From: gblock@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Gregory R Block)
Subject: Re: I DID giev up on the Amiga!
Organization: University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 06:03:05 GMT

skip@cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls) writes:
: Do the rednecks in Memphis who answer the phone bother you?  I prefer their
: drawl to the usual yankees talking through their noses, but I can see where
: some people might have trouble with it.  :-)

It's not their voices, it's the "unprofessional" feeling it's got.  I
can't really explain it, I guess.  It's like "Whoa, the phone is
ringing, and nobody's ready to answer it!!!!"  ;)

: BTW, I was not referring to support such as Gold Service.  By support I mean
: little things like R&D, advertising, etc.

Advertising I'll give you.  R&D I won't.  I happen to think the R&D
guys do a really good job.  They do deserve a raise of a few million
dollars, though.  ;)

: Well hooray for Commodore!  If they are making a profit then surely there
: is absolutely nothing wrong with them.  Excuse me.

No, but that does show that they've been doing what you said they
didn't:  Managing three lines of systems.  Not that the C64 needs much
"management", but you get the point.

: True, the R&D division at Commodore isn't much at all.

No, I meant the division of the monies to be spent.  The Amiga is a
rather large chunk of that, wouldn't you say?

The fact that it doesn't equal apple's doesn't mean that it's falling
in the gutter, either.

: I was in the UK last summer and saw those things for sale at fire-sale prices
: because Commodore was going to drop them.  Had they introduced it a few years
: earlier when Nintendo was starting out, they might have had something.  Of
: course they would have to market the thing and everyone knows how well they
: do that.

They don't.  ;)

: That is great if you live in Germany.  If they are so wonderful, why don't 
: they sell them in the U.S.?  It has been some time since I've seen a Colt,
: PC10, PC20, or whatever they are calling them now.

Because the US isn't worthy of their wonderful products?  ;)

Seriously, I don't know if they're selling in the US, or why they do
or don't.  But they're pretty good.  It's been a lot more than two
years for me since I've seen a colt, though.

: I've yet to see a PC or Mac that uses ZIPs.  I just added another 4M to 
: my A3000 and it was definitely much more difficult than just popping in
: a SIMM.  

The fact that the memory isn't SIMM makes it klunky?  There was
reasoning behind it, though I can't remember for the life of me.  Dave
gave a rather lengthy shpiel about it once upon a time.

: What if I want a high-density floppy?  Of course everyone else in the
: industry has had them for years now, but I have heard that there are a
: few Amigas with the 1/2 speed hacks.  Too bad I can't just pop in a
: common inexpensive HD floppy.

The Paula can't read the data in at the speeds HD drives normally "put
out" at, to coin a phrase.  Can't really be helped without a new
chipset, can it?

: I'd also like to get something better than enhanced CGA resolution, but
: there is nothing out there for less than a thousand bucks that will run
: any of the software that I want to use.  Of course, Commodore is going
: to be coming out with RTG any day now, so maybe I'll be able to find one.

Maybe you will.  There are several cheap boards in development.

: No, it would have been better if the persons in charge didn't have their
: heads up their collective ass.

Obviously not every "person in charge" has their head up their ass.
Otherwise, you wouldn't see a lot of the things that are happening
that are selling quite a few Amigae.  The Power-Up programs were
extremely successful, and I heard lots of good stuff about the rebate
programs.

: I'm sure that you, Mr. Cluefull, will be glad to set me straight.

I'll try.

: Wow!  It can do all of that!  Too bad its color limitations are the same
: as my A1000 built in 1985.  Of course, it can do such useful things like
: display 160x960 interlaced 32 color and has that great 64 color palette
: in the 31kHz modes.

Think of it this way.  Superhires is GREAT for video titling.
Productivity mode can conform to special-purpose modes such as
synchronization to motion picture cameras, obviously interesting in
multimedia usage.  NTSC/PAL support allows multi-national support in
video standards.  The various VGA* modes give you a huge width
selection while still getting a respectable amount of colors.  For an
example of the various other capabilities, take a look at VideoControl().

: So that makes it a good idea?  If it is such a great design, why is it
: so difficult to find one of the damn things?  I was really interested
: in buying one for the resolution, but none of the dealers could get 
: them.  One had the Moniterm with the Hedley Hack board and it sucked
: compared to an old Sun 3/50 that I was using at school.

It's certainly not a bad idea, though it is hard to find.  I've heard
that the A2024 has been discontinued (and that's what it's called
these days).

: They don't even offer it as an official option.  A few "lucky" A3000
: owners have them, but Commodore has not guaranteed their ability to
: function as a HD floppy.  As for backwards compatibility, I'd gladly
: sacrifice it if only to see some improvement after seven years.  I've
: heard that the fabled AA chipset includes the old Paula, but I sure
: as hell hope that rumor is false.

How can they?  I've heard that they can't produce them cheaply, and
they can't get any more of them.  That's what I've HEARD, anyways.

And dropping backwards compatibility on the chipset is like going from
the 680x0 series to some other RISC/CISC cpu.  It doesn't pay.

: Use that wonderful programmable ECS to display a 640x480 16 color screen.
: Wow!  That is exactly what stock VGA is!  The palette for VGA is larger
: you say?  Well believe it or not it is easy to go from 18bits to 12bits.
: Sure, you do lose a few hundred thousand colors, but for things like
: DOS and Windows it wouldn't be much of a problem.  But what about the
: 320x200 256 color mode?  Well doesn't the mighty Amiga with its wonderful
: programmable ECS support 320x200 in 4096 colors?  The Amiga is the almighty
: video wonder, so surely it won't have problems with the simple little
: stupid non-programmable VGA displays.

Except that there's a bandwidth-limit on current systems due to their
16-bit nature.  Expect that to change.

: I purchased my A3000 with the intention of buying an 040 board soon after.
: Several people from Commodore were predicting that 040 boards for the 
: A3000 would be easy to build and would sell in the $1000 range.  That
: sounded great, but here it is over a year later and nothing is available.
: Of course there is such a great selection of two and one of those is
: from the company who claims that the A3000 has buggy chips and that the
: Zorro III bus is not fast enough for their video board.

I don't give that company a whole lot of respect, either.  GVP, and I
think that's who you mean, makes their living by buying other people's
designs, generally, and producing them, packaging them, and selling.

: I am not so sure that C= can put out an 040 Amiga.  They were supposed to
: be one of the first with an 040 system, yet NeXT and Apple have shipped
: their second generation systems before Commodore can ship one.

Such is life.  Problems occur.  And if all they were going to do, as
you say, the NeXT and Apple companies have, is to throw in an 040 cpu
into a run-of-the-mill architecture, that would be just fine.  But
that's not the way it works, is it?  C= has always thrown new
technology into things.  The A600 got a few new chips, and so will the rest.

: Thank you so much for your little apology for Commodore's problems.

A lot of them aren't really C='s problems, though, are they?  You
simply want something other than what the Amiga has.  The Amiga's
advantage, while not in color for video, has been there for speed.

And a lot of the things that you ask for may be coming on the horizon,
though patience is a virtue.  If I were C=, I'd wait until the falcon
was, if it ever is, released, and then totally underprice them.

Greg

--
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(:	gblock@csd4.csd.uwm.edu			Gregory R. Block         :)
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy