cs64fba@sdcc14.ucsd.edu (TAI) (11/24/88)
Well, the Amiga is approaching the million mark...(sadly). Does anybody know how far is the Atari ST from that point? When can we expect the number of the ST sold worldwide to break the 1 million barrier? Or never?
Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) (11/25/88)
Compute ST did a survey in 1986 and estimated that 350,000 had been sold in the U.S. alone, the generally accepted figure by most magazines is 300,000 - U.S. only, I'd have to assume with the strength of the ST in Europe that at least that many have been sold overseas - and currently ATari is manufacturing 50-75,000 Megas a MONTH (according to Sam Tramiel) with 90% still going to Europe but that is due to change this year. I'd say Atari will have no problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already done so! Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much greater utility. Peter Szymonik
beldavsa@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (11/28/88)
Peter, please abstain from posting unsubstantiated crap like the article I'm responding to. If your interests are in starting another Amiga vrs. St flame ware, then your article was justified. Since this is generally not thought of to be good practice, your article will hopefully be ignored by the majority of Amiga owners. I don't even want to here where you found that the 1040 ST is a much more useful (or whatever the words you used) computer than the Amiga 500, I just hope that you don't post such opinionated articles in the future. Thankyou, -- Zintars Beldavs
Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) (11/29/88)
What are you talking about? I simply posted sales figures for the ST from sources I have read, obviously a case of another touchy Amiga owner... Pete
fraga@tennents.cs.ubc.ca (Eric Fraga) (11/30/88)
In article <11868@cup.portal.com> Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes: >What are you talking about? I simply posted sales figures for the >ST from sources I have read, obviously a case of another touchy >Amiga owner... > >Pete Your article was perfectly fine. However, the article that started this whole stream of discussion was NOT. I am not sure if the flame you are responding to was directed at the original article or not but it should have been... Briefly, the original article (edited) was: | From: cs64fba@sdcc14.ucsd.edu (TAI) | Subject: 1 million... | Message-ID: <358@sdcc14.ucsd.edu> | | Well, the Amiga is approaching the million mark...(sadly). Does | anybody know how far is the Atari ST from that point? ... <mild flame mode on> I hate comments like this that have a habit of escalating into yet another Amiga vs ST war (one of the most useless wastes of net bandwidth ever seen). Why is it ``sad'' that the Amiga is approaching the million mark? I own an ST (and have for over three years now) and am very happy with it (given the price I paid for it and the amount of use I have made of it). However, owning an Atari does not mean that one must wish bad sales on other machines. Sure, good sales for other machines will cause software developers to create products for those machines. This can reduce the amount of software produced for the Atari. However, given the problems with the ST (Atari itself, lack of new products, buggy OS, etc), I think that good sales of other machines are a minor part of any movement away from ST software development. Even if Amiga sales were much lower than they are, the problems with the ST would not disappear. Actually, I don't buy games so I really haven't seen that much of a reduction (if any) in the amount of software being produced for the ST. It might be true in games but I don't really care :-) Finally, if the fact that (maybe -- I haven't seen any real figures one way or the other) Amigas are selling more than STs is really important to you (generic ``you''), then sell your ST and buy an Amiga. Seems like a silly reason to buy a machine, but to each his own... For the record, _I_ like the STs, the Amigas, and MS-DOS machines, depending on what I am looking for. I even still like (and use!) my Model 100 although I wish somebody would come up with a replacement for it that was in the same spirit (i.e. no disk drives; essentially a portable computer that emulates a notepad) but with a much bigger screen and a wee bit more memory (one of the latest NECs comes close). Ooops, getting off topic completely here! Choosing a machine is a _personal_ thing. And depends on what tasks you have in mind for it. 'nuff said. <flame mode off> ...back to work on my SUN (now, _that_ would be a nice machine to have at home :). Eric S Fraga, Dept of Computer Science, University of British Columbia +1 604 228 4907, fraga@cs.ubc.cdn
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (12/01/88)
in article <11767@cup.portal.com>, Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) says: > Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales were the 500 which > was probably bought primarily as a game machine while the majority of STs > out there are 1040's which have much greater utility. Huh? While it's almost certainly true that a good portion (more than 50%) of the Amigas being sold today are A500s, what could possibly make you think than a 1040 ST has "much greater utility" than an A500? If you ignore for a moment the issues of operating system and the other things that cause flame wars, the A500 and the 1040 ST look awfully similar: - 1 meg of internal memory (The A500 comes with 512K but accepts an little 512K add-on card that brings it up to 1 meg. Nearly every A500 is sold with this card). - Internal double sided floppy disk drive - 68000 CPU - Etc and so forth. There are certainly differences, though most of those differences are the general differences you find between Ataris and Amigas, not specific to these models. > Peter Szymonik -- Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy Amiga -- It's not just a job, it's an obsession
cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (12/01/88)
These kinds of discussions are useless. The reason they are useless is that some people believe that "most computers sold" == "best computer". This can be proven to be false by the simple fact that the single best selling computer in the world is a Commodore 64, and the single biggest selling family of computers is the IBM PC (XT,AT). No one I know thinks these are the best computers in the world. Everyone has an opinion and everyone disagrees on what "best" means and yet still they argue long into the night. The rest of this posting is an effort on my part to demonstrate why these things are pointless. I try to show that the Amiga 500 and the 1040 ST are essentially the same design with different compromises. When all is said and done they are the same computer. You as a reader look at the two machines, look at the way the designers compromised, and pick the one that *you* like better. Also be aware that your choice is only the better choice from your perspective, others will disagree and they are also correct from *their* perspective. Take the following comments from Peter as an example : In article <11767@cup.portal.com> (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes: > ...I'd say Atari will have no > problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already > done so! ... Given the "magicalness" of a million machines (see the PS/2, Apple Mac announcements when they broke a million) it is clear that Atari (or Commodore for that matter) will be shouting to everyone that can read (especially developers) to let them in on the good news. Witness Commodore's hyper sensitivity as they get closer to that number. > Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales > were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine > while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much > greater utility. This is an especially wonderful example of why debating machine merits is a waste of time. Here is a guy who obviously is very proud of his computer ownership attempting to slander the "competition" with absolutely no facts at all. If he understood the Amiga computer line he would realize that the Amiga 500 *is* the Atari 1040 ST competition. Line up the features side by side and even a third grader could tell you they were the same machine, to wit : 1040 ST Amiga 500 ---------- ---------- Processor 68000 68000 "Main" Memory 1 Meg 1 Meg Screen Resolution 320 X 200 350 X 200 various #'s of 640 X 200 700 X 200 colors. 640 X 480 700 X 440 Disk Drive 720K 880K Serial Port Yes Yes Parallel Port Yes Yes MIDI Port Yes No DMA Port Yes No Expansion Bus No Yes Hard Disk Available Yes Yes Memory Expansion Avail Yes Yes Max Memory 4 MB 9 Mb Blitter No* Yes Audio Yes Yes ----- * Blitter optional according to some things I have seen And the astute readers will note that a.) Prices are different, b.) Implementations are different, and c.) Neither machine is the "better" machine to everyone. In terms of hardware capabilities they offer the same functions. The question you ask are "What are the decisions the designers made?" Take MIDI for example. The Amiga does not have a MIDI port, the designers did not decide to include one. It is easy to turn the Amiga serial port into a MIDI port but it will cost you the user extra cash. *You* decide which decision is better for *you*. Same thing with a hard disk. Atari builds in a DMA port that makes connecting a SCSI device easier, Commodore provides and expansion bus that you can connect a hard disk controller to. Here the Atari designer may have said "Well, either we offer a hard disk interface or an expansion interface, which will it be? Gee most of our users will just want a hard disk so lets offer that." Whereas the Amiga designer might have said "Lets offer an expansion port so that other things beside a hard disk can be easily connected here." The Atari decision makes for cheaper hard disks, the Commodore decision makes for greater flexibility. Which do *you* prefer? *You* decide and that makes that machine best for you. When one evaluates both machines you will notice that the Commodore decisions tended to flexibility even when it raised the cost, whereas Atari's leaned toward keeping the price down at the cost of flexibility. None of these decisions make one computer "better" than the other, they just make the computers different. Of course none of this means anything to someone who's ego is tied up in the computer they own. That type of person will get just as hyper about whether or not a BMW is better than a Mercedes or a Ford is better than a Mercury. The important point to remember is that when you read an article from someone who really likes their computer and thinks anyone who doesn't like their computer obviously has a learning disability, you have to understand that they are *correct*. This is how they think from *their* perspective. There is no need to point out how their perspective disagrees strongly with *your* perspective. That is because both of your perspectives will disagree with everyone elses perspective. The end result is a couple of thousand articles describing the authors perspective and views. If you could condense them into a single survey message you might et the Signal to Noise ratio up above .5 but I doubt it. Well thats *my* perspective, --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
covertr@gtephx.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) (12/01/88)
In article <5376@cbmvax.UUCP>, daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) writes: > in article <11767@cup.portal.com>, Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) says: > > - 1 meg of internal memory (The A500 comes with 512K but accepts > an little 512K add-on card that brings it up to 1 meg. Nearly > every A500 is sold with this card). If so many Amigas are sold with the extra RAM then why have all of the Amiags posted For Sale on usenet only have 512K?? I disagree that most A500s go out of the store with the extra memory. People buy the A500 because they are cheap, and because Commodore has done a GREAT job ADVERTISING (Atari doesn't advertise!!) the machines. But adding another 200-300 bucks would place the A500 in the 1040ST price range.
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (12/03/88)
in article <3fff1a00.14e07@gtephx.UUCP>, covertr@gtephx.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) says: > In article <5376@cbmvax.UUCP>, daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) writes: >> in article <11767@cup.portal.com>, Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) says: >> >> - [The A500 comes with 512K but accepts an little 512K add-on card >> that brings it up to 1 meg. Nearly every A500 is sold with this > card). > If so many Amigas are sold with the extra RAM then why have all of the > Amiags posted For Sale on usenet only have 512K?? Assuming your assertion is true, I'd say that's probably because most, if not all, of the Amiga posted for sale on usenet have been Amiga 1000s. Using Commodore supported methods, you can only upgrade an A1000 internally to 512K. Using methods akin to some of the things available for 520STs, A1000s can have much more internal memory, though you'll see such systems for sale much less often. > I disagree that most A500s go out of the store with the extra memory. Well, they go into the store with the extra memory. Commodore makes just about 1 A501 for every A500 made. To the extent that none of the 3rd party folks sell any A501 clones (or even make them any more, to my knowledge, though one company did try it). > People buy the A500 because they are cheap, and because Commodore has done > a GREAT job ADVERTISING (Atari doesn't advertise!!) the machines. But adding > another 200-300 bucks would place the A500 in the 1040ST price range. Even if the A501 memory card did cost $300, and it did bring the A500 price up to the level of the 1040 ST, so what? Folks don't buy A500s just beacause they're cheaper than 1040 STs. There are many things to consider. Though I'm glad to hear that at least someone in the entire world thinks Commodore has been doing a "GREAT job ADVERTISING". This is absolutely the first time I've heard anyone say anything to that effect. -- Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy Amiga -- It's not just a job, it's an obsession
Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) (12/03/88)
Chuck: My comments have nothing to dowith ego. They have to do with what my personal experience is from working at a computer store and from trends I see among the computer users I meet. *My* experience is that most people who walked in the door of the store I worked at bought the A500 because of the tremedous amount of good game software for it - most of the people who bought the machine did not buy it as their first or primary computer! The vast majority already owned Macs, MS-DOS, or even (gasp) the ST! I never said the A500 isn't a nice machine, both it and the ST have their pros and cons. But in terms of wat I see happning in the expansion area, I did an informal survey on Delphi and almost *half* of the people in the ST-Log base had either already upgraded from a 1040 to a Mega 2 or 4 or were planning on it very shortly - considering that the Mega 2 CPU can be had for $995 thats not an incredible figure. My experience in the A500 shows that the vast majority upgrade to 1 meg, but no further (in fact, most A500 buyers buy the machine with the 1 meg upgrade - which brings the price of the A500 to the level of the Mega 2 rather than the 1040 for comparison.) Again, this may not be true across the country, I'd like to see a survey and compare stats - who knows, the vast majority of Amiga owners may in fact have 9 megs, but I'm basing my comments on personal experience and an educated examination of trends. I never wanted a flame war but certain egos wanted to turn this into one <grin>. Pete
mgh@ho4cad.ATT.COM (12/04/88)
Well said Chuck.....I own both an Amiga 2000 and a 1 Meg upgraded 520 ST. I couldn't agree with your post more....I like both my machines and see advantages and disadvantages in either. I also work with IBM and find both the ST and Amiga more enjoyable. Matt Hetman
peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (12/05/88)
In article <3fff1a00.14e07@gtephx.UUCP>, covertr@gtephx.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) writes: > In article <5376@cbmvax.UUCP>, daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) writes: > > - 1 meg of internal memory (The A500 comes with 512K but accepts > > an little 512K add-on card that brings it up to 1 meg. Nearly > > every A500 is sold with this card). > If so many Amigas are sold with the extra RAM then why have all of the Amiags > posted For Sale on usenet only have 512K?? They're Amiga-1000s, a now discontinued model (one I prefer to the 500, but that's based on the detachable keyboard). You want to start comparing the A500 with the 520ST? Dave works at Commodore, I think you can trust his sales figures. > Commodore has done > a GREAT job ADVERTISING (Atari doesn't advertise!!) the machines. Tell them that on comp.sys.amiga. We are uniformly disgusted by the Commodore advertising, and wish they did as good a job as Atari. Atari has some effective advertisements comparing the hardware with the PC and the Apple IIGS, where it shines (as does the Amiga, but Commodore doesn't see fit to tell anyone). > 200-300 bucks would place the A500 in the 1040ST price range. Uh, huh. There. No flames. Just facts. If you want a flame, send me private mail and I'll be happy to oblige. -- Peter da Silva `-_-' peter@sugar.uu.net Have you hugged U your wolf today? Disclaimer: My typos are my own damn busines#!rne
Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) (12/05/88)
I think Commodore's 'Free VCR!!' with every A500 purchase is quite imaginative (to :-] or not to :-]...) Pete
gl8f@bessel.acc.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) (12/05/88)
In article <3057@sugar.uu.net> peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: >In article <3fff1a00.14e07@gtephx.UUCP>, covertr@gtephx.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) writes: >> Commodore has done >> a GREAT job ADVERTISING (Atari doesn't advertise!!) the machines. > >Tell them that on comp.sys.amiga. We are uniformly disgusted by the Commodore >advertising, and wish they did as good a job as Atari. Atari has some effective >advertisements comparing the hardware with the PC and the Apple IIGS, where it >shines (as does the Amiga, but Commodore doesn't see fit to tell anyone). That's odd; the opinion here seems to be that comparing hardware isn't nearly as good as comparing applications: users don't understand the diferences between buswidths, microprocessors, and clock speeds. On the other hand, it's probably tough to convince the consumer that "You can get a spreadsheet for the {Atari ST,Amiga} that is just as good as any for the {Mac/IIgs/PC}". Probably the best advertising dollars spent are those on vertical markets. But we all dream of seeing Commodore and Atari prevent PC klones and over-priced Macs from owning the personal computer market. -- greg ---------- Greg Lindahl internet: gl8f@virginia.edu University of Virginia Department of Astronomy bitnet: gl8f@virginia.bitnet "When a 300' dish falls in the woods, and nobody hears, does it make a sound?"
rjung@sal14.usc.edu (Robert allen Jung) (12/08/88)
In article <3057@sugar.uu.net> peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: >Tell them that on comp.sys.amiga. We are uniformly disgusted by the Commodore >advertising, and wish they did as good a job as Atari. Atari has some effective >advertisements comparing the hardware with the PC and the Apple IIGS, where it >shines (as does the Amiga, but Commodore doesn't see fit to tell anyone). Are we talking about the same Atari here? The biggest gripe (okay, one of) from Atari US customers is that Atari is not doing *enough* advertising (outside of the video game division, I mean). Or are things overseas _really_ that great? I'm confused... (Still, _some_ good Atari news is welcome) In article <843@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> gl8f@bessel.acc.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) writes: >That's odd; the opinion here seems to be that comparing hardware isn't >nearly as good as comparing applications: users don't understand the >diferences between buswidths, microprocessors, and clock speeds. On >the other hand, it's probably tough to convince the consumer that >"You can get a spreadsheet for the {Atari ST,Amiga} that is just >as good as any for the {Mac/IIgs/PC}". A lot of the people I see who look at the hardware-comparison ads believe "bigger is better". More RAM, resolution, faster speeds, etc., do make some impressions on some people. A casual shopper won't be too worried about getting "as good as" software in the beginning, I think. ('sides, they can always get the Spectre 128/PC-ditto if they _really need_ "as good as" software... B-) --R.J. B-) P.S. WOW! What happened to the net these last few days??? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer: These are my views, and mine alone. # ## # Mailing address: Beats me, just reply to this message # ## # (rjung@nunki.usc.edu?) ## ## ## #### ## ####
peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (12/10/88)
In article <2098@nunki.usc.edu>, rjung@sal14.usc.edu (Robert allen Jung) writes: > Are we talking about the same Atari here? The biggest gripe (okay, one of) > from Atari US customers is that Atari is not doing *enough* advertising > (outside of the video game division, I mean). Or are things overseas > _really_ that great? I'm confused... You seem to be. I'm *in* the U.S. I guess you missed things like the Atari ads in major newspapers (New York Times, that sort of thing). Meanwhile Commdore advertises the Amiga (more a personal workstation than just a personal computer) on MTV. Sigh... -- Peter da Silva `-_-' peter@sugar.uu.net Have you hugged U your wolf today? Disclaimer: My typos are my own damn busines#!rne