jan@looking.UUCP (Jan Gray) (09/09/85)
By popular demand, this is a reposting of my comparison between the Atari 520ST and the Amiga, as well as Eric L's added comments. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here are some corrections to Jan Gray's Amiga/ST comparison. My corrections look like TECO comments (!* xxx !)... -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Atari 520ST Commodore Amiga processor 8 MHz 68000 8 Mhz 68000 !* 7.8Mhz ! RAM 512K 256K + 256K expansion board !* 8 Meg externally ! ROM little (later, 192K?) 192K GEM may be available in ROMs sometime around August, for a $40 upgrade fee. expansion 128K ROM cartridge slot, hard 256K RAM slot, full system bus connectors disk (DMA), floppy disk, modem connector(!), floppy disk,modem (RS-232), printer (Centronics), (RS-232), printer (Centronics), monochrome/colour monitor, stereo RCA audio plugs, RGB MIDI in and out, joystick and monitor, TV/MOD? and NTSC video, mouse ports. joystick and mouse ports. !* Connector for RF Mod ! graphics 640 X 400 monochrome 640 X 400 16 colours resolution 640 X 200 4 colours 640 X 200 16 colours 320 X 200 16 colours 320 X 400 32 colours 320 X 200 32 colours (plus some ability to display different resolutions on different parts of screen) !* Special 'hold and modify mode allows displaying all 4096 colors at once. Sprites and 'blobs' (blitter objects)! palette size 512 colours 4096 colours fancy graphics no? bitblt in VLSI? hardware !* Yes, and sprites ! video outputs monochrome, RGB analog RGB, digital RGB, NTSC sound hardware GI sound chip (AY-8910?) Three Who knows? Stereo sound voices, 30-20000 Hz, program- generation, and some special mable waveform, envelope, and functions in VLSI? filters. !* Custom VLSI, stero output. Four channels (multiple voices on each). Plus digital sampling capability. ! keyboard part of unit; function keys, detachable; function keys, numeric keypad, cursor keys, numeric keypad, cursor keys HELP and UNDO keys(!) !* Slides under main unit ! floppies 3.5" floppy, holds 350K (for- 3.5" floppy, holds 880K (for- matted), attached by expansion matted?), built-in. Expansion connector, more floppies daisy connector for second drive. chained? !* May daisy chain up to 3 external floppies ! hard disk 15 Mbytes, $500? Attaches 20 Mbytes (from Tecmar), $1000? to DMA and hard disk expansion Attaches to system expansion connector (built-in). bus. IBM compat. no yes, via $500 Trump card !* Check that - IBM stuff is done in sofware. If you want a 5-1/4" drive, add ~$300 ! OS GEM and TOS (CPM/68K) Intuition and AmigaDOS Similar to Mac Finder Similar to Mac Finder? (multitasking!) !* Similiar only in that they both use windows and icons. Amiga option lets you use CLI, a Command Line Interface smiliar to MS-DOS.! future compact disk ROM (holds 500 Trump card ($500); digitizer; peripherals MBytes of data); 800K floppy; "Genlock Interface" (merges cheap graphics printers video with screen images); frame grabber; MIDI interface; music keyboard; multifunction accessory card (2 Mbytes of RAM, serial port, printer port or Winchester interface, and power supply); Pitchwriter ("sound grabber"?) mass market Atari 260STD Doubtful. versions !* Maybe later next year, but Commodore will maintain a minimum 30% profit margin for dealers ! general Real soon now. Real soon now? availability !* Sept. 15 ! software Real soon now. Real soon now. !* Some packages available even now. At least 20 will be available on Sept 15 ! price $800 $2000 (Atari 520ST with high res. (Commodore Amiga with 256K monochrome monitor, mouse, of memory, built in 880K and 350K floppy drive) floppy, and mouse ($1300), plus 256K board ($200), plus high resolution colour monitor ($500). >The Amiga, with all of its special function VLSIs, seems to be the >better machine -- but is it worth 2.5X as much as the Atari 520ST? >How badly do *you* want multitasking and spiffing graphics? The Amiga is faster, more expandable has more built in and is generally more powerfull by a large margin. Eric ARPA: LAVITSKY@RUTGERS UUCP: ...{harvard,seismo,ut-sally,sri-iu,ihnp4!packard}!topaz!eric SNAIL: 16 Oak St., Flr 2 New Brunswick, NJ 08903 ------- Jan Gray, soon to be jsgray@watrose.
davecl@orca.UUCP (Dave Clemans) (09/19/85)
A few more corrections: 520 Amiga > processor 8 MHz 68000 8 Mhz 68000 !* 7.8Mhz ! Everything I've seen so far says that it's 7.16 MHZ; i.e., the video clock divided by 2. > RAM 512K 256K + 256K expansion board > !* 8 Meg externally ! Internally expandable to 1MB with 256K chips, to 4MB with 1MB chips both expansions use a memory daughter board; Memory map allows max of 15 Meg > expansion 128K ROM cartridge slot, hard 256K RAM slot, full system bus > connectors disk (DMA), floppy disk, modem connector(!), floppy disk,modem > ... ... The DMA port supports up to 8 devices; this is also where the CD/ROM will plug in > fancy graphics no? bitblt in VLSI? > hardware !* Yes, and sprites ! Custom timing control chips that allow cpu to run at 8MHZ, and to manage memory accesses so that video refresh and cpu memory supposedly never interfer > floppies 3.5" floppy, holds 350K (for- 3.5" floppy, holds 880K (for- > matted), attached by expansion matted?), built-in. Expansion > connector, more floppies daisy connector for second drive. > chained? !* May daisy chain up to 3 > external floppies ! Single or double sided drives available; single is 360K, double is 720K; with special cable standard 5.25" drives can be attached; disk storage format is IBM compatible > IBM compat. no yes, via $500 Trump card > !* Check that - IBM stuff > is done in sofware. If you > want a 5-1/4" drive, add > ~$300 ! Disks are data compatible. There are rumors of a software IBM emulator by the end of the year. > general Real soon now. Real soon now? > availability !* Sept. 15 ! Has been available worldwide for a few months; in the US for almost two months. I've seen news reports that close to 50,000 have been sold so far worldwide. > software Real soon now. Real soon now. > !* Some packages available > even now. At least 20 will > be available on Sept 15 ! Some packages available now in US. More are supposedly available in England according to news reports. dgc