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From: dant@ryptyde.UUCP (Daniel Tracy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: The Amiga's Future
Keywords: Future, Amiga, etc.
Message-ID: <30@ryptyde.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jun 91 07:09:33 GMT
References: <16577@darkstar.ucsc.edu| <22163@cbmvax.commodore.com| <18@ryptyde.UUCP| <230@touch.touch.com>
Reply-To: dant@ryptyde.UUCP (Daniel Tracy)
Organization: Ryptyde Timesharing
Lines: 56

Responding to the following:

"Read the guys post, you macoid!  He's saying the Mac is a more expensive
machine...PERIOD!  He's not saying SCSI is only available on high-end Macs!
And it's TRUE!  The mac has always been ABSURDLY expensive for the boring
computer you get.  Imagine...not even DMA!  Simple machine to satisfy simple
minds."

Yes, he WAS stating that SCSI is only available on high-end Macs. True, the OS
doesn't support DMA yet, but the OS in general is very powerful. Mentioning 
one neglection is very Amigoid of you.

"What do you mean MIDI built in to the OS?  What crap.  The amiga has fast
serial ports, too.  31.5Kbaud.  MIDI speed.  And what else is necessary?
You also need opto-isolators to convert to the MIDI hardware medium, since
it's NOT RS-232.  Your mac needs an adaptor to hook to a MIDI box, same
as the amiga.  Both machines are equally almost-MIDI-ready.  The mac has
NO advantage in either MIDI or SCSI."

Macintosh serial ports:  57.6Kbaud. Yes, the OS DOES have built-in MIDI 
Manager. I wasn't saying that the Mac had an advantage in this area anyway.
I was responding to someone who (I think) was saying that the Amiga had 
better support for MIDI.

"But let's talk for a moment about the stereo sound on the mac...oops...
can't!  It comes with one of those really hi-fidelity 2.5" speakers.
Y'know, the ones that sound only slightly better than a transistor radio?"

True, the four speakers built into low-end Macs are hardly adequate, which
is where the stereo jack on the back comes in! What matters is that the Mac
supports full stereo output. Just hook your speakers up to the Mac if you
don't like the ones built in. Personally, I'd rather have this than no
speakers at all.

"And since you mentioned the PLUS, how many slot does it have?  OOPS...none.
And that radical 9" screen that can display any color as long as it's
black or white!  And what raw power!  The 8Mhz 68000 in the plus has an
effective throughput of 5.75 MHz...I've measured that myself...due to the
overhead of the video interrupt.  What incredible software/hardware
integration!"

Again, very Amigoid of you. God, in Mac vs IBM arguments, at least I don't
bring up CP/M or the 8080. Macintosh Plus's are neither sold nor supported,
and are very old computers. The problem the Plus had with video is that 
every other interrupt made by the OS was to update the screen, very excessive.
This was fixed to 1:7 on the SE.

"The mac does have that "happy mac" face, though.  That, BTW, represents
just about the sum total of apple's innovation in the mac.  We won't
even mention from who they XEROX'ed their GUI.  And they sue other companies
for "look & feel"!  What a neat organization."

The sum of their innovation? They copied the idea, not the OS. The core OS
was made entirely by Apple, and, although it has some deficiencies, it is
a very powerful OS. I don't know a whole lot about the Amiga OS, so I'd like
to hear your points on why the AmigaOS is more powerful.