac, when I was busking in the tube and playing cheap restaurants
> (although the way things are going i can see i'll probably have to
> busk in the tube and play cheap restaurants again....).
Me too, back in the days when I was going to london and getting annoyed
about all the atari ST owners in the tube :)
> in the old days it used to be said that you first needed to think what
> you needed to do with the computer, find out what applications there
> were and only then consider the platform, this might be a case of
> that, or rather have been then.. it's all long in the past anyway
Back in the day when there was still some inovation in hardware.
I loved my ST - I probably did more with it than any mac since.
--
Woody
Alienrat Design Ltd
www.alienrat.com
Rowland McDonnell
True, but I use both names for emphasis.
Rowland McDonnell
> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>
> > > > RISC OS, anyone? What about my ZX81? And surely you need to support
> > > > the full range of Apple computers - not just both sorts of Mac, but the
> > > > Apple 1, Apple ][, Apple ///, and Lisa as well?
> > > >
> > > > I take it the CD will work on a 128K thin Mac?
> > >
> > > no Apple GS? no Atari ST?
> >
> > It's Apple ][ GS, innit? And yes, no Atari ST. Atari computers were
> > dreadful if you ask me. Underpowered, overpriced, and junky[1]. Most
> > of the old-style home micros from the US were a bit pants - the Apple ][
> > being an honourable exception.
>
> oh, i don't know. I had an Atari ST simply because they then (1987 or 8)
> cost a third of what a Mac cost and there was no way I could afford or
> justify the expense.
So you had no need for a generally capable computer but did need
particular audio abilities. Fine. Doesn't mean Ataris were any good in
general, and it doesn't mean that Macs were the only alternative. Back
then, you might have considered an Archimedes or an Amiga - not that
I've any idea if either of 'em had the audio support you clearly needed.
>Also the built in Midi. There are prof. musicians
> around, like a member of the german electronic band Winterkälte I was
> speaking to last year, who still use STs for sequencing.
Alastair Cooke used a manual typewriter up until the end. Does that
mean computers have no role in text processing? Or does that mean that
Cooke didn't have a use for the extra abilities (and problems...) of a
computer on his desk?
>There is the
> legend that the timing in ST midi is better than in more modern
> computers.
Could well be. It's easy to do that with dedicated hardware and an OS
set up to get it to work properly. It's not at all hard - but put
things in context: you can buy a watch for a fiver that'll keep near
perfect time. So why doesn't this Mac with its dedicated clock chip
keep time at all well? Shite design and shoddy components in a computer
that cost the far side of two grand. It's a sick joke if you ask me.
> So, junky it perhaps was but it allowed me to do stuff when i
> couldn't have dreamt of buying myself a Mac,
Could be, but what about an Amiga? Dunno about the midi stuff - maybe
that was the `thing' that sold Ataris. If so, you bought what was right
for you at that time - but just because Ataris were good at audio work,
doesn't mean they were any good as general purpose computers.
> when I was busking in the
> tube and playing cheap restaurants (although the way things are going i
> can see i'll probably have to busk in the tube and play cheap
> restaurants again....).
<grin> That good, eh?
> in the old days it used to be said that you first needed to think what
> you needed to do with the computer, find out what applications there
> were and only then consider the platform,
I don't think anyone's *ever* done that in the history of everything.
Far too rational for human beings.
> this might be a case of that,
> or rather have been then.. it's all long in the past anyway
In the old days - by which I mean the late 1970s and early 1980s, which
*is* the old days in home micro terms, orright? - you didn't do that.
There were no available applications. Oh, you could buy some software -
people sold programs, but no-one talked about `applications'; and in any
case, you bought a computer to `learn about computers', fiddle about,
see what you could do with it. The commercial application software was
generally not very good. I wrote my own software for the most part -
although I obviously had a bought version of Acornsoft's `Defender' back
in the days before they realised that Williams was probably going to
object to their blatent rip-off of a trademark...
Back in those days, you looked at the computers available and picked
whichever one appeared to be most capable and likely to be around in
another year or two. *Then* you tried to do something with it. If
anyone had analysed what they `needed' a ZX81 or a BBC Micro for, they'd
never have bought the things.
Rowland.
Woody
> Flavio Matani <flavio_matani...@mac.com> wrote:
>
>> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>>
>>>>> RISC OS, anyone? What about my ZX81? And surely you need to
>>>>> support the full range of Apple computers - not just both sorts
>>>>> of Mac, but the Apple 1, Apple ][, Apple ///, and Lisa as well?
>>>>>
>>>>> I take it the CD will work on a 128K thin Mac?
>>>>
>>>> no Apple GS? no Atari ST?
>>>
>>> It's Apple ][ GS, innit? And yes, no Atari ST. Atari computers
>>> were dreadful if you ask me. Underpowered, overpriced, and
>>> junky[1]. Most of the old-style home micros from the US were a bit
>>> pants - the Apple ][ being an honourable exception.
>>
>> oh, i don't know. I had an Atari ST simply because they then (1987
>> or 8) cost a third of what a Mac cost and there was no way I could
>> afford or justify the expense.
>
> So you had no need for a generally capable computer but did need
> particular audio abilities. Fine. Doesn't mean Ataris were any good
> in general, and it doesn't mean that Macs were the only alternative.
No, it doesn't, but they were. Macs really weren't an alternative being very
overpriced and uncommon. The only real alternative was the Amiga
> Back then, you might have considered an Archimedes or an Amiga - not
> that I've any idea if either of 'em had the audio support you clearly
> needed.
The Archimedes came a bit later but was not cheap (although technically much
better suffered from the normal UK manufacturing problems and less available
software).
It didn't initially have the audio capabilities, but then it didn't have a
serial port either unless you upgraded it (ie, put the serial driver chip in
the socket - they wanted to save money).
>> So, junky it perhaps was but it allowed me to do stuff when i
>> couldn't have dreamt of buying myself a Mac,
>
> Could be, but what about an Amiga? Dunno about the midi stuff - maybe
> that was the `thing' that sold Ataris.
It was certainly one of the things. The monochrome monitor was another thing
and so was the price difference between an Amiga and an ST
> If so, you bought what was
> right for you at that time - but just because Ataris were good at
> audio work, doesn't mean they were any good as general purpose
> computers.
But they were fine general purpose computers.
> my own software for the most part - although I obviously had a bought
> version of Acornsoft's `Defender' back in the days before they
> realised that Williams was probably going to object to their blatent
> rip-off of a trademark...
It was good though.
Ian McCall
"Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote in message
news:1gbl9lx.pzs5191948hgwN%real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet...
> So you had no need for a generally capable computer but did need
> particular audio abilities. Fine. Doesn't mean Ataris were any good in
> general, and it doesn't mean that Macs were the only alternative.
Ah, but they were. The Amiga was a better games machine and graphics box,
and its built-in sound was far better too. But...it didn't have the mono
monitor that the ST could get. That 'hi-res' (well, it was in 1992...) mono
monitor was superb, and if you were using your machine as more than just a
games box it made a massive difference to how you worked. Plus GEM had an
overall nicer look than the Amiga's widget sets, so the end result was that
professional level software always looked drastically better on a hi-res ST
than on any other box except the then unimaginably expensive mono Macs. And
you got round that, of course, by running a Mac emulator. My STFM was
upgraded to 1Mb and had a Mac emulator plus a hardware 16Mhz 286 inside it
for PC emulation. Also CPM and Minix. It was, until the advent of my 12"
Powerbook, the best and most productive machine I've ever used by far.
> >Also the built in Midi. There are prof. musicians
> > around, like a member of the german electronic band Winterkälte I was
> > speaking to last year, who still use STs for sequencing.
>
> Alastair Cooke used a manual typewriter up until the end. Does that
> mean computers have no role in text processing? Or does that mean that
> Cooke didn't have a use for the extra abilities (and problems...) of a
> computer on his desk?
Unless you used Multidesk, the ST was a single-tasking beast. Again, there's
something about this that just helps you concentrate: just your music
sequencer in front of you and nothing else, and no flashy graphical effects
to distract you only hard, crisp mono. Don't laugh at this advantag - I
often think of dipping into eBay to get an 1040ST and a mono monitor just to
do MIDI sequencing again. There's more powerful software available on the
Mac (and PC), but for me somehow I tend to lose concentration in those
environments whereas I never did on the ST.
> Could be, but what about an Amiga? Dunno about the midi stuff - maybe
> that was the `thing' that sold Ataris. If so, you bought what was right
> for you at that time - but just because Ataris were good at audio work,
> doesn't mean they were any good as general purpose computers.
See above - they most certainly were good as general purpose computers.
Calamus rivalled the best DTP that the Mac had. Signum was an excellent
document processor. Programming languages could be had for free or very
cheap (£20 for a C compiler - bargain at the time). MIDI software was coming
out of the machine's ears. You could network them direct from the MIDI port
(bit of freeware needed). PC floppies could be read without trouble (later
versions could also format). And they could emulate anything else around
with the exception of the Amiga, in the case of the Mac the resulting
machine would actually run faster than the equivalent real Apple box (that
changed with the 68030, of course). For non-graphics work, they were very
sliightly faster than the Amiga as well (clocks peed difference).
Downside? Naff keyboard - I seem to remember doing something about that, but
I can't remember what it was. Single tasking (but see earlier in the post as
to why that's not necessarily the disadvantage you might think it to be).
In fact, aaargh! Don't do this to me. I can hear the siren voice of Ebay
calling even as I type...
Cheers,
Ian
Flavio Matani
> "Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote in message
> news:1gbl9lx.pzs5191948hgwN%real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet...
>
> > So you had no need for a generally capable computer but did need
> > particular audio abilities. Fine. Doesn't mean Ataris were any good in
> > general, and it doesn't mean that Macs were the only alternative.
>
> Ah, but they were. The Amiga was a better games machine and graphics box,
> and its built-in sound was far better too. But...it didn't have the mono
> monitor that the ST could get. That 'hi-res' (well, it was in 1992...) mono
> monitor was superb, a
1988, even!
Wayne Stuart
> Flavio Matani <flavio_matani...@mac.com> wrote:
>
> > oh, i don't know. I had an Atari ST simply because they then (1987 or 8)
> > cost a third of what a Mac cost and there was no way I could afford or
> > justify the expense.
>
> So you had no need for a generally capable computer but did need
> particular audio abilities. Fine. Doesn't mean Ataris were any good in
> general, and it doesn't mean that Macs were the only alternative. Back
> then, you might have considered an Archimedes or an Amiga - not that
> I've any idea if either of 'em had the audio support you clearly needed.
The ST came with single in, out, and thru connectors. A MIDI interface
could be bought for the Amiga that had multiple connectors for £25.
Hardly a massive investment, but it was enough for Atari to get its foot
in the door first.
From then, most followed the masses by adopted the ST in their studio -
kinda like most people use PCs today, not necessarily because they're
the best, but because everyone else has - but I recall reading at the
time that some music studios actually broke with tradition, and adopted
the Amiga in their studios. They preferred the multitasking environment
of Amiga OS to the comparatively simplistic ST GEM.
For the home hobbyist musician, the Amiga was probably the better choice
overall. It had the infinitely superior built in sound (the ST after
all had basically the same sound chip as the Amstrad CPC), which could
play samples, then mixed with the sound of a cheap FM based keyboard.
Plus it had the excellent Music-X sequencer; a snip at £50, compared to
the hundreds of pounds for the so-called professional sequencers, which
in some areas it clearly outperformed. Not forgetting tracker music
(MED and Soundtracker), which was impossible with the ST's square wave
beeper.
And then when you've finished making music, you had the best games to
wind down with! How cool is that? ;-)
> Could be, but what about an Amiga? Dunno about the midi stuff - maybe
> that was the `thing' that sold Ataris. If so, you bought what was right
> for you at that time - but just because Ataris were good at audio work,
> doesn't mean they were any good as general purpose computers.
I remember the first time I saw an ST at work. After using a BBC,
Electron, and Atari 8 bit, I distinctly remember being hugely
unimpressed. This was not the quantum leap we had been led to believe
was coming. The Amiga on the other hand, blew my socks off from day
one! I'll be a soapbox mounting advocate of it for the rest of my days.
:-)
--
This message was brought to you by Wayne Stuart - Have a nice day!
Rowland McDonnell
> Rowland McDonnell wrote:
> > Flavio Matani <flavio_matani...@mac.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
> >>
> >>>>> RISC OS, anyone? What about my ZX81? And surely you need to
> >>>>> support the full range of Apple computers - not just both sorts
> >>>>> of Mac, but the Apple 1, Apple ][, Apple ///, and Lisa as well?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I take it the CD will work on a 128K thin Mac?
> >>>>
> >>>> no Apple GS? no Atari ST?
> >>>
> >>> It's Apple ][ GS, innit? And yes, no Atari ST. Atari computers
> >>> were dreadful if you ask me. Underpowered, overpriced, and
> >>> junky[1]. Most of the old-style home micros from the US were a bit
> >>> pants - the Apple ][ being an honourable exception.
> >>
> >> oh, i don't know. I had an Atari ST simply because they then (1987
> >> or 8) cost a third of what a Mac cost and there was no way I could
> >> afford or justify the expense.
> >
> > So you had no need for a generally capable computer but did need
> > particular audio abilities. Fine. Doesn't mean Ataris were any good
> > in general, and it doesn't mean that Macs were the only alternative.
>
> No, it doesn't, but they were. Macs really weren't an alternative being very
> overpriced and uncommon. The only real alternative was the Amiga
Why not Arcs? Macs were obviously beyond any normal person's pocket at
the time in the UK at least.
> > Back then, you might have considered an Archimedes or an Amiga - not
> > that I've any idea if either of 'em had the audio support you clearly
> > needed.
>
> The Archimedes came a bit later but was not cheap
No, but Atari STs weren't cheap either, were they? 1985 plays 1987 on
launch dates (85 ST/ 87 Arc).
> (although technically much
> better suffered from the normal UK manufacturing problems
?
>and less available
> software).
Obviously, what with it being new and the ST having been out for two
years at the time - but on a site about the business, I read this:
<URL:http://www.mcmordie.co.uk/acornhistory/archist.shtml>
`The original operating system was called Arthur. It came with an
upgraded version of BBC BASIC, BBC BASIC V, containing many enhancements
over BBC BASIC IV, a simple text editor, a paint package, Maestro (a
music editor) and 65Host (a 6502 emulator that allowed most BBC Micro
programs written in 6502 Assembler to be run on the Archimedes).'
Seems there was plenty of software available, what with Arcs being able
to run most Beeb software.
(I stopped the quotation just before the mention of bugs - Arthur was
apparently very buggy).
> It didn't initially have the audio capabilities, but then it didn't have a
> serial port either unless you upgraded it (ie, put the serial driver chip in
> the socket - they wanted to save money).
Huh? I think you misremember - *Econet* was an optional extra:
<URL:http://www.mcmordie.co.uk/acornhistory/archist.shtml>
`The Archimedes was released in mid-1987. There were initially four
different models in the range, the A305 and A310, and the A410 (never
really available) and A440. They all shared the same basic hardware -
the ARM2 processor and the three support chips (MEMC, the memory
controller, VIDC, the display and sound controller and IOC, the I/O
controller). All machines also had mono and colour monitor outputs, a
printer port, a 9-pin serial port and a headphone socket. There was also
provision for a standard Econet interface to be fitted.'
> >> So, junky it perhaps was but it allowed me to do stuff when i
> >> couldn't have dreamt of buying myself a Mac,
> >
> > Could be, but what about an Amiga? Dunno about the midi stuff - maybe
> > that was the `thing' that sold Ataris.
>
> It was certainly one of the things. The monochrome monitor was another thing
> and so was the price difference between an Amiga and an ST
What was that like?
> > If so, you bought what was
> > right for you at that time - but just because Ataris were good at
> > audio work, doesn't mean they were any good as general purpose
> > computers.
>
> But they were fine general purpose computers.
Not from what I saw. They always struck me as slow and clunky.
> > my own software for the most part - although I obviously had a bought
> > version of Acornsoft's `Defender' back in the days before they
> > realised that Williams was probably going to object to their blatent
> > rip-off of a trademark...
>
> It was good though.
I was always deeply unimpressed by them.
<URL:http://www.lowendmac.com/clones/atari.html>
`The Atari ST line was created by Jack Tramiel, former head of
Commodore, with the goal of creating the "next Commodore 64," probably
the most popular computer of the late 80s. The 1040ST was the first 1 MB
personal computer and a real temptation to those who wanted a Mac or
Amiga -- but didn't have enough money.'
`The next Commodore 64' - another overpriced, clunky, underpowered pile
of junk if you ask me.
Rowland McDonnell
> "Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>
> > So you had no need for a generally capable computer but did need
> > particular audio abilities. Fine. Doesn't mean Ataris were any good in
> > general, and it doesn't mean that Macs were the only alternative.
>
> Ah, but they were. The Amiga was a better games machine and graphics box,
> and its built-in sound was far better too. But...it didn't have the mono
> monitor that the ST could get.
But you could buy one for your Amiga if you wanted to, couldn't you?
> That 'hi-res' (well, it was in 1992...) mono
> monitor was superb, and if you were using your machine as more than just a
> games box it made a massive difference to how you worked. Plus GEM had an
> overall nicer look than the Amiga's widget sets, so the end result was that
> professional level software always looked drastically better
Ah! Yes. Looked better to some people's eyes. Yes, that explains the
success.
> on a hi-res ST
> than on any other box except the then unimaginably expensive mono Macs. And
> you got round that, of course, by running a Mac emulator. My STFM was
> upgraded to 1Mb and had a Mac emulator plus a hardware 16Mhz 286 inside it
> for PC emulation. Also CPM and Minix. It was, until the advent of my 12"
> Powerbook, the best and most productive machine I've ever used by far.
Coo. Okay. That'll do.
> > >Also the built in Midi. There are prof. musicians
> > > around, like a member of the german electronic band Winterkälte I was
> > > speaking to last year, who still use STs for sequencing.
> >
> > Alastair Cooke used a manual typewriter up until the end. Does that
> > mean computers have no role in text processing? Or does that mean that
> > Cooke didn't have a use for the extra abilities (and problems...) of a
> > computer on his desk?
>
> Unless you used Multidesk, the ST was a single-tasking beast. Again, there's
> something about this that just helps you concentrate:
Not me.
> just your music
> sequencer in front of you and nothing else, and no flashy graphical effects
> to distract you only hard, crisp mono. Don't laugh at this advantag
I wasn't.
> - I
> often think of dipping into eBay to get an 1040ST and a mono monitor just to
> do MIDI sequencing again. There's more powerful software available on the
> Mac (and PC), but for me somehow I tend to lose concentration in those
> environments whereas I never did on the ST.
Righto - interesting.
> > Could be, but what about an Amiga? Dunno about the midi stuff - maybe
> > that was the `thing' that sold Ataris. If so, you bought what was right
> > for you at that time - but just because Ataris were good at audio work,
> > doesn't mean they were any good as general purpose computers.
>
> See above - they most certainly were good as general purpose computers.
But they were underpowered, rather clunky, and overpriced for what you
got - or so I thought. Reading the history here:
<URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST>
implies I was right about the clunkiness. But I point blank don't
believe this:
`On the plus side the ST was less expensive than most machines,
including Macintosh Plus, and tended to be faster than most'
Ataris always struck me as sluggish.
> Calamus rivalled the best DTP that the Mac had. Signum was an excellent
> document processor. Programming languages could be had for free or very
> cheap (£20 for a C compiler - bargain at the time). MIDI software was coming
> out of the machine's ears. You could network them direct from the MIDI port
> (bit of freeware needed). PC floppies could be read without trouble (later
> versions could also format). And they could emulate anything else around
> with the exception of the Amiga,
Doubt that. Sinclair and BBC machines too? How about PDP-11s? I knew
a chap with a PDP-11 in 1990. Yes of course he'd scavenged it from the
university when it flung it out as being too obsolete to bother selling.
> in the case of the Mac the resulting
> machine would actually run faster than the equivalent real Apple box (that
> changed with the 68030, of course). For non-graphics work, they were very
> sliightly faster than the Amiga as well (clocks peed difference).
Yeah, but for graphics work, STs were slow unless you got one of the
later top end machines.
> Downside? Naff keyboard - I seem to remember doing something about that, but
> I can't remember what it was. Single tasking (but see earlier in the post as
> to why that's not necessarily the disadvantage you might think it to be).
The first computer I used was a Nascom II back in the late 1970s. I
know about the pros and cons of various ways of working, and for me,
with what I do, I need something that at least allows me to have
multiple files open in multiple apps simultaneously.
> In fact, aaargh! Don't do this to me. I can hear the siren voice of Ebay
> calling even as I type...
Go on, you know you want to. I have BBC Micros, Apple ][s, and a ZX81
in the loft, not to mention a huge pile of obsolete Macs in a wardrobe.
PeterD
> `The next Commodore 64' - another overpriced, clunky, underpowered pile
> of junk if you ask me.
Whereas I wrote comms software on a Commodore 64 that dialled up shops,
polled up to 99 cash registers, downloaded their daily transactions,
collated, analysed and printed a report showing stock levels and which
products required restocking, all for about a thousandth of the price
NCR were charging to do far less.
The 64 was, for all its faults, a very capable machine.
--
Pd
Woody
> Ian McCall <i...@eruvia.org> wrote:
>
> > "Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
> >
> > > So you had no need for a generally capable computer but did need
> > > particular audio abilities. Fine. Doesn't mean Ataris were any good in
> > > general, and it doesn't mean that Macs were the only alternative.
> >
> > Ah, but they were. The Amiga was a better games machine and graphics box,
> > and its built-in sound was far better too. But...it didn't have the mono
> > monitor that the ST could get.
>
> But you could buy one for your Amiga if you wanted to, couldn't you?
Well, not really. You could buy a mono monitor but it was just a
monochrome version of a color one. On the ST you could buy a monitor
which enabled Hi-res mode which was just monochrome.
>
> > That 'hi-res' (well, it was in 1992...) mono
> > monitor was superb, and if you were using your machine as more than just a
> > games box it made a massive difference to how you worked. Plus GEM had an
> > overall nicer look than the Amiga's widget sets, so the end result was that
> > professional level software always looked drastically better
>
> Ah! Yes. Looked better to some people's eyes. Yes, that explains the
> success.
No, the cost and timing explained its success. Although I prefered
working with it to the Amiga.
> > > Could be, but what about an Amiga? Dunno about the midi stuff - maybe
> > > that was the `thing' that sold Ataris. If so, you bought what was right
> > > for you at that time - but just because Ataris were good at audio work,
> > > doesn't mean they were any good as general purpose computers.
> >
> > See above - they most certainly were good as general purpose computers.
>
> But they were underpowered, rather clunky, and overpriced for what you
> got - or so I thought. Reading the history here:
>
> <URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST>
>
> implies I was right about the clunkiness. But I point blank don't
> believe this:
>
> `On the plus side the ST was less expensive than most machines,
> including Macintosh Plus, and tended to be faster than most'
It was certainly faster than the first mac I saw. Liked the box, hated
pissing around with the disks and it seemed slow (and very very
overpriced) with a low res screen
> > Calamus rivalled the best DTP that the Mac had. Signum was an excellent
> > document processor. Programming languages could be had for free or very
> > cheap (£20 for a C compiler - bargain at the time). MIDI software was coming
> > out of the machine's ears. You could network them direct from the MIDI port
> > (bit of freeware needed). PC floppies could be read without trouble (later
> > versions could also format). And they could emulate anything else around
> > with the exception of the Amiga,
>
> Doubt that. Sinclair and BBC machines too? How about PDP-11s? I knew
> a chap with a PDP-11 in 1990. Yes of course he'd scavenged it from the
> university when it flung it out as being too obsolete to bother selling.
Of course it could have done if someone had wanted to emulate a PDP-11!
> > in the case of the Mac the resulting
> > machine would actually run faster than the equivalent real Apple box (that
> > changed with the 68030, of course). For non-graphics work, they were very
> > sliightly faster than the Amiga as well (clocks peed difference).
>
> Yeah, but for graphics work, STs were slow unless you got one of the
> later top end machines.
I don't recal so.
--
Woody
Woody
> Woody <use...@alienrat.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > Rowland McDonnell wrote:
> > > Flavio Matani <flavio_matani...@mac.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>>>> RISC OS, anyone? What about my ZX81? And surely you need to
> > >>>>> support the full range of Apple computers - not just both sorts
> > >>>>> of Mac, but the Apple 1, Apple ][, Apple ///, and Lisa as well?
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> I take it the CD will work on a 128K thin Mac?
> > >>>>
> > >>>> no Apple GS? no Atari ST?
> > >>>
> > >>> It's Apple ][ GS, innit? And yes, no Atari ST. Atari computers
> > >>> were dreadful if you ask me. Underpowered, overpriced, and
> > >>> junky[1]. Most of the old-style home micros from the US were a bit
> > >>> pants - the Apple ][ being an honourable exception.
> > >>
> > >> oh, i don't know. I had an Atari ST simply because they then (1987
> > >> or 8) cost a third of what a Mac cost and there was no way I could
> > >> afford or justify the expense.
> > >
> > > So you had no need for a generally capable computer but did need
> > > particular audio abilities. Fine. Doesn't mean Ataris were any good
> > > in general, and it doesn't mean that Macs were the only alternative.
> >
> > No, it doesn't, but they were. Macs really weren't an alternative being very
> > overpriced and uncommon. The only real alternative was the Amiga
>
> Why not Arcs? Macs were obviously beyond any normal person's pocket at
> the time in the UK at least.
As I said in the following line, too expensive and too late.
I had had an ST for a while by the time the Arc sorted itself out into a
machine that was available.
> > > Back then, you might have considered an Archimedes or an Amiga - not
> > > that I've any idea if either of 'em had the audio support you clearly
> > > needed.
> >
> > The Archimedes came a bit later but was not cheap
>
> No, but Atari STs weren't cheap either, were they? 1985 plays 1987 on
> launch dates (85 ST/ 87 Arc).
I could afford an ST, I couldn't afford an Arc. Plus I had a lot of ST
software which did what I wanted.
> > (although technically much
> > better suffered from the normal UK manufacturing problems
>
> ?
Late, produced in insufficiant quantity, stupid corners cut,
> >and less available
> > software).
>
> Obviously, what with it being new and the ST having been out for two
> years at the time - but on a site about the business, I read this:
>
> <URL:http://www.mcmordie.co.uk/acornhistory/archist.shtml>
>
> `The original operating system was called Arthur. It came with an
> upgraded version of BBC BASIC, BBC BASIC V, containing many enhancements
> over BBC BASIC IV, a simple text editor, a paint package, Maestro (a
> music editor) and 65Host (a 6502 emulator that allowed most BBC Micro
> programs written in 6502 Assembler to be run on the Archimedes).'
>
> Seems there was plenty of software available, what with Arcs being able
> to run most Beeb software.
Maybe there was. I didn't see any of it and many of the software
packages I used were not available. The risc processor of the Arm was an
impressive thing but I was already happy with what I had.
> (I stopped the quotation just before the mention of bugs - Arthur was
> apparently very buggy).
>
> > It didn't initially have the audio capabilities, but then it didn't have a
> > serial port either unless you upgraded it (ie, put the serial driver chip in
> > the socket - they wanted to save money).
>
> Huh? I think you misremember - *Econet* was an optional extra:
I am sure it was, but the first arcs came without the serial chip
fitted.
>
> <URL:http://www.mcmordie.co.uk/acornhistory/archist.shtml>
I am sure that is what history said, but the first ones didn't have it.
> > >> So, junky it perhaps was but it allowed me to do stuff when i
> > >> couldn't have dreamt of buying myself a Mac,
> > >
> > > Could be, but what about an Amiga? Dunno about the midi stuff - maybe
> > > that was the `thing' that sold Ataris.
> >
> > It was certainly one of the things. The monochrome monitor was another thing
> > and so was the price difference between an Amiga and an ST
>
> What was that like?
The monitor or the price difference? Cant remember the price difference.
The amiga was the technically superior machine but it was more
expensive. The amiga also didn't have the monochrome option and was more
a graphics/game player machine. I didn't really get on with the Amiga (I
did have one later).
>
> > > If so, you bought what was
> > > right for you at that time - but just because Ataris were good at
> > > audio work, doesn't mean they were any good as general purpose
> > > computers.
> >
> > But they were fine general purpose computers.
>
> Not from what I saw. They always struck me as slow and clunky.
They were neither slow or clunky, they were a usuable capable machine.
> > > my own software for the most part - although I obviously had a bought
> > > version of Acornsoft's `Defender' back in the days before they
> > > realised that Williams was probably going to object to their blatent
> > > rip-off of a trademark...
> >
> > It was good though.
>
> I was always deeply unimpressed by them.
Probably why you didn't get one then. I was always impressed and had STs
for a number of years. Probably did more and learned more on that
computer than anything that followed it. It was the first computer I had
that could really do something (after a collection of CR/Sinclairs,
BBCs, Sharps and a few other machines).
> <URL:http://www.lowendmac.com/clones/atari.html>
>
> `The Atari ST line was created by Jack Tramiel, former head of
> Commodore, with the goal of creating the "next Commodore 64," probably
> the most popular computer of the late 80s. The 1040ST was the first 1 MB
> personal computer and a real temptation to those who wanted a Mac or
> Amiga -- but didn't have enough money.'
>
> `The next Commodore 64' - another overpriced, clunky, underpowered pile
> of junk if you ask me.
I never liked the C64 though but at the time it came out it was a good
machine. I think they mean it in popularity, not necessarily style. It
was obvioulsy aimed at the Mac, although I didn't know that then as I
hadn't seen one.
--
Woody
Chris Ridd
"Woody" <use...@alienrat.co.uk> wrote:
> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>
>> Ian McCall <i...@eruvia.org> wrote:
>>
>>> "Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>>>
>>>> So you had no need for a generally capable computer but did need
>>>> particular audio abilities. Fine. Doesn't mean Ataris were any good in
>>>> general, and it doesn't mean that Macs were the only alternative.
>>>
>>> Ah, but they were. The Amiga was a better games machine and graphics box,
>>> and its built-in sound was far better too. But...it didn't have the mono
>>> monitor that the ST could get.
>>
>> But you could buy one for your Amiga if you wanted to, couldn't you?
>
> Well, not really. You could buy a mono monitor but it was just a
> monochrome version of a color one. On the ST you could buy a monitor
> which enabled Hi-res mode which was just monochrome.
The ST hi-res mono screen was just great. Rock solid, as good as the Mac's,
and higher res (though only 640x400 :-)
Cheers,
Chris
Flavio Matani
> Ian McCall <i...@eruvia.org> wrote:
>
> > "Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
> >
> > > So you had no need for a generally capable computer but did need
> > > particular audio abilities. Fine. Doesn't mean Ataris were any good in
> > > general, and it doesn't mean that Macs were the only alternative.
> >
> > Ah, but they were. The Amiga was a better games machine and graphics box,
> > and its built-in sound was far better too. But...it didn't have the mono
> > monitor that the ST could get.
>
> But you could buy one for your Amiga if you wanted to, couldn't you?
the mono monitor for hte ST sold as many machines as the built-in MIDI,
as it was very clear, high resolution -for the time, that is, 640 x 400
sounds paltry these days but those were the days of CGA and the Hercules
displays. It had a much higher refresh rate than most other
home-computer monitors and, in those days of flickery migraiine
inducing television computing it was fantastic. It was far better suited
for things like DTP than the monitors I saw at the time on Amigas and
Archies -and most certainly than the pcs of the time. I never was into
games but i could see that the ST was not remotely as good for these as
the Amiga. But that's another side of the story...
the ST was made to a budget and it showed in many ways (the horrendous
internal sound chip, the cheap nasty keyboard, most of all the
non-existent support). It was no Apple Macinosh by any stretch, but
usable and capable it certainly was, it was no slower than the Amiga or
the Mac itself.
Ian McCall
"Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote in message
> > See above - they most certainly were good as general purpose computers.
>
> But they were underpowered, rather clunky, and overpriced for what you
> got - or so I thought. Reading the history here:
>
> <URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST>
Ah - thanks for that link, it reminded me about what it was I did to fix the
extremely poor keyboard. Spring kits - yes, that was it.
> implies I was right about the clunkiness. But I point blank don't
> believe this:
>
> `On the plus side the ST was less expensive than most machines,
> including Macintosh Plus, and tended to be faster than most'
>
> Ataris always struck me as sluggish.
Nope, they were faster at raw computation due to higher clock speed. An ST
ran at a true 8Mhz, whereas the Amiga and the Mac ran at about 7.16Mhz (but
usually claimed 8Mhz). The ST also had faster mono graphics than the Mac
Plus, and a Mac emulator used to come out with 15% more viewing space due to
the hi-res monitor and quicker execution time. The following link is to a
Google search on 'atari st mac emulation spectre', just follow a few links
to see them talk of the speed increases -
http://makeashorterlink.com/?N32411FE7
It's a horses for courses thing. ST v Amiga? The Amiga had drastically
faster sprite and blob animation obviously (in fact, until the STE blobs
couldn't exist on the ST - no blitter), but wasn't as quick at vectors or
general calculation. There's a lot the Amiga was good at, don't get me
wrong. I'm not trying to relive the semi-ancient flamewar of the late
eighties and early ninieties. It's just that a lot tends to get glossed over
in the Amiga world - the large number of incompatibilities between different
iterations of the same custom chip, the daft chip RAM/ordinary RAM
separation, the appalling floppy clicking all of the time...lots. It had
better underlying OS principles than the ST though (although stability was
poor - the legend of the Guru Meditation...), and overall the Amiga had
better hardware. Just that for some uses, clarity is all and the hi-res mode
of the ST plus the general quality of GEM's UI simply sealed it.
ST vs (contemporary mono) Mac? ST was quicker even in emulation, had more
screen space and was cheaper. But...Mac was a nice all in one design, and
had a much better keyboard. You also needed extra hardware to read Mac 800k
disks on anything other than a real Mac due to the GCR encoding (Mac has a
variable speed floppy drive, you can't fake that in software). Price for
price though, well...let's say I'm glad I'm only paying ebay prices for old
mono Mac hardware now, because at the time they were just asking silly
money.
> Doubt that. Sinclair and BBC machines too? How about PDP-11s? I knew
> a chap with a PDP-11 in 1990. Yes of course he'd scavenged it from the
> university when it flung it out as being too obsolete to bother selling.
I had a Spectrum emulator and C64 emulator, though obviously the sound was
appalling on the C64 emulator. Beeb? Had one, though it was poor. I actually
find most Beeb emulators quite poor today - seems to be a tricky beast to
get right because of all the different display modes. PDP-11? Google is your
friend - yep, the ST had one of those: http://www.weitz.de/pdp.html
> > In fact, aaargh! Don't do this to me. I can hear the siren voice of Ebay
> > calling even as I type...
>
> Go on, you know you want to. I have BBC Micros, Apple ][s, and a ZX81
> in the loft, not to mention a huge pile of obsolete Macs in a wardrobe.
Got a Spectrum and an SE/30. The SE/30 is a monstor, with 128Mb RAM, 1Gig
internal drive and ethernet. Hate to think how much that would have cost me
at that time, indeed I'm not sure if a 1Gig drive was even available. Every
other machine I've ever owned I have an emulator for. And yes, that includes
the Atari ST.
Interesting chat this one, by the way. Nice to go back to the flamewars in a
more objective way, because you don't have anything personal invested in it
anymore.
Cheers,
Ian
Rowland McDonnell
> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>
> > `The next Commodore 64' - another overpriced, clunky, underpowered pile
> > of junk if you ask me.
>
> Whereas I wrote comms software on a Commodore 64 that dialled up shops,
> polled up to 99 cash registers, downloaded their daily transactions,
> collated, analysed and printed a report showing stock levels and which
> products required restocking, all for about a thousandth of the price
> NCR were charging to do far less.
I expect so. But you could have done the same with pretty much any
other half-decent 8 bit micro of the same age.
> The 64 was, for all its faults, a very capable machine.
Not really. It had poor processing power compared to the competition -
a 1MHz 6502-alike. The Basic was crap; `OS' and Basic all in 20K ROM
(BBC micros shipped with 16K OS and 16 K Basic, and you could have up to
15 or 16 ROMs in total - remember the C64 had competition). I spotted
this at the time - 'twas annoying that Basic didn't let you access any
of the machine's fancy power, nor did the manual help out.
The text display on screen wasn't great either: 40 X 25 and that's yer
lot from what I recall and what I've just read, and it was very poor
quality text compared to the teletext 40x25 display used by the BBC
Micro (okay, okay, so I am in this case comparing the C64 to the very
best of the competition in that particular area - but why not?)
Sound was pants. Video resolution not great - 320x200 and 40x25 text
while the BBC Micro would get up to 640x256 and 80x32; all the more
impressive when you take into account the fact that the original BBC
Micros had half the RAM of the C64, although you could bolt on a shadow
RAM board to a Beeb to evade that particular problem.
The C64 shipped with a paltry set of interfaces:
User port
Serial port
ROM cartridge port
2 Joystick/paddle ports
Video port
C1530 Cassette drive interface port
As I said, not very impressive. The software side was pretty poor too:
<URL:http://simon.mooli.org.uk/LXF/C64/C64.html>
`Commodore's firmware was feeble by comparison. The 8K BASIC interpreter
was bought outright from Microsoft for the PET, making the later
machines cheap to produce but tough to program. The BASIC ignored the
extra graphics and sound chips and could only access about half the
'elephantine' 64K memory, the rest being hidden by the screen image,
ROMs, and custom chip registers.
In the absence of multi-tasking - indeed, anything that we'd now know as
an operating system - a typical C64 program is a lean, tricky,
system-hogging tour de force. The only way to program the custom chips
is to 'hit the metal', writing bytes directly to the array of 76 custom
registers, identified by cryptic five-digit numbers, with each address
often sharing several functions.'
Yer BBC micro did at least have something like an operating system, as
well as *hugely* more processing power. But back to the C64:
`The most common C64 expansion was the 1541 disk drive, slow and
eccentric but a big step up from cassette. C64 drives and printers use a
proprietary interface, with a processor, rather than a peripheral
controller, in each box. This idea came from the VIC-20 and earlier
Atari computers. It ensured that Commodore made lots of money on
add-ons, as well as computers. It kept prices high and performance low,
although third-party firms eventually muscled in with clone drives and
adapters.'
Slow and overpriced, like I said - unless you wanted to use it for
games, when the hardware sprite graphics support and sound hardware both
came into their own. Basically, it was a rip-off machine for games
players as far as I could tell.
Don't get me started on Vic 20s. Why not get a ZX81 instead?
For sure one could use a C64 if one wanted to - but you could have got
better for less money unless you really needed 32K user RAM and hardware
support for your games playing.
Since all the best games were things like Defender and Pac Man which ran
on very primitive 8 bit computers, getting decent versions working on
A.N. Other old 8 bit home micro without hardware sprite support proved
easy - Acornsoft's BBC Micro version of `Defender' was a superb clone of
the arcade version.
The scrolling games with sprite animation which the C64 was optimized
for always struck me as designed to anaesthetize the brain and I've
never played them to speak of.
Rowland McDonnell
> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>
> > Woody <use...@alienrat.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > Rowland McDonnell wrote:
> > > > Flavio Matani <flavio_matani...@mac.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
[snip]
> > > No, it doesn't, but they were. Macs really weren't an alternative
> > > being very overpriced and uncommon. The only real alternative was the
> > > Amiga
> >
> > Why not Arcs? Macs were obviously beyond any normal person's pocket at
> > the time in the UK at least.
>
> As I said in the following line, too expensive and too late.
> I had had an ST for a while by the time the Arc sorted itself out into a
> machine that was available.
Righto.
> > > > Back then, you might have considered an Archimedes or an Amiga - not
> > > > that I've any idea if either of 'em had the audio support you clearly
> > > > needed.
> > >
> > > The Archimedes came a bit later but was not cheap
> >
> > No, but Atari STs weren't cheap either, were they? 1985 plays 1987 on
> > launch dates (85 ST/ 87 Arc).
>
> I could afford an ST, I couldn't afford an Arc.
Good enough reasons.
>Plus I had a lot of ST
> software which did what I wanted.
Another good enough reason.
> > > (although technically much
> > > better suffered from the normal UK manufacturing problems
> >
> > ?
>
> Late, produced in insufficiant quantity, stupid corners cut,
Ah yes. I rememeber that.
[snip]
> > Seems there was plenty of software available, what with Arcs being able
> > to run most Beeb software.
>
> Maybe there was. I didn't see any of it
I still have lots of BBC Micro software. <shrug> There was *huge*
amounts - it apparently all ran on Arcs.
> and many of the software
> packages I used were not available. The risc processor of the Arm was an
> impressive thing but I was already happy with what I had.
Replacement wouldn't have been sensible, admittedly.
[snip]
> > > It didn't initially have the audio capabilities, but then it didn't
> > > have a serial port either unless you upgraded it (ie, put the serial
> > > driver chip in the socket - they wanted to save money).
> >
> > Huh? I think you misremember - *Econet* was an optional extra:
>
> I am sure it was, but the first arcs came without the serial chip
> fitted.
Righto. Was that really how they were *meant* to be sold, or was it
some kind of supply problem?
> > <URL:http://www.mcmordie.co.uk/acornhistory/archist.shtml>
>
> I am sure that is what history said, but the first ones didn't have it.
Okay.
[snip]
> > > It was certainly one of the things. The monochrome monitor was another
> > > thing and so was the price difference between an Amiga and an ST
> >
> > What was that like?
>
> The monitor or the price difference?
The monitor.
> Cant remember the price difference.
> The amiga was the technically superior machine but it was more
> expensive. The amiga also didn't have the monochrome option and was more
> a graphics/game player machine.
Yes, so I've heard, but the only Amigas I met `in real life' were used
by serious programming types who heard the Atari advocates banging on
just like you are, and thought it was just sour grapes because Amigas
were far better all round when compared to Atari STs (MIDI aside).
>I didn't really get on with the Amiga (I
> did have one later).
Righto.
> > > > If so, you bought what was
> > > > right for you at that time - but just because Ataris were good at
> > > > audio work, doesn't mean they were any good as general purpose
> > > > computers.
> > >
> > > But they were fine general purpose computers.
> >
> > Not from what I saw. They always struck me as slow and clunky.
>
> They were neither slow or clunky, they were a usuable capable machine.
From what I saw of them at the time, I considered them slow and clunky
> > > > my own software for the most part - although I obviously had a bought
> > > > version of Acornsoft's `Defender' back in the days before they
> > > > realised that Williams was probably going to object to their blatent
> > > > rip-off of a trademark...
> > >
> > > It was good though.
> >
> > I was always deeply unimpressed by them.
>
> Probably why you didn't get one then. I was always impressed and had STs
> for a number of years. Probably did more and learned more on that
> computer than anything that followed it. It was the first computer I had
> that could really do something (after a collection of CR/Sinclairs,
> BBCs, Sharps and a few other machines).
You can `really do' things with a BBC Micro quite easily. I wrote one
of my BSc reports on a Beeb. Top quality - LaTeX, of course. This was
practical because it was easy to network Beebs, so my BBC Micro disc was
shoved into a Beeb connected to a computer at Manchester University,
slid across the campus Ethernet to *that* lab, and off I went.
The fact that you've only got 32K RAM doesn't matter until you fill up
the, erm, 100K floppy disc in the case of the software I was using.
Those ROM sockets gave you *power*.
Not to mention control jobs. I ported a biological experiment monitor
hardware/software setup from oh God I forget what old 8 bit micro to a
BBC Micro in *1990* because the Beeb was the best machine available for
that job. They used to use a lot of Beebs for that kind of thing in
universities, but they're generally fading away now because
1) They ain't going to last forever and
2) Students these days can't use computers that don't have GUIs.
> > <URL:http://www.lowendmac.com/clones/atari.html>
> >
> > `The Atari ST line was created by Jack Tramiel, former head of
> > Commodore, with the goal of creating the "next Commodore 64," probably
> > the most popular computer of the late 80s. The 1040ST was the first 1 MB
> > personal computer and a real temptation to those who wanted a Mac or
> > Amiga -- but didn't have enough money.'
> >
> > `The next Commodore 64' - another overpriced, clunky, underpowered pile
> > of junk if you ask me.
>
> I never liked the C64 though but at the time it came out it was a good
> machine.
No it bloody wasn't! 1 MHz 6502-alike! Get out! That speed CPU went
out in the 1970s. Dog slow unless you were playing games and using the
games acceleration hardware (which is what the hardware sprite support
and sound chip were all about), crap 8K MS Basic, over-priced, hardly
any interfaces, good for nothing but games players. The C64 was
designed for ripping off low-intelligence games players from what I
could see.
>I think they mean it in popularity, not necessarily style.
The C64 wasn't that popular, was it? I know it had a niche in the games
market, but aside from that? Okay, so what do I know about the market
in the USA? C64s couldn't really cut it compared to the competition
over here, aside from in the games area.
> It
> was obvioulsy aimed at the Mac, although I didn't know that then as I
> hadn't seen one.
Uhuh.
Rowland McDonnell
> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>
> > Ian McCall <i...@eruvia.org> wrote:
> >
> > > "Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
> > >
> > > > So you had no need for a generally capable computer but did need
> > > > particular audio abilities. Fine. Doesn't mean Ataris were any good in
> > > > general, and it doesn't mean that Macs were the only alternative.
> > >
> > > Ah, but they were. The Amiga was a better games machine and graphics box,
> > > and its built-in sound was far better too. But...it didn't have the mono
> > > monitor that the ST could get.
> >
> > But you could buy one for your Amiga if you wanted to, couldn't you?
>
> Well, not really. You could buy a mono monitor but it was just a
> monochrome version of a color one. On the ST you could buy a monitor
> which enabled Hi-res mode which was just monochrome.
Ah!
> > > That 'hi-res' (well, it was in 1992...) mono monitor was superb, and
> > > if you were using your machine as more than just a games box it made a
> > > massive difference to how you worked. Plus GEM had an overall nicer
> > > look than the Amiga's widget sets, so the end result was that
> > > professional level software always looked drastically better
> >
> > Ah! Yes. Looked better to some people's eyes. Yes, that explains the
> > success.
>
> No, the cost and timing explained its success.
Not only, I wouldn't have thought.
>Although I prefered
> working with it to the Amiga.
Righto. What aspects of the Atari were better from your point of view?
> > > > Could be, but what about an Amiga? Dunno about the midi stuff - maybe
> > > > that was the `thing' that sold Ataris. If so, you bought what was right
> > > > for you at that time - but just because Ataris were good at audio work,
> > > > doesn't mean they were any good as general purpose computers.
> > >
> > > See above - they most certainly were good as general purpose computers.
> >
> > But they were underpowered, rather clunky, and overpriced for what you
> > got - or so I thought. Reading the history here:
> >
> > <URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST>
> >
> > implies I was right about the clunkiness. But I point blank don't
> > believe this:
> >
> > `On the plus side the ST was less expensive than most machines,
> > including Macintosh Plus, and tended to be faster than most'
>
> It was certainly faster than the first mac I saw. Liked the box, hated
> pissing around with the disks and it seemed slow (and very very
> overpriced) with a low res screen
Those early Macs aren't at all fast, are they? But can you use an Atari
ST as a Web server? You can do so with a Mac Plus.
Mind you, the *UI* on the early b&w Macs is pretty sprightly if you ask
me - just so long as you stick with a plain OS install and don't go the
far side of System 6.0.8.
But as for a low-res screen: you got 640x384 on 9 inches with the Plus.
That's better dpi than the Atari ST with 640x400 on a bigger screen.
I can't see how anything but the fixed idea that `Ataris are great'
could have lead you to think that Plus screen was low-res.
> > > Calamus rivalled the best DTP that the Mac had. Signum was an
> > > excellent document processor. Programming languages could be had for
> > > free or very cheap (£20 for a C compiler - bargain at the time). MIDI
> > > software was coming out of the machine's ears. You could network them
> > > direct from the MIDI port (bit of freeware needed). PC floppies could
> > > be read without trouble (later versions could also format). And they
> > > could emulate anything else around with the exception of the Amiga,
> >
> > Doubt that. Sinclair and BBC machines too? How about PDP-11s? I knew
> > a chap with a PDP-11 in 1990. Yes of course he'd scavenged it from the
> > university when it flung it out as being too obsolete to bother selling.
>
> Of course it could have done if someone had wanted to emulate a PDP-11!
Ah, but did they actually do it?
> > > in the case of the Mac the resulting
> > > machine would actually run faster than the equivalent real Apple box (that
> > > changed with the 68030, of course). For non-graphics work, they were very
> > > sliightly faster than the Amiga as well (clocks peed difference).
> >
> > Yeah, but for graphics work, STs were slow unless you got one of the
> > later top end machines.
>
> I don't recal so.
That's what the Web says, and what I've read about the hardware does
tend to back up the claim. I never spent much time with Ataris myself;
I was mostly fiddling with huge humming Unix-alike workstations at the
time (one had 2MB RAM, 70MB HD, an 8 inch floppy drive, and chewed up
1kW when fully on. Yes, it was obsolete and thrown out by the
university which is why it was the home computer we had at the time.
Apollo DN330 for those who might be interested).
Rowland McDonnell
> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>
> > Ian McCall <i...@eruvia.org> wrote:
> >
> > > "Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
> > >
> > > > So you had no need for a generally capable computer but did need
> > > > particular audio abilities. Fine. Doesn't mean Ataris were any good in
> > > > general, and it doesn't mean that Macs were the only alternative.
> > >
> > > Ah, but they were. The Amiga was a better games machine and graphics box,
> > > and its built-in sound was far better too. But...it didn't have the mono
> > > monitor that the ST could get.
> >
> > But you could buy one for your Amiga if you wanted to, couldn't you?
>
> the mono monitor for hte ST sold as many machines as the built-in MIDI,
> as it was very clear, high resolution -for the time, that is, 640 x 400
> sounds paltry these days
Not to me it doesn't - but it's nice to see that the Atari ST did at
least manage to exceed the b&w text display quality managed by the much
earlier 8 bit BBC Micro - 640x256 (80x32 text; just checked in the
manual).
The point being is that yes it was good to have that resolution, but it
wasn't that exceptional, and similar displays had appeared on the
previous generation of home computers.
640x384 is what the 9 inch b&w Macs had. Higher dpi than the Atari ST,
and pretty much the same number of dots on the screen.
> but those were the days of CGA and the Hercules
> displays.
Yes, and that stuff was utter shite compared to what had gone before and
the non-IBM style competition. IBM PC displays were, frankly, crap back
in the early days.
>It had a much higher refresh rate than most other
> home-computer monitors and, in those days of flickery migraiine
> inducing television computing it was fantastic.
I tended to use my BBC Micro with a b&w monitor in mode 0 so I could
have high res b&w text (640x256). Flickery television computing? Nah.
I didn't suffer that at all - and I was clear of it once the Beeb
arrived and I could escape the confines of that ZX81.
> It was far better suited
> for things like DTP than the monitors I saw at the time on Amigas and
> Archies -and most certainly than the pcs of the time.
The monitor I had on my BBC Micro wasn't at all flickery and was high
quality. If you wanted to buy a crap monitor for your Arc I suppose you
could do - but I never had eyestrain or headache problems with my Beeb,
and I did get them with some IBM PC compatible displays years later.
> I never was into
> games but i could see that the ST was not remotely as good for these as
> the Amiga. But that's another side of the story...
>
> the ST was made to a budget and it showed in many ways
Everything is, and it always does.
> (the horrendous
> internal sound chip, the cheap nasty keyboard, most of all the
> non-existent support). It was no Apple Macinosh by any stretch, but
> usable and capable it certainly was, it was no slower than the Amiga or
> the Mac itself.
Righto.
Rowland McDonnell
[snip]
> The ST hi-res mono screen was just great. Rock solid, as good as the Mac's,
> and higher res (though only 640x400 :-)
Not exactly higher res, since the Mac got 640x384 on a 9 inch display;
that's more DPI that you got with the larger monitors used with the ST,
surely?
Rowland McDonnell
> "Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
> > > See above - they most certainly were good as general purpose computers.
> >
> > But they were underpowered, rather clunky, and overpriced for what you
> > got - or so I thought. Reading the history here:
> >
> > <URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST>
>
> Ah - thanks for that link, it reminded me about what it was I did to fix the
> extremely poor keyboard. Spring kits - yes, that was it.
Oh boy. That bad? Woo.
> > implies I was right about the clunkiness. But I point blank don't
> > believe this:
> >
> > `On the plus side the ST was less expensive than most machines,
> > including Macintosh Plus, and tended to be faster than most'
> >
> > Ataris always struck me as sluggish.
>
> Nope,
Yep, they did. They really always did strike *me* as sluggish. What
makes you think you're in a position to correct me on my memory of the
impression I gained?
> they were faster at raw computation due to higher clock speed.
Really?
> An ST ran at a true 8Mhz, whereas the Amiga and the Mac ran at about
> 7.16Mhz (but usually claimed 8Mhz).
I've looked in the manual for a Macintosh 512K (now a 512Ke) I have. It
says the CPU speed was 7.8336MHz. That's 2% down on the ST. That's not
a significant difference in speed. The different architectures will
make a bigger difference, as will the greater OS overhead on the Mac.
I think the Amiga's clock speed was the same, but I can't be bothered to
check and don't have any paper on the subject.
>The ST also had faster mono graphics than the Mac
> Plus,
Not hard...
> and a Mac emulator used to come out with 15% more viewing space due to
> the hi-res monitor and quicker execution time.
Huh? Are you suggesting that a Mac emulator on an 8MHz ST was
significantly faster than a real Mac Plus at 7.8336MHz? *How*?
>The following link is to a
> Google search on 'atari st mac emulation spectre', just follow a few links
> to see them talk of the speed increases -
> http://makeashorterlink.com/?N32411FE7
>
> It's a horses for courses thing.
Well, yes; but the Atari ST spec was never very impressive, nor was the
performance I saw myself. What the ST *did* seem to have was a `user
experience' (you may shoot me later) that seemed to suit some users
very, very well. So while it might not have been technically `clever'
under the covers, it was a good computer design because it was a very
useful computer.
> ST v Amiga?
Not unless you have to.
> The Amiga had drastically
> faster sprite and blob animation obviously (in fact, until the STE blobs
> couldn't exist on the ST - no blitter), but wasn't as quick at vectors or
> general calculation. There's a lot the Amiga was good at, don't get me
> wrong. I'm not trying to relive the semi-ancient flamewar of the late
> eighties and early ninieties. It's just that a lot tends to get glossed over
> in the Amiga world - the large number of incompatibilities between different
> iterations of the same custom chip, the daft chip RAM/ordinary RAM
> separation,
How do you wish to define a problem? If you're expecting a stable,
clean architecture, such issues will bother you. But if you're not,
they're not a bother. One didn't expect or look for a stable, clean
computer architecture back then, necessarily - if you wanted decent
oomph, you had to work with the fiddly stuff and that's that.
> the appalling floppy clicking all of the time...lots.
Huh? What appallling floppy clicking all the time? I used an Amiga
quite a lot and that never came to my attention.
> It had
> better underlying OS principles than the ST though (although stability was
> poor - the legend of the Guru Meditation...),
Amiga stability was good compared to Win3 and my ZX81 from what I saw;
and the old BBC Micro, but that was down to dodgy ROM sockets...
> and overall the Amiga had
> better hardware. Just that for some uses, clarity is all and the hi-res mode
> of the ST plus the general quality of GEM's UI simply sealed it.
>
> ST vs (contemporary mono) Mac? ST was quicker even in emulation,
How much quicker? And any idea why? Ah.
<URL:http://groups.google.com/groups?q=atari+st+mac+emulation+spectre+sp
eed&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&safe=off&selm=1992Jun19.2138
45.18824%40newshost.lanl.gov&rnum=4>
`Mac emulation on the Atari ST /STe/TT is done via the Spectre GCR, a
combination hardware/software product that emulates a Mac Plus (not the
II series, mind you). It incorporates the Mac ROMs (so it is legal) and
via some highly optimized and clever software, it does actually
outperform a "real" Mac Plus by up to 30% or so on an 8MHz Atari ST'
If you can get 30% faster with a 2% faster CPU, it's because of
something other than the clock speed difference. This Spectre GCR
hardware obviously played a part.
> had more
> screen space and was cheaper.
Uhuh.
> But...Mac was a nice all in one design, and
> had a much better keyboard. You also needed extra hardware to read Mac 800k
> disks on anything other than a real Mac due to the GCR encoding (Mac has a
> variable speed floppy drive, you can't fake that in software).
Actually, there is one floppy controller that'll let you do so. I
forget where I read about it.
> Price for
> price though, well...let's say I'm glad I'm only paying ebay prices for old
> mono Mac hardware now, because at the time they were just asking silly
> money.
I looked in to buying a Mac in 1990. I decided not to be silly.
> > Doubt that. Sinclair and BBC machines too? How about PDP-11s? I knew
> > a chap with a PDP-11 in 1990. Yes of course he'd scavenged it from the
> > university when it flung it out as being too obsolete to bother selling.
>
> I had a Spectrum emulator and C64 emulator, though obviously the sound was
> appalling on the C64 emulator. Beeb? Had one, though it was poor.
What was wrong with it?
>I actually
> find most Beeb emulators quite poor today - seems to be a tricky beast to
> get right because of all the different display modes.
I wonder why this is turning out to be a problem?
> PDP-11? Google is your
> friend - yep, the ST had one of those: http://www.weitz.de/pdp.html
<chuckle> I should really remember to do things like that.
> > > In fact, aaargh! Don't do this to me. I can hear the siren voice of Ebay
> > > calling even as I type...
> >
> > Go on, you know you want to. I have BBC Micros, Apple ][s, and a ZX81
> > in the loft, not to mention a huge pile of obsolete Macs in a wardrobe.
>
> Got a Spectrum and an SE/30. The SE/30 is a monstor, with 128Mb RAM, 1Gig
> internal drive and ethernet.
I forget where, but I came across a mad Japanese chap who's found out
that SE/30s can actually take 6 (IIRC) expansion slots if you want to
hack the hardware to add some new sockets. So he did, and now he's
beefing up the PSU and building a tiny mini-tower for the whole lot so
he can have an SE/30 *using* its 6 expansion slots. `Of course' he's
already bunged in the card to make the monitor grey scale.
> Hate to think how much that would have cost me
> at that time, indeed I'm not sure if a 1Gig drive was even available.
The first 1GB HDD I met was in 1990; it turned up with a fairly
expensive HP9000 PA RISC server with a lunatically fast 90MHz processor
(it was *much* faster than 90MHz implies). That was when it first
struck me that I'd be seeing GHz CPUs before too long, and now I've got
two of the buggers in one box (2 x 1.25GHz G4s - astonishing!).
>Every
> other machine I've ever owned I have an emulator for. And yes, that includes
> the Atari ST.
Righto.
> Interesting chat this one, by the way. Nice to go back to the flamewars in a
> more objective way, because you don't have anything personal invested in it
> anymore.
I was never directly involved in any of that sort of stuff at the time.
Rowland McDonnell
> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>
> > Flavio Matani <flavio_matani...@mac.com> wrote:
> >
> > > oh, i don't know. I had an Atari ST simply because they then (1987 or 8)
> > > cost a third of what a Mac cost and there was no way I could afford or
> > > justify the expense.
> >
> > So you had no need for a generally capable computer but did need
> > particular audio abilities. Fine. Doesn't mean Ataris were any good in
> > general, and it doesn't mean that Macs were the only alternative. Back
> > then, you might have considered an Archimedes or an Amiga - not that
> > I've any idea if either of 'em had the audio support you clearly needed.
>
> The ST came with single in, out, and thru connectors. A MIDI interface
> could be bought for the Amiga that had multiple connectors for £25.
> Hardly a massive investment, but it was enough for Atari to get its foot
> in the door first.
Uhuh.
> From then, most followed the masses by adopted the ST in their studio -
> kinda like most people use PCs today, not necessarily because they're
> the best, but because everyone else has - but I recall reading at the
> time that some music studios actually broke with tradition, and adopted
> the Amiga in their studios. They preferred the multitasking environment
> of Amiga OS to the comparatively simplistic ST GEM.
Righto. That all makes sense.
> For the home hobbyist musician, the Amiga was probably the better choice
> overall. It had the infinitely superior built in sound (the ST after
> all had basically the same sound chip as the Amstrad CPC),
I read it had a custom sound chip designed for it.
> which could
> play samples, then mixed with the sound of a cheap FM based keyboard.
Uhuh.
> Plus it had the excellent Music-X sequencer; a snip at £50, compared to
> the hundreds of pounds for the so-called professional sequencers, which
> in some areas it clearly outperformed. Not forgetting tracker music
> (MED and Soundtracker), which was impossible with the ST's square wave
> beeper.
Yuck.
> And then when you've finished making music, you had the best games to
> wind down with! How cool is that? ;-)
This is something which appealed to those I knew with Amigas. Serious
work, then serious cool.
> > Could be, but what about an Amiga? Dunno about the midi stuff - maybe
> > that was the `thing' that sold Ataris. If so, you bought what was right
> > for you at that time - but just because Ataris were good at audio work,
> > doesn't mean they were any good as general purpose computers.
>
> I remember the first time I saw an ST at work. After using a BBC,
> Electron, and Atari 8 bit, I distinctly remember being hugely
> unimpressed. This was not the quantum leap we had been led to believe
> was coming.
That is pretty much what I thought.
> The Amiga on the other hand, blew my socks off from day
> one! I'll be a soapbox mounting advocate of it for the rest of my days.
> :-)
I like Amigas. But... Half an hour after being introduced to a Mac, I
was converted.
Chris Ridd
1gbree7.5vdm1itefnw9N%real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet, "Rowland
McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
> Those early Macs aren't at all fast, are they? But can you use an Atari
> ST as a Web server? You can do so with a Mac Plus.
I don't see why not. The OS became quite Unix-like, so it wouldn't have been
a stretch to port Apache to it.
> Mind you, the *UI* on the early b&w Macs is pretty sprightly if you ask
> me - just so long as you stick with a plain OS install and don't go the
> far side of System 6.0.8.
>
> But as for a low-res screen: you got 640x384 on 9 inches with the Plus.
> That's better dpi than the Atari ST with 640x400 on a bigger screen.
The Mac was only 512x384, and the screen resolution was by definition 72dpi.
The mono ST screen res was a bit higher - 90dpi if I remember things
correctly.
Cheers,
Chris
Chris Ridd
McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
Don't forget that MacOS had to do a lot of things in software that other
machines did with hardware. eg handle the floppy, handle the mouse, make
sounds, etc etc.
Cheers,
Chris
Chris Ridd
McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
> Chris Ridd <chri...@mac.com> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>> The ST hi-res mono screen was just great. Rock solid, as good as the Mac's,
>> and higher res (though only 640x400 :-)
>
> Not exactly higher res, since the Mac got 640x384 on a 9 inch display;
> that's more DPI that you got with the larger monitors used with the ST,
> surely?
No, Macs were 72dpi and ST monitors were more like 90.
Cheers,
Chris
Chris Ridd
McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
> I read it had a custom sound chip designed for it.
It did - Amy? - but it never made it into a production model.
Cheers,
Chris
Ian McCall
"Rowland McDonnell" <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote in message
> Sound was pants.
<swallows very hard...>
Erm...pardon? Sound was incredible! It was far and away the best there was
before the advent of the Amiga, and even then the Amiga-generated stuff
wasn't as good, the Amiga was better suited to playing samples and that's
what was 'better'.
The C64's SID (Sound Interface Device) is an amazing device - until recently
you could buy the SIDStation synth, and you can still buy £400's worth of
quad-SID PCI device to use as a midi-based synth. The device had lead sounds
like no other.
Download a copy of Sidplay2 from somewhere, fetch the High Voltage SID
collection down and then have a listen - that's almost but not quite the
same as the real thing. The real thing is still better, as the filters on it
were better than any straight computer sound chip before or since. All the
rest of the stuff is sample-based, whereas the SID was and remains its own
instrument. And yes, here too I keep getting tempted to dive in and get a
SIDstation - I write music, and would love to use some of the C64 sounds in
what I do.
But don't take my word for it - have a listen to some of the demos at
http://www.sidstation.com/sidsound.php. Even if the music itself is not to
your taste, there's no denying the sound quality.
Cheers,
Ian
Woody
> Woody <use...@alienrat.co.uk> wrote:
>>> Seems there was plenty of software available, what with Arcs being
>>> able to run most Beeb software.
>>
>> Maybe there was. I didn't see any of it
>
> I still have lots of BBC Micro software. <shrug> There was *huge*
> amounts - it apparently all ran on Arcs.
True, there was that but most of the BBC software didn't take advantage of
the huge improvement that the Arc had over the BBC.
>>>> It didn't initially have the audio capabilities, but then it didn't
>>>> have a serial port either unless you upgraded it (ie, put the
>>>> serial driver chip in the socket - they wanted to save money).
>>>
>>> Huh? I think you misremember - *Econet* was an optional extra:
>>
>> I am sure it was, but the first arcs came without the serial chip
>> fitted.
>
> Righto. Was that really how they were *meant* to be sold, or was it
> some kind of supply problem?
It was how they were sold for a few months (and thus how they were
reviewed). You could by the serial chip separately from them as an upgrade!
Later on it got fitted as standard, which is how it should have been in the
first place.
>>>> It was certainly one of the things. The monochrome monitor was
>>>> another thing and so was the price difference between an Amiga and
>>>> an ST
>>>
>>> What was that like?
>>
>> The monitor or the price difference?
>
> The monitor.
The monitor was a thing of beauty. 640x400, paper white and sharp as
anything. It was the first computer display I had seen of that quality.
There was nothing to touch it.
>> Cant remember the price difference.
>> The amiga was the technically superior machine but it was more
>> expensive. The amiga also didn't have the monochrome option and was
>> more a graphics/game player machine.
>
> Yes, so I've heard, but the only Amigas I met `in real life' were used
> by serious programming types who heard the Atari advocates banging on
> just like you are, and thought it was just sour grapes because Amigas
> were far better all round when compared to Atari STs (MIDI aside).
Most of the people I knew with amigas were game players or graphic artists.
>>>> But they were fine general purpose computers.
>>>
>>> Not from what I saw. They always struck me as slow and clunky.
>>
>> They were neither slow or clunky, they were a usuable capable
>> machine.
>
> From what I saw of them at the time, I considered them slow and clunky
Fair enough. I guess I hadn't seen anything faster at the time!
>> Probably why you didn't get one then. I was always impressed and had
>> STs for a number of years. Probably did more and learned more on that
>> computer than anything that followed it. It was the first computer I
>> had that could really do something (after a collection of
>> CR/Sinclairs, BBCs, Sharps and a few other machines).
>
> You can `really do' things with a BBC Micro quite easily.
Indeed - I had one a few years before the ST (actually two - and an electron
and an atom) and a spectrum in between (financial reasons). I loved my BBC
but didn't do anywhere near as much on it as on the ST
> I wrote one
> of my BSc reports on a Beeb. Top quality - LaTeX, of course. This
> was practical because it was easy to network Beebs, so my BBC Micro
> disc was shoved into a Beeb connected to a computer at Manchester
> University, slid across the campus Ethernet to *that* lab, and off I
> went.
Didn't have access to any university network when I had one.
> The fact that you've only got 32K RAM doesn't matter until you fill up
> the, erm, 100K floppy disc in the case of the software I was using.
> Those ROM sockets gave you *power*.
>
> Not to mention control jobs. I ported a biological experiment monitor
> hardware/software setup from oh God I forget what old 8 bit micro to a
> BBC Micro in *1990* because the Beeb was the best machine available
> for that job. They used to use a lot of Beebs for that kind of thing
> in universities, but they're generally fading away now because
> 1) They ain't going to last forever and
> 2) Students these days can't use computers that don't have GUIs.
Yes, they were excelent for control jobs, like later the PC was with its
easy to make ISA cards (now unfortunately obselete too).
>>> `The next Commodore 64' - another overpriced, clunky, underpowered
>>> pile of junk if you ask me.
>>
>> I never liked the C64 though but at the time it came out it was a
>> good machine.
>
> No it bloody wasn't! 1 MHz 6502-alike! Get out! That speed CPU went
> out in the 1970s. Dog slow unless you were playing games and using
> the games acceleration hardware (which is what the hardware sprite
> support and sound chip were all about), crap 8K MS Basic,
> over-priced, hardly any interfaces, good for nothing but games
> players. The C64 was designed for ripping off low-intelligence games
> players from what I could see.
ok, I was just trying to be fair to it. Never had one and never wanted one.
>> I think they mean it in popularity, not necessarily style.
>
> The C64 wasn't that popular, was it? I know it had a niche in the
> games market, but aside from that? Okay, so what do I know about the
> market in the USA? C64s couldn't really cut it compared to the
> competition over here, aside from in the games area.
The C64 was at one stage in the 80s one of the most popular home computers
around. I never knew why.
Woody
> Woody <use...@alienrat.co.uk> wrote:
>> Although I prefered
>> working with it to the Amiga.
>
> Righto. What aspects of the Atari were better from your point of
> view?
Purely programming and the mono monitor. Programming was a lot easier as it
didn't have the custom hardware of the Amiga and the operating system was
easier to get hooks into
The amiga workbench used the colours recommended by nasa as noticable. Sadly
it didn't occur to them that NASA had other reasons for using those colours!
>>> implies I was right about the clunkiness. But I point blank don't
>>> believe this:
>>>
>>> `On the plus side the ST was less expensive than most machines,
>>> including Macintosh Plus, and tended to be faster than most'
>>
>> It was certainly faster than the first mac I saw. Liked the box,
>> hated pissing around with the disks and it seemed slow (and very very
>> overpriced) with a low res screen
>
> Those early Macs aren't at all fast, are they?
No, they were very slow, which was rather unacceptable at the price.
> But can you use an
> Atari ST as a Web server? You can do so with a Mac Plus.
you could do pretty well anything on the ST that you could do on the mac
plus - including running mac software
> Mind you, the *UI* on the early b&w Macs is pretty sprightly if you
> ask me - just so long as you stick with a plain OS install and don't
> go the far side of System 6.0.8.
Seemed sluggish the first time I saw it.
> But as for a low-res screen: you got 640x384 on 9 inches with the
> Plus. That's better dpi than the Atari ST with 640x400 on a bigger
> screen.
Better DPI yes, but the monitor on the Atari was better and had a bigger
screen (wasn't the mac 512x284?). much easier to work with and separate so
you could put it at the right angle.
> I can't see how anything but the fixed idea that `Ataris are great'
> could have lead you to think that Plus screen was low-res.
512x384 < 640x400
640x400 = 256000
512x384 = 196608
ST screen has 30% more pixels
therefore, compared to the atari screen, the Plus screen is low res. No bias
in there.
>>> Doubt that. Sinclair and BBC machines too? How about PDP-11s? I
>>> knew a chap with a PDP-11 in 1990. Yes of course he'd scavenged it
>>> from the university when it flung it out as being too obsolete to
>>> bother selling.
>>
>> Of course it could have done if someone had wanted to emulate a
>> PDP-11!
>
> Ah, but did they actually do it?
I seriously doubt it because I doubt anyone wanted too. the PDP-11 was an
obsolete machine 10 years before the ST came out and it would hardly have
been a natural upgrade path.
Just because noone did it doesn't mean it couldn't be done, just that noone
wanted a PDP11 emulator!
>>>> in the case of the Mac the resulting
>>>> machine would actually run faster than the equivalent real Apple
>>>> box (that changed with the 68030, of course). For non-graphics
>>>> work, they were very sliightly faster than the Amiga as well
>>>> (clocks peed difference).
>>>
>>> Yeah, but for graphics work, STs were slow unless you got one of the
>>> later top end machines.
>>
>> I don't recal so.
>
> That's what the Web says, and what I've read about the hardware does
> tend to back up the claim.
Fair enough then, must be true if you read it on the web!
I really don't spend much of my time doing graphics either then or now
(apart from 3d) so it may have well been slow.
D.M. Procida
> Sound was pants.
Not true at all. The C64 was leagues ahead of anything else for its
sound chip, a chip that peple are still building synthesisers around
over twenty years later.
> Video resolution not great - 320x200 and 40x25 text
> while the BBC Micro would get up to 640x256 and 80x32;
Yeah yeah. The BBC model B was twice the price. Compare any two things,
one of which is twice the price of the other, and you'll probably find
that the more expensive one has features and specifications the other
can't match.
Daniele
--
Apple Juice Ltd
Chapter Arts Centre
Market Road www.apple-juice.co.uk
Cardiff CF5 1QE 029 2019 0140
D.M. Procida
> No it bloody wasn't! 1 MHz 6502-alike! Get out! That speed CPU went
> out in the 1970s.
And the BBC had what? A 2MHz 6502. Wow. What do you expect? This is 1982
we're talking about.
Roger Merriman
indeed i used to write essas etc as a teenager and other members wrote
books etc found memories of the machine i do have a emulator on the macs
which is fun!
roger
--
wodger at fastmail dot fm
Roger Merriman
> Rowland McDonnell wrote:
> > Woody <use...@alienrat.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >>> Seems there was plenty of software available, what with Arcs being
> >>> able to run most Beeb software.
> >>
> >> Maybe there was. I didn't see any of it
> >
> > I still have lots of BBC Micro software. <shrug> There was *huge*
> > amounts - it apparently all ran on Arcs.
>
> True, there was that but most of the BBC software didn't take advantage of
> the huge improvement that the Arc had over the BBC.
>
i only used it for spelling "games" at school though i do rember
watching the headmaster at junor school upgrading it with a chip not ram
but a flat chip?
snips
>
> >>> `The next Commodore 64' - another overpriced, clunky, underpowered
> >>> pile of junk if you ask me.
> >>
> >> I never liked the C64 though but at the time it came out it was a
> >> good machine.
> >
> > No it bloody wasn't! 1 MHz 6502-alike! Get out! That speed CPU went
> > out in the 1970s. Dog slow unless you were playing games and using
> > the games acceleration hardware (which is what the hardware sprite
> > support and sound chip were all about), crap 8K MS Basic,
> > over-priced, hardly any interfaces, good for nothing but games
> > players. The C64 was designed for ripping off low-intelligence games
> > players from what I could see.
>
> ok, I was just trying to be fair to it. Never had one and never wanted one.
>
> >> I think they mean it in popularity, not necessarily style.
> >
> > The C64 wasn't that popular, was it? I know it had a niche in the
> > games market, but aside from that? Okay, so what do I know about the
> > market in the USA? C64s couldn't really cut it compared to the
> > competition over here, aside from in the games area.
>
> The C64 was at one stage in the 80s one of the most popular home computers
> around. I never knew why.
i rember in the 80's that you could walk into smiths etc and get games
it did seem to have a decent selection, but this is a childs memory
so...
Chris Ridd
1gbsdyi.160nzbw15d2nn4N%___sp...@fastmail.fm, "Roger Merriman"
<___spa...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
There's quite a range of emulators available on Palms:
<URL:http://frodopalm.sourceforge.net/>
<URL:http://www.codejedi.com/shadowplan/castaway.html>
<URL:http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?prodID=47714>
Cheers,
Chris
Wayne Stuart
> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>
> > Sound was pants.
>
> Not true at all. The C64 was leagues ahead of anything else for its
> sound chip, a chip that peple are still building synthesisers around
> over twenty years later.
T'was groundbreaking stuff. A choice of soundwaves, as opposed to the
square wave oscillators in every other machine of the time, mated to a
plethora of filters.
> > Video resolution not great - 320x200 and 40x25 text
> > while the BBC Micro would get up to 640x256 and 80x32;
>
> Yeah yeah. The BBC model B was twice the price. Compare any two things,
> one of which is twice the price of the other, and you'll probably find
> that the more expensive one has features and specifications the other
> can't match.
The 8 bit Atari was the real competition. There, the Atari machine had
the edge in many areas - Sound obviously being the biggest exception.
--
This message was brought to you by Wayne Stuart - Have a nice day!
Wayne Stuart
> Wayne Stuart <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
> > For the home hobbyist musician, the Amiga was probably the better choice
> > overall. It had the infinitely superior built in sound (the ST after
> > all had basically the same sound chip as the Amstrad CPC),
>
> I read it had a custom sound chip designed for it.
It used a standard last generation, cheap as chips Yamaha sound chip (3
channel square wave, plus 1 white noise occilators) from the same family
as could be found in any number of 8 bit computers, including Amstrad,
Oric, MSX, and - get this - Spectrum +2's! Wow! Groundbreaking stuff,
hey? ;-)
With the STE came a Motorola DSP (digital signal processor) chip which
offered 2 channel stereo 8 bit sound, while keeping the existing Yamaha
bleeper chip. This was all well and good, but the downside of this DSP
is that playback was at fixed playback rates only. As such, you still
couldn't effectively do tracker music, which relied on the playback of a
sample at any given sample rate to mimic the playback of the instrument,
like you could with the Amiga's Paula sound chip. As such, little use
was ever made of the STE's extra sound capability. Too little, too
late.
> > The Amiga on the other hand, blew my socks off from day
> > one! I'll be a soapbox mounting advocate of it for the rest of my days.
> > :-)
>
> I like Amigas. But... Half an hour after being introduced to a Mac, I
> was converted.
Whereas I only jumped ship after it became evident the war was lost, and
the Betamax syndrome had happened yet again.
I still wonder what might have become of the Amiga platform had
Commodore not died of stupidity and complacency, and allowed their baby
to florished and evolve.
Wayne Stuart
> Ian McCall <i...@eruvia.org> wrote:
>
> > they were faster at raw computation due to higher clock speed.
>
> Really?
>
> > An ST ran at a true 8Mhz, whereas the Amiga and the Mac ran at about
> > 7.16Mhz (but usually claimed 8Mhz).
>
> I've looked in the manual for a Macintosh 512K (now a 512Ke) I have. It
> says the CPU speed was 7.8336MHz. That's 2% down on the ST. That's not
> a significant difference in speed. The different architectures will
> make a bigger difference, as will the greater OS overhead on the Mac.
>
> I think the Amiga's clock speed was the same, but I can't be bothered to
> check and don't have any paper on the subject.
The Amiga's 68K ran at 7.14MHz. It was done this way to match something
to do with the video circuitry, which was a big deal in the video market
the Amiga played a big part in a the time. This timing somehow made it
a doddle to hook up a Genlock with little tinkering with the video
signal. Not sure of the exact reasoning, but that's the general idea.
Of course, the Miggy more than made up for it with custom co-processors
taking processor intensive tasks away from the processor. This of
course only worked if the software was designed to make use of them, and
not just cheap and nasty ST port-overs, which the Amiga suffered from in
the early days.
> > It's a horses for courses thing.
>
> Well, yes; but the Atari ST spec was never very impressive, nor was the
> performance I saw myself. What the ST *did* seem to have was a `user
> experience' (you may shoot me later) that seemed to suit some users
> very, very well. So while it might not have been technically `clever'
> under the covers, it was a good computer design because it was a very
> useful computer.
One limitation of GEM, and never failed to amuse me, is that you could
only ever have (IIRC) 4 windows open at once. And even those, without a
blitter to help along, you could actually see them being erased and
redrawn whenever you opened, closed, moved, or resized them. Pants!
> > ST v Amiga?
>
> Not unless you have to.
Yes, we have to! It brings back pleasant memories! :-)
> > The Amiga had drastically
> > faster sprite and blob animation obviously (in fact, until the STE blobs
> > couldn't exist on the ST - no blitter), but wasn't as quick at vectors or
> > general calculation. There's a lot the Amiga was good at, don't get me
> > wrong. I'm not trying to relive the semi-ancient flamewar of the late
> > eighties and early ninieties. It's just that a lot tends to get glossed over
> > in the Amiga world - the large number of incompatibilities between different
> > iterations of the same custom chip, the daft chip RAM/ordinary RAM
> > separation,
Chip RAM/fast RAM was the necessary evil of having custom co-processors.
The processor had an address bus to access all the RAM (chip and fast),
whereas the co-processors didn't have the address bus to access the
first 512k or 1mb (ECS onwards) of (chip) RAM. Being as the ST (pre
STE) didn't have such luxuries, of course it didn't need to make the
distinction.
> How do you wish to define a problem? If you're expecting a stable,
> clean architecture, such issues will bother you. But if you're not,
> they're not a bother. One didn't expect or look for a stable, clean
> computer architecture back then, necessarily - if you wanted decent
> oomph, you had to work with the fiddly stuff and that's that.
>
> > the appalling floppy clicking all of the time...lots.
>
> Huh? What appallling floppy clicking all the time? I used an Amiga
> quite a lot and that never came to my attention.
Was only on early Amigas IIRC. From what I can gather, it was a
byproduct of the constant monitoring of the floppy drive to detect
insertions or removals. A software patch silenced it.
> > It had
> > better underlying OS principles than the ST though (although stability was
> > poor - the legend of the Guru Meditation...),
>
> Amiga stability was good compared to Win3 and my ZX81 from what I saw;
> and the old BBC Micro, but that was down to dodgy ROM sockets...
To be fair, the Miggy always was a crasher! Not much in the way of
memory protection. 'Guru meditation' - Shudder! :-)
> > and overall the Amiga had
> > better hardware. Just that for some uses, clarity is all and the hi-res mode
> > of the ST plus the general quality of GEM's UI simply sealed it.
But how many people who bought Amigas or STs bought a monitor, and how
many just hooked up a TV? The mono hi-res mode of the ST was nice, but
you had to have a special monitor to get at it - The Amiga however could
display its hi-res mode (640x512, or more with overscan) on a standard
TV via RGB SCART, albeit obviously in a less clear interlaced mode. But
again, a real boon for video work.
Jon B
> > > The C64 wasn't that popular, was it? I know it had a niche in the
> > > games market, but aside from that? Okay, so what do I know about the
> > > market in the USA? C64s couldn't really cut it compared to the
> > > competition over here, aside from in the games area.
> >
> > The C64 was at one stage in the 80s one of the most popular home computers
> > around. I never knew why.
>
> i rember in the 80's that you could walk into smiths etc and get games
> it did seem to have a decent selection, but this is a childs memory
> so...
>
games, and lots of blank tapes, which they then copied your game onto.
--
Jon
jon.br...@btinternet.com
Woody
True - those display lists were a great thing if you could get them
working and it was the first time I had seen overlays.
--
Woody
Woody
> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>
> >
> > I like Amigas. But... Half an hour after being introduced to a Mac, I
> > was converted.
>
> Whereas I only jumped ship after it became evident the war was lost, and
> the Betamax syndrome had happened yet again.
I was very impressed when I saw a mac, back when I had an ST - it was a
SE-30. It belonged to Plessey I think but my friend had it for a bit.
The disk thing put me off though.
> I still wonder what might have become of the Amiga platform had
> Commodore not died of stupidity and complacency, and allowed their baby
> to florished and evolve.
Its going fine (ish), after being sold a lot. A friend of mines main
computer is an Amiga (or was until recently). I has a PPC 604 card too
and a proper monitor.
--
Woody
Woody
> Rowland McDonnell <real-addr...@flur.bltigibbet> wrote:
>
> > Ian McCall <i...@eruvia.org> wrote:
> >
> > > they were faster at raw computation due to higher clock speed.
> >
> > Really?
> >
> > > An ST ran at a true 8Mhz, whereas the Amiga and the Mac ran at about
> > > 7.16Mhz (but usually claimed 8Mhz).
> >
> > I've looked in the manual for a Macintosh 512K (now a 512Ke) I have. It
> > says the CPU speed was 7.8336MHz. That's 2% down on the ST. That's not
> > a significant difference in speed. The different architectures will
> > make a bigger difference, as will the greater OS overhead on the Mac.
> >
> > I think the Amiga's clock speed was the same, but I can't be bothered to
> > check and don't have any paper on the subject.
>
> The Amiga's 68K ran at 7.14MHz. It was done this way to match something
> to do with the video circuitry, which was a big deal in the video market
> the Amiga played a big part in a the time.
If it was 7,16MHz it would have been twice the NTSC subcarier frequency
> This timing somehow made it
> a doddle to hook up a Genlock with little tinkering with the video
> signal. Not sure of the exact reasoning, but that's the general idea.
Other features made it a doddle to genlock to the system as you could
feed the pixel clock rate independantly from the outside. Made the
external part really cheap and video titling practical with home video
sets.
> Of course, the Miggy more than made up for it with custom co-processors
> taking processor intensive tasks away from the processor.
And blowing themselves off the board occasionally. Thankyou comodore for
remembering to put them in sockets!
> This of
> course only worked if the software was designed to make use of them, and
> not just cheap and nasty ST port-overs, which the Amiga suffered from in
> the early days.
>
>
> > > It's a horses for courses thing.
> >
> > Well, yes; but the Atari ST spec was never very impressive, nor was the
> > performance I saw myself. What the ST *did* seem to have was a `user
> > experience' (you may shoot me later) that seemed to suit some users
> > very, very well. So while it might not have been technically `clever'
> > under the covers, it was a good computer design because it was a very
> > useful computer.
>
> One limitation of GEM, and never failed to amuse me, is that you could
> only ever have (IIRC) 4 windows open at once.
Only on the early STs
> And even those, without a
> blitter to help along, you could actually see them being erased and
> redrawn whenever you opened, closed, moved, or resized them. Pants!
I can see that on my 2.4GHz dell.
> > > It had
> > > better underlying OS principles than the ST though (although stability was
> > > poor - the legend of the Guru Meditation...),
> >
> > Amiga stability was good compared to Win3 and my ZX81 from what I saw;
> > and the old BBC Micro, but that was down to dodgy ROM sockets...
>
> To be fair, the Miggy always was a crasher! Not much in the way of
> memory protection. 'Guru meditation' - Shudder! :-)
The atari just copied the Macs bomb icon and useless error messages.
> > > and overall the Amiga had better hardware. Just that for some uses,
> > > clarity is all and the hi-res mode of the ST plus the general quality
> > > of GEM's UI simply sealed it.
>
> But how many people who bought Amigas or STs bought a monitor, and how
> many just hooked up a TV? The mono hi-res mode of the ST was nice, but
> you had to have a special monitor to get at it - The Amiga however could
> display its hi-res mode (640x512, or more with overscan) on a standard
> TV via RGB SCART, albeit obviously in a less clear interlaced mode. But
> again, a real boon for video work.
And a real pain to stare at when you are writing!
--
Woody
Wayne Stuart
> Wayne Stuart <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
> > I still wonder what might have become of the Amiga platform had
> > Commodore not died of stupidity and complacency, and allowed their baby
> > to florished and evolve.
>
> Its going fine (ish), after being sold a lot. A friend of mines main
> computer is an Amiga (or was until recently). I has a PPC 604 card too
> and a proper monitor.
Hmmmm.... I didn't bother taking it to this extreme - I stopped at the
multisync and 030/50MHz. There is such a thing as flogging a dead
horse! Still got it all set up in my spare room though. Acts as a
backup if this Mac right here ever goes tits up. :-)
Wayne Stuart
> Wayne Stuart <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
> > And even those, without a
> > blitter to help along, you could actually see them being erased and
> > redrawn whenever you opened, closed, moved, or resized them. Pants!
>
> I can see that on my 2.4GHz dell.
Yeah, but that'll be working with 2mb+ of screen memory to move around,
as opposed to 32k.
> > > Amiga stability was good compared to Win3 and my ZX81 from what I saw;
> > > and the old BBC Micro, but that was down to dodgy ROM sockets...
> >
> > To be fair, the Miggy always was a crasher! Not much in the way of
> > memory protection. 'Guru meditation' - Shudder! :-)
>
> The atari just copied the Macs bomb icon and useless error messages.
But it did do it less frequently than a Miggy on full a multi-tasking
frenzy! ;-)
> > But how many people who bought Amigas or STs bought a monitor, and how
> > many just hooked up a TV? The mono hi-res mode of the ST was nice, but
> > you had to have a special monitor to get at it - The Amiga however could
> > display its hi-res mode (640x512, or more with overscan) on a standard
> > TV via RGB SCART, albeit obviously in a less clear interlaced mode. But
> > again, a real boon for video work.
>
> And a real pain to stare at when you are writing!
Indeed. Became much less so when the AGA chipset came along hooked up
to a multisync, due to the increased refresh rate. Adopted such a mode
as the default desktop.
Flavio Matani
higher refresh which felt more 'stable'
--
flavio matani
guitar tuition and performing
homepage.mac.com/flavio_matani/guitar/