Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!uwslh!lishka From: lishka@uwslh.UUCP (Fish-Guts) Newsgroups: comp.graphics Subject: Re: Amiga or PC-AT ? Message-ID: <359@uwslh.UUCP> Date: 5 Aug 88 15:18:12 GMT References: <1820006@hpuamsa.UUCP> <554@gort.cme-durer.ARPA> <356@uwslh.UUCP> <17611@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> Reply-To: lishka@uwslh.UUCP (Fish-Guts) Organization: U of Wisconsin-Madison, State Hygiene Lab Lines: 154 OOOOOHHHHH! This article really busted my buns! There is a lot of worthless misinformation here. Look everyone, I *do* own an Amiga 1000, but I do not believe it is the end-all-be-all computer. It has problems. IBM's *are* good for a great many business applications. Mac's *are* much easier to use than other computers. Amiga's *are* good for graphics and "DeskTop Video," and much more affordable for some of us who do not have mega-bucks. I find that putting down Amigas because of second-hand information is as bad as bashing IBM's because the Amiga is "the best computer ever built" (which it isn't in my opinion). Please, also remember that the original poster asked about graphics capabilites in a computer, not whether it ran the latest whiz-bang spreadsheet or super-duper thought-organization software. In article <17611@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> jbn@glacier.UUCP (John B. Nagle) writes: > > The Amiga is the world's greatest toy computer. > > Fundamental problems: > > 1. The screen is TV resolution. This is not good enough for text. > You can see the dots all too well. It's like using a 1975-vintage > glass TTY, but with color. Hey, Bozo, "TV resolution" screens do help in the desktop video market. NTSC compatibility allows one to do many things which would be more difficult without it. Plus, with additional hardware, you can have displays greater than TV resolution. BTW, there is due out a 1024x800 >32 gray level monitor, if you want your text to look nice. Oh yeah, and it was being shown two weeks ago running X-Windows, which looked real nice. The Amiga is not limited to "TV resolution," although in Desktop Video it really helps because the additional hardware to do stuff like digitizing, frame grabbing, and genlock'ing is inexpensive. > 2. Commodore doesn't really believe in hard disks. It's like the > early days of the Mac; everything is diskette-oriented and most > disks seem to be bootable. With a certain amount of pain and anguish, > disk vendors have been able to bolt on hard disks. This works > about as well as it did on the Mac before Apple offered a hard disk. > I hear that Commodore is now supporting hard disks in the new > (real soon now) release of AmigaDos. Why then does Commodore market a hard-disk controller? Why then does my friend have an internal hard disk in his Amiga 2000? Why then was it real easy to setup? Why then is the next OS by Commodore being written to optimize hard disk transfer rates? Probably because "Commodore doesn't really believe in hard disks." ;-) Yeah, right, that's the ticket. Things have changed since the days of "bolting" hard disks onto the side of an Amiga 1000 (which was a real pain). Now, all one needs to do is slip a controller into an Amiga 2000, slip a hard-disk in as well and PRESTO! you have a hard disk. No harder than adding one to an IBM. > 3. The mechanical and electrical interfaces for the Amiga 1000 and > 500 are terrible. In theory, one can add on peripherals. The > general comment is "one add-on will work, two may work, three > won't work". In other words, add-on memory and a hard disk > will probably be flakey. Some add-ons only work right with > the covers removed. This does not apply to the Amiga 2000, > which has slots. This is true of the Amiga 500, which requires an expansion interface to add more stuff (although one can easily expand to 1 megabyte memory without the expansion interface). After one adds the expansion box to the a500, expansion is easy. The Amiga 1000 (not produced anymore) can handle extra expansion hardware, although not too elegantly, without an interface. The Amiga 2000 has several internal expansion slots (greater than 7) which can be used for IBM cards or Amiga Zorro II cards. Plus it also has CPU and *VIDEO* expansion slots. Expanding an Amiga 2000 is as easy as expanding a Macintosh or an IBM, and in some cases is much more flexible than either of the former machines. > 4. The product is positioned as a high-end toy. Most of the > available Amiga software is games. On the other hand, there > are no serious spreadsheet programs for the Amiga. The major > networking vendors do not support the Amiga (although schemes > involving the MS-DOS compatibility box have been made to work.) > The one vendor in Palo Alto that still handles the Amiga > now relegates them to the back of the shop, and has removed all > Amiga material from the store window. Look Bozo, the original poster was asking about graphics software, not spreadsheets. Granted, the Amiga does not have a whiz-bang spreadsheet (although basic ones are available), and the business software is not as sophisticated as with IBM business software (that's why one buys an IBM, right?). However, the reverse is true concerning graphics software. The Amiga has a lot of good graphics software at good prices...I can think of three commercial ray-tracers (as well as a PD one) and three nicely written and very impressive paint programs right off of the top of my head. If you really want the business software, buy an Amiga 2000, pop in a Bridgecard (full IBM compatibility that runs simultaneously in a resizable window), and run the IBM stuff. And run all the fun graphics and Desktop Video stuff *at*the*same*time*, without having to lay down a mint in special graphics cards (i.e. VGA, CGA, EGA, Hercules monochrome, etc.). Geez. > 5. The file system is on the fragile side. It is all too easy to > destroy a disk. This applies to both fixed and removable > media. (Known bug: invoke the system call DELAY with a 0 > argument and track 40 of a disk will be trashed!) It is easy to destroy a disk if you pop the disk out while the drive light is still on. But that is a no-no with every computer. The only good fix to this is the Macintosh solution, which does not have an easily-pressed button to eject the disk. However, if you wait until the drive light is off, then eject the disk, you won't have any problems. Granted, I do not own a hard disk, although my friend (mentioned above) has never had a crash with his. I have *never* lost a single file due to my Amiga. NEVER! >It's a fascinating machine. I have an Amiga 1000 myself. But if you have >only one machine, it probably shouldn't be an Amiga. This *is* true of the Amiga 1000 (if you aren't a programmer, like myself). It is not true of the Amiga 2000. It looks to me like you gave up on the Amiga back in the days of only the a1000. A lot has changed since then...you may be surprised. Sorry to be so heated. I usually don't write replies like this. However, it really sounds like you've been out of touch with the Amiga market lately. Commodore wasn't very good during the early days of the Amiga. However, they have cleaned up their act considerably during the recent past. Which is one reason why the number of machines has out there has finally climbed to 800,000 (pale in comparison to the millions of PC's and Macs, but getting up there). There are still problems with Commodore, but they seem to be making an attempt to solve them, and there are also problems with IBM and Apple too. I don't think that changes the fact that the Amiga still has some pretty impressive graphics capabilities for any machine under $5000, and is very well suited to Desktop Video applications. For over $5000, you can by yourself a small workstation, a Mac II, or an IBM with a Targa board. The above are my opinions only, although they may be shared by my cockatiels, and maybe even my cat. > John Nagle -Chris -- Christopher Lishka ...!{rutgers|ucbvax|...}!uwvax!uwslh!lishka Wisconsin State Lab of Hygiene lishka%uwslh.uucp@cs.wisc.edu Immunology Section (608)262-1617 lishka@uwslh.uucp ---- "...Just because someone is shy and gets straight A's does not mean they won't put wads of gum in your arm pits." - Lynda Barry, "Ernie Pook's Commeek: Gum of Mystery"