In 1985, personal computers were gearing up for another major throwdown. In response to the release of the Macintosh just a year prior, many systems were finally beginning to approach reasonable price points, causing an immense spike in home computer usage. A new age of ubiquity was beginning.
Two of the entities driving this race to affordability were Atari and Commodore. Both companies had previously butted heads in the consumer market with the Atari 800 and the Commodore 64, two machines that defined the new era of low-cost, high-quality computing. Their successors, the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga, would take this contest to the next level, blurring the lines between professional and consumer machines yet again.
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‘Hardwired’, an Amiga demo by Crionics & The Silents (1991)
A cherished piece of hardware still today, the far ahead-of-its-time Commodore Amiga became emblematic of the computer art demoscene of the 1980s due to its unprecedented graphics and sound. Multitasking, a feature we’ve now come to expect on the tiny computers we keep in our pockets, was also a novel concept at this time, even if it meant being able to type in a word processor while running a graphics demo of a bouncing ball. With a robust software library, Amiga gave users focused on art and music in particular some incredible capabilities. Trackers, the early computer audio programs which became the weapon of choice for the chip music scene, got their start on the Amiga with Karsten Obarski’s Ultimate Soundtracker in 1987, turning these relatively cheap machines into the first generation of powerful digital audio workstations.
(Read More: Australian Amiga Musician cTrix Sets Dance Floors Aflame on 512KB of RAM)
‘WarptYMe,’ a modern Atari ST demo from chip music collective YM Rockerz (2006)
The Atari ST retailed at just $599 USD, a stalwart competitor to the Amiga. It too featured a large jump in graphics and sound quality, although it received a fraction of what the Amiga got in software. It’s still prized today by musicians for it’s distinctive sound chip, however — the YM2149, a synth chip manufactured by Yamaha, produced an entire sub-genre of chip music in the late 80s that’s still running strong. Like the Amiga, it also remains a staple at demoparties where its vibrant, lo-resolution color palette is used to create all manner of audiovisual productions.
Which of these two machines won the war for your 1980s household?
