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From: jlemon@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Jonathan Lemon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Rebuttal time
Message-ID: <16835@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 5 Sep 89 02:22:55 GMT
References: <8908252144.AA27005@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <123950@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <16658@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <16662@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <7816@cbmvax.UUCP>
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: jlemon@cory.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Jonathan Lemon)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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In article <7816@cbmvax.UUCP> mitchell@cbmvax.UUCP (Fred Mitchell - QA) writes:
>In article <16662@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> jlemon@cory.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Jonathan Lemon) writes:
>>
>>Me too.  I would really like multi-tasking on my mega!  In the end, I had
>>to decide that the other little advantages of the Mega outweighed the
>>multi-tasking of the Amiga.  (at least for my case)
>
>What were these advantages, if you don't mind me asking? Thanks.

Well, this is my _personal_ opinion, not intended to start a war
or anything, of course...

  1. I wanted to be able to run MAC software (for my fiancee).  A-MAX (?) was
     not available for the Amiga.
  2. I liked the extremely sharp display of the 70hz monochrome monitor, as
     I do a lot of telecomm/programming.  Amiga had more colors, and could use
     both composite and RGB monitors, but upon closer inspection, I decided 
     that their high-resolution (interlace) mode was unusable without a 
     FlickerFixer, which cost money I didn't have at that time.
  3. I wanted a more "graphical" computer - to get away from the MS-DOS world.
     With the Amiga you had to put up with the CLI, mount/remount commands,
     etc, and ad nauseum.  While there are graphical shells for the Amy, just
     as there are CLI's for the Atari, I didn't want that as my "native" mode.
  4. I read both comp.sys.amiga and comp.sys.atari.st for about 6 months 
     before deciding.  During that time, I picked up a lot of "patches" for
     both computers, and also heard a lot about the Amiga guruing.  From this,
     as well as listening to friends who owned Amigas, I gained an impression
     that sometimes the machine is not as stable as people would like it to be.
     Now, this may or may not be true, but it made a negative impression on me.
  5. Finally, there was the issue of price.  I did not like either the A500
     nor the 520/1040 ST, soley on the basis of the way they looked/felt, and
     both had this mass of wiring coming from the back.  (I like the keyboard
     in my lap sometimes!)  Being a college student, I was a little short on
     money.  Given all the above reasons and other little nits (appearance,
     MIDI, DMA, both run IBM, etc..) and the fact that I could get (did get)
     a Mega 2 mono system for only $1100, compared to the fact that a Amiga
     2000 cost roughly $2000, I chose the best computer for me and my budget.

Now, make what you will of the above.  (if you haven't hit 'n'.. :-) )
I would say that both of the computers are roughly equivalent, but the ~$800 
more that I would have had to pay for the Amiga was not worth the multitasking
that I would have gotten.  It would be nice, but not necessary.  (and I use
multitasking all day at work/school where is _IS_ necessary (Suns, HP 9000's)
but at home, it would just be _required_ occasionally)
--
Jonathan    ...ucbvax!cory!jlemon    or    jlemon@cory.Berkeley.EDU