Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!CORY.BERKELEY.EDU!dillon
From: dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga public impressions
Message-ID: <8810211750.AA12489@cory.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 21 Oct 88 17:50:45 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 107

: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

	No, definately *NOT* GEM on the ST.... The Mac's desktop is 
professional.  There's been a lot of flack about our workbench and, in fact,
many people do not even use it.

: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.

	
	Mmmm... I would disagree here.  Neither the Atari 8-bits OR the C-64
ever had an OS. Nobody ever used them, anyway, except maybe the file system
(what little of it there was).   I would tend to agree with your 'turn-around
assessment' though I should point out that the ST gets no where near the
support the old 8 bits had.  Atari used a 'bash the other guy' approach and
it backfired on them.

: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.

	Uh huh.  I think we've spent about 50MB on that particular issue.
Get a flicker fixer if you don't like it, I am willing to wait for the new
chips.  But also keep in mind that at least we can *get* that resolution on
a standard (cheap) monitor.  By the time the new stuff gets integrated ,
the cost of higher resolution monitors should be attainable for the general
user.

: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 

	Don't use the CLI, use a shell.  There are several shells out there
and you get a hellofalot more power and convenience out of them.  I never
use a plain CLI.  Also, you *do* have a hard disk don't you?  Got 1.3 yet?
*GET IT* take the time to bring up the FFS on your HD and the machine will
suddenly look more professional ... much more professional.

: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 

	With the advent of 1.3, the A2000, and the FFS, I find myself now
recommending the Amiga where before I recommended the IBM... sometimes the
Mac, though *never* the ST.

	Many situations require the use of a CLI because it is impractical
to use a point-and-click system in all cases.  That was amply proven by
the Mac ... sure, it looks kind of flashy, but you can do a lot more for a
C compiler with a Makefile, editor, and shell 10 times faster than you could
ever do with a similar point-and-click enviroment.  I would say that the
LACK of a choice between the two types of interfaces (CLI, WB) is a major
screwup for both the Mac and the Atari.  While both machines have shells and
such, it isn't standard and cannot be counted upon.  The IBM has the exact
opposite problem ... it has only a CLI-like interface and a static (text)
screen size so they have to do all sorts of hacks to give it a more graphical
enviroment.  

: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. 

	Joe Fool gets icons for those programs that are simple enough for
his tiny brain to understand.  Larger, more complicated programs still have
icons, but it becomes optional because Joe Fool wouldn't be able to use them
anyway (cause he is too stupid to even understand the general purpose of
the program).  If you look closely, *MOST* commercial programs work with both
the workbench and the CLI.  If you are a CLI user or run the programs from 
the CLI they usually do not bother creating icons whereas if you run the
programs from the workbench they do.

	Also, a big reason for the fact that not everything has an icon
(apart from what I mentioned above), is that C-A screwed up the workbench/
icon enviroment.... requiring a separate file for each icon is simply
ridiculous, takes too much time to scan, and makes directories look a mess.
Thus, none of us developers have ever had much incentive to use icons.
	
	So I'd say, C-A, fix the damn workbench!  I can't do everything!

: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.

	Uh huh.  I Especially like the 2Gig (or is it 4Gig) partition size
limit under the FFS.  IBM's are still struggling along.

	My basic perception of the Amiga as a professional machine is that
you need, in laymans terms, disk.  A hard disks that is.  The moment I
put together my HD, under FFS, and stuck it to the side of my A1000 everything
changed.

					-Matt