Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!orchid!kgschlueter
From: kgschlueter@orchid.waterloo.edu (Kevin Schlueter)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Why are you selling your Amiga??
Message-ID: <12359@orchid.waterloo.edu>
Date: 17 Mar 88 19:56:40 GMT
References: <702@oberlin.UUCP> <704@oberlin.UUCP>
Reply-To: kgschlueter@orchid.waterloo.edu (Kevin Schlueter)
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 43

Although I rarely post anything, I felt I just had to respond to this silly
"why isn't the Amiga a Mac" discussion.

Before I start, let me say that I like the mac and have used one since before
its official introduction.  The purpose of this article is not to derogate
the mac, but to defend the Amiga against some rather silly criticism.

First, the Mac had a two year head start.  The software is hence much more
mature.  But the Amiga is catching up.  Those experiencing problems with
the output from their paint programs should wait for 1.3.  Those interested
in super hi-quality output (ie for reports) should chuck their paint programs
entirely and look into a postscript laser printer and a software package
such as Professional Page.  Those who want a powerful word processor should
consider using WordPerfect along with Professional Page (or its competition,
I suppose).  It is much faster to type a document in WP and then to lay it out
using PP than to try to enter it into a WSYWIG word processor (and believe me -
I've used MS Word, MacWrite, WriteNow and several others).

The point I'm trying to make here is that those doing the complaining don't
seemed to have thoroughly investigated the software available for the Amiga
(ie DPAINT II has no trouble printing an entire page).

On a related note, you have to be patient with the Amiga documentation
(I assume you mean technical documentation here -- if not, ignore the
the rest of the paragraph).  It has not gone through the revisions that
Inside Mac has.  Until recently, Inside Mac was pretty terrible.  As
a further point of comparison, the first version of the Amiga documentation
(pre Addison Wesley) was much better than the early drafts of Inside Mac.

I bought my Amiga in November, 1985.  If I had purchased a computer from the
competition (who shall remain nameless), I would have had tremendous trouble
expanding it and would most likely have to forego some of the new software.
This HAS NOT been the case with my A1000.

Finally, I feel that it is pointless to compare currently available machines
with vapour-ware from a source which too often promises alot more than it
delivers.

=============================================================================
Kevin Schlueter
4B Computer Science
University of Waterloo.
=============================================================================