Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!pacbell!att!mcdchg!ddsw1!corpane!sparks From: sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Please - gimme back my faith in the Amiga Message-ID: <1343@corpane.UUCP> Date: 23 Jan 90 14:13:07 GMT References: <01818.AA01818@sosaria> Organization: Corpane Industries, Inc., Louisville Ky Lines: 58 wizard@sosaria.imp.com (Chris Brand) writes: >personal experiences and disappointments I am completely loosing my faith >in the Amiga. I love the machine, I really do, but.... >For example, I just saw a documentation on TV about Computer Graphics on >PCs. I was not astonished not to see any Amigas, but I was astonished when >I saw what is possible with a normal Messy-Dos thing. Resolutions, colors, >The animation examples I saw were miles >beyond the power of the best animation programs for the Amiga. >Another example: DTP with a MacII. Yeah, I know, Computer Buyers Guide >voted ProPage 1.3 "best buy" before Pagemaker3.0 or Ventura Publisher, but >I cannot import a photo in the quality I saw in this film and use it. Even >if I was ready to spend a lot of money, I can't do it! Yep, your right. now go away. ... Just kidding :-) Help! stop me now, I am being dragged into one of those "mine is better than yours" Arguments! I regularly use an Compaq 386 machine, with Paradise 16 VGA card, so I know a bit about graphics on a MSDOS machine. 1> VGA is nice. 256 colors out of 256,000. With my Paradise this works even in 640 x 400 mode. Not bad eh. but... 2> Gee, nothing is standard on a MSDOS machine. In order to use this terrific VGA (256C @ 640 x 400) The programs themselves have to support it specifically. The same with printers. no system printer drivers like on the Amiga. 3> In 640 x 400 mode, VGA is *S L O W*, even on a 386 machine. Dpaint II crawls. And printing out is murder. Using a HP paintjet, it took my Amiga 8 minutes to print out a 320 x 200 picture. On my 386 machine, it took 25 minutes. Of course this could be just because Dpaint II is a dog on MSDOS. But that is because it has to have all those printer drivers built into it, rather than use a system driver like on the Amiga. 4> Animation is not better than the Amiga. Flight simulator is only slightly faster on my 386 than on my Amiga 1000. You would expect a terrific increase, right? After all, a 386 is many times the speed of the 68000. The Amigas blitter really makes a difference. I haven't seen any good animation on a MSDOS machine. And if you want to record it on video tape, you have to buy Yet-Another-Unstandard-Video-Adaptor-That-Hardly-Nobody-Supports (tm) The only thing MSDOS has that I want, is some good business programs and CAD packages. But hey, that is what the bridgeboard is for, right? At first the Bridgeboard was more expensive than going out and buying a clone, but lately it has been getting more affordable. Yes MSDOS is definatly catching up with Amiga. Too bad all the improvements are non-standard. Every board is different, and it get old real fast. I don't know much about the MAC, so I can't comment or compare it with the Amiga. -- John Sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps. Accessable via Starlink (Louisville KY) sparks@corpane.UUCP <><><><><><><><><><><> D.I.S.K. ph:502/968-5401 thru -5406 When in charge, ponder. When in doubt, mumble. When in trouble, delegate.