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From: keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle)
Newsgroups: net.micro.atari
Subject: Re: set fol atari-mail
Message-ID: <977@cadovax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 9-Dec-85 20:21:08 EST
Article-I.D.: cadovax.977
Posted: Mon Dec  9 20:21:08 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Dec-85 07:36:42 EST
References: <8512062142.AA07057@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle)
Organization: CONTEL CADO Systems, Torrance, CA
Lines: 50

In article <8512062142.AA07057@ucbvax.berkeley.edu> nep.pgelhausen@ames-vmsb.ARPA writes:
>> 
>Nobody is denying that the bouncing ball demo is more impressive looking than
>difficult.  A recent message placed the Atari developement time at approx.
>one week also.  The basic thrust of Atari's marketing is not "we are better
>than Commodore" but "we can do much of the same stuff they can, cheaper".
>
>Before the Atari-duplicate demo, the Commodore people were so proud of
>themselves....now they are saying "it was nothing anyway".  Make up your
>minds!!!
>
>			-Richard Hartman

To me there are only a few important differences between the two machines:

   1a. The Amiga is NTSC compatible which allows easy use with VTR's, home
       tv cameras for digitizing/overlaying etc. at the expense of flicker
       at 640x400.

   1b. The Atari is virtually flicker-free at 640x400 at the expense of NTSC
       compatibility.

   2a. The Amiga supports up to 4 bit planes in the max resolution mode, 
       enough for decent grayscale digitizing/imaging, palette of 4096, and
       bit-blit & sprite hardware.

   2b. The Atari supports up to 2 bit planes in the max resolution mode, with
       palette of 512 and little or no hardware graphics assistance.

   3a. The Amiga supports a series of dedicated DMA channels that DO NOT 
       INTERFERE with the CPU speed for 4 sound channels that utilize a
       wavetable (up to max available of the internal 512k ram) and associated
       volume and pitch tables, which effectively constitute a 4 channel
       8-bit digital sampling synthesizer a-la Ensonique Mirage but with
       4 channels instead of however many the Mirage has.

   3b. The Atari uses a off-the-shelf 3 channel sound generator that's been
       around for awhile, and from all reports is not terribly sophisticated.

If, after all that, you still can't tell the difference between the machines
except price, then by all means buy yourself the 520ST.  Someone should, as I
am a firm believer in healthy competition.  But for me, I bought an Amiga,
the least expensive system that could do what *I* needed in a machine, 
because the 520ST couldn't do those things at all (imaging at 640x400, 
NTSC video compatibility, and digital sampling of sound).

Keith Doyle
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