Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!dcatla!mclek From: mclek@dcatla.UUCP (Larry E. Kollar) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Why are you selling your Amiga?? Message-ID: <2952@dcatla.UUCP> Date: 16 Mar 88 00:22:25 GMT References: <702@oberlin.UUCP> <704@oberlin.UUCP> Reply-To: mclek@dcatla.UUCP (Larry E. Kollar) Organization: DCA Inc., Alpharetta, GA Lines: 130 Keywords: long-winded Summary: I'm not (No flame war so far -- let's keep it that way!) Since I use a Mac extensively at work & have an Amiga at home, I feel qualified to make a few comments here. In article <702@oberlin.UUCP>, blandy@oberlin.UUCP (isjimblandy) writes: >> I've recently put my Amiga up for sale on misc.forsale; I'm going to >> get a Mac II.... >> Take a look at the software. For the Mac, every WP supports >> multiple fonts, onscreen text attributes, proportional fonts, and >> they're usually almost WYSIWYG. And this is expected. I use the Mac for word processing. I sit in front of it about 8 hrs/day, and don't get eyestrain. This is possible partially because of the Mac's nice, rock steady, MONOCHROME screen, and partially because my vision hasn't dimmed to the point where I can't see the small letters. Some older people have problems with it. Other features making the Mac about ideal for WP include the small size (you can carry it home without finding a pushcart), fonts, mixed text/graphics, and a laser printer designed to work with it. But there's a dark side: the only printers that work well are Apple's, and they are somewhat expensive. We tried an early version of a Mac print driver for the HP LaserJet, and it stunk. There's a driver for Epson printers (how well it works I don't know), and a freeware driver for daisy-wheel printers (of course, you don't get graphics). Essentially, if you want hardcopy, you buy Apple printers or don't show off the results. Software? Only recently have there been any *heavy-duty* word processors available for the Mac. For the longest time, there was MacWrite and Microsoft Word 1.05. Word 3.0 was the first high-powered word processor, followed quickly by Word 3.01 when the former turned out to be bug-infested. This resulted in much ill-will toward Microsoft. FullWrite is available (?), but nearly a year after the original announced release date. I haven't looked at it yet, but customers & pitchmen say it's more powerful than Word. -------- So where does that leave the Amiga? Well, that leaves it in video, graphics, and music production, and engineering graphics. This is where I understand the Amiga is really doing well. These are not the type of people who tend to be fussy about their word processing; for the engineers & hackers, MicroEmacs (or your favorite text editor) suits them just fine. The rest are likely to use one of the light-duty word processors or something and not worry about it. Sure, I'd like to have a nice word processor for working at home, but rule #1 is "Don't use a color screen for long-term word processing." Fast track to eyestrain. :-) I'm looking at KindWords, which looks somewhat like MacWrite, for home word processing, and maybe a page layout program for anything heavy- duty. Or I could be fairly happy with an nroff-style processor -- which is STILL the only thing that will let me do everything I want with text. Ever see a WP program that supports interrupts? >> Deluxe paint.... I don't know much about Deluxe Paint, but wasn't it one of the first paint programs to come out? There are many newer paint programs, and they just might work better. >> It's frustrating knowing that your computer isn't living up to a >> fraction of its potential. >> So since things seem so stable, I'm guessing that the Amiga stuff >> isn't going to improve radically. The Amiga is not as "mature" a system as the Mac. The Mac muddled along for a couple of years before desktop publishing came along. It took a bit longer for heavy-duty word processing to come along. The Amiga is now nearing the point where it is as old as the Mac was when it really took off. I suspect that some really fantastic Amiga software will hit the market before too long. Some of its already there -- ever try ray-tracing on a non-Mac II? >> Mac users seem to expect excellence and useful >> innovation, and from what I've seen, they seem to get it. They also expect to pay through the nose for it. I bought an Amiga 500 with two floppies & 1 meg of memory, for about 1/2 what I'd pay for a similarly- equipped Mac Plus. The standard response is "you're also paying for service," but many Mac dealers turn out to be as knowledgeable as your standard K-Mart clerk (if you believe all the dealer flames that cross the networks). Find a good CBM dealer (I know one in the Atlanta area), and you're just as well-off. As for useful, I think the Amiga is extremely useful. I wish I could usefully multitask on my Mac with "only" 1Meg. It's possible on an Amiga. Anyway, each machine fills a niche that the other doesn't. Chris Seline responds: > > 2) Why didn't CM make the drives compatible? Compatible with what? IBM? Mac? Why didn't Apple make their drives IBM- compatible? Compatibility is a two-edged sword. I understand the Atari ST uses IBM-compatible drives, but they hold about 40% of what an Amiga drive does. > 3) Why did CM insist on a single interface -- ever notice > every program has a slightly different way of putting up file > requestors? Apple insists on certain guidelines, but they're not always followed. Post a message in comp.sys.mac sometime asking how well Microsoft follows the Apple guidelines. There was a painful transition from the 512K Mac to the Mac Plus, and another from the Plus/SE to the Mac II, because some people figured they could do it better "their" way. So that's not just C-A's problem. > 4) Why didn't they insist programs use the ClipBoard? I'd like to see this happen myself. I understand it's hard to use, but there must be SOMEONE who's come up with a few routines to make it easier. Anyone? > 5) Why isn't their documentation as clear as APPLE's > (read the apple docs before flaming) You mean people read Apple's manuals? We didn't. :-) After all, that's what graphic-based interfaces are supposed to let you do. Actually, I pretty much like what I've seen so far of the A500's manual. It includes pinouts for everything -- unlike the Mac manuals. >p.s. Atari is coming out with a 68020 unix color machine... >CM what have you done for me lately? "If I wanted Unix, I'd have bought a Sun." :-) But this isn't really the place to debate the merits of Unix. Or Atari. This is really getting longer than I planned. In summary, I use both the Mac and the Amiga, and I like both, for different reasons. (Now if only Apple would sell the Mac II for $600. :-) Larry Kollar ...!gatech!dcatla!mclek