Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!know!daemon
From: ai065@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Thomas Hill)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Give The Amiga Some Credit Already!
Message-ID: <30189@know.pws.bull.com>
Date: 17 Jun 91 17:15:23 GMT
Sender: daemon@pws.bulL.com
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   Over the past few months I've noticed a trend in "complaint messages" from
Amiga users. It seems that the usual style of these messages is to bash the
Amiga for lacking certain features that other computers "now have", yet this
logic is not always correct. Let's take a few examples here...
 
High Density Disk Drives- How many complaints have you heard from Amiga users
about this? The drives do exist for the Amiga (AE and Commodore's new one) so
I won't even go into that. The main complaint centers around the fact that one
of the Amiga's custom chips can't handle the speed of the "standard" HD drives
out for other computers right now. The solution has been to add a bit of hard-
ware to the drive to allow the two to work together. It would probably be an
easy chip upgrade to allow this chip to handle the speed of standard drives.
The point being that people hate the idea that they will probably need a chip
upgrade to make the chip capable of handling standard drives. Why? Keep in mind
that the new 4 MEG "standard" floppy drive IBM is installing in the new
machines REQUIRES a new floppy drive card. Now, I'm no expert on human
thinking, but are we going to fault the Amiga for needing a chip upgrade but
not fault the IBM computers for needing a whole new floppy disk card? The same
logic can be used when talking about any of the 1 MEG+ drives that the IBM
computers use.
 
24 Bit Color- Some people have been bitching about the lack of a new 24 bit
color coming standard on Amiga computers while others "have it". The last time
I checked, both Apple and IBM didn't ship 24 bit video boards standard with
their machines. The video boards found on the higher-end MACs are NOT 24 bit
video. You can buy 24 bit video boards for these machines, but you can ALSO
buy them for the Amiga. So where is Commodore falling behind in this respect?
OK, they need a 24 bit interfacing standard but I understand that they just
released it? If not, I know they are at least working on it.
 
General Amiga Features- Many messages have been written about the aging of the
features found on every Amiga when compared to current day "standards". Tell
me, who is setting those standards? I mean, what machines have those features
at a comparable price to the Amiga? The general problem here is that people
tend to compare the Amiga to a machine (or even a 3rd party board for a
machine that doesn't even come standard with it) costing two or three times
the Amiga's price. A good example of this being the < $1000 price range. If
the Amiga is so old then show me one machine under $1000 that has all the
features of the Amiga. Atari? Not even close, and that's why Atari sales are
dead. The Mac Classic? Don't make me laugh! Fact is people that nobody comes
close. Then there is the UNIX market....and on and on...
 
 The point I'm trying to make here is don't be so critical. True that there
are new video boards and such that are somewhat better than what the Amiga
comes with, but these are products that don't compete with the Amiga, both in
price and in coming standard with a machine. People tend to compare what they
can buy for an IBM or Apple to what the Amiga comes with standard. Why can't
you give your machine a little credit and compare what we can buy for the
Amiga to what you can buy for those machines, and what comes standard for the
price to what comes standard for those machines. The Amiga is one hell of a
machine, and nobody seems ready to change that.
 
   Tom