Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!think.com!mintaka!wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu!rjc From: rjc@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: Amiga bashing Message-ID: <1991Jun21.002542.19989@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> Date: 21 Jun 91 00:25:42 GMT References: <1991Jun11.204407.16603@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> <1991Jun20.200326.16487@bmerh409.bnr.ca> Sender: news@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu Organization: The Internet Lines: 89 In article <1991Jun20.200326.16487@bmerh409.bnr.ca> drews@bmerh796.bnr.ca (Drew Stevens) writes: >A few days ago I noticed this newsgroup and thought I'd have a look. >To be honest I don't know much about the Amiga but the near-religous >attitude its users seem to have has caught my interest. I was >particularly interested by the comments which praise the machine's >hardware support for multitasking and wonderful graphics. It was >also suggested that VGA-based IBMs were 'toys' by comparison. > >Could someone expand on these statements? A $2000 386/33Mhz actually >multitasks quite well under OS2/UNIX/WIN3. The CPU provides >virtual memory support, memory protection, and pre-emptive multitasking. First of all, UNIX is not free. Secondly, Windows multitasking of DOS applications is not the same as UNIX multitasking. OS2, well does the phrase, slow and bloated pig with no outstanding support ring a bell? A $2000 386 system probably doesn't have decicated DMA-I/O (most likely it is using polled I/O which incurs a major performance hit on a multitasking multithreaded file system). >Also, a $100 SuperVGA card provides resolutions up to 1024x768 >(non-interlaced up to 800x600) and a quarter-million colour palette. How come everytime someone mentions this card they quote a lower price? First it was quoted as $300, then $200, then $150, and now $100? Since this board obviously doesn't have a co-processor can you imagine the refresh rate of something like X on a 1024x768x8 bit display? Some of these cheap 386 systems being sold are actually 386's with a braindamaged re-packaging that makes the chip 16 bit. >Which Amiga configurations are available that offer superior capabilities >and how expensive is such a system? Since people like comparing edu prices to list prices and street prices to list prices. You can purchase a 16mhz A3000 for $1850. The A3000 comes with 2mb memory, great expansion bus, 8 custom I/O chips (let's see if I can name them all: Agnus, Denise, Paula, Gary, Amber, BUSter, RAMsey, and Super?DMAC), programmable display (up to 768x480 non-interlaced, or 1280x200/400, PAL resolutions give you more, and there are oodles of more display modes), multitasking operating system, 4 channel stereo sound and fast animation capabilities. The hardware architecture of the Amiga just plain kills your standard IBM. While the A3000 is loading 2mb/sec from the harddrive it's only using 5% of the total CPU time. While the A3000 is playing sound, it's using no CPU time. Things like this just give the Amiga superior performance. I've noticed DOS people rely on clock speed as the sole gauge of performance which has little indicator of the overall system design (like the memory system). I'll let Dave Haynie step in and tell you why the Amiga's Zorro III bus is so great since I don't know the entire specs on it. For $2250 you get a 25mhz A3000. For $3200 you get a 25mhz A3000 with 5 megs of ram and a 100meg HD. For $4000 you get the same as the $3200 model plus SYSVR4 Unix, Xwindows and OpenLook. For $5000 you get a 25mhz A3000+Ethernet+9megs ram+SYSVR4 Unix+Xwindows+OpenLook. The A2410 card which will be released shortly sports a 34010 processor, up to 1024x1024 reslution (I know, I know, it's 1024x768 right? Welp, from what I read, switch the crystal that's on the card and you get 1024x1024 non-interlaced) the card supports 8 bit color with a palette of 16.7 million colors. List price is $1500, street price (and edu) will be much cheaper as usual (probably about $900, add in a monitor good enough to display this and it's a pretty expensive display, but nice for running Xwindows). Remember, the deeper the display gets, the better it is to have a fast coprocessor onboard. For 8 bit you can use the cheaper risc processors, but for something like >24bit, you need something like an i860. Those "miracle" $100 Super-VGA interlaced display cards are probably 1024x768x8 bits with a practical update rate (how fast the CPU can move the data) of about 10hz. Also, consider that VGA is only an 18-bit palette, not 24bits. [Devil's Advocate mode] 18 bit palette is not adequate for displaying fleshtones or grey-scale data! You only have 64 grey levels (6 bits) compared to the miracle of CD-I which has 256! VGA is not adequate, it's a hack! Fix the problem at the source, trash MS-DOS computers! [Devil's Advocate mode off] >-------------------------------------- >Any opinions expressed are mine alone. >-------------------------------------- -- / INET:rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu * // The opinions expressed here do not \ | INET:r_cromwe@upr2.clu.net | \X/ in any way reflect the views of my self.| \ UUCP:uunet!tnc!m0023 * /