Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!btr!thad
From: thad@btr.BTR.COM (Thaddeus P. Floryan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Animation in Engineering
Message-ID: <2408@public.BTR.COM>
Date: 15 Apr 91 14:03:29 GMT
References: <1991Apr11.185903.20701@ariel.unm.edu> <00671581385@elgamy.RAIDERNET.COM>
Organization: BTR Public Access UNIX, Mountain View CA
Lines: 58

In article <00671581385@elgamy.RAIDERNET.COM> elg@elgamy.RAIDERNET.COM (Eric Lee Green) writes:
>From article <1991Apr11.185903.20701@ariel.unm.edu>, by nwickham@triton.unm.edu (Neal C. Wickham):
>> How much money are we talking about?  ...for SGI?
>
>EXPENSIVE. I don't know how much the IBM add-on board costs, but it isn't cheap.
>[...]
>> Is it really better than an Amiga where Amiga was designed for graphics with
>> the blitter and all?
>
>SGI's stuff makes the Amiga blitter look like a stone knife. A SGI
>workstation can display more 3-D vectors in a second than the Amiga can
>even dream of. In resolutions that make Amiga resolutions look silly.
>
>Not hardly!
>
[...]
>Eric Lee Green   (318) 984-1820  P.O. Box 92191  Lafayette, LA 70509
>elg@elgamy.RAIDERNET.COM               uunet!mjbtn!raider!elgamy!elg
> Looking for a job... tips, leads appreciated... inquire within...


Wellll, my company recently acquired an SGI IRIS.  Nice system, and NOT noisy
(re: fans).

What with all the audio/video inputs/outputs, the suggestion is that this is
a machine with which one can produce theatre-quality movies.

That's NOT the purpose for which we're using it, though! :-)

In terms of raw calculation speed, the IRIS screams (it's SO fast); runs BIG
circles around ANY of our VAXen.

The graphics displays are simply mind-boggling.  Though many in my company
commented the display wasn't bright enough and "Gee, those characters are
small and difficult to read." (They obviously don't understand long-persistence
phosphors, scan rates, etc.)

HOWEVER.

In terms of menu popups, selection, resizing, and "click" speed, etc. the Amiga
runs CIRCLES AROUND THE IRIS.

Since we're trying to get WORK DONE AROUND HERE, the Amiga is by FAR a better
platform for fast interaction with the user.  For doing WORK, no-one NEEDS 3-D
buttons, tiny (unreadable) type, etc.

There's a humongous amount of material appearing in the comp.unix.* newsgroups
recently concerning the efficiency and speed of X regarding the ability to get
work done, so I'm not going to reiterate those arguments here ... other than to
say the Amiga is by faster in USER INTERACTION than ANY other computer I've
seen recently, and I've got Suns, SGIs, NeXTs, MicroVAXen, PS/2s, and other
boxes at my disposal against which to compare performance.

Granted, the windowing/menuing interface isn't everything, BUT that IS with
what the user "sees" and interacts, and it's the PERCEPTION of speed that
counts (from informal interviews I've conducted).

Thad Floryan [ thad@btr.com (OR) {decwrl, mips, fernwood}!btr!thad ]