Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!udel!mmdf From: BARRETT@owl.ecil.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Some MAC and Amiga Comparisons. aka Marc Blunders Message-ID: <33618@nigel.ee.udel.edu> Date: 16 Oct 90 10:21:26 GMT Sender: mmdf@ee.udel.edu Lines: 91 In article <1990Oct16.015911.3837@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Ethan Solomita writes: >In article <33538@nigel.ee.udel.edu> WHE46@ccvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) writes: >> >> The new MAC LC (actually, it should be called the MAC IILC, because >>the only difference between this system and the original MAC II is >>the lack of a FPU) gives you a 68020 running at 20Mhz, 2M of RAM, a 40MB >>hard drive, color video, and keyboard for $2500 list. I will build >>a similar Amiga system using an Amiga 500 as the base. Add $300 for >>the monitor, which is included in the Amiga system I will compare it >>against. To be fair, I will use list prices. > > Marc, the Mac price you quote repeatedly does NOT include >a monitor. Apple monitors are NOT cheap. Taking education prices: > MAC LC Amiga 3000/16-50 > 16MHz 68020 16MHz 68030 > no math coprocessor 16MHz 68881 > 40MB drive 50MB drive > 2MB ram 2MB ram > Color video Color video > Apple monitor Multisync monitor > keyboard, etc. keyboard, etc. > ?? option for 68040 > accelerator/cache > ?? video slot > ?? 4 slots > ?? 16MHz/32bit bus > > $2,500 $2,600 > (educational) (educational) I dispute the prices you gave for the above systems. The education price for the MAC LC itself is $1750, and the education price of the AppleColor monitor is at most $500. You also have to add $150 to the A3000 system for an ArcNET card, because the MAC has built-in networking. Tallied up, this brings the MAC LC to $2250, and the A3000 to $2750. A big enough difference that many educational institutions would rather go with the MAC LC system. Here is a further reason why many will go with the MAC system. It just plain looks great. What people see first in any system is not the speed of the SCSI controller or whether or not it has a FPU. What people notice first is the quality of the display, and the A3000 cannot touch the MAC in this area. On the systems at school, a new Finder has been installed that uses 256-color icons. The resulting display looks vastly better than AmigaOS2.0 ever will, with it's 4-color WB. BTW, what are you going to run on that A3000 system, besides games and multimedia software? There is nothing available for the Amiga in the line of engineering, scientific, and education software. > > Building from an A500 system is stupid, especially >because the expansion is so much more expensive than on >2000s/3000 that the extra cost for the 2000/3000 is mad up. You >can clearly see that the A3000 is far better than an expanded >A500! Clearly the Amiga is not behind. The A3000 listed above is >a much more powerful system than the LC and the difference is >only $100. The A500 is Commodore's lowest-cost system, and I wanted to show that even the A500 cannot stack up against the new MACs in price and performance. > Another thing to be considered: Apple is probably using >up its old stock of 68020 for their discontinued Mac II. Motorola >will likely end production of the 68020 soon as the price >difference with the 68030 is very small. I doubt that Motorola will stop production of the 68020 soon. Remember that plenty of places are still producing the 6502. The 68020 still has plenty of uses, particularly as a 32-bit CPU in places (such as controllers and such) that only need a wide memory map and don't need virtual memory or the other benefits of a 68030. > > Marc, sometimes you talk and make sense and other times >you just complete get caught up in emotions and don't even stop >to think. > -- Ethan > >Ethan Solomita: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu > >GorbachevAwards++; >free (SovietUnion); >IndependentRepublics += 11; -MB-