Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!psuvax1!news From: melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: An interesting idea... Message-ID: Date: 15 May 91 04:27:36 GMT References: <1991May7.235145.12420@sbcs.sunysb.edu> <1991May12.190016.28094@sbcs.sunysb.edu> <1991May12.201647.29549@sbcs.sunysb.edu> <91134.022556MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu> Sender: news@cs.psu.edu (Usenet) Organization: Penn State Computer Science Lines: 46 In-Reply-To: That neat guy, Mark Sachs's message of Tuesday, 14 May 1991 02: 25:56 EDT Nntp-Posting-Host: sunws5.sys.cs.psu.edu In article <91134.022556MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu> That neat guy, Mark Sachs writes: Is the NeXT's? And even if it is, do you really believe all you'll have to do is recompile the source on the new processor? If you do I've got some Coleco Adams I'd like to sell you... The NeXT's OS is Mach so most of it is written in C. Quite simply, if the processor is so different that the OS can't just be copied over and tweaked a bit, then it's different enough that the OS will have to be rewritten to work properly with it. This goes for both Amiga AND NeXT. Right, NeXT has to sweat a little blood to get their OS ported, but developers will have an easy time getting their NeXT software ported to another CPU. My guess is maybe a week. >with a 50 mip CPU? The blitter is already a problem. What is the Incidentally, you've been repeating over and over "68040 is more powerful than 68030 + blitter." Even if it is, so what? An 040 Amiga will actually be 68040 + blitter. So much for NeXT's supposed display speed advantage... I keep saying that the 040 is more powerful than the blittter + 030 because Amiga users keep commenting that the NeXT cannot do animation. It seems to be a major necessity to have some sort of animation on a machine, and the reason some Amiga buyers would not buy a NeXT. How much will animation be increased on the A3000 by adding the 040? Probably not by much since the blitter is still being used to do the graphics. The NeXTstation color also costs more than the gross national product of several third world countries. If you're keen on megapixel displays there's a monitor Commodore's pushing that gives you 1008x800 pixels. If it's colors you want, there are cards producing 16 million colors for less than $500. The U of Lowell card (coming out Real Soon Now (tm)) apparently gives you 1008x800 PLUS the 16 million colors, although I'm not absolutely certain about that one. This is the official Commodore upgrade thing, by the way. How many products take advantage of those 16 million colors? Do applications have to be written specifically for the color boards? -Mike