Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!eecae!conklin From: conklin@eecae.UUCP (Terry Conklin) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Amiga public impressions Keywords: new machine old user Message-ID: <12626@eecae.UUCP> Date: 21 Oct 88 06:53:44 GMT Reply-To: conklin@eecae.UUCP (Terry Conklin) Distribution: na Organization: Michigan State University, ERDL Lines: 147 A lot of net discussion centers around the ideas of how an Amiga, what it is, does, and acts like, impresses the general (buying) public. Almost 1 month ago now, an Amiga found it's way into my home. Like many of yourselves, I am not a new user. Like fewer of yourselves, this Amiga is now nestled in among 8 other computers. Like probably none of you at all, though, I ran the biggest ST PD BBS (The Club II) for several years. In fact, larger than Compuserve own selection for a least a year or two. Before you say it. I think Amiga's are _morally_ superior, so Amiga-freaks riled at the above, choke on it. The environments I knew before I came to it include: The TRS-80 crew, Atari 8bits, ST's and GEM, Ultrix, Data General AOS Rev 6.00, and Suntools/SunOS and Macs. Being an Atari 8-bit fan, the Amiga is virtually home again. Thus the graphics dont "suprise" me. I dont think "what if" about HAM mode, I'm twiddling my thumbs while people figure it out. It's all been by before, it was called GTIA modes on the 8 bit, and it took em about 5 years. Probably the single best feature that shocked me was Amiga Sound. I really dont understand the Amiga emphasis on graphics, when the graphics are just great and the sound is tremendous! The first occasion I had to see F-18, we had alternately been playing the radio, and then using the stereo for sound. I _didn't even realize_ it was the machine at first. For me, the Amiga is a virtual Ensonic Mirage. This, unfortunately, seems to been lending itself lately to many programs pretty shamelessly digitizing real world sounds as a whole track, rather than digitizing instruments and then playing music with them. Some other observations with more marketing value: Workbench's colors appear "schlocky." After you use the machine for a week or two, you get used to, then fond of all the color all over hell. But the inital impact is negative. And a large part of a sale is there. Solutions? Workbench itself is - hmm - unprofessional. Sorry! But once again, the really neato colors that you get used to just dont have that business "boring" to them. No, I take that back. You never really get THAT used to them. What seems "professional?" GEM on the ST is. With those unchangable icons, GEM has no choice! But it's crisp and clean. They seem almost identical, so close that I wonder if they used thinner lines for gadgets or something for a more "delicate" look. The existence of CATS makes a real difference, on the street, to people just walking into the shop. Word travels fast, and when I can tell people something about what CBM's doing and that I heard it here, I have visibly seen it positively influence people's purchasing decision. In a related marketing issue, recently I saw a handful of different British 68000 & gaming magazines. Folks, you _wouldn't_ believe it. If Amiga World has a review of 13 games, they call it a games issue. One of these things reviewed 77 games!!! Worse, the obvious ST presence in Europe is devastating. The time has come for America to take a SERIOUS look at the European titles. Many of them are just better programmed. Since I still come into contact with a large amount of ST software, it's annoying to think that, other than sound, F-18 Interceptor could visually look almost the same on the dramatically less capable ST. The same can be said of Emrald Mines, Fire Power, Sidewinder, etc. The first "Amiga-only" title I have seen (as in just couldn't be half as nice) is a game called Fusion, which I believe is using 32 color 640 X 200 mode. Dragon's Lair, also just coming out, looks - real. It's incredible. My feeling has been that, in order to win a customer, you need not only to show him that you have a superior machine, you need a _clearly_ superior. Historical precedent: The C64, a relativel simple and low cost machine, ripped Atari 8-bit sales to shreds. Though the 8-bit was more capable, and had a much better OS, the 64's "70% as nice" graphics were close enough to befuddle the issue. Now, the game is the same, the sides reversed. This time, the ST is the largely off-the-shelf simple machine, and the Amiga is only marginally strutting it's stuff. From the business perspective, I just spent 6 months, 70 hours a week, writing a new operating system for the IBM 386 AT clones. All day long, I worked with an EGA monitor driving a Nec Multisync. When I got to play with the Amiga, long and behold the "graphics machine" hit me with the same capacity. 640 X 400 16 color resolution. ????? Which leads to probably the worst, single, biggest turn off in the world. FLICKER IS UNACCEPTABLE. Probably a moot point, having seen references on the net to new chips. Well, they need to be here, right away. Real Soon, NOW. The other major impression that I had was, after using the CLI, was that the non-imbedded commands was needless. I guess this all boils down to the idea that if I switch to an Amiga, (mentally) it should be a proper superset. Whether I've used MS-DOS or GEM or whatever, the mentality behind the scenes says, "Well, if the machine is superior, and worth getting, then it should be -superior-." Anything that represents a step back in usability from anything I've used will by association detract from the real advantages of the machine. I guess I expect CLI to have at least as much speed and functionality as Mess-DOS. I think I would expect a wristwatch to have the functionality of MS-DOS. As a closing (cheers in the back) comment, I dont find myself reccommending Amiga's to new users. The machine is NOT a total "Click-and-point" system, (an ST is) and suprisingly, many situations require the use of CLI. The lack of any option to get no-icon-available files from workbench is, for Joe Fool, a requirement to use CLI. And poor Joe doesn't cope. When people ask me for a machine, I have to be able to reccommend with confidence that they will be able to get where they want to go by themselves. --- This message, being almost totally negative, is largely unrepresentative of our experience with the machine. On the other hand, the above mentioned problems are real. The sole purpose of this message is to identify potential and necessary areas of improvement in order to assist CBM in refining the machine. While the 2000 has slots, there is a certain truth to idea that people (as a whole) will always program for, and expect, the base machine. On the ST, that attitude produced a generation of new MIDI fans and cheap local area networking. On the Mac, Appletalk has produced little Macintosh networks in the MSU dorms. Only by raising the base machine, do you raise the public perception of the whole machine. Perhaps the best example - Every Amiga disk holds almost a Meg. When was the last time you cringed at a 400K file? When was the last time you used a PC/XT? Let alone a 64k machine. Your basic perception of file sizes is altered by the base configuration of the machine. The machine must grow. Terry Conklin "Living on your knees, conformity conklin@egr.msu.edu Or dying on your feet for honesty." {msudoc|frith}!conklin -Metallica, Damage Incorporated The Club (517) 372-3131 Online 8 years in December! See BYTE IBM Issue The Club II (313) 334-8877 p45, para 1 for more BYTE "facts" & research