Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!bagate!dsinc!unix.cis.pitt.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!stanford.edu!neon.Stanford.EDU!torrie From: torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Innovation (was Re: Mac and Amiga (Games--Macintosh vs A500)) Message-ID: <1991Mar15.092133.16140@neon.Stanford.EDU> Date: 15 Mar 91 09:21:33 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> <19880@cbmvax.commodore.com> Sender: torrie@neon.Stanford.EDU (Evan James Torrie) Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Ca , USA Lines: 100 daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes: >In article <1991Mar13.221028.8703@neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes: >> 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. January 1984 actually. >You're claiming here that between '83 and '86, Apple did absolutely nothing? >Is that right? Essentially yes. All they did to the basic Mac design was to replace those soldered in 64Kb DRAMs [boy, remember those?? :-)] by 256Kb chips to give the Fat Mac in August 1984. The debacle of 1985, with Steve Jobs, and the non-arrival of new Mac products was responsible for the dismal sales of the Mac in '85. About the only bright spot was Apple's introduction of the Postscript Laserwriter in Jan 85 [another first from Apple?]. In Jan 86, Apple introduced the Mac Plus (SCSI built-in, SIMM memory modules, both innovations once again for a mass-produced micro). >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. How is this any different from the Mac evolution, albeit with fewer models in the Amiga line? >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. The issue of the hard disk interface is really a red herring. If you're running a preemptive multi-tasking system, then yes, you really want DMA, and not polling. But Apple wasn't, and still isn't for most of its machines. Hence, the bottleneck in disk access for the MacOS 99% of the time is still the hard drive mechanism, rather than any problem on the Mac side of the SCSI port. Any Mac II can easily cope with 1.[1-3] MB coming down the SCSI bus, which more than suffices for most of the current 3.5" hard drives. It's certainly overkill for my Quantum 105. If I were running Unix (or System 8?), it would be another story. >Sure, you could >have decent graphics via an add-in, if speed wasn't a problem. At least you could have decent graphics! [a cruel barb there, but this is .advocacy!] >>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). Actually, there's a TrueVision/32 board, which has 24 bits of colour + 8 bits of alpha channel, which has been available for the Mac for quite a while. >>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. It's also a lot newer than NuBus. NuBus was originally designed a long time ago (I recall reading about it and Futurebus back in the early '80s). I guess Apple could have chosen to take a proprietary tack with their bus, but this was at the time when NuBus was still being seriously considered as the next alternative to the ISA architecture (before EISA reared its head). Apple decided to go the open route for a change, and then nobody followed them :-( (except for some of those TI machines) >Amiga expansion is >far ahead of Mac expansion, What does "far ahead" mean? Does it mean more cards available? >>and even A/UX [which runs old Mac applications as a task under Unix... >>something the Amiga can't do comparably with Amiga applications]. >The Amiga UNIX has the potential to attract UNIX people to the Amiga, >since it is in all ways a modern, standard UNIX. This has already been well beaten out on this group, but I fall in the camp who have a hard job seeing Unix people being attracted to an Amiga when they could have a NeXT instead. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Evan Torrie. Stanford University, Class of 199? torrie@cs.stanford.edu "If it weren't for your gumboots, where would you be? You'd be in the hospital, or in-firm-ary..." F. Dagg