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#July MicroTimes
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Hmm… I'll probably get hate messages for this, but here goes…
Video quality — side by side, I like the ST's picture better than the
Amiga's. Personal opinion here — things like this are subjective. The ST
monochrome is superb, and the color monitor seems to have less of an
inter-scanline gap (probably just the monitor). Like I said, personal
viewpoint and not gospel.
The Amiga IS a great game machine (and not just that, of course). The chip
set makes it perfectly suited for games, while the ST is not. I've said this
from day 1.
The chip set was designed by the same person, and IS a logical extension of
the work Jay did on the Atari 400/800. That doesn't mean the 8-bit Ataris
are as powerful as the Amiga (far from it) but the Amiga would have been a
perfect Atari machine (i.e. 800's big brother) because the concept is similar
but far more advanced.
I'm not an engineer, so I can't comment on the speed aspects. The Amiga
will, of course, be faster in blitter ops — the ST will be faster in raw
processing. I have been told by top-notch Amiga developers that certain
graphics modes do take a chunk out of processing time available to the 68K.
All I know is what I've been told.
I don't want to get in a big argument here about all this, but based on what
I know and have been told, Tramiel's comments don't seem that far out of
line. I might question the speed stuff if I knew the EXACT data on what the
various graphics modes do to the 68K. Some of the things he said could be
based on personal opinion, which no one can quantify.
OK, folks, open fire. I just hope this doesn't get out of hand.
-Tom
2 things here that I really appreciate having on the Amiga are sprites, and
fast text routines (Or at least they seem fast…). I was looking at a
terminal program running on the ST today (a GEM terminal program, I am
talking GEM here not TOS), and it COULD NOT KEEP UP AT 1200 BAUD! I was told
by an ST programmer that this is because GEM is not fast enough to handle the
modem and the screen! How many of us have used Starterm 3? Next time it is
reading a message, shove down the right mouse button for a few seconds, and
when you let go of it, notice how fast it does the text…
Anybody ever use Logo on the ST? You move the mouse, and your program stops
running until you stop moving the mouse!! This is to make sure that their
fake 'sprite' does not write all over whatever you happen to be doing. In
most of the slide show demos, and many other programs, they either have to
shut the pointer off, or it drives all over whatever bitmapped stuff seems to
be going on! You may say 'Who Cares', but they are both Really nice to have.
The only graphics support the ST has in hardware is the bitmapped screen
modes – almost like the 64. It is either in 640×400, 640×200, or 320×200.
On the Amiga, you could mix 4 different screen resolutions no problem…
Of course I'm probably just boring everybody, but I like to ramble on about
the Amiga… (Love this keyboard! Another Amiga Plus!)
I agree with you on the text — for some reason the ST's text is awfully
slow. Might speed up with a blitter (hope, hope!). I also agree about
sprites. I loved them on the Atari 800, and they'd be nice to have
available. It's a royal pain to have to hide the cursor every time you do a
plot to the screen…
By the way, the ST _can_ mix graphics modes on the screen (take a look at
"The Pawn" — they did some neat tricks that surprised a lot of people (who
knows how much processor time it eats, though!)
I think the problem with the ST being slow with graphics and text is because
the video chip steals cycles from the 68000 cpu. Also, not to mention that
the current video chips used in STs will all some day fail and SOON. Seems
Trameil, in his haste to get the ST out, didn't think too much about over
heating which causes damage to the ST. Of course, if the ST person didn't
have his computer on all the time, there wouldn't be any problems but some of
the BBS sysops out here running STs are experiencing terrrible problems with
the video chip, especially weird lines and offset colours. On the otherhand,
look at the Amiga! It's got it's own fan although I personnally don't think
it really keeps the system cool. I have a MicroForge 40megs w/7slot
expansion box. I have my computer on 24hours a day, 7 days a week. As a
matter of fact, I haven't turned the buggah off in about 1 month (striaght!).
No problems whatsoever.
I think the problem with the ST being slow with graphics and text is because
the video chip steals cycles from the 68000 cpu. Also, not to mention that
the current video chips used in STs will all some day fail and SOON. Seems
Trameil, in his haste to get the ST out, didn't think too much about over
heating which causes damage to the ST. Of course, if the ST person didn't
have his computer on all the time, there wouldn't be any problems but some of
the BBS sysops out here running STs are experiencing terrrible problems with
the video chip, especially weird lines and offset colours. On the otherhand,
look at the Amiga! It's got it's own fan although I personnally don't think
it really keeps the system cool. I have a MicroForge 40megs w/7slot
expansion box. I have my computer on 24hours a day, 7 days a week. As a
matter of fact, I haven't turned the buggah off in about 1 month (striaght!).
No problems whatsoever.
You are right about the monitor. I am running an Atari SC1224 on my Amiga,
and to me, the quality seems a lot better than the 1080.
As for speed, the clock is around 15% faster on the ST, and without using any
fancy graphics on either one, the processing time will reflect this. When we
get into heavy DMA stuff on the Amiga, there is definitely a degradation in
processing other tasks. What most people can't seem to grasp though, is that
while cycles are being stolen from the 68000, the ST, doing equivalent fancy
stuff would have the 68000 working on the graphics all by its lonesome, and
since the custom chips are far faster then the 68000 could hope to be for
these operations, the ST is at a decided disadvantage.
With the addition of memory over 512K, this difference becomes a veritable
gulf.
I sure don't wish to start any more computer wars, but still, it irks me to
see the Tramiels using tactics like they have been, both in interviews and in
their ads.
Regards, Larry.
You are right about the monitor. I am running an Atari SC1224 on my Amiga,
and to me, the quality seems a lot better than the 1080.
As for speed, the clock is around 15% faster on the ST, and without using any
fancy graphics on either one, the processing time will reflect this. When we
get into heavy DMA stuff on the Amiga, there is definitely a degradation in
processing other tasks. What most people can't seem to grasp though, is that
while cycles are being stolen from the 68000, the ST, doing equivalent fancy
stuff would have the 68000 working on the graphics all by its lonesome, and
since the custom chips are far faster then the 68000 could hope to be for
these operations, the ST is at a decided disadvantage.
With the addition of memory over 512K, this difference becomes a veritable
gulf.
I sure don't wish to start any more computer wars, but still, it irks me to
see the Tramiels using tactics like they have been, both in interviews and in
their ads.
Regards, Larry.
Adding a blitter to the ST should be able to speed up large movements of
text, just like on the Amiga. But I would wonder just how useful any current
(or even future) programs will find this. If the ST's BIOS routines are
really that slow, I'd expect folks to start writing to the screen directly,
instead of going through the BIOS. This is done on the C64 and the IBM
PeeCee, its not that unusual. If this is done by a program, the addition of
a blitter won't help at all. The blitter would likely be hooked into the
BIOS somehow, and anyone using the BIOS would get the speedup.
Which brings me to future programs. Lets assume a reasonable blitter is
available, and its hooked into the BIOS. Now I'm writing my new SpeedText
program, and I want a display of 10K baud or so. I run it on my
blitter-equipped machine, and it works ok, BIOS and everything. Now I pull
by blitter card, and things grind to a halt. My program is now too slow to
be useful.
My choices at this point are (1) Specify that this program only works on
blitter equipped STs -> I loose 80% of current customers, (2) Don't tell
anyone about the need for a blitter, and when they call up and complain, tell
them to go out and buy it -> Atari loves me for helping to sell blitters, and
my company gets such a bad rap for being sneaky that I go out of business,
(3) I code for all machines, testing for the Blitter, and using it if its
there, bypassing the BIOS otherwise -> more complex coding on my part, larger
program, or (4) I say to hell with the blitter, bypassing the BIOS give me
enough speed anyway. As you can see, an aftermarket addition can never be as
good as something built in. -Dave
Right on all points, Dave. I'm working on DEGAS Elite for the ST now, and it
gets rough when you want to do a certain graphics op that's too slow unless a
blitter is installed. Like you said, what can you do? According to Atari,
the blitter for the ST (yes, IF it comes out) will retrofit into the earlier
machines and the Line A routines will be set up so that the blitter is called
when needed. This will be transparent to the program which is running.
If people code their own routines, fast as they are, they will not be able to
take advantage of the blitter speed when it's installed! And as you say, if
you code it now to use the BIOS/Line A calls, it may be too slow. A catch-22
if ever there was one. I'm going ahead and using Line A. That way people
won't complain when the blitter comes out because it will then be 20X faster.
If they complain now because it's slow, I just tell them that it insures
blitter compatibility. It sure would have been nice to have a blitter from
the start, but like they say, hindsight is 20-20 vision. At least it keeps
the challenge in programming! Hehe
Right on all points, Dave. I'm working on DEGAS Elite for the ST now, and it
gets rough when you want to do a certain graphics op that's too slow unless a
blitter is installed. Like you said, what can you do? According to Atari,
the blitter for the ST (yes, IF it comes out) will retrofit into the earlier
machines and the Line A routines will be set up so that the blitter is called
when needed. This will be transparent to the program which is running.
If people code their own routines, fast as they are, they will not be able to
take advantage of the blitter speed when it's installed! And as you say, if
you code it now to use the BIOS/Line A calls, it may be too slow. A catch-22
if ever there was one. I'm going ahead and using Line A. That way people
won't complain when the blitter comes out because it will then be 20X faster.
If they complain now because it's slow, I just tell them that it insures
blitter compatibility. It sure would have been nice to have a blitter from
the start, but like they say, hindsight is 20-20 vision. At least it keeps
the challenge in programming! Hehe
Adding a blitter to the ST should be able to speed up large movements of
text, just like on the Amiga. But I would wonder just how useful any current
(or even future) programs will find this. If the ST's BIOS routines are
really that slow, I'd expect folks to start writing to the screen directly,
instead of going through the BIOS. This is done on the C64 and the IBM
PeeCee, its not that unusual. If this is done by a program, the addition of
a blitter won't help at all. The blitter would likely be hooked into the
BIOS somehow, and anyone using the BIOS would get the speedup.
Which brings me to future programs. Lets assume a reasonable blitter is
available, and its hooked into the BIOS. Now I'm writing my new SpeedText
program, and I want a display of 10K baud or so. I run it on my
blitter-equipped machine, and it works ok, BIOS and everything. Now I pull
by blitter card, and things grind to a halt. My program is now too slow to
be useful.
My choices at this point are (1) Specify that this program only works on
blitter equipped STs -> I loose 80% of current customers, (2) Don't tell
anyone about the need for a blitter, and when they call up and complain, tell
them to go out and buy it -> Atari loves me for helping to sell blitters, and
my company gets such a bad rap for being sneaky that I go out of business,
(3) I code for all machines, testing for the Blitter, and using it if its
there, bypassing the BIOS otherwise -> more complex coding on my part, larger
program, or (4) I say to hell with the blitter, bypassing the BIOS give me
enough speed anyway. As you can see, an aftermarket addition can never be as
good as something built in. -Dave
I agree with you on the text — for some reason the ST's text is awfully
slow. Might speed up with a blitter (hope, hope!). I also agree about
sprites. I loved them on the Atari 800, and they'd be nice to have
available. It's a royal pain to have to hide the cursor every time you do a
plot to the screen…
By the way, the ST _can_ mix graphics modes on the screen (take a look at
"The Pawn" — they did some neat tricks that surprised a lot of people (who
knows how much processor time it eats, though!)
Actually the text routines on the Atari are quick (not fast, but quick). You
can easily keep up with any reasonable (less than 2400 baud) transfer rate.
Of course to do this requires great masochism on the part of the programmer
(me). The GEM text routines are slow, the fast ones are hidden several
layers down and are only partially documented. The Amiga text routines are
also quick (still not fast) but they have several problems. First there is a
tremendous amount of overhead in outputing a single character, so you end up
doing what Jim did in StarTerm (and what I will be doing in my software),
printing the whole line in a single Text call. To be honest I don't think
either machine is very good at text output, but this is due to the bit mapped
screens. I sometimes wish they had a real "text" mode, but this would kill
the windows etc. (I guess we can't have everything.) Dan
Actually the text routines on the Atari are quick (not fast, but quick). You
can easily keep up with any reasonable (less than 2400 baud) transfer rate.
Of course to do this requires great masochism on the part of the programmer
(me). The GEM text routines are slow, the fast ones are hidden several
layers down and are only partially documented. The Amiga text routines are
also quick (still not fast) but they have several problems. First there is a
tremendous amount of overhead in outputing a single character, so you end up
doing what Jim did in StarTerm (and what I will be doing in my software),
printing the whole line in a single Text call. To be honest I don't think
either machine is very good at text output, but this is due to the bit mapped
screens. I sometimes wish they had a real "text" mode, but this would kill
the windows etc. (I guess we can't have everything.) Dan
2 things here that I really appreciate having on the Amiga are sprites, and
fast text routines (Or at least they seem fast…). I was looking at a
terminal program running on the ST today (a GEM terminal program, I am
talking GEM here not TOS), and it COULD NOT KEEP UP AT 1200 BAUD! I was told
by an ST programmer that this is because GEM is not fast enough to handle the
modem and the screen! How many of us have used Starterm 3? Next time it is
reading a message, shove down the right mouse button for a few seconds, and
when you let go of it, notice how fast it does the text…
Anybody ever use Logo on the ST? You move the mouse, and your program stops
running until you stop moving the mouse!! This is to make sure that their
fake 'sprite' does not write all over whatever you happen to be doing. In
most of the slide show demos, and many other programs, they either have to
shut the pointer off, or it drives all over whatever bitmapped stuff seems to
be going on! You may say 'Who Cares', but they are both Really nice to have.
The only graphics support the ST has in hardware is the bitmapped screen
modes – almost like the 64. It is either in 640×400, 640×200, or 320×200.
On the Amiga, you could mix 4 different screen resolutions no problem…
Of course I'm probably just boring everybody, but I like to ramble on about
the Amiga… (Love this keyboard! Another Amiga Plus!)
Arrrggggghhhh! I swore I wouldn't get dragged into these Atari vs Amiga
brouhahas….but here I am. People seem to forget that the cases where the
graphics hardware steals cycles from the 68000 are for performing operations
which it would take the 68000 MUCH (MUCH!) longer to perform by itself. Rick
Schaeffer
Oh, I'm not questioning the fact that things like the blitter shutting down
the 68K are better. I KNOW the blitter can do things a lot more efficiently.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I could have sworn that William Volk said
something about one or more of the graphics modes stealing cycles just to
display the screen.
One last point. I'm not here to get people angry. I'm NOT here to promote
Atari vs. Amiga nonsense. It seemed to me that Mr. Jordan was exaggerating
the severity of Tramiel's comments, and thought I'd toss in my two cents'
worth. Sorry if it upset you.
Well…Bill did mention, and he's right, that 640×400 mode slows things down.
But thats ONLY if you have no ram above 512k. The blitter only steals memory
cycles from chip ram (<= 512k), so if your program is running down there it
will slow down.
Well…Bill did mention, and he's right, that 640×400 mode slows things down.
But thats ONLY if you have no ram above 512k. The blitter only steals memory
cycles from chip ram (<= 512k), so if your program is running down there it
will slow down.
Oh, I'm not questioning the fact that things like the blitter shutting down
the 68K are better. I KNOW the blitter can do things a lot more efficiently.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I could have sworn that William Volk said
something about one or more of the graphics modes stealing cycles just to
display the screen.
One last point. I'm not here to get people angry. I'm NOT here to promote
Atari vs. Amiga nonsense. It seemed to me that Mr. Jordan was exaggerating
the severity of Tramiel's comments, and thought I'd toss in my two cents'
worth. Sorry if it upset you.
Arrrggggghhhh! I swore I wouldn't get dragged into these Atari vs Amiga
brouhahas….but here I am. People seem to forget that the cases where the
graphics hardware steals cycles from the 68000 are for performing operations
which it would take the 68000 MUCH (MUCH!) longer to perform by itself. Rick
Schaeffer
As an owner of both machines, I can start opening the fire:
1) True that the chip set in the Amiga makes for a great game machine, but I
am sure the Tramiels didn't mean it as a compliment.
2) The statement that the chip set in the Amiga is the same chip set in the
800XL but expanded to work with the 16 bit processor is completely false.
True, the Amiga chip set is a LOGICAL extension of the 800XL chip set
PHILOSOPHY but nothing more. It is a disgrace to compare the two on equal
grounds. The 800XL is not capable of more than 40 columns, has a max 320×200
mono mode, does not bit blit, runs at less than 2 Mhz, is limited to 256
colors of which only four are available in any decent res mode, without any
fancy display interrupt programming.
3) The Amiga only steals some CPU speed in modes that the ST doesn't have at
all, like 640x400x16 colors, and extensive bit blit operations. However, the
bit blitter, even if it SUSPENDED the processor functions TOTALLY, would
still do the job much faster than the 68000.
4) The statement that the ST is 8mhz therefore it is suited for business and
telecom applications, and the Amiga is .8 Mhz slower and therefore is not
suited for these applications is an absolute joke. 0.8 Mhz hardly makes a
difference, and the overall system throughput is far greater on the Amiga.
(The Amiga is much faster overall, and I am not just talking games here!)
5) Believe it or not, the Amiga's drives are a lot faster and more
intelligent than the ST's drives, even though it doesn't seem that way due to
a very slow disk directory structure on the Amiga. However, you will all see:
If OS/9 comes out for both machines, as scheduled, than you will see how much
faster the Amiga is at the same operations.
6) The Amiga is fully expandable, the ST is not. Does the ST claim any way of
expanding the 520ST beyond 512K or the 1040 beyond 1 meg, hacking the machine
not considered? Even with hacking the machine, the limit is 1 meg. Even if
they came out with a new machine that used the whole capability of the MMU in
the ST, it would still be limited to a 4meg ceiling.
7) About the cycle stealing that I talked about above, the Amiga will run
faster if one adds memory beyond the 512K. No cycle stealing will occur if a
program resides there.
8) The Amiga's video/audio superiority does not shinw with games only. Look
at the possibilities of using Digiview in HAM and then using a HAM editor
(not yet available, but feasable) to edit the picture! You can have the
equivalent of those $20,000 computers that they use in some dept. stores to
allow women customers to see the make-up on, or clothes or whatever, without
physically trying it on! The Amiga in HAM is almost broadcast quality. Oh and
the stereo sound. Oh and the Genlocking capabilities (which are not feasable
on the ST because they weren't designed into it, and the machine is not fully
expandable.)
9) It is NOT easier to connect a hard disk to the ST, as claimed by the
Tramiels. The port on the ST is a mere DMA port and NOT a hard disk port. The
Amiga has many more DMA channels (the St only one) and the Amiga's DMA is
available on the expansion port. To connect a hard disk to the ST, you have
to have a controller card on top of the hard disk, and a power supply to
power both. IT IS THE EXACT SAME ON THE AMIGA! Except, if you buy the Zorro
type expansion boxes, you will have ALL the fuctions you will ever buy IN THE
EXPANSION BOX, with a single power supply. On the ST you will need an extra
power supply foe every other device you buy, and each one that you add to the
DMA port decreases the overall throuput per device of that DMA port. In
effect, you cannot attach DMA devices to your heart's content on the ST. And
believe me, expansion through the DMA port is clumsy, and the promised 32bit
compute engine that will sit on the DMA port will NEVER COME OUT. Atari will
release it as
As an owner of both machines, I can start opening the fire:
1) True that the chip set in the Amiga makes for a great game machine, but I
am sure the Tramiels didn't mean it as a compliment.
2) The statement that the chip set in the Amiga is the same chip set in the
800XL but expanded to work with the 16 bit processor is completely false.
True, the Amiga chip set is a LOGICAL extension of the 800XL chip set
PHILOSOPHY but nothing more. It is a disgrace to compare the two on equal
grounds. The 800XL is not capable of more than 40 columns, has a max 320×200
mono mode, does not bit blit, runs at less than 2 Mhz, is limited to 256
colors of which only four are available in any decent res mode, without any
fancy display interrupt programming.
3) The Amiga only steals some CPU speed in modes that the ST doesn't have at
all, like 640x400x16 colors, and extensive bit blit operations. However, the
bit blitter, even if it SUSPENDED the processor functions TOTALLY, would
still do the job much faster than the 68000.
4) The statement that the ST is 8mhz therefore it is suited for business and
telecom applications, and the Amiga is .8 Mhz slower and therefore is not
suited for these applications is an absolute joke. 0.8 Mhz hardly makes a
difference, and the overall system throughput is far greater on the Amiga.
(The Amiga is much faster overall, and I am not just talking games here!)
5) Believe it or not, the Amiga's drives are a lot faster and more
intelligent than the ST's drives, even though it doesn't seem that way due to
a very slow disk directory structure on the Amiga. However, you will all see:
If OS/9 comes out for both machines, as scheduled, than you will see how much
faster the Amiga is at the same operations.
6) The Amiga is fully expandable, the ST is not. Does the ST claim any way of
expanding the 520ST beyond 512K or the 1040 beyond 1 meg, hacking the machine
not considered? Even with hacking the machine, the limit is 1 meg. Even if
they came out with a new machine that used the whole capability of the MMU in
the ST, it would still be limited to a 4meg ceiling.
7) About the cycle stealing that I talked about above, the Amiga will run
faster if one adds memory beyond the 512K. No cycle stealing will occur if a
program resides there.
8) The Amiga's video/audio superiority does not shinw with games only. Look
at the possibilities of using Digiview in HAM and then using a HAM editor
(not yet available, but feasable) to edit the picture! You can have the
equivalent of those $20,000 computers that they use in some dept. stores to
allow women customers to see the make-up on, or clothes or whatever, without
physically trying it on! The Amiga in HAM is almost broadcast quality. Oh and
the stereo sound. Oh and the Genlocking capabilities (which are not feasable
on the ST because they weren't designed into it, and the machine is not fully
expandable.)
9) It is NOT easier to connect a hard disk to the ST, as claimed by the
Tramiels. The port on the ST is a mere DMA port and NOT a hard disk port. The
Amiga has many more DMA channels (the St only one) and the Amiga's DMA is
available on the expansion port. To connect a hard disk to the ST, you have
to have a controller card on top of the hard disk, and a power supply to
power both. IT IS THE EXACT SAME ON THE AMIGA! Except, if you buy the Zorro
type expansion boxes, you will have ALL the fuctions you will ever buy IN THE
EXPANSION BOX, with a single power supply. On the ST you will need an extra
power supply foe every other device you buy, and each one that you add to the
DMA port decreases the overall throuput per device of that DMA port. In
effect, you cannot attach DMA devices to your heart's content on the ST. And
believe me, expansion through the DMA port is clumsy, and the promised 32bit
compute engine that will sit on the DMA port will NEVER COME OUT. Atari will
release it as
Just a few logs for the fire:
(1) The ST looks better on the color monitor than the Amiga. This is (or
was) an easily documented fact, but very misleading. The original ST monitor
was of better quality then the Amiga 1080. Plain and simple. The NEW ST
monitor (cost reduced) is far worse, though I haven't seen a side-by-side
with the 1080. The Amiga, however, produces demonstratably better video on
the same monitor. A side by side comparison on the ST monitor convinces most
folks. According to the message, Sammy and Lenny said that the ST will
produce better video quality (as in signal quality). This is a lie. (The
Amiga actually has a separate ground available for each of R, G, and B, which
can dramatically reduce crosstalk, etc.)
(2) The Amiga's 68000 does get cycles stolen at times (so does the ST during
an external DMA, but probably not as much). Cycles can be stolen during
hi-res displays with lots of bit-planes, and by the Blitter. I'd like to see
a real comparison of how much video fetch cycle-stealing goes on at ST
EQUIVALENT resolutions; its far less than the 50% they imply. When the
Blitter steals cycles, its doing work that the 68000 would have had to do
anyway, only its doing it 3-30 times (maybe more) faster than the 68000 could.
(3) In applications involving nothing but number crunching, the ST would be
about 9.5% faster, from CPU speed. However, if any disk I/O, sound, or
graphic mode changes are required, the Amiga can do all of these without
slowing the processor at all. The ST's 68000 must do these itself. The
Amiga can also call the Blitter for any type of large block move — the ST
can't. So for real world operations, the Amiga could be quite a bit faster
than the ST. -Hazy
Just a few logs for the fire:
(1) The ST looks better on the color monitor than the Amiga. This is (or
was) an easily documented fact, but very misleading. The original ST monitor
was of better quality then the Amiga 1080. Plain and simple. The NEW ST
monitor (cost reduced) is far worse, though I haven't seen a side-by-side
with the 1080. The Amiga, however, produces demonstratably better video on
the same monitor. A side by side comparison on the ST monitor convinces most
folks. According to the message, Sammy and Lenny said that the ST will
produce better video quality (as in signal quality). This is a lie. (The
Amiga actually has a separate ground available for each of R, G, and B, which
can dramatically reduce crosstalk, etc.)
(2) The Amiga's 68000 does get cycles stolen at times (so does the ST during
an external DMA, but probably not as much). Cycles can be stolen during
hi-res displays with lots of bit-planes, and by the Blitter. I'd like to see
a real comparison of how much video fetch cycle-stealing goes on at ST
EQUIVALENT resolutions; its far less than the 50% they imply. When the
Blitter steals cycles, its doing work that the 68000 would have had to do
anyway, only its doing it 3-30 times (maybe more) faster than the 68000 could.
(3) In applications involving nothing but number crunching, the ST would be
about 9.5% faster, from CPU speed. However, if any disk I/O, sound, or
graphic mode changes are required, the Amiga can do all of these without
slowing the processor at all. The ST's 68000 must do these itself. The
Amiga can also call the Blitter for any type of large block move — the ST
can't. So for real world operations, the Amiga could be quite a bit faster
than the ST. -Hazy