Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker!ai-lab!wookumz.ai.mit.edu!rjc From: rjc@wookumz.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Macs etc. Message-ID: <11417@life.ai.mit.edu> Date: 17 Oct 90 17:18:44 GMT References: <901016.15214734.033391@CMR.CP6> Sender: news@ai.mit.edu Organization: None Lines: 135 In article <901016.15214734.033391@CMR.CP6> Dennis_Grant@CMR001.BITNET writes: >(And, in his first post to c.s.a, he ventures out into the storm) :) > > With the release of these new, low-cost Macs, Commodore has a problem. > > "How so?", you may ask, "as when you examine the fine print, the >same price level Amiga is almost an order of magnatude faster?" > > Because: 1) Nobody knows about the Amiga. > 2) Everybody knows about Macs. > 3) People tend to believe salesmen, and it is possible in a > side by side comparison test, to make the Mac look much > better than the Amiga. > > You see, looks count for a lot when you sell things. For example, the >Mazda Miata is really not all that different from a Chevette, mechanically >speaking. Even so, they sell very well (and at a higher price!) because >they look better. Well then, you have just proved my point, and lots of others. The new Macs are not a problem, and any other Mac is not the problem, its the MARKETING. Apple could slap a new case on Vic20's and sell them for $6000 if they wanted to. > The Mac OS looks much better than Workbench. 256 color icons? Useless, >I agree, but damn they look cool. Even MS windows looks better (read - >more professional) than poor old WB. It is difficult to look at WB and take >it seriously. Ahem. Windows is slow and looks like crap IMHO. Have you seen WB 2.0? If Amiga salesmen wanted to be sneaky like Apple, they could have demostration machines set up with Digitized sound, Video Toasters, and animated Icons. (something the Mac couldn't do fast enough) and then say 'This is what you get with the machine.' If you or Marc want to push the idea that 'Bells and Whistles' sell the machine, then you must agree that the Amiga has many more bells and whistles than the Mac has, built in. I have never seen a Mac demo compare to the European Amiga demos (Ala CryptoBurners Mega Demo). In fact, from what i've heard, that Mac can't have bitplanes located at any address (like the Bitplane vectors on the Amiga) instead they have 2 area's set aside for video mem,which makes it hard to do double buffering. Although this is hearsay. 256 color icons are 'Bells and Whistles', this is something the Amiga can easily do better than the Mac, even WITHOUT 16million colors. > Mark is right about Amiga video displays. We have lost the lead in >both color and resolution, and our biggest advantage (the blitter) is now >a serious obstical in improving it. To be fair, I have not seen a A3000 yet >and the ECS will help in the resolution department, but more color will >help sell computers. And that, after all, is the name of the game. Rubbish, the average home buyer doesn't say 'Gee, you have 24bit color? I know what that is.' In fact people who never owned computers before probably don't know what a 'bit' is. Its the SALEMAN who makes them think they need color. For instance the saleman could say,'Hmm, for your needs, I think your need this 24bit card, a CDROM drive, and 16 megs of ram. That will be $7000 please. We accept visa.' > What we need here is a better display, at least industry standard a la >VGA, a better looking WB, and above all else, ADVERTISING. Lots of it. ^^^^^^^^^^^ >Build the machine beyond what the competition has and then let the world >know that you can buy it for less. That is what is needed, or things will >only get worse. Finally we get to the real point. Don't make it look like the amiga has a HARDWARE problem. It all has to do with advertising and software. If we had retargetable graphics(not VGA, IBMs have no OS level windowing/interface support. You have to BUY Ms windows, OS/2, etc seperate.),the cards would come pooring in. There are already several graphic cards being built for the Amiga, ranging from hi powered transputer cards, to TI34020 boards that would beat any Mac/IBM VGA, except they have the bottle neck of the OS. > To the Commodore crew who may read this: You probably already know all >this, and don't need another person riding you, so I won't make this a >habit. As I understand it, work is being done right now to address this >very problem. Great. That's perfect. But unfortunately, your time is rather >short. It needs to be done quickly - and established deadlines must be met. >I told a bunch of IBM VGA dweebs that in mid September I was going to blow >them into the weeds with my new OS/chipset, and, quite frankly, they're >laughing at me now. Perhaps (and I mean this seriously, not sarcasticly) >you could let us know what is going on? Murphy strikes the best of us, and >a delay announcement would be fine, but the silence surrounding the fate >of the ECS smacks too closely of the Vapourware offered by the people who >are your biggest competitor, and is only causing harm to the Amiga's rep. I never expected to see the ECS have 24bit color, and I never do. It would take a lot of hacking on the CHIP bus. (7mhz, 16bit) This is too slow for 24bit graphics, 8bitplanes, animation, hires. You know, the Amiga is great, because is has a great expansion bus (Zorro III), I would rather have color cards go there, or the videoslot, instead of being welded on the Amiga motherboard. > I love my Amiga, and I don't want too see it fail. It won't. As long as people still own Amigas,it won't. There are still a LARGE number of C64 users out there who religously keep their machines. Just because Apple repackages old technology into a new case, with a better slogan, doesn't mean we will all sell our Amigas and buy Macs. I like the Amiga's environment better than the Mac. And if I ever get another machine, it won't be a Mac, it will be a UNIX (A3000 UX). Have you ever considered your motivations for 'screaming for color.' I think its because you want color. (no offense) Not everyone is sold on bells and whistles, if they were, Nitendo would be dead and Sega would easily take over the market. A large number of IBM users don't have a GUI like we do. So saying people are sold because of the Mac's GUI don't hold water to the majority of the market. Me personally? I don't use workbench at all, I stay in my shell where I have more power and freedom. > There. That's my $0.02 (CAN) Please feel free to reply in an >intelligent manner to either myself or the net. Mindless personal flames >please keep to yourself, and if I somehow have managed to offend someone, >I apologize in advance. (Gee, this ran rather long, didn't it?) > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- >| Dennis Grant DETUD595@CMR001.BITNET | There ain't no replacement | >| Computer Science (Systems) student | for cubic displacement. | >| at CMR. (The "other" MilCol) | | >|--------------------------------------------------------------------| >| All standard disclaimers apply | >|--------------------------------------------------------------------| No doubt I have probably offended some people with opinions at one time or another. Don't worry, its because i'm an Amiga fanatic. (but I use Unix more of the time.) -- "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/