Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think!husc6!husc4!huang From: huang@husc4.HARVARD.EDU (Howard Huang) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Re: Serious Computing Keywords: Amiga, the good old days Message-ID: <1502@husc6.harvard.edu> Date: 6 Feb 90 00:22:20 GMT References: <1361@crash.cts.com> <1990Feb4.102221.23801@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1500@husc6.harvard.edu> Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu Reply-To: huang@husc4.UUCP (Howard Huang) Organization: Harvard University Science Center Cambridge, MA Lines: 44 >>> The Amiga is a superior machine because there are more game titles >>> produced and ported to the Amiga platform than there are for the Apple >>> IIgs platform. >> >>Whoopee shit! So you can get more games for the Amiga. Does that make it the >>better machine? I don't think so. I think what the original poster intended to show was the software support that the Amiga receives compared to the IIgs. Even otherwise, games can indicate a machine's graphics capabilities, speed, etc. Presumably a game written using the Amiga's higher resolution (is it 640 x 400?) and customized graphics chips would run faster and smoother than a similar game on the IIgs. Of course, this isn't how you should select a computer, but I'll bet a good game does attract customers to a particular machine. >In fact a fair number of CS majors (I'm not one) that I know grew up on IIs. >They first played games on the Apple II and then began hacking out programs >on the II, then emerging into full CS-dom in college. Count me in. Apple IIe fiend to Apple IIgs almost-fiend (hey, college is hectic!) I really liked the "easiness" of jumping into the Apple II monitor to poke around in the machine -- machines like the Mac, Commodore 64, and IBM didn't offer that kind of openness (did they?). It was great to read Disassembly Lines in NIBBLE or to get DOS 3.3 RWTS to actually read a sector off a disk. These days users are insulated from all this internal stuff. Personal computing is, like lotsa other things, meant to be PRODUCTIVE. People want to BUY programs like AppleWorks GS, not write their own little database. Nobody wants to type in programs from magazines anymore because they don't have the time and the programs can't compare with commercial products. I guess this is a sign of better technology. Ah well. I still have my back issues of NIBBLE to keep me company :-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Howard C. Huang Internet: huang@husc4.harvard.edu Sophomore Computer Science Major Bitnet: huang@husc4.BITNET Mather House 426, Harvard College UUCP: huang@husc4.UUCP (I think) Cambridge, MA 02138 Apple II: ftp husc6.harvard.edu