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From: gsm@gsm001.uucp (Geoffrey S. Mendelson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc,comp.sys.mac.misc,comp.sys.mac.games,comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re: Mac and Amiga (Games--Macintosh vs A500)
Message-ID: <1991Mar4.013846.26519@gsm001.uucp>
Date: 4 Mar 91 01:38:46 GMT
References: <27253@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <1991Mar3.223546.12173@rice.edu>
Organization: Geoffrey S. Mendelson -- Software Consulting
Lines: 53

robbins@arcadien.rice.edu (Thomas Robbins) asks about the Amiga:
>
>What's the deal? My friend says that it's because it has built-in
>graphics co-processors.

The Amiga has built into it graphics and sound coprocessors. They make an
Amiga with a 7 mhz 68000 equivalent to a 25mhz 68030/68882 Mac when it comes
to video games.  In other applications, the machine is slightly faster than
a clasic Mac (or Mac Classic). 

It would not be very difficult to write (or port) the same games to a Mac II 
with a 68030 and 68882. A Mac IIfx would be an ideal machine. Since the people
that buy games usually own "cheap" machines, it does not make a lot of
sense to write a game for an $8000. computer.  How many games do you think
would sell if they had "For the Mac IIfx only" on the box.

Since game developers know that every Amiga has these facilities, and there 
are more than 2 million Amiga's out there it makes a lot of sense (and cents)
to develop these "whiz-bang" games for the Amiga and not the Mac.

If these games are your cup of tea, then I would recommend getting an Amiga.
There are many more of these games than will appear on the Mac market until
the Mac LCx :-) with the optional 68882 board becomes popular.

Before I bought an Amiga though, I would recommend looking at the soon to
be shipped CDTV.  In all forms it is an Amiga with a CD-ROM drive.
The cheapest form will be a CD player box with an Amiga 500 under the covers.
You have to add a keyboard, floppy drive, etc if you want to "compute"
with it.

I think that Commodore will have an external CDTV upgrade for the 500 also.

>
>I'm actually considering buying one of these, to supplement my mac.
>(Heaven help me--a machine with DOS!) IS IT WORTH IT? 


Amiga-Dos as it is called is not MS-DOS.  It is a very good multitasing
operating system with a built in window interface. It also has a command
line interface for people who prefer to type.  Many people have switched
from Macs to Amigas and vice versa because they prefered one over the other.

Being a Mac person, you will be happier with an Amiga than with an IBM
clone. 
-- 
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