pouët.net

And now we're at it...

Funny. This is now how the oldskool world is divided into these to fractions: C64/AtariST and AtariXL/Amiga - Long life Jay Miner, father of Atari 8bit and Amiga!!!

grtx,
\twh

p.s.: I like it better to say "Atari 8bit" or "8bit Atari" because it includes the whole bunch of similiar computers like Atari 400/800,Atari 600/800/1200XL, Atari 800,130XE. All these computers were (almost) the same, except for the external case and the memory expansion.

So we can group into:
* Atari 8bit
* Atari VCS (2600)
* Atari ST / STE
* Atari F030

Of course this excludes Atari VCS7800 as well as VCS5200 (which is internally an Atari800). But these platform are not really used for demos aren't they?

+ATARI LYNX2

"Atari prepared several high-end computers for introduction in 1984, but these were cancelled when the Tramiels took over Atari."Wiki

My own opinion:
Is that ST rather cold have 65816 3-20mhz cpu /this cpu was in SNES and original concept was done by ATARI!!!/ than 68k.
With AMY stereo soundchip and nice GUI as OS...
And some kickass GFX chip...
But OK.

I mean that ST could have been as APPLE 2GS...

The 5200 is somewhat pointless to code demos for, as it's basically a 800.

As for the 7800, I suppose it's only a question of time until someone does an intro for it (probably not me, though - I knew how the damn video chip worked, but forgot most of it again. It's a pain in the ass to get anything displayed on the 7800).

VCS7800 demos would rock too I guess :)

I want to see 7800 prod too!!!

Graphics: MARIA custom graphics controller

* 160x240 (160x288 PAL) resolution or 320x240/288 resolution
* 25 color palette out of 256 colors (16 hues * 16 luma), different graphics modes restricted the number of usable colors and the number of colors per sprite
* Direct Memory Access (DMA)
* Graphics clock: 7.16 MHz

Sound: TIA video and sound chip, same as the 2600. Only the sound is used in 7800 games. Both video and sound are used in 2600 games.

* Optional POKEY sound chip on cartridge for improved sounds.

It will be very nice!!!

The MARIA really looks nice. I wonder if it is on concept somehow comparable to the ANTIC. I could imagine, that it is somekind of an successor of the Antic, but never made it into the Atari 8bit computer family. Imagine an Atari 260XEM with 256kB, Maria graphics and AMY Soundchip?

Unfortunately, the whole XE family was (technically) kind of pointless. Tramiel was not interested in the 8bit line and the only thing they actually contributed was to release the 8bit Ataris in the timeless Atari ST shape with almost no architectural changes. The Atari XE with Maria?! The 8bit Atari which we all dreamed of :)

grtx,
\twh::taos

Atari 65 XEM prototype with Amiga-like soundchip:
http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8bits/xe/xe_protos/65xem.html

@TWH>
260XEM with 256kB, Maria graphics and AMY Soundchip
Is that beauty on e-bay :)) ???

Well Amy looks like Ensoniq ES5503 in APPLE2 GS... Sample based synth... Or something like in GUS was... or as AMIGA´s soundchip.

Why didn´t use that AMY in XEGS???

"Tramiel was not interested in the 8bit line"

Tramiel was interested in making profit, and when he took over Atari was in trouble big time. ST is a cheap amiga ripoff, as we all know Tramiel almost bought the rights to the amiga custom chips, but in the final moments Commodore stepped in. Then while Commodore was finalizing Amiga Atari came with the ST out.

Objection, Mr. Oswald.
The ST is far from being an Amiga rip off, the ST was designed to be like an Apple Macintosh.

Oswald,

your words about Mr. Tramiel are correct. He as the Atari Boss was interested in making profit and nothing more. But I never understood why he left Commodore and went to Atari.

Reg. the Amiga-rip off.. hmm. I think that's a personal opinion of you. The Amiga was created by some major Atari key players (Jay Miner) but the big deal was never completed, because Mr. Tramiel demanded of Amiga some rather unacceptable terms (I can't go into details now.. must double check that). But Mr.Tramiel saw the only big profit in the 16bit architecture. So he decided to create his own 16bit architecture and (if i'm not wrong) asked the guy who did the C64 (what's his name??) to design the Atari ST platform.

All this made Atari survive a couple of more years. Against the Amiga the ST - business was for the Atari Corp. lucrative right from the beginning.

grtx,
\twh::taos

Maria isn't half as good an idea as it looks at first glance. Lots of 8 bit Atari demos probably wouldn't have been possible with Maria. It's an interesting chip in some way, but half of its features are plain useless.

twh: Shiratz Shivji

the guy who designed c64 also designed the st? no offence to atari st people, but jack tramiel must have felt ripped off, at least in the sound department :)

one would expect a beefed-up and bugless sid chip or something... but i guess it was designed with low cost in mind, so no custom chips (or few? i don't know really)

Well, what can I say. I still have my 800XL, 800XE and 130XE with my two 1050 and the one XF551 floppy drives. B-) And I won't give them away, nope. :)

Shiraz Shivji didnt design the c64.

anyways, Tramiel knew what the amiga will be, hence he has negotiated with amiga corp, and when commodore bought it off, suddenly atari comes up with a similar but cheaper computer, in a smaller time frame than amiga was needed to be finished? that cant be a coincidence :)

paranoid, objection ? show me an interview where that is said :)

Oswald: Ever heard of the term "Jackintosh" ?

Anyhow, here's a YouTube video that shows pretty well what Jack Tramiel thought of the ST:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NImJFV3wH88

Also, at this time, the Mac was considered the benchmark, even by Commodore for the Amiga:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9boeHRUeMPA&feature=related

Paranoid, none of those vids proove that "the ST was designed to be like an Apple Macintosh."

Oswald: Have you watched the first video ?
At 5:12, Jack Tramiel says that the "ST is built on a similar machine like the Apple Macintosh".
Directly afterwards, he compares the features of the Mac against the features of the ST.

But feel free to believe the "ST was a cheap Amiga rip off" if that makes you feel better.
You'll fail to prove that to me since you will not find any interview stating that either.

Jack Tramiel has no idea what is he talking about. Its clear when he says "it has music built in" :D "ST is built on a similar machine like the Apple Macintosh" = he tries to say its the same cpu :)) or what machine is the mac built on do you think? a washmachine? :)

Jack and his engineers saw the amiga prototype, saw what it can do, they WANTED it, they have invested a lot of money into the thing, only to loose out 1 inch before the finish line to commodore. then before commodore manages to finish amiga atari cames out with a cheapo computer that compares to the amiga? you think thats a coincidence ? :)) ST resembles much more an amiga than a mac. colors? music? if it was a mac ripoff then it would have a looser in those areas aswell, but no it tried to mimic the amiga for cheap.

Oswald, YOU WIN!
Now go and code a nice demo for us

Oswald: Interesting. Where do you have that information from ?

Paranoid, "on the edge" a book about commodore. Jailbird, :P