Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!vsi1!zorch!mykes
From: mykes@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: AMIGA
Message-ID: <1991Jan11.071410.16032@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>
Date: 11 Jan 91 07:14:10 GMT
References: <1991Jan10.082327.7378@rice.edu> <1991Jan10.095304.16900@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <1991Jan10.151816.13893@rice.edu>
Distribution: usa
Organization: SF-Bay Public-Access Unix
Lines: 38

Amiga with a grey scale monitor and the Next are quite similar, looks-wise.  The
main difference is that the Amiga appears to be much faster since it has hardware
assist and *TRUE* multitasking.  By *TRUE* multitasking, I mean that not only
is the software an outstanding multitasking OS, but the hardware actually has
3 CPUs (680x0, Copper, Blitter) that run in parallel.  The OS never has to
wait for hardware to do things normally done by the CPU on machines like
the next, so the 680x0 is free to execute application logic (rather than GUI
logic, graphics primitives, or busywaiting for I/O to some device).

Add the complexity of the Unix OS (as the user sees it) and you eliminate
the majority of computer users from wanting to use it.  And even though the
NeXT has an outstanding price/performance value, there is no $499 NeXT.  There
is no color on the basic machine, very little 3rd party hardware or software
support, no games, no video support (i.e. NTSC video packages for digitizing
or generating video), or color as a standard feature.

Thanks, but no thanks, I think I'd rather stick to the Amiga where I can click
on a gadget or window and have it respond immediately.

And if you like to write software, the Amiga is great for 'C', assembler,
Forth, Modula, etc.  And the OS is fairly easy to use and full of powerful
features like Message Ports, real-time multitasking (tasks can respond almost
immediately to external events) and graphics (a fairly complete GKS style
graphics system).

Once you start writing software for the machine, you learn to NOT buffer your
reads and writes...  You see, the machine has PLENTY of RAM available when the
system is running and you can just read() virtually any file into RAM all at
once.  I can't stand to use some of these Unix applications that have been
ported to the Amiga because they do buffer their I/O (seems like on a 12MB
Unix machine there is not enough RAM to put a large source file and the OS
in RAM at the same time :(  When I run a program that does one BIG read, it is
so fast.  When I run a program that reads a small chunk at a time, it is
orders of magnitude slower.  You just don't have to waste time that should be
spent focusing on what the application needs to do.

My $.02

Mykes