| The question should not be 'Which is better, the Amiga or ST' but
should be 'What are my requirements?'
Each has unique advantages. Each also has limitations, most of
which can be corrected with money injections.
The Amiga is considered more appropriate for graphics intensive
applications, since it has a much larger color pallette and very fast
BitBlt chip. It also has a 640 x 400 color mode with 16 colors
available out of 4096, and a slick HAM mode that allows all 4096 colors
to be displayed on screen at once. The Amiga also has an excellent
4-channel sound chip with real stereo output. All Amiga models can be
expanded to 9.5 MBytes. The Amiga has a real native multitasking OS
(Not DA's or Switcher-type tricks). In addition, the Amiga can easily
be upgraded to a 68010 or 68020/68881 chipset and still run all of it's
native applications.
The ST has what I consider the best monochrome display available,
640 x 400 @ 70Hz refresh rate. The ST can also crunch numbers about
11% faster due to it's slightly faster clock speed. The ST will,
in general, be cheaper than the Amiga, although a 1 meg A500 isn't
much more than a 1040. ($1100 in the US, with monitor.) Prices
are sure to drop before Christmas. The ST comes with a built-in
MIDI port and hard disk port. The Amiga requires the the user buy
a SCSI interface with the HD. A 20 meg HD setup for the Amiga will
run around $150-200 more than an ST 20 meg. But the SCSI controller
is a nice thing to have for future growth.
So, if you want a cheap, fast engine with excellent mono display
and occasional game craziness, the ST is a steal.
If you want a more expandable job with better color graphics and sound
and a nicer OS the Amiga is unbeatable.
If you can afford it, the MAC ][ is sure to be the system to beat
for some time. If you can afford it. But I wouldn't expect a lot
of games to show up for the MAC ][, since it's more of a real
workstation than a PC.
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re 676.3
I've never met one.
the ST is much more popular over here, mainly because it is
cheaper, has more easily available software and has been advertised
longer, and Is probablyb more easy to get hold of, but I dont
know.
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| Well, there is another one now..... Santa brought me a nice shiny
A500 for Xmas......
Came with A520 modulator
DPaint
Textcraft
A couple of naff games (mastertronic)
I'm still just hacking about with it documentationless as the funds
are _VERY_ low right now (I don't count the "docs" that came with
it)
Alan Thomson Ayr, Scotland
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Hi,
My name is Colin McCartney and I am a Graduate Software Engineer with
the Mail Interchange Group at European Engineering, DecPark 2, Reading.
I work in the team developing the Management Software for Message
Router.
I've just bought my AMIGA and so far it only consists of the AMIGA A500
and a TV modulator. It looks awesome so far.
My own interests lie in garphics programming (ray-tracing and other 3d
stuff) and general programming specifically in Modula-2, C or
Assembler.
Colin.
Colin D. C. McCartney,
REO2-F/J3,
DTN 830-6075.
E-Mail
FORTY2::MCCARTNEY (VMSMail)
MCCARTNEY@MRGATE@FORTY2 (from ALL-IN-1)
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