From: foax@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: JUST Amiga's future?
Date: 24 Jul 92 22:16:28 EDT
Distribution: comp
Organization: Cornell University

In article <9220515.19576@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>
sanford@ee.mu.OZ.AU (sanford tong) writes:

> 	Well, folks, i was just browsing through one of those computer
> buyers/shoppers/etc guides at a store...you know, the ones which
> compares the latest n x86's (where n is quite a big number) and had a
> bit of a stickybeak. I was a little bit disturbed.

> 	Basically, they had a table, and columns with some benchmarks,
> and other equally questionable bits of data (MIPS, Megabytes, etc) and
> i thought to myself...of boy. Beneath these numbers (eg. MIPS) was a
> comment which was something like MIPS: The higher the number, the
> better.

> 	At this point, i was feeling more than a little bothered.

> 	I really view the Amiga as being the last opportunity that the
> personal computer business (particularly home, nowadays) had a genuine
> choice. Five years ago, when the stock Amiga outperformed Macs and PCs
> in virtually every way and was also cheaper (A500 especially), people
> didn't flock to the machine as much as it deserved for reasons we all
> know...image(games machine, blah blah) and also, because it wasn't
> used in the workplace to the extent that PCs were.

I disagree.  The "last" opportunity for the next few years, perhaps.
People wont hang on to the PC-compatible forever.  (And they can still
choose a Mac, although I think Mac's are overpriced and don't have
several things I really want, and some people on this and other groups
unfairly treat them and their users with complete contempt.)

> 	(Note: i'm talking about the average Joe Consumer at home who
> can't tell the difference between a computer and a terminal)

> 	In those days, there was still a choice, since PCs had a solid
> reputation which shielded then from technological inferiority, and
> the Amiga, being new, was unknown outside of computer enthusiasts,
> which leveled off its price/performance advantage.

> 	Now, years down the track, the Clowns have been sent in en
> masse, and the price consideration is no longer in favor of the Amiga.
> The machine still has its merits, and has features which are notable,
> even in the A500. However, these features are not measured in
> Mega-wotnots. The comments i usually hear from a typical person about
> the CPU clock speed is, "7Mhz....that's a bit slow, isn't it?" These
> are usually the same kind who can't understand why a 25Mhz 486DX is
> faster than a 25Mhz 386SX.

I agree, the Amiga certainly does have its merits, although lack of
vendor support (especially in the US) is making those merits
increasingly irrelevant.  But let's face it, the Amiga is now
suffering from technological inferiority too, and it hasn't overcome
those weaknesses by brute-force methods in the same way PC compatibles
have (e.g. a fast 486 can outperform an A3000 in window-drawing
despite the ISA bus simply by barfing pixels all over the frame
buffer).  The video compatibility, while helping greatly to keep the
machine alive, is also one of the biggest hardware factors holding it
back.  Since the custom chips must work at video compatible speed, you
can't speed them up by increasing their clock rate.  In fact, I
presume you can't even easily speed up the processor and fast RAM by
increasing their clock rate, since it hasn't been done on 2000's and
below.

And by modern standards, 7 MHz is very slow, even if you do have a lot
of custom circuitry to lighten the workload.  Let's say that the 68000
is roughly equivalent to a 386SX and that the custom chips speed the
system up by a factor of three (a very optimistic assessment).  Then
we are talking about the equivalent of a 20MHz 386SX.  Well, 20MHz
386SX's are on the low end of PC-compatibles these days.  If we talk
about normal computing, i.e. data-crunching, the 386SX comes out way
ahead.  If the 386SX system also has a sound board and a graphics
accelerator, both of which are getting quite common and cheap on PC
clones, then the custom chip advantage has been largely nullified.

It sounds like some people have been mocking your machine, and I'm
sorry about that since I know it isn't justified.  You didn't buy a
piece of crap.  But the Amiga is starting to show its flaws.

> 	Efficient use of resources is not important. The rest of the
> computer is not important. All they want is a big number describing
> their machine.

I agree that an efficient use of computing resources is very nice, and
I would love to see the PC world using its hardware resources more
effectively.  But nobody can build a system that does that without
locking themselves out of the current software and hardware, and most
companies would fail if they tried that right now.  Besides,
efficiency isn't much good if a less efficient system can do the same
job faster for the same price.  The slow clock speed of low-end Amigas
is a crippling defect.

As for "the rest of the computer", I'm not sure if you mean the custom
hardware or the system software.  As far as custom hardware, the PC
world is matching or surpassing that hardware with low-priced add-on
cards and sheer CPU speed.  As far as system software, the current PC
set is still weak, but the new operating systems (OS/2 vs. NT) promise
to leave it behind.  (It might be nice, however, if somebody made an
"OS/2 lite" for the low-end PC's.)

> 	It's saddening, i think, that now, with most families starting
> to think about getting a computer for word processing, bank balance,
> etc, that they will open up their 'know-it-all-whiz-bang guide to
> every computer in the known universe', and will sit there for hours
> and hours picking the biggest numbers, with no idea about whether they
> mean anything at all. I guess you know where that might lead in
> future. New products will be designed around numbers, and i think we
> all know that optimisation for a particular benchmark is not an
> unheard of thing.

Anybody who buys their new computer by searching through a magazine to
find the biggest numbers (and one smallest number, price) is a fool.
They should research and try the machines before they buy.  (If
they're buying mail order, they might try someone else's machine.)  If
you're really concerned about whether people will be hoodwinked, you
should advise anyone you think is being foolish.  However, I do
believe that numbers have some meaning, as long as they are valid.
Remember, one of the major reasons computers exist is to save time.

As for anybody trying to optimize their machine in favor of a
benchmark, that's why it's good to have a number of manufacturers.  No
decent company would let a competitor get away with that unscathed.

> 	If the Amiga does fade, i will be VERY disappointed. Me, i
> have my humble A500 with 5Mb RAM, Hard drive, DTP program (Pagestream)
> with more features than Mac PageMaker 4.2 (yeah, i know that there are
> programs which may pack more punch, (after all, Macs ARE the
> undisputed world champs at DTP) but for a HOME user WITHOUT a
> postscript laser printer, i can say that i have not seen a Mac or PC
> program at the same price which gives as good an output.  I've seen a
> dot-matrix printout from PageMaker4 on PC....irk..)

> 	(btw: this isn't meant to be a challenge...just my honest
> observation)

I think the Amiga is fading, but I'm not excessively disappointed.
Other computers have learned from it--witness the rise of
multitasking, and the popularity of sound boards and graphics
coprocessors.  Besides, people designed the Amiga, and people with the
same basic spirit will design the PC's successor.

Your observation is a sad one.  It doesn't reflect well on Adobe if
this is the case.  Sounds like somebody needs to compete with them.
But it really doesn't reflect on any failings of the PC or the Mac.

>	Right now, i have no plans on getting a PC, since, well, for
> what i need, the PC doesn't offer me any more than my A500. Note, that
> when i say this, i'm not making any compromises. I'm not speaking
> about technical differences, Just purely practical ones.

> 	Anyway, my point.

> 	My system does what i need, and my guess is that when one
> considers the needs of a typical home user, even the A500 is by NO WAY
> obsolete for this purpose. Unfortunately market lemmings know nothing
> of the sort, and will continue to buy machines based on Mhz and
> MIPS.  They will just follow the wise words in 'Computer Shopper' or
> something.

I'm glad you're satisfied with your machine.  My mom stuck with an
Apple IIe for 8 or 9 years; it served her needs just fine.  I will
sell my Amiga because I've realized it's not fulfilling my needs.  But
I wouldn't patronize ordinary computer buyers as being "market
lemmings".  Nor do I believe most of them blindly buy based on
numbers.  They do their homework, try the machines and see.

> 	"What about an Amiga?"...

> 	"Amiga? How many Whetstones does it do?", with a cheeky grin,
> radiating his self-proclaimed vast computer knowledge, and the
> excitement of the prospect of speeding up his word-processing with all
> those whetstones...

God, somebody has been taunting you.  Deck 'em for me.  In the US, he
might be very likely to ask, "Where can I get one, and where can I buy
software for it?"  And I would have to answer that they should go to
Syracuse, about an hour's drive from here.  And they would run away.
This kind of situation will kill a machine faster than anything.

And anyone who buys a system solely for word-processing based on its
speed alone needs an education.  You know this, of course, but maybe
you should tell your (perhaps not hypothetical?) friend.

> 	All this means only one thing. If an unknown company tomorrow
> came up with a truely innovative product which blitzes absolutely
> everything on the market, has unparallelled performance and was the
> most cost-effective item since beer nuts, would it sell? It had better
> be PC compatible.

I think you're being naive.  (I guess one can be naively pessimistic,
too.)  It depends on the tactics of the unknown company.  If they take
their wonder-design to a bigger, hungry firm and aggressively market
it, they might break in, and eventually win.

> 	Right now, i'm quietly optimistic (desperately optimistic?)
> that something might happen. Someone appropriate at Commodore's going
> to have to realise that a lemming wants no fuss, everything-in-a-box
> purchase. No computerphobic is going to want to buy an A2000, then go
> to one place to buy an accelerator, another place for a multisync
> monitor, here to get a program they want, etc. In fact, just adding up
> the individual prices of add-on products would give them a head-ache.
> What they want is a full system they can use at a single, clean price.
> That's also why PCs are popular. That's why it's important to have an
> '040 Amiga, rather than depend on cards. Have everything they need at
> one spot. Don't get the customers to shop around for the parts.

I definitely agree.  Especially if the sources for hardware and
software are so far apart.  But with so little market share, will they
be able to be cost-effective?  Time will tell.

> 	Just a final comment. I'm not saying that all PC owners are
> market lemmings. I'm only talking about those people sitting at home
> who want to have a computer, know nothing about them, and really have
> not had any choices. If the Amiga doesn't right itself, i can only see
> things get worse. I don't mean only for the Amiga, but for everyone
> out there who has great ideas, but will have to work around an aging
> PC design.

One of the advantages of everyone following the same design, whether
it is antiquated or not, is that it makes products cheap and
plentiful.  But people will not follow the same design slavishly
forever.  Eventually the defects in the PC architecture will become so
crippling that anyone introducing a state-of-the-art machine will
immediately have an audience, because their machine will be so
obviously powerful.  As long as they play their audience properly,
they will succeed.  SOMEONE will eventually succeed.

It is worth mentioning at this point that the IBM/Apple/Motorola
PowerPC design might well do just that.  This machine will be based on
the same RISC processor used in IBM's RS/6000 workstations, and these
are mighty fast beasts.  Given a good basic design, and the fact that
RISC processors tend to be much more efficient in speed than CISC
ones, this design might well succeed.  Supposedly to handle
compatibility issues (which in an already established market are
always important) it would be able to emulate either a 486-system (PC) or
an 040-system (Mac) in software--not inconceivable for this kind of
processor.  I'm not saying this will win out, but it could well be a
contender.  (I heard an announcement in one of the clari groups that
this machine will hit the market at year's end, but I'm a little
skeptical of that.
-- 

--Colin Howell			email to howell@astrosun.tn.cornell.edu
--Cornell Astronomy Dept.	(hopefully switching to computer science)