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From: taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Give The Amiga Some Credit Already!
Message-ID: <1991Jun17.205807.13064@news.iastate.edu>
Date: 17 Jun 91 20:58:07 GMT
References: <30189@know.pws.bull.com>
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Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA.
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In article <30189@know.pws.bull.com>, ai065@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Thomas Hill) writes:
>
>   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.

   My complaints with Commodore with respect to high-density floppy drives
have to do with the stupid way Commodore got the drives to work on Amigas
(slowing down the drive motor to allow the Paula chip to keep up?  Give
me a break!), and the fact that they waited four years to do it.  

> 
>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.

   Granted, full 24-bit color (with 24 bitplanes) is a little bit too much
to ask, but a 24-bit palette with 8-15 bitplanes is not at all too much to
ask.  After being on the market for nearly six years, the Amiga should have
a color palette on par with what is commanly available on other platforms.

   BTW, MAC and IBM are no longer the only systems available with decent
color capabilities.  Doesn't it bother anyone at all that the new $1500
Magnavox consumer CD-I player offers color capabilities vastly better than
Commodore's most expensive Amiga system?  Hell, even the $500 Canon Xapshot
can display still pictures with millions of colors.  Why can't an Amiga?

> 
>   Tom

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 / Marc Barrett  -MB- | BITNET:   XGR39@ISUVAX.BITNET        /   
/  ISU COM S Student  | Internet: XGR39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU   /      
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