Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!apple!usc!sdd.hp.com!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!ccwf.cc.utexas.edu From: greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Greg Harp) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: A3000UX - Born to run UNIX SVR4 Message-ID: <43948@ut-emx.uucp> Date: 9 Feb 91 08:56:01 GMT References: <1991Feb7.151106.4795@cc.helsinki.fi> <32530@auc.UUCP> <1512@pdxgate.UUCP> <1991Feb9.032953.14709@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <1519@pdxgate.UUCP> Sender: news@ut-emx.uucp Reply-To: greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Greg Harp) Organization: The University of Texas at Austin Lines: 97 In article <1519@pdxgate.UUCP> hal@eecs.UUCP (Aaron Harsh) writes: > The NeXTstation has no color and no expansion [slots] available. But >looking through Amiga World (yeah so what if I read it, Amigas still suck :-) >all the expansion cards I see fall into three categories: > 1) RAM/Hard drive cards > Who cares about this? The Station is expandable to 32 Megs, and has > a SCSI connector on the back. And? The A3000 has 18MB capability on the motherboard and has the SCSI port on the back. BTW, what if you want _more_ than 32MB? NEVER say never. I believe it was Commodore's Dave Haynie who designed a 64MB, 32-bit memory card for the 3000. Granted, he did it for fun, but it may actually see a need in the market one of these days. > 2) Video things (genlocks, Toaster, etc.) > The Amiga is a much better multimedia machine than a NeXT. If you're > going to be using a lot of video, go with an Amiga. If you're going to > want to use a really fast machine and an incredible programmeing setup > you should go with a NeXT. Well, the "really fast" quality of the NeXT will pale when the 040 cards ship for the Amiga. Given the system architectures and OSes of the two machines, the Amiga will be faster. That's a fact. As for programming environment, to each his own. I don't like the NeXT developing environment myself. > 3) IBM/Mac emulators > SOFT-PC on the NeXT runs an AT window faster than a 12Mhz AT. Uses > all the NeXT serial ports, disk drives, etc.. too. You can also run > more than one on the screen at a time. (Yeah, I know. Why would you > want to run more than one PC window at a time? Well.. why would you > even want to run one :-) So what do you plug a PeeCee-specific card into? A telnet port? :) There are inexpensive peripherals for the PeeCee and some that just don't exist for the Amiga or NeXT. Besides, the speed of SOFT-PC is just over that of a 12Mhz 286. 386 brideboards are currently under development for the Amiga. > As CPU speed increases and display overhead stays the same, amount of >time spent on display aproaches 0. Sure, as CPU speed approaches infinity. However, the 040 is merely fast, not a miracle. A miracle is what is needed for Display Postscript. :) > Maybe an '040 3000UX will beat a NeXT, but I doubt it. It will do better >at video, but not at number crunching. Someone posted some benchmarks >comparing A3000 and NeXTCube (030 model) a while ago.(I think that was >in the pre-advocacy days). The NeXT was a little faster than the Amiga. What do you base your assumption on? It's the same CPU, last time I checked. Does the NeXT use static column RAMs? Can it do it without any wait-states? Even the DSP has to be hand-serviced by the CPU. > You probably haven't played with one of the new NeXTs. They're speeded >up a lot. You can even format disks while you're downloading a file :-) >I've had Mandelbrot, Digital Webster, and Writenow running at the same time >without slowing down the Writenow window. So in other words you're saying that the 68040 is really fast. Gee, I'll be glad when I get one because I'm running 10 tasks on my 7.14Mhz 68000 with no noticeable slowdown. Because the OS is efficient, they sleep until they have work to do (but several are constantly activated). I could easily run a Mandelbrot program and set it at a priority 1 lower than the term I'm using and the Mandelbrot would be generated nearly as fast with only the time between my keypresses. >> Try doing Live video teleconferencing on the $3200 slab like CBM did >>on the A3000UX demonstration. > > Yep, the Amiga is better with video. > Try doing raytracing in any reasonable amount of time on an Amiga. Try >designing a functional graphical interface to one of your programs in a >half hour on an Amiga. Raytracing speed is a function of the FPU. An 040 Amiga would raytrace at the same speed. As for the graphical interface, such builders are available to those who want them. IB is not a new concept. With programs like AmigaVision (ships with all Amigas) and CanDo, a user can design an entire program in half an hour. There's no need to hand-code most utilities. I've seen some very useful, fast utilies written under these packages, including hypertext. For people who want or need to hand-code, programs like Power Windows will let the user design and interface and then it will write the C code to generate it. The best part is that none of this requires the programmer to use Objective-C. :) >Aaron Harsh >hal@eecs.cs.pdx.edu Greg -- -------Greg-Harp-------greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu-------s609@cs.utexas.edu------- "Confutatis maledictus "When the accursed have been counfounded Flammis acribus addictis, == And given over to the bitter flames, Voca me cum benedictis." -- Mozart Call me with the blessed."