Which was better, Atari ST or Amiga?
Looking at these numbers I must say that the first Amiga was superior to the Atari ST. The Amiga was technically the better computer, but also more expensive and the custom hardware was more difficult to develop for. Developers struggled at first to utilize the custom processors properly. In later years, the Amiga started losing market share to IBM PC compatibles and the fourth generation of video game consoles, eventually leading to Commodore’s bankruptcy in 1994 and the end of Amiga.The only Amiga available at that time powerful enough to make Doom palatable would have been an Amiga 4000 with a 25 MHz 68040 CPU, costing somewhere around $2500 – without a monitor.
How much did the Atari ST cost?
Released in April 1985, the Atari ST was one of the first 16-bit home computers in the world. Based on Motorola 68K, the ST offered processing power, 512K of RAM, a GUI, 512 colors, and a 3-voice sound. All that for $799, when the IBM PC and Macintosh could do less for a much higher price tag. In the United States, the greatest competitors were the Atari 8-bit computers, the Apple II, and the TI-99/4A.