From: aq722@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (John Gregor)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.sys.amiga.misc,alt.activism.d,sci.environment
Subject: Re: Beef Sandwich - Re: Amiga now kicks PC butt - no way.
Date: 14 Dec 1992 01:41:39 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: aq722@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (John Gregor)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, peter@global.hacktic.nl (Peter Busser) says:

>Of course, that was to be expected as public transport is for losers anyway.

Tell that to the children in Mexico City born retarded because of the
air-bourne lead from auto exhausts.  Tell that to the Eskimos who used
to fish in near Valdez, Alaska.  Not everybody can walk or cycle everywhere.

>Apparently not, why would one want to buy both an Amiga and a PC where a PC
>or Amiga alone would be sufficient?

Good point.  With a bridgecard on the Ami, you can run AmigaDos, MS-DOS,
Windows, OS2, Unix, and if you add A-MAX, you can run Mac System 7. 
There's probably more I'm missing.  With the exception of AmigaDos, you
can probably run all those on a PC too.  (I'm pretty sure their are Mac
emulators for the PC).

>The same for the Amiga. But the difference is that you can't plug your A500
>peripherals in your A3000 and that you need to buy a completely new

Say what?  I moved both of my hard disks and my audio digitizer from my
500 to my 3000 when I upgraded.  And I plan to keep them for my newer
systems too.  Hell, I could even use the hard disks if I bought a PC
with a SCSI card.  (My current PC has IDE, not SCSI).

>That is easy talking for someone with a $$$$$ salary. However, if your budget
>is small, then there isn't much choice. Anyway, there are still enough

Now (at least in Europe) there is the 1200.  24 bit graphics palette, 4
channel digital sampled sound, AmigaDos, 256000 simultaneous colors, CPU
speed about like a slow to moderate 386, all for $600.  Add a small HD
and monitor and you got a fairly cheap system.  Its not as expandable as
a PC or higher end Amiga, but for a low end system, its great.  24 bit
color for the masses.

>Which lossy OS do you mean? Linux?

How about OS/2 or NT?  Or Windows?  MS-DOs isn't lossy, but neither is
it very functional.  Windows 3.1 is not really very functional either. 
OS/2 is functional and >huge< - it eats system resources where it
shouldn't need to.  That's what I call lossy.  So is NT.

>50Hz display refresh rate is painful, and I didn't even mention interlace.

That's what I don't use 50 Hz.

>>> Frustration from a rotten keyboard?
>>Gee, it's exactly the same as the keyboard on my 386.

Well, my Amiga has a keyboard lots better than my PC.  At least the
escape and control keys are in the right place.  But there are better PC
keyboards available, at least - I just haven't bought one yet.

>>> the day the Amiga was released. The days that a CGA quality display could
>>> impress people are over.

True.  Lets see - in 1985, the Amiga had 4096 color graphics while the
PC had CGA, and digital sound while the PC had a beeper.  Now both have
dramatically improved.  The Amiga has 24 bit color, PCs have SVGA with
18 bit color, and both look way-fine.  The PC has certainly closed the
gap, and made it cheap.  At the ultra-high end (multi-thousand dollar
graphics cards), there probably isn't any significant difference between
graphics quality on the two machines. 

>If it was a stone-age Amiga, I would have had to buy a complete new system thus
>wasting 1 complete computersystem. Now it's only a motherboard.

Depends on the model.  WIth a 2000, you can add a 68040 card to a 68000
based system.  Can you add a 486 card to your 8086 system?  (I don't
know - its a real question, not rhetorical).  I imagine there will even
be 68060 cards for the 2000, when the 68060 comes out.

>that their dreams about the "leading edge" is just a figment of their
>imagination.

Neither the PC nor the Amiga is or ever will be leading edge, nor could
you afford one if it was.

But that said, as a long time owner of both, I _enjoy_ using the Amiga
more than my PC, by far, and feel it has a more elegant OS and working
environment by far.  If you enjoy using a PC more, go for it.  We're not
ever likely to reach a consensus by posting things here to
comp.sys.amiga.misc.

John "The Connection-Machine 5 rules!"


Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware