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0 pointsfoobarian4y ago0 comments

It's funny you mention this, where I grew up the ST was known exactly as a DAW because of the built-in MIDI ports. But more interestingly the Amigas were super popular as broadcast TV workstations because they had some kind of v-sync functionality built-in that made it possible to overlay graphics on the TV signal. A bunch of local TV stations had tell-tale Amiga graphics in their transitions / credits messages / news overlays. The ST kids always lamented the lack of this because it made it impossible for the ST to be used this way (never mind the worse graphics capabilities).

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AaronM4y ago

With the Amiga it is possible to use an external clock source as the system clock and to switch the video chip horizontal and vertical sync pins to inputs so they can come from external source instead of internal system clock based sync generator.

The addition of the Amiga toaster, meant that Amiga saw use in the TV and Movie Industry in the late 80's and 90's. A number of high profile projects used the Amiga.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Toaster

Here's a listing of some of the famous uses of the Amiga https://www.amigareport.com/ar134/p1-12.html

Some notable ones, were Babylon 5, Titanic,

cmrdporcupine4y ago

Interestingly enough this genlock feature was also possible with the Sharp X68000, which was kind of like an Amiga but on steroids. Or maybe more like a late-80s/early-90s arcade cabinet machine but in a PC form factor. Beautiful machines, too bad Japanese only though they sold boatloads there.

LocalH4y ago

I actually remember crashing my uncle’s A2000 more than once by feeding a raw VCR signal into the genlock and seeking the tape too fast. It would screw up the timings going into the vertical blank

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