From: tmc@spartan.ac.BrockU.CA (Tim Ciceran)
Subject: Re: Bus Standards
Organization: Brock University, St. Catharines Ontario
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 17:48:12 GMT

In article <BzI9uG.I6E@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu> papresco@cantor.math.uwaterloo.ca (Paul Prescod) writes:

>No, we should not banish the peripheral machines, as they do
>contribute.

>On the other hand:  one has to wonder where software/hardware
>technology would be today if people had tried harder to be compatible.

Compatible? As in cooperate or assimilate?

>Let's call this hypothetical standard :" Open architecture" now what if
>all the operating systems, like unix, AmigaDos and MacOS had run on
>this architecture.

Fine. But what would be used to constitute the kernel?

>AmigaOS wouldn't be the ugly stepchild it is now.

And DOS wouldn't be the mother that is is today. We could call it:
"Cinderella." 

>People would run AmigaDos for some things, and pop over to a DOS session
>for others.

Or NeXTStep or X or the Mac OS.

>What if instead of the plethora of incompatible 68K,
>Intel, RISC cpus, everyone wrote to one binary standard, but produced
>variations on the speed, power, and price of the chips.

We'd have Unix.

>instead of buying just from Commodore, or Apple, or IBM, you could buy
>in parts, a CPU from Motorola (but still binary compabile, of course) a
>video card from ATI, a hard drive from Conner, and put them together,
>and still have software compatibility.

Good so far. [Aside: it appears it won't be long before Amiga users
have the opportunity to buy PC display adaptors as well].

>"Open Architecture" it can still happen.

But which players would remain in the market? A limited few.

>Who cares WHY they are jumping on the bandwagon.  It's reduntant to say
>they are doing it for money, that's all any corporation does anything
>for.  That's why they exist!  To make money!  The point is, that
>lotus' Multimedia 1-2-3 and Microsoft's multimedia word are going to
>have a huge effect on "the computer world."

Things like Lotus 123 multimedia extensions will indeed have a huge
impact: people will realize how gratuitous it is and go back to reading
the manuals.

>The Amiga was always into multimedia for multimedia's sake. Which is fine
>for some people, but in the real world it is of limited commercial value. 

Multimedia for multimedia's sake? Limited commercial value? Game over.
Please insert quarter. 

>PC multimedia is multimedia for education's sake.  For productivity.
>For fun.

For people who read to many advertisements.

>Let's face it, raytracing is fun for some people, but, say,
>multimedia seventh guest is probably going to be fun for EVERYBODY.

Raytracing? This isn't exactly multimedia.

>Amigavision is productive for some people, but learning how to use a
>wordprocessor without paying $200.00 for a course is productive for a
>much wider range of people.

Somehow this seems like a non sequitor to me, but in any case: people
learn through dialogue and situated cognition, not bells and whistles.
There's a big difference between CAI and multimedia.

>>Who also consistently clarifies that AmigaTeX is an excellent product.
>That doesn't meet his needs...

Nice try.

>>>and another guy that said he had a PC to run astronomy
>>>programs.
>>It's not like there aren't any available on the Amiga.

>That don't meet his needs.

Fair enough. To each his own. Caveat emptor. 

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy