Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!pacbell.com!tandem!zorch!amiga0!mykes From: mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer Subject: Re: Lemmings - a tutorial Part IV Message-ID: Date: 30 Mar 91 16:53:44 GMT References: <1991Mar29.230632.7066@grebyn.com> <46443@ut-emx.uucp> Organization: Amiga makes it possible Lines: 102 In article <46443@ut-emx.uucp> greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Greg Harp) writes: >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. > The NES sold 5x the number of machines as Commodore did in a shorter amount of time. >Also, I don't see a C= address in your sig. Did you leave after defining the >design goals of the A500? ;-) > Commodore is clearly marketing the Amiga to TWO audiences. One audience they are having success with is game players with the A500. The other are the Unix/hacker/desktopvideo types, which they are doing so so. The A500 will eventually be the machine that the C64 used to be (a huge player in the games market and a big seller). >>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... > Good for you. The C64 can probably do it too (assuming someone wrote the UUCP software for it). And I bet your machine gurus often enough anyway that you won't want to touch it when you don't want it to crash. Try the following experiment: Run DPaint, then Run Crystal Quest. Do they multitask? I dare you to pop a floppy out of the drive while the light is on. >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 worked out the numbers. It translates to at most 3,000 sales for a _HIT_ game. A _HIT_ game can do as many as 97,000 units on machines without RAM/HD expansion. This is based upon installed base and a 5% market penetration. There is NO excuse for software to not function on any configuration of the Amiga. PERIOD. >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. The C64 programmer's reference guide didn't suggest that you take over that machine either. The Epyx fast load cartridge was a major success because it did what people wanted and did what the C64's OS didn't do well. One of the RKM manuals tells you everything we game programmers do and how to do it. They don't say to use the system, nor do they say not to. They just tell you what to do in either case. > >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. > A STOCK Amiga 2000 has twice the memory and can do more work. Did you look into an educational discount program? Why don't you save up your money for a second A500 so you can play games on it while you multitask on your other one. Or better yet, save up for a 2000 and expand it. You won't regret it. >-- > 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 Wish you were here, too :) -- ******************************************************** * Appendix A of the Amiga Hardware Manual tells you * * everything you need to know to take full advantage * * of the power of the Amiga. And it is only 10 pages! * ********************************************************