Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watcgl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watcgl!drforsey
From: drforsey@watcgl.UUCP (Dave Forsey)
Newsgroups: net.micro.atari,net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: Atari and Comdex
Message-ID: <2858@watcgl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 6-Dec-85 11:03:27 EST
Article-I.D.: watcgl.2858
Posted: Fri Dec  6 11:03:27 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Dec-85 03:51:06 EST
References: <1886@islenet.UUCP> <320@well.UUCP>
Reply-To: drforsey@watcgl.UUCP (Dave Forsey)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 37
Xref: watmath net.micro.atari:1883 net.micro.amiga:975

In article <320@well.UUCP> farren@well.UUCP (Mike Farren) writes:
>> ... same bouncing ball demo running -- SIDE-BY-SIDE, mind you -- three
>> machines: 520ST, Amiga, and Mac. All three were running the same ball demo. 
>> Because of the speed difference, the ST was the clear winner, but not only
>> becaue of the speed, but also the color which was much more brilliant.
>
>   One (of the many) things ATARI didn't mention in their bouncing ball
>display was that this is an EASY, EASY, EASY demo to do!  I'm pretty sure
>(and don't you DARE call this bluff!!) that I could produce an acceptable
>version of it to run on the Apple II!  Instead, ask Atari if 1) there's
>enough processor bandwidth left while it's running to do a LOT of processing,
>2) if there was sound to go with it, synchronized with the ball, and 3) How
>long it took them to GET that display - I'd be willing to bet that they had
>several of their hottest-shot programmers working on those, 

Funny how Commodore never mentioned how easy the bouncing ball is to do, the
major problem being the actual data to do the colour table animation on (and
that's not really a problem). Since the animation just involves changing
a few registers every few frame times there is plenty of processing power
left over. Synchronising sound is just a matter of saying "well gee I'm
on frame X, lets make a noise". Note that the fact that the ST was doing it
faster implies nothing about the power of the machine 

Let's stop the demo war discussion, at least at the level of "well yes you
can do it but you had to work harder to get it done". 
Marketing hype is marketing hype, the ST and the Amiga are different, 
each with their own advantages and disadvantages depending on what your
needs/budget are. If you want real graphics power, buy an Adage/Ikonas.

Personally I own an ST, but believe that GEM sucks and that TOS should be
tossed (a 200K OS - good grief!) but it provides me with a cheap bit-mapped
display, a 68000 and lots of support hardware which can be used for other
purposes (like a real-time, message-based OS).

Dave Forsey
Computer Graphics Laboratory
University of Waterloo, Waterloo Canada.