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From: bad@ihwpt.ATT.COM (bill dwyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Help requested in choosing a pc to purchase
Message-ID: <1711@ihwpt.ATT.COM>
Date: Fri, 29-May-87 18:30:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihwpt.1711
Posted: Fri May 29 18:30:45 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 31-May-87 14:42:07 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 44
Keywords: AMIGA 2000 vs. Atari Mega ST
Xref: mnetor comp.sys.amiga:5283 comp.sys.atari.st:3787


Two of my associates and myself have been saving up over the last year to buy 
a home computer.  We have not yet reached a decision on which computer to buy, 
but we have pretty much decided what we will be looking for in the pc.  We beleive
that our best options are either the new Atari MegaST or the new Amiga 2000.  
If you have suggestions as to what our best options would be, I would appreciate
receiving email with your advice.  Any ideas as to which pc if either sounds best,
and what software/hardware is available and approximate prices would be
greatly appreciated.  I will then summarize the response and repost
our decision.  Thanks in advance for any help.

The pc we buy will be the center of a small startup company which the three of 
us are starting.  We would like to get all of the typical business type functions
of a pc such as spreadsheets, database management, inventory control, word
processing, etc.  We will also definitely be wanting a hard disk, probably 20 Meg.
We also will be using the pc as a test center for signal processing products.  So
we would like to be able to interface an outside product to the pc, and then use 
the pc to analyze and/or design the products.  Thus we would like to be able to
handle fairly large sized data files and be able to do number crunching in a 
relatively efficient manner.  The main use of the graphics will be for CAD design
work, and more importantly for the presentation and statistical analysis of
signal processing data.  So having a nice statistical package is another
desirable feature.  It would be very nice to be able to run background jobs
while doing tasks such as file keeping or word processing.  We tend to lean toward
these new pcs because we would like the pc to be easily expandable so that it may 
be useful for years to come.  Upward compatibility with a 68020 board is very 
nice, as may be the easy compatibility with IBM products.  Another hardware item
we will want is a good modem.  Additional software/hardware systems we may want
are speech and audio signal processing systems.

These are all of the items I can think of at the moment.  Performance is more of 
a consideration than cost, though we have a limited budget. (who doesn't!)  We
would rather build up our pc system slowly and use it for many years rather than
buy something cheap that rapidly becomes obsolete.  We are basically only mildly 
knowledgable about the latest in pcs.  So any items that you can give me ideas on 
would be appreciated.  

Again thanks in advance for your help.



--
  Bill Dwyer                            AT&T Bell Laboratories
  ihnp4!ihwpt!bad                       Naperville, Ill.