Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!oliveb!amiga!jimm
From: jimm@amiga.UUCP (Jim Mackraz)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Amiga or PC-AT ?
Message-ID: <2727@amiga.UUCP>
Date: 4 Aug 88 20:59:14 GMT
References: <1820006@hpuamsa.UUCP> <7826@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: jimm@cloyd.UUCP (Jim Mackraz)
Organization: Commodore-Amiga Inc, Los Gatos CA
Lines: 60

In article <7826@cup.portal.com> Gary_D_Walborn@cup.portal.com writes:
)BUY AN AMIGA 2000!  In addition to HAM mode (at least 640x400 @ 4096 colors)
)you can get complete PC compatibility with the BridgeCard.  I know... I have
)one.  There are a number of ray-trace and fractal generating programs available
)for the Amiga and processor accelerators abound.  I think the choice is an easy
)one if you are well informed.  (I have a PC/AT at work and will take my Amiga
)any day).
)
)Gary Walborn

Correction: HAM mode doesn't work in hires mode.  It is nominal 320 pixels
wide, typically overscanned to over 350.

Buy an Amiga anyway.  If you are going to develop graphics programs, it
can't be beat.  Once you sit at a nice multitasking machine with all
of todays PD enhancements and the emerging uses of inter-process
communication, you'll never go back.  Many programs are now spitting 
out 12 bits of RGB, which gets dithered down for Amiga display, but
can be sent to other machines or add-on amiga frame buffers if you
have a need for more colors.  None of that going on in PC land that
I've seen.

You can make your compiler, linker, editor, ls, make, and what have you
resident and (typically) shared code with PD a utility.  You can keep your
frequently used libraries in a ram disk that survives reboot.  You can
even boot off of a RAM disk.  You can rapidly cycle between windows and
tasks via a function key.  I've never used a better development environment
for standard C programming, and that includes this Sun.

The new filing system is incredibly fast (as fast as the RAM disk used
to be), CBM has active upgrade work always in progress, and you
can get direct support from the system programmers and hardware team
on BIX or usenet.  Oh, yeah, that RAM disk isn't off in pig-slow vudu
memory, nor eating away at your 640K of normal RAM.

Most important for graphics programming is that you can use large amounts
of RAM, without jumping through hoops.  'Huge model' is the default, and
doesn't penalize you all of the time.

And as one graphics programmer who believes that "if it's not real-time,
it's slime" I submit that for those projects where you have to get
data in and out and around the display buffers, an EGA or similar
approach of secret ram and read latches is prehistoric.  You can't, for
example, write a dashed line on an EGA in your choice of foreground and
background colors in one pass.

As I see it, the only advantage of the PC is that it has a better vi clone.

And the guy who made points 1, 2, and 3 about the amiga was indeed full of
sh*t.  That's another problem about the PC world.

Glad I had the opportunity to make this correction.

    jimm

-- 
	Jim Mackraz, I and I Computing	  
	amiga!jimm	BIX:jmackraz
Opinions are my own.  Comments regarding the Amiga operating system, and
all others, are not to be taken as Commodore official policy.