Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!twg.com!david From: david@twg.com (David S. Herron) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Novice questions: PCs, printers etc. Message-ID: <7973@gollum.twg.com> Date: 19 Sep 90 22:43:58 GMT References: <367@skye.cs.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: david@twg.com (David S. Herron) Organization: The Wollongong Group, Palo Alto, CA Lines: 89 In article joseph@valnet.UUCP (Joseph P. Hillenburg) writes: >db@cs.ed.ac.uk (Dave Berry) writes: >> 7. Is UNIX available or going to be available for the 2000? (I've >> seen the recent posts about MINIX, which is encouraging, but I'd >> like to know about the Commodore version). > >Commodore is making a UNIX which AT&T is using to demo UNIX V.4. It >is expected to be out by early winter. It fits AT&T's specs, and is an >official UNIX. It also adds BSD UNIX as well. A little more information: It's pretty likely C= will have a Unix for the 2000. This is what they were demonstrating last fall at Unix Expo. Back then it was SysVr3.2 running on a 2000 with C='s 68030 coprocessor board. I'm sure the hardware differences between a 2500/30 and a 3000 is minor enough, and well enough understood by C=, that supporting both machines. >> 8. Are Prolog or Smalltalk available for the Amiga? There's a version of Stony-Brook Prolog, as I recall. It's an ftp-ware product, but I don't remember where you ftp it. Stony-Brook means the State University of New York/Stony-Brook (SUNYSB). Dunno about smalltalk. ParcPlace systems doesn't sell *their* Smalltalk on the Amiga platform. There's a GNU smalltalk but it's still in early stages of development. What other choices are out there?? >> 9. I was expecting to find more games avaiable for the Amiga than the >> PC, but it seems that strategy games (like SSI products for the PC) >> aren't as common as arcade and adventure games, which I'm not >> really interested in. Is this impression right? I dunno.. I don't pay real close attention to the game market. It does seem to be flooded with stupid shoot-em-ups, eh? I am *extremely* happy with both Sim City and Populous.. And the Amiga GO game is well put together, but since I'm a very poor GO player so I have no idea how well it GO's.. According to the Bandito, however, the Amiga has become the second most popular platform to do games on. In particular SSI has been moving into the Amiga market big-time. Of course ya gotta trust the Bandito as a reliable source of information ;-). >> 10. I've seen some articles in this newsgroup criticising the Amiga's >> graphics capabilities. Are people comparing Amiga graphics with >> PC graphics or with more powerful machines aimed at the workstation >> market? They seem to be falling into divisions like so: -- don't want to be limited to NTSC variants For instance, I'm not so much interested in the Amiga as a way to make video images .. but instead as an affordable computer which I can use somewhat like the workstation I have here at work. That is, lots of windows, being able to move windows around at will, compare directly between windows that are side-by-side, cut&paste between windows, etc. I'd like to have a large screen -- greater than 1000x1000. Not necessarily in color, I get along fine with monochrome here at work. The 2024 is probably what I want, but I'm delayed by both the cost and the fact that I don't know how easy it is to switch back to a color display. (For those times when I wanna record video's..) I also hear vague rumblings that the software would have to be written to take advantage of the 2024? -- are unhappy with ~32/~4096 colors per pixel The PC and Mac worlds both have 256 colors & more. 'course for some of those things you spend more than the cost of an Amiga for the boards alone. -- want certain add-on boards to be come out of development (*FINALLY*) -- want cray-performance at C-64 prices I think a lot of C='s problems will be solved in two ways: -- put *MORE* effort into development so that some of these nifty new products will get to market. -- sell more amiga's to help pay for the development, and to make some of the more marginal products more marketable. -- <- David Herron, an MMDF & WIN/MHS guy, <- Formerly: David Herron -- NonResident E-Mail Hack <- <- Sign me up for one "I survived Jaka's Story" T-shirt!