Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!daveh From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: Mac and Amiga (Games--Macintosh vs A500) Message-ID: <19880@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 14 Mar 91 22:48:57 GMT References: <27373@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <1991Mar10.182432.9314@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu> <91MAR12.134551@ducvax.auburn.edu> <1991Mar13.131004.9647@sugar.hackercorp.com> <1991Mar13.221028.8703@neon.Stanford.EDU> Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 138 In article <1991Mar13.221028.8703@neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes: >peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >>In article <91MAR12.134551@ducvax.auburn.edu> cs220x2a@ducvax.auburn.edu writes: >>> 3) Apple comes out with more innovative products than any other computer >>> company. >>The last innovative product that came out of Apple... let's see. How about the >>original Macintosh? What have they done since then that wasn't just putting >>faster chips in the same basic box? > What happens if you apply the exact same reasoning to Commodore? >You could say "The last innovative product to come out of Commodore was >the original Amiga. What have they done since then that wasn't just >putting faster chips in the same basic box?" It all depends on where you look. This certainly is the place for flames, so I guess we can look... > One could argue that Apple has been more innovative than Commodore >over the last 5 years. Apple started off with a monochrome, one-size >monitor non-expandable system. Letsee. Apple introduced the Mac in 1983. You're claiming here that between '83 and '86, Apple did absolutely nothing? Is that right? Amiga was introed in '85. In 1986, they introduced the expansion bus specifications. In '87, an affordable Amiga (A500) and one with slots (A2000). In '89, a 68020 system. In '90, a 68030 system. In '91, the A3000, a fully 32 bit system (expansion bus, memory, hard disk, etc). Except for the Amiga chips, a completely new architecture. Apple has its innovations, but hardware isn't generally where they shine. The Mac II and IIx, basically the same computer, were underpowered 68020/30 systems, using slow memory and the same 8 bit PIO hard disk. Sure, you could have decent graphics via an add-in, if speed wasn't a problem. The IIcx is essentially the same computer in a different box. The IIci was the first decent Mac, from a hardware point of view. They still used the same primitive hard disk system, same primitive I/O support (no 68030 system should have to read mouse quad clocks on its own) but at least did a decent job on the on-board graphics and memory system. The IIfx was a very good effort, though about twice as expensive as it should have been. And even now, the Mac OS can't take advantage of the I/O processors or DMA driven hard disk. At least that machine has the potential to be an acceptible UNIX system; earlier Mac IIs don't have the system bandwidth for any hard disk intensive OS. >Since then they've added things like 32-bit colour, You have to get 24 bit color from 3rd parties on the Amiga (no one is selling 32 bit color displays for Macs, or much anything else, actually). >expansion slots, Well, the Amiga had expansion slots before any Mac did. The A3000's Zorro III bus is far superior to the Mac's NuBus, as 32 bit buses go. Amiga expansion is far ahead of Mac expansion, basically due to the confusion in the Mac market. Apple provided "PDS" slots on some Macs, but they changed the PDS slot for different systems. NuBus was too slow for lots of needs, so they started putting a PDS slot on systems with NuBus slots. Now they have yet another kind of raw slot, which can be used as-is, or converted into NuBus or one kind of PDS slot. It's certainly enough to confuse me. And there's still no proper way to add in faster processors in most Macs, other than resorting to some kind of hack. Apple really seems to think you should buy a new computer rather than upgrading your current platform. >RISC graphics coprocessors, Commodore's high end graphics board uses a graphics coprocessor instead, and goes for CAD resolutions rather than bitplane depth. Both are certainly valid goals, depending on what you're after. Commodore has lots of other hardware for their expansion bus too -- PC-Clone on a card, memory boards, Ethernet, Arcnet, RS-232 x 7, etc. >Hypercard, Amiga has AmigaVision. Not the same thing, but it answers many of the same questions, and it's far easier for a novice user to program in. >Multifinder Well, obviously the Amiga OS didn't need anything in that category, since it started out multitasking. And still does this far better and more efficiently than the Mac Multifinder. After all, the Amiga OS will multitask in 256K (though C= doesn't sell a 256K system anymore). >and even A/UX [which runs old Mac applications as a task under Unix... >something the Amiga can't do comparably with Amiga applications]. That's true. What's also true is that Commodore's UNIX is a modern, standard UNIX, rather than being based on an old version of UNIX with nonstandard additions. Which is better for you depends, again, on what you're after. I doubt Apple considered A/UX a way to attrach UNIX people to Macs, since most of the Macs out there will have substandard performance under UNIX (eg, you need DMA, interrupts, and intelligent I/O for any multitasking OS, not PIO). But A/UX is a valid way to attract Mac users to UNIX, and lets the government "Supports UNIX" box get checked on order forms. The Amiga UNIX has the potential to attract UNIX people to the Amiga, since it is in all ways a modern, standard UNIX. If you want UNIX on your home system, and still want the advantages of a personal computer (expansion, cheap native OS software, etc.), the Amiga is an excellent system. > What has Commodore done in the same period? Amigas still seem to >have the same old colour restrictions, pretty much the same old >resolutions, pretty much the same old graphics chip set. So, in your opinion, graphics architecture is the whole thing? While Amigas do now have the second generation Amiga chip set, and A3000s support every basic display mode in either NTSC/PAL or VGA compatible resolutions, it's not a great leap from the original display. Of course, I'm running on this great 1000x800x2 Moniterm display that I've been using for over a year, and I have a similar one, the C= A2024, at home. That's hardly something we were doing back in '85. Graphics on the Amiga is a little like the hard disk interface on the Mac -- they're still reading that 8 bit SCSI chip with the processor, any time you're not on a Mac IIfx or whenever you run the Mac OS. Software follows a similar path. Apple's QuickDraw is nicely device independent. But everything else seems to hard wired in the OS. Amiga's only real drawback is that the graphic subsystem is too hard wired. All other I/O, either at the device or filesystem level, is fully device independent. So Macs drive a variety of displays. Amigas talk to zillions of different filesystems. Amiga OS 2.0 (which has been out on the A3000 for quite some time) fixed pretty much every GUI advantage the Mac had over the Amiga, but didn't stop there. It also added most of the things that Apple claims will be in Mac OS version 7, some day. It made it even easier to write an Amiga GUI based program, something that for the most part was already easier to do than the equivalent on a Mac. New technology isn't always the kind of thing that jumps right out and grabs you. In fact, if it grabs you too strongly (Multifinder maybe?), that's probably because it is making up for a long standing problem, not that it's all that amazing when standing on its own. >Evan Torrie. Stanford University, Class of 199? torrie@cs.stanford.edu -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy "What works for me might work for you" -Jimmy Buffett