Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!ccut!kogwy!wnoc-tyo!scslwide!wsgw!headgw!crls02!creubank From: creubank@crls.sony.co.jp (Curtis Eubanks) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: A new Amiga from Japan? Message-ID: Date: 10 Jan 90 07:38:56 GMT Sender: news@crls.sony.co.jp Distribution: comp Organization: Sony Corporation, Corporate Research Laboratories, Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan. Lines: 76 In article <5337@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM> waynekn@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM (Wayne Knapp) writes: >[...] >My bone with this editor is that he just waves off the Fujitsu FM Towns >computer with a couple of sloppy lines and jumps on to other topics. He >[...] > Having it there gave me the impression that no one knew what >an Amiga was. Sure many people have heard of the Amiga, just like most >Americans have heard of Pachinko, but how many actually have had hands >on experience -- almost none! Yes, this is exactly the case. A few people know what the Amiga is, but most don't. I have been thinking the same thoughts about the FM Town as Wayne. It's really an awesome machine -- definitely the Amiga of Japan. There's one in my office not ten feet away from me right now. Fujitsu is spending a fortune on advertising for it as well. Probably the main reason that the Amiga never had a chance in Japan is the lack of support for the Japanese language. The Amiga has none! Why is this? Both the MacIntosh and IBM PC can support kanji and kana (sometimes a bit painfully). >This editor seemed to think the FM Towns was a very minor thing but from >my point of view the FM Towns seems to be the Amiga of Japan. Yet it is >more than an Amiga it is what the Amiga should be now. It is new >and prehaps a real threat to the NEC computers since Fujitsu is pushing >it in a very big way. In fact I bet everyone in Japan knows about the >FM Towns or at least as heard about it. Can we say the same about the >Amiga? >So just what is an FM towns? Well it is the closest thing to a multi- >media computer I've seen to date, not only is it as neat as the Amiga >and seem to have very feature of the Amiga (many enhanced) but it can >run IBM software. This is a very serious machine. >[long description of FM Towns omitted] >I was really impressed by what saw, heard and felt when looking at or >using the FM Towns. Many of the demo's contained things that couldn't >be done in any reasonable fashion on an Amiga. >[...] Some things just simply amazed me and it has been >a long time since a computer has amazed me. I felt like crying when I first saw it. My poor Amiga had been bested. I doubt if the FM Towns will become available in the US (all the software will have to be modified to be in English), but who knows. It's still quite new here and not yet popular. Last month, Fujitsu was at the International Conference on Multimedia '89 promoting the FM Towns multimedia software alongside IBM, Apple, and all the Japanese giants. Mostly educational software and games, but very impressive ones. >So I'll try to be fair. The Amiga is currently a 1985 computer. If the >Amiga 3000 is to complete with stuff like the FM Towns it will need to >be a 1990 computer! Still in 1985 the Amiga was amazing almost >unbelievable. >So I don't want to step on the Amiga too hard, also just think of the >1980 (mostly CP/M computers!). Still the Amiga was something to get >really excited about. Now I think the FM Towns is a 1990 version of the >Amiga. If the Amiga 3000 never comes out maybe Fujitsu will sell the >FM Town system here. > Wayne Knapp The Towns still doesn't have UNIX. (Well I guess we don't either!) All I can say is "Go Commodore!" Gambatte! And one more thing: the FM Towns *doesn't* multi-task! -creubank [don't reply to the address in the header--use creubank@media-lab.media.mit.edu] -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Curtis Eubanks creubank@crls.sony.co.jp Sony Corporate Research Labs creubank@media-lab.media.mit.edu Information Systems creubank@crls.sony.junet -----------------------------------------------------------------------------