Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!ccwf.cc.utexas.edu From: greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Greg Harp) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer Subject: Re: Lemmings - a tutorial Part IV Message-ID: <46443@ut-emx.uucp> Date: 30 Mar 91 05:41:47 GMT References: <1991Mar29.230632.7066@grebyn.com> Sender: news@ut-emx.uucp Reply-To: greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Greg Harp) Organization: The University of Texas at Austin Lines: 51 In article <1991Mar29.230632.7066@grebyn.com> ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) writes: >The Amiga 500 is a game machine. This has nothing watever to do with >the machine's technical capabilties, or what some minority of users does >with it. It is a game machine because of the mentality of the typical >user (remember that no one reading this message is a typical Amiga >user), because of Commodore's stillborn marketing efforts (at Christmas, >Commodore itself was comparing the A500 to the Nintendo), and only at >the last because of the original design goals. Correct. Commodore _was_ comparing the 500 to the NES, but they were saying that the 500 was _more_ than a game machine. The whole idea of the ad was that your kid can play a game on the NES and learn nothing or you can buy your kid an Amiga and he/she will actually _learn_ something. Also, I don't see a C= address in your sig. Did you leave after defining the design goals of the A500? ;-) >I too saw the original Amiga 1000 as a poor man's workstation, only >the market did not pan out. So now, while I'll grant the A2000 is a >video platform, the A500 is just a game console with a disk drive and a >keyboard. And nothing more. Well, my 500 will be running UUCP (and possibly a BBS) beginning this summer. That means no OS-stealing, non-multitasking games will be run on it. That's fine by me because I won't be buying any of those programming failures anyway... I know of quite a few A2000s with one or two floppies and one meg of RAM. I wouldn't mind seeing stats on how many A2000 owners actually own hard drives. I think that some people (especially game designers) seem to have made too many assumptions about what computer would be used for what purpose. Isn't the Amiga line supposed to be a bit more universal than that? I seem to remember something like that. _MY_ RKM doesn't say anything about the fact that developers that are targeting the A500 market should do anything different from any of the rest. An A500 is no less capable of doing work than an A2000, except for the obvious lack of a video slot and the IBM slots. (PC emulation and CPU expansion are both available.) In my case, I didn't need either of the lacked features and I couldn't afford the A2000. I knew I would pay more later due to the more difficult expansion but I knew also that spreading out the money spent was the only way I could do it. That's just like using a credit card or getting a loan/mortgage. -- Greg Harp |"How I wish, how I wish you were here. We're just two |lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year, greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu|running over the same ground. What have we found? s609@cs.utexas.edu |The same old fears. Wish you were here." - Pink Floyd