I code for the broad audience. I bet my recent demos has been viewed by at least 300 persons I guess all is relative and MSX1 is quite narrow too.

The gfx9000 sub culture is a bit like vintage Cadillac fans, putting in a new BMW engine to try to compete with Porches. Nothing wrong with that at all. Its just not for me

d-tail: internally the r800 is 16bit..

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Hmmz, I have had quite some Amigas and also quite some MSX's. The compatablity issues on the Amiga were quite iritating in the beginning. A lot of old software didn't like the kickstart 1.3/2.0 and 1MB chipram. But this was only an issue in "the early days". And I remember some notorious MSX machines as well, when it comes down to running certain software, like the Sony HB500. Yeah, that machine gave me more headaches then any Amiga ever did. As for calling the Amiga "the poor man's mac": Well, take of your mac-sunglasses and take a look at the specs of the Macs at that time, and the Amiga. Besides the fact the computers were both targeted at different audiences, both had their advantaged and disadvantaged. But, calling the MSX technically beter then the Amiga... Well, that is quite an interesting statement. Also makes me wonder a bit how much you actually know about the amiga, the different custom chips and on how to programm these.

Well, I do know this much about the Amiga's custom chips, the Denises and Agnuses and whatever those things were called to call exactly those the Amiga's greatest weak spot, btw, I still remember having problems with Amiga's and software compatibility in the early nineties, not exactly the Amiga's "early days".

Don't misunderstand me, I know the Amiga is powerful, more so than any MSX, but imho it is essentially an early 16 bit gameconsole; al the custom chips made it an ideal games machine but hardly an interesting "serious" computer system, nor the hardware nor the OS have ever really reached any kind of maturity, in contrast to MSX, which became mature with MSX2, albeit with it's shortcomings. And in that way, I really think MSX is technically in a way superior because the architecture is, well, kind of cleaner(and WAY better documented) and less dependent on very exotic and poorly documented custom chips. And really; if you're really stating that hardware incompatibilities were more annoying on the few exotic MSX2 machines like the early Sony machines compared to ALL early Amiga's up to the not so very early A500 machines (not just some isolated types) then I really think you either have less Amiga experience then you claim or you have just been damn lucky: nearly all my early MSX using friends switched to the Amiga and were all bragging about it's capabilities but in the mean time were so annoyed by the Amiga's compatibility problems that none of them stayed with the Amiga for more then two years or so before switching again to IBM/MS-DOS alike systems.

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So far I haven't seen anything on MSX like Lotus III or Pinball Dreams/Fantasies (let alone Pinball Illusions, but that's AGA)... this would hint at the Amiga being not just a little more powerful of course, there's probably no Turbo-R game in existance that actually pulls out all the stops, but I doubt that would make the nescesary difference. Before we drag Space Manbow into the argument... there are enough shmups on Amiga that visually kick its butt...gameplay is a different story, though.

Pinball Dreams/Fantasies is quite a poor example in my opinion, both games ran like a dream on a simple 12 MHz 286 PC with exactly the same graphics and sound as on an Amiga... And the PC version of Lotus ran quite nicely on a 16 MHz 386sx, iirc.

And indeed, there are shoot'm'ups on Amiga which look better than Space Manbow; but none of them has ever captured the fun and atmosphere of Space Manbow, which, btw, does really show a very 16-bit like graphics quality which no other 8 bit system could reproduce. Which does show that MSX2(+) was and is quite powerful considering the simple architecture, with a CPU that was arguably outdated the day the first MSX was introduced to the public.

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Pinball Dreams/Fantasies is quite a poor example in my opinion, both games ran like a dream on a simple 12 MHz 286 PC with exactly the same graphics and sound as on an Amiga... And the PC version of Lotus ran quite nicely on a 16 MHz 386sx, iirc.

well, they're probably not the most demanding Amiga games out there... but those old pc's you mention are also a lot more powerful than a Turbo-r, not to mention at the time way more expensive than either the Amiga or Turbo-R, and I think the games required beefy (S)VGA cards to match the right speed and Soundblasters to sound a bit like the Amiga (yes, the same mod music in Pinball Dreams, but the Amiga's playback quality was superior...Lotus on PC just had MIDI.)
I don't think they're bad examples, as "generic" Amiga titles they still are graphically superior to anything I've seen on any MSX.

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which, btw, does really show a very 16-bit like graphics quality which no other 8 bit system could reproduce. Which does show that MSX2(+) was and is quite powerful considering the simple architecture, with a CPU that was arguably outdated the day the first MSX was introduced to the public.

I agree that some of the last big MSX2 games indeed are comparable with 16-bit titles, but there are enough 16-bit games that graphically surpass them, like aforementioned Pinball Dreams and Lotus

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I don't think they're bad examples, as "generic" Amiga titles they still are graphically superior to anything I've seen on any MSX. I agree that some of the last big MSX2 games indeed are comparable with 16-bit titles, but there are enough 16-bit games that graphically surpass them, like aforementioned Pinball Dreams and Lotus

Oh, but I don't disagree on that subject, don't get me wrong. However, specifically the Amiga suffered from lots of games which were all graphics and no fun(with the beformentioned pinball games as welcome exceptions, it's no wonder people remember those games), just like lots of modern games on Xbox 360 and PC...

That, however, is another discussion; my statement was and is that the Amiga is not an example of a strong architecture, quite the contrary in my opinion. It just never matured, and any contemporary system, either MSX, Atari ST and all kind of CP/M systems were all more mature systems than the Amiga, which, as I stated before, is an early 16-bit gamesconsole with a keyboard bolted on, simply because it first saw the light of existence exactly in those years which saw a complete collapse of the market for gameconsoles. Honoustly: the architecture with the custom chips just screams :"I am a gamesmachine", just like a Sega Megadrive or a SNES.

I guess Lotus would run like a pig on MSX2

Space Manbow was kind of spectacular for an 8bit game, but it does reveal the limitations of MSX2 in the fact that it's done in screen 4. Screen 5 would probably have been too slow.

I guess that from a technical pov, there's no denying in the fact that any Amiga outperforms any MSX, even the Turbo-R (which is, apart from a commercial failure, still essentially an 8bit machine even though the R800 has a 16bit ALU).
I also think that (from what I know/read), the MSX's architecture was probably better specified and perhaps cleaner, so easier to program for. It was quite easy as a developer to keep compatibility across MSX versions and makes.

For me personally, what defines the better system is just how much fun I had with it. Since I never owned an Amiga, the choice is easy
I did own an ST, but although I used the ST to death (even until the late 90's in my recording studio as a MIDI sequencer next to a 48 track digital HD recording system), I'll remember my MSX2 with a slightly more warm and fuzzy feeling
Sure there were games on the ST which are impossible on MSX (Damocles, Stunt Car Racer, Vroom, Super Hang-On come to mind), there were no equals in gameplay of the best Konami classics (like MG, MG2, Nemesis series) available for the ST. Sound on the ST was basically the same as the standard MSX 'bleep'-fest.

Oh, and BTW, the name FAC was basically a bit of a joke I don't think any of us really had a grudge against Commodore (but maybe that's just me )

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The motorola would kick the R800's ass. The Amiga1200 I have here, has a Motorola 68020 CPU @ 14MHz, 32 bits. Eat your heart out, 7MHz, 8 bit R800!

There's no comparing the two. You're comparing a 32bit CPU with FPU to an 8/16bit legacy processor. You might as well compare the 68020 to a P4...

btw, I don't think the turboR was a commercial failure. Considered that it is targeted only for Japan, I think they sold many! Does someone know the numbers?

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I guess Lotus would run like a pig on MSX2

there exists a C64 version. It's... crap.

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btw, I don't think the turboR was a commercial failure. Considered that it is targeted only for Japan, I think they sold many! Does someone know the numbers?

I wouldn't know. In terms of commercial software support, it didn't get many exclusives.... if the hardware itself was a hit in Japan is a whole different story.

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Quote: The motorola would kick the R800's ass. The Amiga1200 I have here, has a Motorola 68020 CPU @ 14MHz, 32 bits. Eat your heart out, 7MHz, 8 bit R800! There's no comparing the two. You're comparing a 32bit CPU with FPU to an 8/16bit legacy processor. You might as well compare the 68020 to a P4...

Hey, the guy asked for it, right?

BTW, I don't drool over technical specs. I drool over gameplay as well

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There's no comparing the two. You're comparing a 32bit CPU with FPU to an 8/16bit legacy processor.

The 68020 doesn't have an internal FPU and the stock A1200 doesn't include one. The '020 has a 256-byte instruction cache but no data cache and the stock A1200 has slow memory (CPU only gets access once every 8 cycles). If you compare extracting an LHA on an A1200 and tR, or decoding a JPG, the speed might not be that different.

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Honoustly: the architecture with the custom chips just screams :"I am a gamesmachine", just like a Sega Megadrive or a SNES.

You call it a games machine, Amiga fans may call it the first multimedia computer. And there must be some merit, considering applications on the Amiga like Lightwave and Video Toaster.

Jay Miner was largely responsible for the design of the Amiga custom chips. He reportedly wanted to make the Amiga a computer, while those who provided the initial funding wanted a games console. The result is a compromise between cost and capability much like the Atari 800 that he worked on previously.

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I really think MSX is technically in a way superior because the architecture is, well, kind of cleaner and less dependent on very exotic and poorly documented custom chips.

MSX is a standard, that definitely has advantages. Amiga is just a proprietary computer sold by one company. On the other hand, 24/32-bit addressing is surely cleaner than slots, subslots, and mappers.

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I still remember having problems with Amiga's and software compatibility in the early nineties

MSX programmers had to do things right to make their code run on different MSX computers. Amiga programmers too often only tested their code on a stock A500, or they called undocumented ROM routines, or used self-modifying code, timing loops, etc. You can't blame the creators of Amiga for that. Plus, EVERY MSX has a 3.58MHz Z80 (or equivalent) but Amigas got the whole range of 680x0 CPUs and a lot of that poorly written software will only run on a 68000.

I think my MSX is more fun to play games on while my Amiga is better for applications. Both are out of date hardware but the MSX continues to have games written for it and the Amiga has a friendly multitasking OS, web browsers, winamp clones, etc.

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btw, I don't think the turboR was a commercial failure. Considered that it is targeted only for Japan, I think they sold many! Does someone know the numbers?

I don't know numbers, but I do know you don't start selling a second (more expensive) version of a product unless the first version was a commercial success.

Like the unsuccessful Atari Lynx and Lynx II? (Atari were also planning to release a Jaguar II, but let's not get into that poor Atari)
Even if we had an idea of the amount of TR's sold, it'd be meaningless without knowing the same for MSX1/2/2+.

Well only thing i can say (i have an amiga, and an atari 1040st and a MSX 2 + MSX Turbo-r GT)
ill stick with the MSX platform although the amiga and atari are also nice machines,
who cares if the amiga/atari is a 16/32 bit machine its just not downwards compatible
like the msx (when kept to clean programming)