Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!lethe!yunexus!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!cs.dal.ca!ug.cs.dal.ca!chapman From: chapman@ug.cs.dal.ca (Paul Chapman) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: Macs are great...but Summary: Don't get sucked in Message-ID: <1991Jan20.014343.13242@cs.dal.ca> Date: 20 Jan 91 01:43:43 GMT References: <1991Jan18.162701.21713@newcastle.ac.uk> <1991Jan19.040432.21738@cs.dal.ca> Sender: news@cs.dal.ca (USENET News) Organization: Math, Stats & CS, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada Lines: 95 Nntp-Posting-Host: ug.cs.dal.ca In article <1991Jan19.040432.21738@cs.dal.ca> graham@ug.cs.dal.ca (Michael Graham) writes: >I've had a Mac Plus for almost 5 yrs now and Iove it. I have 4 megs >of RAM and 65 megs of HD space. >Anyway - some of my friends have Amigas - one has an Amiga >3000. They keep extolling the virtues of their machines and the >inadiquacies of mine - all the way up to the IIfx. >I am getting VERY sick of this and want to put them in their place. There is very little in the computer world that gets up my nose like computer chauvanism; I understand your frustration. In the end, it almost invariably boils down to which computer you _like_, and technical specifications can go to hell. The flame wars that crop up every few weeks usually get more and more ridiculous until everyone gets sick of it and the thread dies. For some reason, the Amiga people seem to be particularly fond of computer chauvanism (who else puts their computer's logo in their .sig file?) and I wish they would stop it; it damages their credibility. After all, if the machine does what you want it to do, and you like it, then that's good enough. When you stand back and look at different computers from the perspective of a means to an end, they actually all seem pretty similar. Right now, I use a Mac because my programming job requires it. With minimal pain, I could switch to an Amiga, a PClone or a Unix box. They all have their individual advantages and disadvantages, none of which are really fatal to the use of the machine. >What are the loopholes in the so called Amiga advantages - like: I'll try to give an unbiased comparison here. >true multitasking Works well, the only disadvantage I can see is that it seems to crash a bit too easily. This flaw is found in the Multifinder too, though. >faster operation?? Beware of people telling you that computer A is 1.5% faster than computer B. Minor speed differences really don't matter. Amiga graphics are faster than 68000 Mac graphics, but the SE/30 seems to be just as good. >more bang for the buck I can't argue with this. Even with the new Macs, they're still overpriced. >video stuff - like the video toaster and dedicated graphics chips As I mentioned above, the graphics chips allow cheap Amigas to outstrip cheap Macs in graphic speed, but as you throw money at the machines the differences blur. I have no clear idea what the video toaster is, so I can't comment on it. So far as I can tell, the Amiga doesn't support very high resolution or 24 bit colour. This may have changed by now, though. If you really have to do enormously flashy graphics and the depth of your pocket approaches infinity, I'd recommend a workstation of some sort, say a NeXT cube with that 80860 accelerator board, or a Personal IRIS for 3d work. >cheap software Depends what you buy. You can still get cheap software for the Mac for most applications, just don't expect them to do everything the expensive programs do. If you don't need expensive programs, don't buy them; you'll just be wasting your money. >good, cheap emulation software To emulate a Mac? The primary disadvantage of the A-Max board as far as I can gather is that it uses the 128k ROMs, and so you're locked out of colour QuickDraw and flexible monitor support. You also have to find the things, and I understand Apple is trying to make it as hard as possible to do this. What Apple might succeed in doing is forcing people to pirate them instead. >etc etc etc etc... > >I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!!! HELP!!!!!! My advice though is not to take the bait. Don't get into a features war with these people because reason is in short supply when this sort of thing comes up. Just tell them that your computer does what you want it to do, that that's good enough for you, and why are they so insecure that they have to go around being obnoxious to everyone in sight who isn't one of them? >RSVP ASAP > >mike > >ps - memory management....ARGGGGGGGGG...... - Paul -- -= Paul Chapman -=- chapman@ug.cs.dal.ca -=- pc@ac.dal.ca (BitNet) =- -=-=-=-=-=-=-= Put Humourous Quote of Your Choice Here =-=-=-=-=-=-=-