Author, Michael John Nurney, chronicles the tale of two computers.

The Amiga and Atari ST were both popular 16-bit home computers in the late 1980s, the Amiga generally had a stronger reputation, especially for its superior graphics and sound capabilities but the ST? It had a great budget price. The Amiga's custom chips and blitter allowing for more complex visuals and smoother video scrolling, while its sound chip offered more channels and clear sampled sounds. However, the Atari ST had its strengths, particularly its built-in MIDI interface, which made it a favourite in the music industry, and its lower price point which helped sell a lot of systems.

16-Bit home computing in the 1980s/1990s was primarily a battle between the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga. The Atari ST was first to arrive on the UK home computer market and it sold extremely well, but then came the Amiga but the Amiga was an office computer, or so Commodore said. When it came to graphics and sound capabilities, the Atari ST was inferior to the Amiga, but the ST was more affordable, it was slightly faster but most of all, it was available to buy in the shops. Commodore didn't just fumble the Amiga; they actively chose to limit its appeal and then watched it fail, but that changed when the cheaper A500 arrived in 1987.

There was great conflict between Atari, which was bought by Jack Tramiel in 1984, and Commodore, which was founded by Tramiel in 1954. Jack quit Commodore in 1984 and bought the bankrupt Atari in a move to avenge his removal from his beloved Commodore. Meanwhile, Commodore bought Amiga Corp. The same company had received money from Atari in order to design video and audio chips for new Atari computers. However, in the end, the deal fell through, and Commodore bought Amiga wholesale.

But which computer would survive, who will be around in another ten years ? Will the billion-dollar-making Commodore beat the new Atari Corp, or will Jack have his revenge?

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517 pages.