Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!bagate!dsinc!unix.cis.pitt.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-picayune.mit.edu!athena.mit.edu!amgreene
From: amgreene@athena.mit.edu (Andrew Marc Greene)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Innovation (was Re: Mac and Amiga (Games--Macintosh vs A500))
Message-ID: <1991Mar15.142928.11358@athena.mit.edu>
Date: 15 Mar 91 14:29:28 GMT
References: <1991Mar13.221028.8703@neon.Stanford.EDU> <19880@cbmvax.commodore.com> <1991Mar15.092133.16140@neon.Stanford.EDU>
Sender: news@athena.mit.edu (News system)
Organization: Plucky Duck Fan Club
Lines: 34

In article <1991Mar15.092133.16140@neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes:
>daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes:
>
>>Letsee.  Apple introduced the Mac in 1983.  
>
>  January 1984 actually.

When was Lisa introduced, and how different was it from the first Macs?
(I'm asking sincerely -- I don't recall.)

>  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.  

I think that that's why it's not a red herring.  Call me spoiled, but
I *like* my preemptive multi-tasking system.  :-)

[He then quotes Dave H again:]
>>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.

Count me in as one Unix person who was attracted to the Amiga, even before
the UX models came out.  I'm running a csh, and I've got all my usual
utilities, and I'm only on a lowly 2500.  :-)  Seriously, the reason I
bought an Amiga was because it was closer to a workstation than anything
else I'd seen -- including the NeXT, which felt like a multi-tasking
Mac, not like a Unix box.

-- Andrew <amgreene@mit.edu> | .sigs are for people with bandwidth to burn