Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!olivea!uunet!munnari.oz.au!manuel!ccadfa!prolix!dac
From: dac@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au (Andrew Clayton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why are Amigaoids hell bent on proving the Amiga is better ?
Message-ID: <195e3841.ARN2239@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au>
Date: 27 Jun 91 13:39:45 GMT
References: <3104@kirk.nmg.bu.oz.au>
Reply-To: munnari!labtam!eyrie!prolix!dac
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Organization: More like Mis~, really.
Lines: 48

In article <3104@kirk.nmg.bu.oz.au>, Ralph Schwarten writes:

> Why does it seem that all Amiga users I come accross (except two), feel that
> they have to continually rehash this childish notion that "My computer is
> better" than yours.  

There was a neat article posted to the net a few months ago, which detailed
the four phases that an Amiga owner would go through, ranging from complete
monomania about their Amiga, to a sound user of a computer platform that does
what they want.

Amiga owners outside of USEnet are mainly games playing types.  I know, my
brother owns one, and does nothing else but play games, my father owns one,
and after two years is just coming to grips with basic CLI operation [I
purchased a modem for him, and he HAD to learn :-)]

They like their computer.  No big deal.  Lots and LOTS of people out there
plainly have never heard of the Amiga, and if they have, they think that it's
a games machine.

Throw the two together (games players, and people who don't know about the
Amiga) and the information flow soon staggers under the lack of commonality
between what an Amiga can do, and what most PC's have to put up with.
Windows on the PC has finally shown millions of PC owners what 'multitasking'
really means - before they thought it was just a cute label that the Amiga
people would throw at them, now they can't live without it.  But you couldn't
TELL them that before, they just wouldn't believe it, it wasn't applicable to
_THEM_ so it plainly wasn't needed.  Similarly with linear memory models,
excellent graphics potential, and speed upgradability - Most non-Amiga owners
aren't aufait with what the machine can do.

When it comes to the crunch, the 'great unwashed' outnumber the Amiga owners
some 100 to 1.  It's little wonder that the Amiga owners get a little tetchy
when uneducated heathens heap abuse upon their choice of platform, mostly on
the basis of misunderstandings about terminology.

Really, there is no easy answer to your trite question, but I hope that what
I've said makes some sort of sense.  Then there is the choice of battleground
- hassling Amiga owners in an Amiga oriented newsgroup isn't really a way to
win friends and influence people, so the people bite.  Sounds simple enough
to me.  Post a message to comp.sys.next about Amiga's, and see what sort of
spiny reaction you get.

BTW, I'm at the "comfortable with my choice of platform" stage of Amiga
ownership :-), [but I've been through the others :-(]

Dac
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