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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!caip!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac,net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: Re: Easy of programming, Mac, Amiga
Message-ID: <750@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Sep-86 19:02:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbmvax.750
Posted: Thu Sep 18 19:02:37 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Sep-86 00:17:55 EDT
References: <336@sivax.UUCP>
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 48
Xref: mnetor net.micro.mac:7085 net.micro.amiga:4728

> 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).

I think the MAC uses 8 bit  D-A coversion for its sound, too.  The sound
quality depends alot on the program, since at least on the Amiga a programmer
can greatly vary the sampling rate.  The Amiga's advantage in this area is
four D-As to the MACs one, and the fact that a sound waveform is fetched by
the custom chips and played automatically, without processor intervention.
However, to create better sounds, the processor will have to work harder
than just sitting there.  The Amiga is CAPABLE of sounding better; whether
it does or not depends alot on the software.  And make sure you hook it
up to a real stereo; the monitor speaker is lousy.

> 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.

I've never timed a MAC drive, but I'd expect the Amiga to LOAD or SAVE a 
program faster than the MAC (floppies, right?).  But the AmigaDOS file 
structure is very bad for anything like directory searching or wildcard
matching, as the file names aren't included in the directory headers, but
in the file headers.  This is the same reason that specific file access is
very fast; the directory headers on disk contain hash tables that find the
files very quickly.  I don't know the internals of the MAC file structure,
but its gotta be faster than this.

> 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

-- 
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Dave Haynie    {caip,ihnp4,allegra,seismo}!cbmvax!daveh

	"I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and
	 for that very reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment."
							-Gotama Buddha

	These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be yours too.
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