Is there any reason to care about Atari ST? It feels like a bland late 80s 16-bit computer, except it is not IBM-compatible for some reason. It has no unique interesting features, except for built-in MIDI ports which were used historically for serious music production and daisy-chained LAN parties, but nowadays nobody is going to emulate the ST for that.
>except it is not IBM-compatibleThat is a good thing. IBM was dogshit for gaming when the ST was in its prime, the only ST rival was Amiga. IBM in the 80s was mostly flight sims and golf, often on a green monochrome screen because the PC was bought for word processing and spreadsheets. A lot of dos games stuck to 16 color CGA graphics even in 1987, because of tandy and other lower end PC ibm clones on the market lacked more advanced graphics capabilities. EGA graphics were nice when supported, and eventually VGA arrived but it was slow to be adopted by game developers, assuming people even bought a color screen for their IBM clone. The PC master race was years away from their golden age of SVGA in the 1990s. When people look at old sierra games they are often looking at VGA remakes released years later. Those same sierra quest games were on the ST as well. The good ST games got Amiga ports. The good amiga games got ST ports, and then a year or two later they would make an IBM port. Or they released an IBM downgrade version. Apple 2 hita like prince of persia also crossed over to the ST with upgraded visuals.Atari ST had plenty of arcade hits like gauntlet 2 holden axe and outrun, the lucasarts quest games like indiana jones and monkey island, the SSI goldbox dungeons and dragons games, wizardry and yltima games, and dungeon master which was firstbreleased to the ST in 1987 and got a PC port in like 1991.
>>12060806I get it you are a hipster and want to hate DOS but this is a terrible example>Apple 2 hita like prince of persia also crossed over to the ST with upgraded visuals.Prince of Persia wasn't an Apple 2 hit. It was first released on the Apple 2 but it became a hit on DOS.According to the author:>The 1990 PC version, developed in parallel with the Apple II and shipped a few months later, took advantage of the PC's improved graphics and sound capabilities to deliver the Prince of Persia most players remember (in CGA, EGA, or VGA).>If someone asked me the best way to play old-school PoP online today, I'd likely recommend the DOS version.The Atari ST version is a clear downgrade from DOS and was just a throwaway port that the original author of Prince of Persia had no involvement with.I guess what you are saying is all true about the mid-80s, Prince is just a bad example because it's 1989-90 and probably most people experienced it in VGA
>>12060730>Is there any reason to care about Atari ST?no>built-in MIDI ports which were used historically for serious music productionyawn
>>12060730yes , some if its 3D games run smoother than its Amiga rivals. and it has the best version of Dungeon Master
>>12060806Why is the symbol on the banner different for Macintosh?
>>12061059This was the non-steve jobs era of apple, he was the quality control guy who would have caught stuff like that
>>12061245The Macintosh was released in 1984, Jobs was kicked out of Apple in 1985 and 1997
>>12060806Could the EGA palette not be freely altered? Both Atari ST and EGA are limited to 16 colors onscreen, but EGA looks way worse.
>>12061352EGA is limited to the same 16 colors for everything, that's why a lot of EGA stuff looks awkward and samey. It wasn't until VGA where you could alter colors
>>12061286The game released on the system in 1987, but it's not like it matters. It's not like there's a group of little John Apples developing and quality assuring every piece of software ever made on the system.
>>12061370I didn't know that, EGA was a couple of years before my time. Thanks anon
>>12061370this is technically false.>While the EGA can only display up to 16 colours at a time, those 16 can be chosen from a selection of 64 possible colours.thing is everyone was lazy and just used the default color palette. so, it may as well be true.https://moddingwiki.shikadi.net/wiki/EGA_Palette
>>12060851>The Atari ST version is a clear downgrade from DOS wut? the dos was a colorless lifeless version. even released in the VGA era it was an example of a game that was made for older 16 color PCs that people could actually afford.The ST was $799 (or $999 with a color monitor) in 1985. A VGA card in 1988 was $700 on its own (ATI VGA wonder) and that went into an entry level 386 which was $2500 without monitor (Radio Shack Tandy 4000 bare bones PC, Or $1500 for a 286 Tandy). An actual decent PC from IBM or NEC was north of $4000 at this point. They were business machine with potential to be high end gaming machines, but at exponentially more money than purpose built low cost gaming computers from Atari and Amiga.Until the affordable trident and Tseng Labs VGA cards arrived and the price of a decent IBM clone fell below $2000, the vast majority of dos gamers were not able to enjoy VGA games until the 1990s. Game developers built the games primarily for 1985 CGA hardware to cover as many potential DOS customers as they could. There were rare exceptions like 686 attack sub and later wing commander that really went all in on VGA. Sierra re-released kings quest VGA remake in 1990, and hero quest VGA edition in 1992. Battle chess got a VGA release for DOS in 1991, years after it was a head turner on Amiga.Amiga and ST ruled the 1980s for this reason.
>>12061714Pricing is cited here, a 1988 radio shack tandy computer catalog:Entry level 386 was $259912" EGA monitor was $699EGA video card was $299Radio shack didn't even offer VGA cards at this point, and they were the top PC seller in America at this point. You had to go to a specialty shop to buy a VGA card, but so few games supported it yet. As for sound, the atari ST had excellent yamaha sound chip and was famous for its MIDI capabilities. The PC at the time could play a shrill beep from the PC speaker, the stuff of nightmares. Ad lib offered an expensive sound card in 1988, supported by a handful of games, and in 1989 the debut of the sound blaster card at an affordable $199 lead to sound support becoming commonplace for DOS gaming from this point on.
>>12061370On top of what >>12061581 said, even CGA let you have more than one palette too. And it had a composite mode that allowed for even more color.
>>12061976CGA had like 4 different pallets to choose from, and all were shit for games besides composite mode, it was a choice between shitty backyard (green, brown, blue and black) or the result of binging on cotton candy and milkshakes at the carnival (cyan, magenta, black and white)
Why don't they make mice without scroll wheels nymore
>>12061989There's no practical reason not to have one.
>>12061994Cost savings. IDIOTHoly shit it sucks being the smartest person in the room constantly
>>12061997A scroll wheel is basically mandatory for mice and tasks requiring it now, I don't think anyone would ever sacrifice such a thing just to save a couple cents. Scroll wheels just make everyone more efficient.
>>12062014This must be that anon's worst nightmare
>>12060730There's a few games that were on both the Amiga and Atari ST where the ST version is considered superiorNothing worth buying an Atari ST for but if you're emulating 16-bit home computer games it might be worth taking the time to check if your chosen title happens to be one of themThere's also some games where the C64 or even the ZX Spectrum version is better than any 16-bit port, so it's often worth doing the research anyways
>>12061773While it wasn't any cheaper, it should be noted that a lot of IBM PS/2 line computers did ship with built in VGA graphics and those were released in 1987. My first computer growing up was a PS/2 Model 50 that my parents got in 1987 for work related stuff. So that thing was able to actually hold up pretty well for late 80s and early 90s DOS games. With a 486 upgrade and a sound card it could even run DOOM decently.
Oids was good, but you can play Evoids now anyway.
>>12061581A little bit like the halfbrite mode on Amiga that allowed 64 colors instead of 32 that were just darker versions of the original palette. Was afaik rarely ever used in games for performance reasons, and getting more colors on screen was solved by more effective means.
>>12062079>PS/2 Model 50yea the real IBM was legit excellent in the 80s, as were NEC IBM clones. >Being a midrange offering, the Model 50 retailed for US$3,595>The Model 50 was also the most inexpensive entry in the PS/2 line feature a Video Graphics Array (VGA) display interfaceVery good PC for the era. The 486 upgrade is neat too, the 486SLC2 replay turbo turns a 286 into a 486sx/25, that would indeed run doom. They had a replay powerboard version as well that had like 16mb of ram and a 486DX chip, but this was essentially a whole new motherboard though.
>>12062327Yeah, even without the 486 upgrade, it was still able to run stuff like Wolfenstein 3D at a playable speed if you had a RAM expansion card. Which in 1992 was more than you could say for an Atari ST or Amiga purchased in 1987.
>>12062426Some of that is down to the fact that pcs used a chunky graphics mode, while the Amiga used a bitplane model. Bitplanes are superior for smooth scrolling, but inferior for the kind of operations you need for raycasting engines.
ST is a quality system with fun games. Music sounded great on it too thanks to the more powerful CPU driving the generic ay sound.
>>12061059Jim Sachs, the original graphical artist for the game was not involved in the Mac port. Steve Quinn, the art director on Macintosh port was probably a nerd who knew that the coat of arms of England should feature three lions. Except that they outnerded themselves, because it was very possible that Richard the Lionheart used a singular lion on his coat of arms until very close to his death, and the game takes place during the period of his captivity from 1192 to 1194.
>>12060730Mid 80s system launched in 1985, it was successful and sold more than the Amstrad, and more than Amiga until commodore copied the console design for the a500.
>>12061714I consider pc xt to be like the 8 bit machines, the IBM PC was released before the C64 even. If you consider that then the PC is pretty decent and fun.Atari St was around when 286 and EGA was the norm. It was 1990 or so that cheap 386's with VGA got popular.Still even if ST was better PC still had pretty good games for EGA from 86 to 89. Actually some of those ST originals like Xenon and Blood money run smoother on pc when I tested on a 386.https://archive.org/details/1990-04-compute-magazine/page/112/mode/2up>>12061773You had those pretty good early pc games and then early apogee games were great too, its like a pretty big gap between them, I find it weird.
>>12062897An ega 386 PC in 1990 was many times more expensive than an Amiga let alone an ST.
>>12061986At least the green and brown palette was easy on the eyes. Cyan and magenta was pure eye-searing clown vomit.
>Picked up a 1040ST and a boatload of games for basically nothing in the mid 90s>take it home, 99% of the time it will not boot, every so often TOS will load but is massively unstable, quickly freezes>11-12 years old, no internet and no real understanding of troubleshooting>find out decades later that they were prone to unseating their own CPUs from the heat, could have probably fixed it in minutes had I ever thought to crack it opento this day I am mad
>>12060730>except it is not IBM-compatible for some reasonAs other posters have said IBM compatible was not an issue at the time, generally those were worse for graphics at that point.
>>12060730It's physical appearance is still so very cool. Outside MIDI the hardware wasn't that great.
Other than MIDI and that strange German DTP software, the most popular use for an ST was running Mac software on it.
>>12061059>>12062686TIL apple were English footy fans.JULES RIMET STILL GLEAMING
It's soulless machine. Sure, most 3D games ran better on Atari, but the soundchip was Amstrad tier levels of shit. It was also neglected by the demo scene which says a lot about a system's soul. The mouse pointer in the shape of a bee is cute tho, always liked that.
>>12062897>You had those pretty good early pc games and then early apogee games were great too, its like a pretty big gap between them, I find it weird.A lot of those games on DOS came years alter, it was indeed weird. DOS was getting crude 2d platformers in the early 1990s when Amiga and ST had similar games in 1985/86. Duke nukem (2d) 1991 picturedCrystal caves 1991Commander keen 1990Blake stone 1993Jazz Jackrabbit 1994They were fun little games, but even the SNES crushed them for sound and visuals.
>>12064116DOS always sucked for platformers, although you are kind of cherry-picking the bad stuff. Commander Keen 4 was also 1991 and looks much more professional than that.
>>12064173here is commander keen 7. I am not cherry picking it was all pretty grim visually.
>>12064212There was no game in 1985/86 on Amiga or ST that looked like that.
>>12064245Superfrog is in a similar style and looks better IMO
>>12061997>Holy shit it sucks being the smartest person in the room constantly(you) should go look for him then, knuckle dragger.
>>12064254>published in 1993Anon...
Yes.Best version of sundog and some versions of rpg's like rings of zilfin have much better control and graphics because of mouse.
>>12064245It's actually true. No sophisticated platformer exists on Amiga before 1988. 88 seems to be Amiga's cambrian explosion.
Why do PC fags need to shit up ever ST/Amiga thread? PC was overpriced shit throughout the entire 80s nobody preferred it as a platform. Sure 486/VGA changed the game in the 90s but it was still expensive and means nothing in an 80s computer discussion.
>>12064323Time bandits is best on ST.
>>12064553They did it in the 80s, though it was a different angle. Had a local chatroom BBS I used to visit and a few of the PC fags would justify their clone boxes by shitting on Amigas and stuff as "not a real computer" and " a games machine" and shit. It always felt like sour grapes to me.
>>1206456180s PC kids were just using dad's spreadsheet machine to play gorilla.bas.
>>12064116>>12064212There's a few great looking EGA games
>>12064595Looks like shit.
>12065373No one cares about your shitty opinions, zoomer
>>12064595EGA pixel art is pretty incredible, unfortunately only a few games took full advantage of it
>>12063160You didn't even need to crack it open. The most common method used among Atari ST owners and repairmen for reseating the chips involved dropping it from a short height onto the ground.
>>12064595Is Colonel's Bequest still using vector format for backgrounds, or did Sierra already switch to backgrounds stored as pre-rendered images by that point?
>>12065386Isn't that sunset only in the EGA version for some reason?
>>12065983It is, because EGA is the original and the best.The sunset (by Mark Ferrari) uses a palette-shifting trick to change to night without using a separate image.Mark Ferrari was not involved in the VGA version. They couldn't be bothered to recreate the trick and simply discarded the sunset.
>>12065816well shit lol
Not exclusive but a riveting geopolitics sim where you can fund rebel groups to destabilize your opposition and facilitate military coups while avoiding nuclear megadeaths. How cute is that?
>>12060730As you mentioned, the MIDI ports were the best thing about the ST. Its MIDI timing was reputably rock-solid and along with a copy of Cubase was one of the best ways to sequence synth modules and samplers at the time. Our secondary school music teacher had an entire setup which we were never allowed to touch.
>>12070305Thinking about it, it makes more sense that the German band Atari Teenage Riot would name itself after the computer they used to run DAW on rather than as a tribute to gaming.
