The hottest new computers on the market are Atari's 520ST and the Amiga from Commodore. What can they do and which one may be right for you? We'll help you find out today.
These computers, the Atari 800 and the Commodore 64, represented the battle between the low end of the market about a year ago. Now there's a new generation of home machines, but what will people do with them? Can they get people's attention back?
Second-generation machines need better capabilities all around, but it's up to software developers to make them useful for home users!
Here we are at Comdex '85 to figure out how they're going to sell dealers, who don't want to carry home computers anymore, on these new machines.
Atari had an enormous booth full of dealers. Commodore didn't have an Amiga booth, just private showings of the Amiga.
Atari had an enormous booth full of dealers. Commodore didn't have an Amiga booth, just private showings of the Amiga.
The Amiga's advanced technology has wooed business dealers and software companies who want the latest and greatest.
Here's Rick Geiger here to demonstrate the Amiga for us.
"It works like other GUIs, and we also supply a command-line interface for people who are familiar with them. And, of course, here's our famous bouncing ball demo."
"It works like other GUIs, and we also supply a command-line interface for people who are familiar with them. And, of course, here's our famous bouncing ball demo."
Stewart: Why is this impressive? What are we looking at here?
Rick: "What you're seeing is real-time synchronized graphics and sound. And in addition, we still have an application running."
Rick: "What you're seeing is real-time synchronized graphics and sound. And in addition, we still have an application running."
Gary: We've heard a lot about the special graphics hardware. What kind of hardware is this?
Rick: What's behind this is 25 DMA channels that provides for all of the rendering functions and BitBLT so they don't load down the 68K.
Rick: What's behind this is 25 DMA channels that provides for all of the rendering functions and BitBLT so they don't load down the 68K.
"In my office, I run telecommunications, word processing, and print at the same time. With the multitasking of the Amiga, this makes those things very easy to do."
Gary looks very excited.
Gary looks very excited.
Stewart: Tell us why you're excited to work with the Amiga.
Tim: When we started 3 years ago, we envisioned a home computer of the future that would do high-quality A/V effects. We knew enough about technology to know that was going to happen around now.
Tim: When we started 3 years ago, we envisioned a home computer of the future that would do high-quality A/V effects. We knew enough about technology to know that was going to happen around now.
"When we saw the Amiga prototypes, we knew that was the kind of machine we were envisioning."
Deluxe Paint is the first in a series of creativity programs from EA. It's a professional-quality digital painting tool.
Deluxe Paint is the first in a series of creativity programs from EA. It's a professional-quality digital painting tool.
[Deluxe Paint with an A500 was the standard for computer game graphics for years, even into the VGA PC era.]
EA is also working on Deluxe Print, a home/office publishing program, Deluxe Music Construction Set, an Amiga port of their Mac music program, and Deluxe Video Construction Set, a special effects program.
Here are some example drawings done from scratch on the Amiga - the famous Venus, King Tut, and the animated waterfall.
Stewart: Who is going to buy the Amiga?
Rick: It's a powerful general-purpose computer with multitasking. With the custom hardware, we've solved the problem of performance problems with graphics and sound. Anyone who's interested in that will want this.
Rick: It's a powerful general-purpose computer with multitasking. With the custom hardware, we've solved the problem of performance problems with graphics and sound. Anyone who's interested in that will want this.
We have some Atari guys here to show us the 520ST.
"The desktop is based on the GEM technology. One feature we like is the ability to customize the user interface.
It has a built-in MIDI interface. MIDI is an emerging standard for control of musical instruments."
It has a built-in MIDI interface. MIDI is an emerging standard for control of musical instruments."
"It allows a computer to sequence a series of notes going to a synthesizer. It allows us to either play music, or record things just like with a word processor - synchronize or transpose notes. There's 3-voice sound but if you're serious about music you can expand to MIDI."
"We also have an internally-developed paint program called Neo. This is a collection of some of the images created with it. Each image is 32KB, transferred directly from hard disk."
"This shows off the 10Mbit DMA capabilities."
There's also another color-cycling waterfall demo.
The base 520ST plus monochrome monitor and one 360KB disk drive is $799.95.
The system shown here, with color monitor, is $999.95. The hard disk isn't out yet.
There's also another color-cycling waterfall demo.
The base 520ST plus monochrome monitor and one 360KB disk drive is $799.95.
The system shown here, with color monitor, is $999.95. The hard disk isn't out yet.
"We refer to the 520ST as a personal computer. We believe that people determine what computers are used for. The 520ST is a computer system that's as powerful as any other computer on the market, but priced at a consumer level."
Gary: How would you use it in business?
Jim: "Here we have a spreadsheet demo. It's similar to PC spreadsheet programs, but takes advantage of the GEM user interface. You can create a graph with the menu bar rather than cryptic keyboard commands."
Jim: "Here we have a spreadsheet demo. It's similar to PC spreadsheet programs, but takes advantage of the GEM user interface. You can create a graph with the menu bar rather than cryptic keyboard commands."
Stewart: You've shown business, now I want to know if you can show a red-and-white soccer ball bouncing!
Yep, they can.
"We have four custom chips. The system is designed in such a way that the 68000 retains most control over the system's processing."
Yep, they can.
"We have four custom chips. The system is designed in such a way that the 68000 retains most control over the system's processing."
Now for the big question: Where is the software? Stoneware, makers of DB Master for the Mac, chose the Atari.
"It's very hard to re-use your development investment on the Amiga. It's much easier with the Atari."
They were early adopters of the Apple II and Mac.
"It's very hard to re-use your development investment on the Amiga. It's much easier with the Atari."
They were early adopters of the Apple II and Mac.
Stoneware belives the low price will sell the computer. Their business software will be shipped under the Atarisoft label.
Now let's talk sales - we have Lewis Moore, president of Home Computing Centers here for that.
Gary: We've seen the Atari base model for $795 - what's a comparable Amiga?
"The Amiga base price is $1295. To add a monitor and take it up to 512K, you're at $1985."
Gary: We've seen the Atari base model for $795 - what's a comparable Amiga?
"The Amiga base price is $1295. To add a monitor and take it up to 512K, you're at $1985."
Oof.
"There's a lot of comparison, but people see them as two different systems. I think they're both going to be fine. We hear the Amiga has many more features but isn't worth the price. Upselling from the C128 to the Atari is very easy, as well."
"There's a lot of comparison, but people see them as two different systems. I think they're both going to be fine. We hear the Amiga has many more features but isn't worth the price. Upselling from the C128 to the Atari is very easy, as well."
"Because of the Atari name, it's looking at the home market. Commodore has a similar history, but the Amiga can cross over to the business market with PC compatibility and graphics capabilities."
Gary: Tell us about the PC emulation.
"It's a software emulator that turns the 68000 into an 8088, though it is very slow. The best way to do that would be through hardware."
[ed: The A1060 PC/XT sidecar came out in 1986.]
"It's a software emulator that turns the 68000 into an 8088, though it is very slow. The best way to do that would be through hardware."
[ed: The A1060 PC/XT sidecar came out in 1986.]
Stewart: Is Amiga going up against Mac to consumers?
"Yeah. We get new consumers who were waiting for the new generation of computers to get into the market as well. We get 20 to 30 calls a day. We get lots of people enamored with the hardware. DOS emulation is important too."
"Yeah. We get new consumers who were waiting for the new generation of computers to get into the market as well. We get 20 to 30 calls a day. We get lots of people enamored with the hardware. DOS emulation is important too."
The general consensus is that there's room for both machines in the market and they can both be successful as long as the software arrives and management isn't dumb as a box of rocks.
*looks at the Tramiel family*
*looks at whoever ran Commodore in the late '80s*
*looks at the Tramiel family*
*looks at whoever ran Commodore in the late '80s*
News segment!
- Software prices are falling 50% by next year according to analysts.
- A new product called Softstrip has arrived, encoding data on paper for retrieval by scanner. 17 magazine publishers have signed on. [ed: lol]
- Software prices are falling 50% by next year according to analysts.
- A new product called Softstrip has arrived, encoding data on paper for retrieval by scanner. 17 magazine publishers have signed on. [ed: lol]
- Desktop publishing is the new hot thing at Comdex '85. Turnkey computer publishing systems are now under $10,000 and laser printers are under $2,000.
- Ricoh has introduced an electronic blackboard! It saves what you write on it, for display on a terminal or hard-copy printouts.
- The 1986 Buick Riviera contains ten computer systems! It can even report on problems to your mechanic when you bring it in for service.
The ST didn’t unseat the PC in the business market but it did have a niche in music (an essential item in music studios into the mid-late ‘90s with some artists still swearing by them) and engineering, particularly in Europe.
Licensed Falcons were produced by European music companies well after Atari died, similar to how there were Amiga-based video editors produced for years after Commodore died. Apparently Apple holds one of the hardware licenses after buying up a German company a while back.
