I missed out on the Amiga (introduced in 1985) at the time, being an early PC adopter. Went from CGA (1981) directly to VGA (1987).
In terms of colors the most popular VGA modes (320x200 or 320x240, 256 color palette, 18 bit color depth) are superior to the most popular Amiga graphics modes (320×200 or 320x256, 32 color palette, 12 bit color depth).
It's because of the artists. The Amiga was a much more affordable art-making machine, so many artists made graphics ON the Amiga FOR the Amiga. There were even some good-looking VGA games that under utilized the PC's capabilities because they were essentially converted Amiga games.
The cost between an A500 and a VGA-enabled PC in 1987 ($699 vs $3500-ish?) would have put them in such different categories and customer segments that they would rarely interact.
I remember seeing a PC one of the rich kids brought to boarding school in 1990 and realising it was just crisper than my A500. The PC’s in the school lab were all green and orange screens with one colour CGA, so this was quite a surprise. Still took me some time to accept reality :)
You're comparing 1987 VGA to 1985 Amiga? Not a realistic comparison.
Technology advanced much more rapidly in those days. Similar to how hard drive capacity seemed to double every six months for a while, or how there's a new bleeding edge AI model every three months today.
Also, VGA had 256 colors. The Amiga had 4,096 simultaneously.
Only using the party trick HAM mode though. 32 (plus 32 for the half-bright bit plane) is the mode that most software uses.
Of course in 1987 a Macintosh II with a fully expanded "Toby" framebuffer could not only do 256 colours, it could do it in 640x480 mode where as a PS/2's VGA could only do 16 colours at that resolution. And an Amiga could only do flickervision at that res.
Of course with technology improving all the time, not having a updated chipset circa 1987 that at least had a progressive scan 640x480(ish) is one of those things that really killed the chances of Amiga as a serious computer. They only got that circa 1990, and "Super VGA" was already just about becoming a thing in the PC world (and Microsoft had kinda got round to making a version of Windows that didn't suck by then). I'm not sure if the mythical Ranger had a progressive mode, but it's it does show how Commodore inability to keep the custom chips updated in a timely mannner slowly sunk the system...
Don't forget "dynamic hires" and "sliced HAM", two software modes that were really only useful for static images.
Dynamic hires ran at 640x400x16 colors, but changed the palette on every single scanline, which could allow display of all 4096 colors in hires). Sliced HAM did the same thing, but in 320x400 HAM (the base palette was 16 colors and could be used directly without fringing, so changing those 16 colors every line would reduce fringing while still allowing more than 16 colors to appear on a scanline).
Nothing stopped people from using this dynamic palette technique with 32-color lores or 64-color EHB as well. But it was most commonly used in the two forms I mentioned.
By the time HAM8 came around in the AGA chipset, this wasn't really needed, as HAM8 fringing was much less noticeable, having a base palette of 64 colors. There's no reason you couldn't do sliced HAM8 however, although I'm not sure if you could change all 64 base colors for each scanline.
> Of course in 1987 a Macintosh II with a fully expanded "Toby" framebuffer could not only do 256 colours, it could do it in 640x480 mode where as a PS/2's VGA could only do 16 colours at that resolution.
If cost is no issue, the PS/2 also had the 8514/A card that could do 256 colours at 1024x768. And there was also the PGC from 1984 that could do 256 colours at 640x480.
Also, VGA had 256 colors. The Amiga had 4,096 simultaneously.
That's the highly special hold-and-modify mode (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hold-And-Modify). I tried pretty hard to word my comment fairly, remembering the sometimes legendary tenacity of Amiga fans. (Which nowadays includes yours truly.)
Not at all! Use of the Copper to punch up visuals was de rigeur on the Amiga - Amiga games are immediately recognizable by their Copper-fueled sky gradients for instance. I actually think that if there's any really good explanation for why you like might find Amiga graphics more pleasing than VGA, the Copper is the thing.
15khz 320x200 with proper CRT scanlines (like in arcade games and home consoles and computers on a standard TV) is immensely more pleasing to the eye than the same resolution displayed on a PC monitor.
The glow of a crt warms my heart. There's a beauty to phosphor based images that nothing else replicates.
I tried playing my old games and software on modern TVs and monitors but somethig was "missing"; it didn't feel right.
Sure enough, the halo and color bleeds were leveraged by the great designers of the day. The sprites, fonts characters _require_ the "glow" to experience them as they were designed. It goes beyond simple nostalgia.
I finally broke down and bought a gorgeous Zenith Space Command TV, hacked it for various modern input sources (composite, s video, VGA and even HDMI.) It just brings the joy back that was missing.
You had VGA in 1987?! That was very rare. You must have been an early adopter. Amiga users in '92 and '93 had great color and many PC users were still on EGA.
You had VGA in 1987?! That was very rare. You must have been an early adopter. Amiga users in '92 and '93 had great color and many PC users were still on EGA.
I got my first VGA card in 1994. You're right, VGA wasn't common in 1987.
And based on the parent's comment history, he wasn't even alive in 1987; which is why he presents himself as an expert.
Amiga 1000 was released in mid-1985, although I think few units were shipped before 1986. Amiga 500 was 1987 - same year as VGA, its little brother MCGA, and the Mac II.
Not sure when VGA would have been considered mainstream... 1989 maybe?
Mac LC was 1990, so probably before that.
VGA and Mac color were better for most practical things. Square pixels and far fewer resolution/flicker/color tradeoffs.
> Amiga 1000 was released in mid-1985, although I think few units were shipped before 1986.
It was announced on July 26th, 1985 at Lincoln Center with Andy Warhol painting Blondie (Debby Harry) live on-stage (a demo which was re-created at the Computer History Museum this past Summer as part of the Amiga 040th celebration). But you're right it wasn't commonly available until the late Fall. I managed to get mine at the end of November.
In terms of colors the most popular VGA modes (320x200 or 320x240, 256 color palette, 18 bit color depth) are superior to the most popular Amiga graphics modes (320×200 or 320x256, 32 color palette, 12 bit color depth).
But somehow Amiga graphics is still often nicer.