Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!decwrl!bacchus.pa.dec.com!granite.pa.dec.com!mwm From: mwm@raven.pa.dec.com (Mike (Real Amigas have keyboard garages) Meyer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Real System Comparisons Message-ID: Date: 7 Aug 90 16:19:51 GMT References: <13466@cbmvax.commodore.com> <13678@cbmvax.commodore.com> Sender: news@wrl.dec.com (News) Distribution: usa Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Lines: 87 In-Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com's message of 7 Aug 90 17:12:54 GMT In article <13678@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes: In article mwm@raven.pa.dec.com (Mike (Real Amigas have keyboard garages) Meyer) writes: >1) The standard disk interface for high-end IBM PCs is ESDI, not SCSI. IBM themselves are moving to SCSI. They are (were?) also moving to the microchannel. I was looking at what was being advertised. It's all ESDI, no SCSI to be found. >2) EISA slots - systems with more than a couple of EISA slots tend to >be '486 based, not '386 based. You only need a system with 4 empty EISA slots to stack up to the A3000. >Allowing for those two changes, then Dave's "equivalent" systems start >showing up around $3300 or so. Neither are acceptible changes, performance-wise. ESDI, ok. But why can't I use a 486 system instead of a 386 system with a socket for a 486? >Except that the "equivalent" Amiga to that clone would be: [...] > socket for Wietek 4167 or equivalent That's silly. The 68040 floating point performance is supposed to be in the same ballpark as the 4167. Fair enough. That seemed to be a standard option, so I tacked it on. I'm willing to drop it. >And the 3000 just doesn't stack up. You can pay $10,000 for a machine like that. Probably more. You can also get the IBM-PC flavored 486 for between $3500 and $4000. At least, those were the prices I saw advertised. I'm not looking for a server, just a desktop PC that's roughly equivalent to the A3000 for the same price. Or a different price, for that matter. And I'm trying to say that the machine you specified doesn't appear to be advertised. I detailed what looked like the closest machine I could find, which happened to be a 486 system with lots of room for disks. The real problems, as I pointed out, where that there were no SCSI controllers - everything was ESDI or ST506; and that 386 systems had 1 or 2 EISA slots, and then a mixture of 16 & 8 bit slots. Systems with more than 2 EISA slots tended to be 486 systems with 6 or more. The point of mapping it back to an Amiga configuration was to show that writing specs for "equivalent" systems doesn't work very well. You wind up asking for hardware that just isn't available on both ends. >The point of all this is that (as I said before) price comparisons of >arbitrarily defined "equivalent" hardware is pretty meaningless. You >have to look at what you want to use the system _for_. Of course, if you need one specific application, you find the best system that'll run that one application. No, it isn't as specific as "application" (though I recommend that those not into roll-your-own software find applications first). A primary purpose - which may boil down to a single application or some small set of them - is enough. >This is only slightly less true if the application is "unreleased" on one of >the boxes and released on the other. If you need it TODAY. Of course, if you know the application WILL be on a system that's designed to handle it, it may be worth the wait, rather than getting that application now on a system that really isn't set up to run that applcation very well. You mean like waiting for A-live to come out, or Unix for the Amiga, or the video toaster, or etc. Sorry, but I can't in good faith recommend a product that I can't buy today. I've seen things not go out the door even after everything was boxed and ready to ship.