Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!sun-barr!decwrl!eng.umd.edu!smaug
From: smaug@eng.umd.edu (Kurt Lidl)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Amiga Review
Message-ID: <8908032135.AA05313@abyss.eng.umd.edu>
Date: 3 Aug 89 21:35:31 GMT
Organization: Merriversity of Uniland, College Purgatory
Lines: 51

From the July 31, 1989 issue of PC-Week (Hardware Section):

	Amiga Winning Hearts and Minds As Low-Cost Graphics Machine
		(By Evan O. Grossman)

	Long considered the non-conformist cousin of the PC, Commodore
Business Machines Inc.'s Amiga is starting to fill a niche in companies as
a low-cost graphics workstation.
	Citing the computer's superior graphics and audiop capabilities
along with the ability to run PC and Macintosh software through emulators,
Amiga advocates say the machine offers better presentation graphics for a
lower cost than its mainstream competitors.
	"We're a large company, but somehow our budget never is large, and
the Amiga is much less expensive than anything else," said Rich Gold, a
design project manager with toy maker Mattel Inc., in Hawthorne, Calif.
	A full-featured Amiga with color graphics and a hard disk costs
almost half as much as a similarly configured Apple Macintosh II, yet
offers better performance, Gold claimed.
	The Amiga line starts with the 500, a system with no expansion
slots that sells for $799.  The top-of-the-line Amiga 2500, based on the
Motorola 68020 processor, comes with 3M bytes of memory, a 68881 math
coprocessor, four Amiga expansion slots, three AT expansion slots and a
40M-byte hard disk for $4,699.
	Commodore plans to release a 68030 version of the Amiga in the
next few weeks, which will bring the computer's processing power in line
with the Mac IIx, sources said.
	Although most users called graphics the highlight of the computer,
they also use it with Commodore's IBM emulator card for word-processing
or spreadsheet applications.  The Amiga comes with three AT compatible
bus slots, and Commodore sells an 8088 IBM XT-compatible emulator card for
$799 and an AT board for $1,499.
	Even with full IBM emulation, Amigas are still reserved largely
for graphics tasks. At dairy-products maker Kraft Inc., the company's
three Amigas are not on its Novell network, said Kristal Lindstrom,
computer coordinator at Kraft's Springfield, Mo., office.  Kraft's Amigas
are used primarily by individuals who do graphics presentations, she said.
	The Amigas can emualte a Mac with the addition of the $199.95
A-Max cartridge from the Toronto-based Ready-Soft Inc.  The Amiga user
would also need to add a set of Macintosh ROMs and a Macintosh disk drive
to enable the Amiga to run most Mac software, including Aldus Corp.'s
PageMaker and Microsoft Corp.'s Excel, said a Commodore official.
	Commodore Business Machines Inc., of West Chester, Pa, can be
reached at (215) 431-9100.

[Re-produced without permission.]

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