Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!dsinc!bagate!cbmvax!daveh From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: Innovation (was Re: Mac and Amiga (Games--Macintosh vs A500)) Message-ID: <19948@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 18 Mar 91 19:20:09 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> <1991Mar15.092133.16140@ Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 102 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. I first saw it in January of '84 (over at Microsoft), but I though the BYTE article was out before that. >>Amiga was introed... > How is this any different from the Mac evolution, albeit with fewer >models in the Amiga line? That's the whole point. You don't need a new Amiga model to grow. Apple had to build a new model to go from 128K to 512K, and another new model to bring the total up to a meg or more and add a $5.00 SCSI chip. You never really need to throw out an Amiga; even the original A1000 can be upgraded to do most anything the newer machines do (though C= isn't the one with the upgrades, they work just fine). Certainly you eventually get to the point where new models make sense, but 3 or 7 different versions of essentially the same thing is pretense at innovation, not the real thing. I still contend that Apple's innovation has been strictly on the software side of things. >>>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. And Silicon graphics systems come with 256 bytes/pixel. It's still 24 bit color, they use the other bits for other things (second 24 bit buffer, alpha channel, z-buffer, text overlay, etc). > 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) Well, that history's actually a little skewed. NuBus originated at MIT, and TI bought the rights from MIT and used the bus, along with its original large form factor, in some of their LISP machines. That's why NuBus developers for Macs still have to license the NuBus patents from TI. Apple decided to adopt NuBus long after TI used it, and in the process changed the form factor and added a traditional level sensitive interrupt line to their version of the spec. NuBus was originally conceived as a backplane bus, not something with a host processor, so this kind of interrupt didn't make any sense originally. There was talk and possibly even consideration of NuBus for PCs AFTER the Mac II came out. We looked at NuBus for the A3000, too. I doubt any PC vendor was any more serious than we were about actually using it, but we have very much the same problem to solve -- here's a slow 16 bit bus, and we want a fast 32 bit bus. So it's natural to look at what's out there, NuBus, VME, Multibus-II, FutureBus, etc. If you were doing it today you'd add in EISA, MCA, S-Bus, TurboChannel, etc. You still might come to the conclusion that Amiga and most of the PC market came to -- an upgrade of the existing bus, but you have to consider what's out there. And I really think that NuBus was a good match for the Mac philosophy. It's kind of a hardware minimalist's bus -- it's not fast, but it's easy to design for (being 10MHz and synchronous), and with TI backing it, you can get support chips that make the bus interface as easy as an Amiga bus interface. At the time, it was a step above ISA and AmigaBus, which is about all you had in a desktop machine back then. >>Amiga expansion is far ahead of Mac expansion, > What does "far ahead" mean? When you're taking to a hardware guy, it means features. >Does it mean more cards available? Depends on the cards. There are more cards in some market areas, more Mac cards in others. You can build an Amiga card for less money, but Macs have more of a share of the high end personal computer market, so it's easier to justify an expensive device for the Mac's NuBus. > 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. Same reasons they might buy an $8,000 Mac IIfx rather than a $3,500 NeXTStation. They want expandability, they want low cost native mode software, etc. If you just want a network UNIX station, you might buy a NeXT. Then again, you might spend a little bit more and buy a Sun, like we do, where speed is the main issue. >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