Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rutgers!ucsd!net1!hutch
From: hutch@net1.ucsd.edu (Jim Hutchison)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Amiga or PC-AT ?
Keywords: not a slam
Message-ID: <1080@ucsd.EDU>
Date: 7 Aug 88 19:31:02 GMT
References: <1820006@hpuamsa.UUCP> <554@gort.cme-durer.ARPA>
Sender: nobody@ucsd.EDU
Reply-To: hutch@net1.UUCP (Jim Hutchison)
Organization: UCSD EMU Project (Educational Microcomputer Unix)
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article <554@gort.cme-durer.ARPA> brickman@rosie (Jonathan E. Brickman) writes:
>In article <1820006@hpuamsa.UUCP> marco@hpuamsa.UUCP (Marco
>Lesmeister) writes:
>>I am thinking of buying an AT-clone with some graphics card in it,
>>or maybe a commodore amiga would suit me just fine, but then I could
>>not make use of the mountain of DOS applications currently available.
>>
>>So, what should I do, should I buy a cheap AT with an expensive
>>monitor and an expensive graphics card (which one should I buy?), or
>>should I buy an amiga with the disadvantage that I can't expand the
>>graphics capabillities.

>[...]  I would ordinarily vote heavily against the Amiga, because
>of three things:
>(1) Awkward and rigid color mapping arrangement.
Well, it's got LUT's and it has HAM (12bits encoded into 6bits).
Yes, this is more rigid than a Pepper or a Targa.  Also note that
you can buy several A500's or a couple A2000's at the same prices.

>(2) Very limited software availability.
Very?  Yes, orders of magnitude in comparison to the raw PC software.

How much of that mountain did you want?  There are toolkits like MKS,
and file tools like PCTOOLS.  There are a couple of data base packages
which speak SQL (I may have the acronym wrong, "the new standard
database query language").  There are great paint packages.  Midi
software is also quite available (the adapters are around $49).  There
are music editors.  There are several animation packages (something
you won't find much of for the PC).

>(3) Unreliable operating system.
Less reliable than MS/DOS?  I shoot the interrupts out on the AT/IT/XT/PC
at work about twice a week.  Resident programs are incredibly hard to
keep in place.  Device drivers are forced to have all sorts of weird
behavior to remain synchronous.  If you talk Xenix, well get a big
fast disk and have fun!

No less the Amiga that I am working on now.  If I accidently stomp across
a device driver (like doing a nice area fill on a wild pointer), it dies.
Logical.  Note:  the amiga is multi-tasking.  You can do multiple tasks
much more cleanly.

end of rebut

It's pretty much a question of what you want to do.

A Targa-32 is a very nice combination of RGB scanner and 24 bit frame
buffer.  You can get one for about $5k.  A Targa-16 is a nice Video
scanner and 12 bit frame buffer $?2k.  The extra bits on both are for
an alpha channel for the external signal (Video or RGB).  The Pepper
board is a 256 entry 24 bit lookup table frame buffer (?1kx768?).
You can roll your own, or use something like Lumena, TIPS, RIO, Lightspeed,
etc..  I visited a group of people doing color comps with a Targa-32
and a Sony camera, makes for an interesting combination (with Lumena,
TIPS, and a scodl package whose name escapes me).

Or you can go with an Amiga.  There is a high-res frame buffer for the
A2000 which is in the 1kx768 range, I do not recall whether it is grey
scale or monochrome.  The guts of the beast is that graphics frames are
memory mapped.  Albeit from special memory (1 Meg on the 500 & 2000,
previously 512k).  This means you can select the depth that you want,
from 1 to 6 bits deep.  There is a animation chip which handles objects
which you wish to animate (sort of a choreographer).  There are sprites
with there own LUT's.  There is a blitter to blast polygons and text.
There is a 4 channel 16bit sound system (stereo), which is handled by it's
own chip.  There is a co-processor to handle all these little demonesses
so that they don't annoy the central processor.

The Amiga was used in the Max Headroom Series, tele-frames, that really
cute face finder, and many other places.  It's a very usable system.
Currently a friend and I are generating some graphics for a budget space
opera.  So very convenient to have that video plug on the back (and yes,
it is color, NTSC!).  Most of the GenLocs allow you to have Black as the
chroma key (See the incoming video signal through it).  Run it through
your VCR and play Sal U. Loyd.

Whoa, frothing at the mouth.  I work with PC's on a regular basis, but
I don't recommend it.
/*    Jim Hutchison   		UUCP:	{dcdwest,ucbvax}!cs!net1!hutch
		    		ARPA:	JHutchison@ucsd.edu		*/