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From: rjc@wookumz.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: New MAC systems.
Message-ID: <11387@life.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 16 Oct 90 02:26:43 GMT
References: <33530@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
Sender: news@ai.mit.edu
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In article <33530@nigel.ee.udel.edu> WHE46@ccvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) writes:
|
|   I just got done watching a live satellite feed from the Apple
|headquarters in Sunnyvale.  The show was interesting, but boring,
|as it went on and on about mhow much such-and-such people dearly
|adore the new MAC systems.  As could be expected, there were 
|loud boos and hisses from the local crowd when Apple showed a
|segment from archrival Drake University in Des Moines.
|
|   The new systems are quite interesting, and will give Commodore
|a lot of trouble, particularly if Commodore chooses to ignore them.
|The MAC Classic is the least interesting of the bunch, as it is
|simply a MAC Plus by another name.  
|
|   The other two systems are quite interesting.  The MAC IISI comes with
|a 68030 running at 20Mhz (no FPU, though),the now-standard color video
|(256 colors out of 16 Million, 640x480 non-interlaced resolution), 2MB
|of RAM, a 40MB hard drive, the SuperDrive, and keyboard.  The retail 
|price of this system is $3800, which is surprisingly close to the
|retail price of the A3000/25-50.  You can also hack 30% off of this
|price for the education discount, and you get an '030-based color MAC
|for $2700, which is a very reasonable price.

  The Mac IIsi is no comparision against the A3000/25-50. No FPU, non
-multitasking, 20mhz 68030, and 1 expansion slot.
 And it costs $800 more than the A3000 does. The A3000 has 640x480
non interlaced, and it also has 1280x400, 640x960,etc. 256 colors out
of 16 million is nothing, this is nothing more than VGA,Mac style.
The fact is HAM-E is out, and for the extra price of the Mac IIsi
($800) you can buy HAM-E, and 256 colors out of 16 mill, or 262,000 of 16
mill. I know its LO-RES, but what the hey. What do you need hi-res
color for? Multimedia is NTSC, which clearly doesn't have 24bit color.
Also HAM-E works perfectly with AmigaDOS and lots of other software
from what I've heard. 
  Considering the price of Mac software, the Amiga is still the cheaper
and better buy.

|   The other system is precisely what I've been calling for Commodore
|to develop for the past year, but Commodore did not listen.  Apparently
|Apple did, and this could also give Commodore a lot of trouble.  The
|MAC LC uses a 68020 running at 16Mhz, a 40MB hard drive, 2MB of memory,
|the same color video as the rest of the MAC II line, SuperDrive, and 
|keyboard.  The retail price for this system is $2500, and you can also
|hack 30% off of this price for the education market, leaving you with
|a 32-bit color MAC system for $1800, which is right in the part of
|Commodore's Amiga product line where Commodore is weakest: the 
|market in between the A500 and the A3000/16.

  Take an Amiga 2000, add a GVP or 68020 card with HD, and then tell me
if it costs more than $2500. Also, as again, the MAC LC only has 1
expansion slot.

|   Consider this: for little more than the cost of an Amiga 2000HD,
|you can now get a MAC II running at 16Mhz, with much better video 
|and twice the memory.  If people think this won't give Commodore
|trouble, they are smoking something. 
|
|   Hopefully the new introductions by Apple will be just what is
|needed to kick Commodore in the ass and get them to start producing
|a low-cost Amiga system with decent color capability.  Probably not,
|though.  Commodore seems stubborn about color: they will go out of
|business before they improve it.

  Amiga's are already low cost. Take any Mac system, and spend the
same amount of money on an Amiga. You will always come up with
a much more powerful system. The A500 is much better than the classic.
A3000 is better then the SI. Color, smolor... A large majority of
the people I know who own Macs are B&W.

|   Sure, you can get fancy color cards for the Amiga that give you
|24-bit color, but they are totally non-standard, work with very
|little software, and cost extra.  The point of the two new color
|MAC systems is that they give you better color capability than an
|Amiga as standard hardware for a decent price, something that the
|Amiga can no longer offer.  

 HAM-E? DCTV? Video Toaster? The only advantage the Mac has is not
in hardware, but in software. The amiga needs a way to support
third-party video easily. We already know Commodore is working on
this (note the recent jobs offered and their positions) What does
this whining accomplish. Do you think by thrasing commodore at
every attempt will somehow make them say 'Gosh, MB is right, we are
behind in color. Lets take his advice and make him president in charge
of Amiga Color.' Commodore and the Amiga crew are not soo short-sighted
that they can't see the amiga's limitations. Give them time, you can't
redo the whole graphic design and OS interface in a day.
 
|
|               AMIGA: Yesterday's Technology, FOREVER!!!
| 
|
|                                 -MB-


-- 
"NeXTs are useless... Mac's are irrelevent.. IBM's are futile. Amiga's,however,
are quite nice!" -Capt Jeal-Luc Amiga      |     Flames to /dev/null
Ray Cromwell   rjc@wookumz.ai.mit.edu      |   //     AMIGA!     \\
"Your software will adapt to service ours!"| \X/      AMIGA!      \X/