Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!nuchat!uhnix1!sugar!peter
From: peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Need some suggestions
Message-ID: <1275@sugar.UUCP>
Date: 17 Dec 87 01:27:31 GMT
References: <46200008@uiucuxf>
Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX
Lines: 53

In article <46200008@uiucuxf>, ex343@uiucuxf.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>      I heard that Amiga and atari are pretty good music sythesizers, but 
> I don't not know what kind of things I can do with it.  Would some one send 
> me some suggestions as to which machine I should buy along with what software?

The Amiga is a pretty good synthesizer... at least the 500 and 2000 are. The
1000 is only a decent synth. The Atari has no built-in synth capabilities
at all.

If all you want to do is music, a Mac or a PC/AT might be better... there's
more software currently available for them. If you don't already have a
keyboard, the 500 is probably the best value you can get for low-cost music
synthesis going.

> Also if you can give me a brief description of what that machine/software
> can/cannot do, that will be great.

The Amiga cannot:

	Protect tasks from each other.
	Realistically support multiuser work.

On the other hand it can:

	Run as many tasks as you have memory for. It can run more tasks in
	a given amount of RAM than any of the other personal machines in
	their native O/S.

	Produce the best graphics and sound of any machine in the under 5
	grand area.

	Support up to 10 MIPS peak performance for simple array operations
	that can be supported by the blitter. Generally it's more like a less
	than 300 KIPS machine.

	Support any hard drive the Mac can, for about 2-300 bucks more for the
	SCSI interface.

	Support up to 9 megabytes of memory without breaking the rules.

	(back to multitasking) the number of commercial applications that can
	not run multitasked can be counted on the fingers of one foot.

	You never have to code in assembly language again. Even for device
	drivers. (sustained cheer).

	You communicate between tasks using message ports. Mutual exclusion
	can be handled by passing messages, or by explicit semaphores.

	VMS people will love the ASSIGN statement.
-- 
-- Peter da Silva  `-_-'  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
-- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.