Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!hsdndev!think.com!mintaka!wookumz.ai.mit.edu!rjc From: rjc@wookumz.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc Subject: Re: Amiga vs. Mac Message-ID: <1991Mar10.204119.22113@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> Date: 10 Mar 91 20:41:19 GMT References: <1991Mar10.192823.30103@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Sender: daemon@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu (Lucifer Maleficius) Organization: The Internet Lines: 84 In article <1991Mar10.192823.30103@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) writes: >In article jimb@amiglynx.UUCP (Jim Bednar) writes: >> >> The mac classic costs nowhere around the price of a amiga.. A classic lists >>for $999.00 and the Amiga 500 lists for $850.00.. Get your facts straight.. >>And why buy a Classic when an AMIGA can emulate it, hell it can emulate just >>about every computer on the market.. Ok. Lets move on.. How much is a decent >>frame buffer for the Mac? about 4000-5000 bux.. For the Amiga? you have many >>choises like DCTV $400.00 Firecracker24 $1400.00 Toaster $1500.00.. >> >> FOR ALL YOU PEOPLE THINKING OF BUYING MAC'S GO TO YOUR NEAREST AMIGA DEALER >>AND PICK YOURSELF UP A REAL COMPUTER... >> >>Jim > > Time to put some realism back into this discussion. No >matter how much I like my Amiga, the Mac is not so far behind >that we can dismiss it so easily as Jim Bednar did. The Mac >Classic sells for about $750 on educational pricing. You can get ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The A500 sells for $500 street price. Do you get Color with the Classic? A keyboard? >it with 2MB of RAM and a 40MB HD for $1,200 or so on educational >pricing. The A500 doesn't even compare to that price. If you get >an A500 with A590, for the same price you get 1MB of RAM and a >20MB HD. Why get an A590? There are plenty of other controllers out there, albeit not asfast as the 590/2091, but the SLOWEST DMA controller you can find for the Amiga will still beat the pants off a Mac Classic with its 6502 CPU controller. The A500 can't be compared with the classic, because the classic is just too slow. The Amiga's custom chips, and color would have to be removed. > As to frame-buffers, first, DCTV is not a frame buffer. >Second, FireCracker and the Toaster may be color frame-buffers, >but they require a 2000, so it isn't fair to compare with the >500/Classic. Finally, for that price range, i.e. $1,500, you can >get 24-bit frame-buffers, and using 32-bit quickdraw which allows ^^^^^ Which costs $$$ and can't animate worth sh*t like DCTV, HAM-E and ColorBurst can. I don't care how much people whine about HAM-E and other such things not being 'full 24-bit palette mapped'. They are an acceptable midway, for cheap animation. Most people can't afford the amount of memory it would take to animate 24bit in real time. The differences between DCTV and HAM-E and REAL 24-bit will be slight. Hardly noticable when animating. Colorburst can display up to 48-bits of information in its frame-buffer. Yep, 24 bits of palette map, plus 24 bits of overlay. And it only costs $400. Yes it will be some time before the DIG/RTG problem is resolved, but for now, Patches to intuition/graphics is acceptable(HAM-E works perfectly with the OS). 256 color icons are pretty, but a waste of time and storage space. Face it, the only real need for 24 bits is graphics work like painting, rendering, animating, and digitizing. This can all be done with powerful packages like ADpro, Image Professional, etc. >the whole operating system including the finder and all >applications to transparently work in the 24-bit mode. That is >impossible to do today on the Amiga no matter how much you spend. Not impossible, just harder. If the graphic card has a fast enough data transfer rate, the OS can be patched in the vital areas to update the display in real time. I'm not saying it's a solution, but it's a short term fix to a problem that should have been solved in 1985. Beating a dead horse isn't going to fix it either, and you and I both know Commodore is working on it, we justhave to be patient. >$4K-5K is just not the case. > And I'm glad you only posted that to comp.sys.amiga, >cause if you'd cross-posted the flames would never end. > -- Ethan > > > Upon leaving office, Ronald Reagan began renting an >office in the penthouse of the Fox Plaza, the Los Angeles >high-rise used as the location for the terrorist movie "Die >Hard". Cheers... Ray() -- replies to rjc@albert.ai.mit.edu