Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!werner From: werner@ut-ngp.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) Newsgroups: net.micro.mac,net.micro.amiga Subject: Re: BYTE issue of September 86 focuses on the 68000 Message-ID: <4027@ut-ngp.UUCP> Date: Tue, 23-Sep-86 00:46:47 EDT Article-I.D.: ut-ngp.4027 Posted: Tue Sep 23 00:46:47 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 23-Sep-86 04:22:40 EDT References: <3868@ut-ngp.UUCP> <3374@ism780c.UUCP> <15656@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <167@apple.UUCP> Organization: UTexas Computation Center, Austin, Texas Lines: 52 Summary: if a "later" product is not better, it is worse ... Xref: mnetor net.micro.mac:7133 net.micro.amiga:4777 one "shy" contribution to the discussion comparing Amiga and Mac (which is totally above my head otherwise). If a "later" product is not "better", it is "worse" .... Even though it is not necessarily true that the Amiga was developed as a competitor to the Mac, at least not early on, it is, however, still true that it is the "later" product and there should have been some time to learn, at least, some lessons from the Mac. Given the checkered history of hardware and software development of the Amiga, it is not really surprising that it disappointed those of us that hoped for a machine that the "Mac should have been but wasn't". With years passed, even IBM PCs have become somewhat useful machines now, even though I never had the patience to bother with one. The Mac, however, had promise from the start when it was only a "toy" machine, even though it is my feeling that Apple made as many hardware and software mistakes with the Mac, as it did brilliant features. With time, the machine has grown and things have improved, but there are inherent shortcomings in the design which only a new machine-design will be able to overcome. And that machine is just around the corner (to believe the rumours), even though I wonder, and very much at that, what new pitfalls the new Operating System is going to contain. How the hell Apple is going to marry the "friendly" Mac-user-interface with UNIX-flexibility and stay upward compatible without falling into a snake's nest of bugs *AND* still be efficient in execution is beyond me. I expect '87 will hear a lot of moaning from Mac-Users that migrate early to that "new" machine. On the other hand, MPW and MacApp will make a lot of developers happy, that have suffered through Lisas and early releases of Inside Macintosh. The Amiga, on the other hand, had a lot more promise right from the start in some California garage, and if only luck had blessed the hardware design and married it with the right kind of money and software-development teams, this article might well have been written on an Amiga (or rather, not been written at all; about 2 years ago, I actually expected to be using an Amiga by now). Alas, while the Amiga is not quite dead yet (and I still wish it well), I think the "window" for it has just about disappeared. While I have friends that have found the Amiga to be a useful tool for some special applications, I can't see sales reach "critical mass" numbers that will generate the quantity and quality of independent software developers that is needed to make the machine a success. I'd be happy for events to prove me wrong, so anyone that is terrible optimistic about hardware and software is welcome to fill my mailbox with "good news," but I am not out looking for either a discussion or an argument, but will soak up whatever information will show up here. PS and BTW: I posted that first article with the pointer to the Byte-issue focusing on the 68,000 *WITHOUT* having read it; when I did read it I was tempted to cancel my article *AND* my subscription to Byte because I was so disappointed by the quality of the articles. From what others had to say about it, I see I'm not alone in that reaction to the issue ....Oh well, it's even less effort not to resubscribe ..