From: Aric.Caley@ofa123.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Tandy Unveils 16-Mil
Date: 24 Dec 92 06:43:00 GMT
X-Sender: newtout 0.02 Nov 17 1992

> Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
> From: barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N. Barrett)
> Message-ID: <Bzq75n.BA8@news.iastate.edu>
> Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
>
>   Of course.  But the miraculous thing about CD-ROM is that it makes 650M of
> read-only storage available for the manufacturing cost of a floppy disk.

Wrong.   550Meg.   And  the  manufacturing  costs  are comparable to floppy
disks, since you need to press a bunch of CD's at once whereas floppies can
be done a few at a time.  Floppies are much easier to work with, aside from
their small storage capacity.

I think Commodore ought to put a 20 meg floptical on high end Amigas.

>   Of course.  But CD-ROM can do wonders with a system that already has good
> non-interlaced resolution and color capabilities.

Which of course the Amiga doesn't have according to you..

> >   While I would also like to see Commodore add more CD-ROM support to the
> >Amiga, such third-party solutions have been available for well over a year.
>
>   True, and exactly how much CD-ROM ***SOFTWARE*** has come out of this
> third-party CD-ROM support?  Excepting CDTV titles, which I do not regard as
> true Amiga CD-ROM software.

Why  not?   Just because counting CDTV titles would hurt your argument that
the  Amiga  has no CD-ROM support?  And if you dont count CDTV, then why do
you make points about the third party solutions not fully supporting CDTV?

Look,  maybe  Amiga people just arent as gung ho about CD-ROM as people are
on  other  systems.   There ARE thrid party solutions.  Perhaps Amiga users
have  their  priorities  in  different  areas and just don't care that much
about  CD-ROM.   Sure, a CD-ROM drive might be kinda nifty - but there is a
whole  slew  of other things I'd much rather have (large HD, floptical, AGA
graphics, 14.4K modem, etc).

>   Commodore is needed to jump-start the development of Amiga CD-ROM
> products.
> Tell me again: exactly how many are available?

If  they  had  not  made  CDTV,  there probably wouldnt be any Amiga CD-ROM
software  at  ALL.   Yes,  Commodore  needs  to make CDTV compatible CD-ROM
drives for the rest of the Amigas (although the current A570 DOES work with
the  largest segment of the Amiga market - the A500).  It should be child's
play  to  adapt  the A570 to a Zorro II card; throw in the rest of the SCSI
parts  while  your  at  it,  and add 8 megs of ram sockets.  I think people
would buy that.  I wonder if the SCSI-II card will have CDTV support on it?

> >   CD-ROM does not determine what composes the rest of the system.
>
>   Of course it doesn't.  But an extra 650M of storage for a presentation or
> a game can sure make a difference.  Take a look at the 20-disk "Star Trek
> Twentieth Anniversary Game" for the IBM sometime, and then imagine what an
> extra 46 times as much storage could do to the game.  Or
> imagine how good a tax
> preparation program could be with 650M of storage to work with.  (The
> DataMax
> people mentioned that their CD-ROM tax preparation program would have just
> about every IRS form you could imagine already scanned in high-resolutions
> right on the disc)

I'd  like  to  see  a  CD-ROM  based version of Out Of This World, with AGA
graphics and hi-res animation; or another similar type game like the sequel
to OOTW or Flashback.

> -!-
> | Marc Barrett -MB-  |  email: barrett@iastate.edu
> -!------------------------------------------------

 -Dances With Coyotes - World's slowest programer-Given that God is infinate-
 -AKA Dances V2.0, Coyote, Critter, Magnet, Major-and  that  the universe is-
 -- Former Net-Lurker - YES, an AMIGA godammit! --also  infinate,  would you-
 --- Still limping along with AmigaOS 1.3  :(  ---like a toasted  tea  cake?-


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