🚀 go-pugleaf

I am a very recent Atarist (< 4 weeks). A colleague and I at Hewlett-Packard
Labs Bristol both got 1040STFMs at the same time. We spent some time looking at
both the Amiga and the ST and finally formed the _opinion_ that the ST was the
better bet for our purposes (he intends to a "rational reconstruction" of LISP
and I intend to use it for high-level-language programming).

We finally settled for a compromise, although the Amiga has the edge on
graphics, comparing the general graphics abilities of the Amiga/ST axis with
those of price-comparable machines, the Amiga/ST graphics are far superior and
we felt that the ST has adequate graphics for our purposes.

Our initial feeling was that there was a broader software base for the ST - it
had the edge over the Amiga in that respect --- although since the purchase, I
have discovered a rapidly broadening Amiga s/w base. However, we also like
playing the occasional game and using advanced packages like DTP, we thought
that the s/w base for this was marginally better for the ST.

An additional factor in our choice was the fact that a wide variety of
emulators are available. We have strong grounds for expecting Alphapop to run
on one or other of Mac emulators. Alphapop is a Mac version of an AI
programming environment called POPLOG. POPLOG has quite a sizeable user base in
the U.K. and my colleague and I use it professionally for AI research ---
getting this on the ST would be a major plus! -- for a review of Alphapop, see
Byte, May 1988. We both have use of HP Vectra PCs and to be able to run PC
applications (albeit slowly) without having to lash out serious money for a
hardware emulator was a plus factor. The availability of a PD CP/M emulator is
useful to me, as I maintain a library of PD CP/M software for a local CP/M
machine (Tatung Einstein, if you _must_ know) user group.

We were also concerned with possible upgrade paths, the potential memory
upgrade to 2.5Mb was attractive, as was the possibility of adding a hard disk
later (very much later, they are _very_ severe prices when compared to PC hard
disks). All of this applies to the Amiga of course, so the two systems were
more or less equal in this respect.

Finally, there was a 100 pound (sterling) price differential in favour of the
ST, which meant that for much the same price as an Amiga 500, we could get a
1040STFM. Already, I find the extra memory invaluable.

As far as the machine itself goes, I have been around computers of many
different sizes and capabilities for a while now. I use a range of machines
professionally and HP's researchers generally do pretty well for kit, so my
expectations of a 400-pound (sterling) home computer are not overweening.
Having said that, my colleague is well pleased with the improvement over his
previous home computer (a Sinclair Spectrum) and I can say the same. Having the
68000 at one's disposal makes a big change from flogging a Z80 to death!

I'm happy with it --- it isn't a Cray, but I didn't buy a Cray!



Cheers,

Graham
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Graham Higgins @ HP Labs      	|  Phone: (0272) 799910 x 24060
Information Systems Centre    	|  gray@hpl.hp.co.uk
Bristol                       	|  gray%hplb.uucp@ukc.ac.uk
U.K.                          	|  gray@hplb.hpl.hp.com