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From: phil@sivax.UUCP (Phil Hunt)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac,net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: Easy of programming, Mac, Amiga
Message-ID: <336@sivax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 16-Sep-86 12:25:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: sivax.336
Posted: Tue Sep 16 12:25:47 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 19-Sep-86 22:02:03 EDT
References: <1273@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> <1274@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: phil@sivax.UUCP (Phil Hunt)
Organization: System Industries, Milpitas, Ca
Lines: 59
Xref: mnetor net.micro.mac:7050 net.micro.amiga:4704

I currently own BOTH machines, a Mac-Plus with AT-20 hard disk and an Amiga
with 512k/ext disk drive.

I have been using both for a couple of weeks now (The mac for 1 1/2 years) and
thought I would give a comparision of sorts from a real users point of view:

1)  The Amiga is full COLOR!  I do not care what anyone says, color is great
...but...For any application, the MAC display is much better.  I even connected
a 9" b/w monitor to the Amiga (There is a video out as well as RF out and RGB
out), the resolution is not at the Mac level.  The display on the Mac 'feels'
better.  This is the best way to put it.

2) The AMIGA has special graphics processing chips as well as custom voice
synthesis and 4 voice circuits requiring very little processor time to use.  It
even comes out of the machine in STEREO (yes, right and left RCA jacks!).  There
is no doubt that this allows the machine to do more.  The graphics and voice
stuff is offloaded from the 68000.  But...Even with all its sophisticated H/W,
I think the Mac Studio Session sounds better than the Amiga stuff (I used
Instant Music for Amiga).

3) The Amiga is better at programmer interface things, such as, cleaning up
windows.  On the Mac, you must redraw sections overlaid by other windows.  This
is automatic (but overridable) on the Amiga.

4) AmigaDOS is very powerful.  You get tired of window environment?, use
AmigaDOS!  The Amiga has the best of both worlds there.  A workbench (Desktop)
as well as a full DOS, complete with batch, MULTITASKING (with priorities,
interjob communication, message mailboxes etc).  You can spawn a job on the 
Amiga, and BOTH keep running.  An example, you run Deluxe Paint (Macpaint-type
program), it loads and is running, you take the mouse and click on the top menu
bar and DRAG the mouse down.  The screen moves down and the Workbench is right
behind it!  (Ala like servant) But the difference is everything can still be
d
running, a DOS window, Deluxe paint etc.

5) Mac disk management is better, keeping track of mounted but unloaded disks
alot cleaner. The Amiga does too, but windows for disk mounts sometimes come
up for disks in the drive.  As well as requests for disks with GREEK names
(Garbage names)

6) Mac disk drives are faster than the Amiga, I do not know why this is.  The
Amiga disks use a DMA xfer technique, so they should be faster.

7) Amiga comes with 1 serial port and 1 parrallel port standard as well as a
memory expansion port and a BUS EXPANSION PORT (ie for Sidecar, a FULL PC
clone complete with IBM PC -type card slots and other devices)

8) When a pgm finishes on the Amiga, the desktop does not have to be rebuilt as
it runs as a process also,  the forward windows are just removed.  This is nice.


I hope this capsule comparision can help with any questions you might have.

Phil Hunt
..calma!sivax!phil
(408)942-1212


running (A DOS window