From: skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls)
Subject: Re: Oh my God! Help my friend not buy an IBM!
Organization: University of Mississippi, Dept. of Computer Science
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 00:50:21 GMT

In article <1992Nov9.231206.20185@usl.edu> das9674@usl.edu (Stephenson Daniel A) writes:
>White, conservative, atheist from the South you may be, BUT:
>
>In article <1992Nov9.200117.27089@cs.olemiss.edu> skip@cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls) writes:
>>Sounds like you are one of those boring people who use computers for such
>>mundane tasks as word processing, spreadsheets, and that sort of thing.
>
>Huh?  This started out about using the computer for engineering.
>I think it would be reasonable to assume that the PC would be better than an
>Amiga in the case.

But Dan, do you really think that someone such as myself could just leave
this alone and not twist the argument around?  :-)  Hey, this is .advocacy
and nothing can be assumed, reasonable or otherwise.  :-)

>As for word processing and speadsheet - they are only practical.  They day the
>Amiga gets a good WordPerfect/Word/AmiPro and Excel/1-2-3 is the day the Amiga
>get looks at.

I teach 1-2-3, but I could care less if it was available for the Amiga.  I'm
sure that others will disagree, but it is my opinion that we don't need a 
lot of boring business types messing everything up.  Having that sort of user
could be as bad as (I forgot, I promised not to talk politics anymore :-))

>>Try to equip a PC for multimedia and you'll see one area in which the Amiga
>>is much better suited.  The company I work for is putting together systems
>>for salesmen to take on the road with them, consisting of the CPU, a genlock,
>>a laserdisk, audio capability, and software.  The PC systems require an SVGA
>>board with genlock capability ($500 for a decent one), a SoundBlaster Pro
>>(which still does measure up to the native Amiga audio), 8M RAM if you are
>>running Windows, and at least a 386-33 for minimal performance.  By contrast,
>>an Amiga A1200 will do everything that the Clone will and do it better.
>
>I do not know of ANY multimedia software for the Amiga.  Do you really think 
>the CDTV can match (an admittedly much more expensive) an IBM Ultimedia 
>system??

Well, they say that ignorance is bliss.  :-)  Seriously, check out Scala MM,
AmigaVision, CanDo, and others, there is plenty of software available now
and more on the way.  As for CDTV, I never said that I thought much of it,
did I?  In fact, I don't see it doing well unless Commodore beefs it up 
with the AGA chipset and some sort of FMV.

>PC 'genlocks'/TV-in-a-window cost $250-ish at my local Babbages.  Heck, that
>looks REAL good.  While the native Amiga audio is great, it does not measure 

If you are referring to those VideoBlasters and other things, get a clue.
The quality on those things is terrible and the software is a hack at best.

>up to the high end sound cards available for PCs - Get this: the ONLY people 
>who will really take advantage of any superior sound will be musicians with 
>music software - in which case they won't be using a SBPro, probably.  The

That's the problem, the SBPro is something of a standard and all software
will have to support it.  It sucks and the Developer's Kit sucks even more.
 
>amount of RAM used by Windows (or OS/2 for that matter) isn't as big an issue
>with the 486 system you buy will likely be considerably cheaper than a 
>comparable Amiga400.  Note

Well, the A400 is not out yet, but I'd bet that it will be cheaper than the
486.  :-)

Seriously, RAM suddenly became an issue when the (...) decided to place a
tariff on the chips a couple of weeks ago.  

>that I do not speak about the Amiga1200 - I don't know too much about it.
>
>So, in a nutshell, is the Amiga1200 an A600+HD+AGA, with a 68000?

68EC020 @ 14.32MHz, 4x bandwith of A3000, same video specs as A4000,
rumored price less than $1000.

>>Clones are fine for boring everyday tasks, but they cannot hold a candle to
>>an Amiga when it comes to cutting edge applications.
>
>Cutting edge applications...like what?  I see none!  Please advocate to me!! :-)

Virtual Reality apps, morphing packages out the yin-yang, etc.

>Really, I have read and posted to this group about a year now, and see no
>general-purpose advantage to Amigas other than the Amiga500 (or the A600).  
>Because of low cost.  The Video Toaster is good for TV production.  Neither 
>of these can make the Amiga widespread.

Maybe not, but that won't happen in any case.

>>Skip Sauls, Amiga Advocate
>>skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu
>
>Perhaps if Amiga4000s sold for $2300 with a multisybc and had Word and Excel 
>on the 300meg harddrive.... sigh.

Nah, then it would be no better than a PC!  :-)

It does sell for $2795 and is at least equivalent to a 486-50DX2 with MCA
or EISA, LocalBus coprocessed SVGA, a SoundBlaster, and OS/2.

>Dan Stephenson                                                 das9674@usl.edu  
>"There once was a Lady from Hyde/who ate some bad apples and died/but while we
>lamented/the apples fermented/making cider inside her inside!" 
>                        -Member of the Court, Texas Renaissance Festival  

Skip Sauls, Amiga Advocate
skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy