From: ggg@kepler.unh.edu (Gregory G Greene)
Subject: Re: DIR
Organization: University of New Hampshire  -  Durham, NH
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 20:02:48 GMT

>>>>heh heh, but the day you show me that 040-33 Amiga, I'll haul up 
>>>>an Intel 80486DX2-66Mhz machine.. :) :) :)
>>>>
>>>>(They really do exist, you know)
>
>It is not the speed that counts, but what you can do with it. 
>Most PC users like yourself buy a 486-50 then go waste all your 
>CPU time on Wordperfect or a BBS program. Whata waste.

	You're right I don't waste my time doing those things.  I'm in to 
  Astronomy and have Distant Suns for Windows, and soon will have Software
  Bisque's, The Sky, Level 3.  I really could care less about Wordperfect.

>Only PC users are dumb enough to have such a money-wasting hobby
>as a BBS. Tell me what else you can do that is really useful. 
>Oh, you can play wolfenstien 3-D at 4 times the pace. 
>Or you can view GIF's, neat. *NOT*

	I disagree, there are some awfully nice Astronomical GIFS or JPEG
  images out there, and I consider it "neat" to be able to view them.

>>>	Not to mention the fact that the 040 Amiga is selling for $5100.
>On the towercase 3000 with 200 meg HD and 5 megs of ram sells for that 
>much. You were smarter, you'd look at the market. 

	Why doesn't Commodore look at the market then, $5100 is ridiculous.

>I probably know more about PC's than you know about Amiga's. 
	
	You probably do, want a medal?  I've owned both, and I like my 486
    running OS2 more then any Amiga I've owned or used.

>>>    I'll bet you will be able to get a loaded 486DX2-66 for a lot less
>>>    then that.
>Ya you can get a 486 for a lot less, but there is a lot of 
>things to keep in mind. 486 systems are usually ISA based, unless 
>you can go for a local bus (which isn't 
>even standardized) or EISA (which has very few cards made specifically
>for it, as compared to ISA). The increased sales of 486's should make the 
>PC's look a lot better to other users, but in reality there are a 
>lot of drawbacks of PC's. For one, who can you trust??  How many 

	I have a gateway 2000 486, have had no problems with it. 

>companies have your bought from that just did not deliver a 
>working computer system? How long did you wait to get your system?

	About 10 days after I ordered it.

>How much money did you shell-out in addition to the system cost? 

	49.95 for OS2, $189.95 for SBPro.

>How long did it take for you 
>to set up your system? Did everything come just the way the company 
>said it would? Where was your motherboard made? How many cards 
>have been ruined just becuase of the motherboard, if any?

	It took me an hour to set it up.  It booted up fine the first time
    I tried it.  Everything was pre-installed.  Its a Micronics motherboard,
    don't really know where its made.  Haven't had any cards destroyed yet.
    
>My brother owns a 486-33 Tower Case model, he bought it for 3000 dollars 
>1.5 years ago and just recently he needed to replace his motherboard. 
>Our school got 6 Gateways last may, so far 3 of them have had 
>semi-sever problems. My Amiga 3000's monitor has been replaced 2 times, 
>but the system itself has never had the motherboard, or any part 
>in relation with the internals, replaced. 

	My Amiga500 has been to the authorized service center 4 times for 
   loose chips, bad keyboard, bad monitor, you name it.  One of my cousins
   has an A3000 and is on his second motherboard, 3rd monitor.  This is not
   really a flame against CBM.  Every computer manufacturer out there has 
   machines that are faulty sometimes.  Commodore is not immune.

>When a friend of mine bought a Zeos 486, he expected it to deliver 
>in 6 weeks, however it took three months, by that time 
>he didn't have any current use for the system
>;it arrived to late. 

	Oh well, my experience is different.

>It took me 2 weeks 
>to get my Amiga 3000 when I ordered on student deal. 

	Probably the only way you could afford it.  Not everyone can get the
   student discount.

>Then there is operating systems. OS/2 will probably be the OS 
>of choice later, but for now Windows 3.1 is the choice. 

	Maybe, but I'll stick with OS2 for now, since its fast on my 486.

>Then you have Shareware/PD. How many PC libraries do you know that 
>are consistent? Is there anything like the Fred Fish library?
>Do you know of several FTP places that carry these libraries?
>Do these PD libaries come on compact disc for under 60 bucks?
>How protective are PC PD-programmers? How many really care about your 
>registration?  How many would deliberately 
>imbed a virus in your registered software?
>Can anyone get access to these libraries easily? 

	What do you mean by consistant?  There's tons of PC PD programs.  I
   ftp to several sites lots of times.  Wuarchive.wustl.edu, ftp.ulowell.edu,
   hobbes.nmsu.edu ( for OS2 stuff, which you can get the entire library for
   like 30-40 dollars on CD-ROM).  I've seen ads in PC Magazine and Computer
   Shopper for the other PC PD libraries on CD-ROM, all of them were under
   $50.

>Then there is graphics boards. Whenever it comes to graphics 
>boards on the PC's, you can really never be sure if your software 
>will work with the board. Usually, you'll upgrade to windows and 
>search all over hell to find a windows driver for your card.

	Most graphics cards have windows drivers that come with it.  The only
  time I had to search for drivers was in getting Tseng 4000 SVGA drivers
  for OS2.  

>You might even have to buy the driver extra from the company you got 
>your card from. Then there is the question of resolution. 
>If your monitor is 640x480 and your card is 1024x768, there is no way you 
>can display 1024x768, it is physically impossible. On top of that 
>your card must support those resolutions, and must have enough ram to 
>use those modes.                 

	Have had no problem with my Diamond Speedstar Plus.  Has drivers all
   the way to 1024x768x256 non-interlaced 70hz, Sony 1304 Monitor likes it.
   This card isn't exactly expensive either at around $140.

>Then there is speed. Architecture makes the motherboard, as I 
>always say. If your motherboard is a piece of crap, don't expect 
>to even get 50% of your CPU's speed. If your software doesn't use the 
>CPU's 32-bit capabilities, then your CPU is hardly working its best.
>With all that you have a limitation on your expansion busses 
>speed. A ISA expansion bus only goes 8mhz. If your 486 goes 33mhz, you 
>silly ol' graphics board will be slower than any typical Amiga 
>3000 graphics boards. Maybe not in vector graphics, but actuall 
>animations and things that require intense memory moving, will 
>seem like a ultra slow Amiga 1000. In addition, the 3000's 
>CPU's synchronous to the (expansion)BUS, while ISA is always 8mhz.  

    	For being as slow as an A1000, my 486 seems to move things around
   quite fast.

>Then you have integration. Well for the Amiga, you can talk Arexx 
>to anything that is Arexx compatible (most everything). 
>For instance, a modeling program by the name of VERTEX has 
>an Arexx port that will let you send data externally 
>(from an Arexx program or another program). If you are a scientist, 
>or a programmer, or both, this means that you can write programs 
>to make objects in 3D from formulas or data you have made. 
>Other programs like RexxTracker will let you play sountracker/MED
>modules from Arexx as well. Some graphics software has Arexx ports. 
>Even image processing programs like TADPRO have Arexx ports. 
>If you are a good enough C programmer, you could probably create a 
>graphical database using a barebones Arexx-compatible database 
>program and a shaeware image displayer (Arexx compatible as well).
>Even add animations, graphics and whatever else you can think of.

	OS2 has REXX, whats the big deal.

>Then you have consistency. Have you ever been able to keep 
>your interfaces straight? Do you get tired of looking at 
>text based user interfaces? Don't you wish everything ran on 
>Windows? Do you wish everything ran on MSDOS? Do you wish 
>your dos commands to be consistent with each other? 
>Amigados 2.0 is consistent and predictable. Though you don't 
>get very many colors, the speed is fast and the interface 
>is almost as good as Xwindows. In some ways Amigados 
>2.0 blows Xwindows away. 

	I have OS2, its consistant enough for me.  Not to mention very fast.

>Next there is audio. You have your soundblaster pro with 20 voices of 
>4-op DX7 FM squeek, 1 voice 8-bit DAC, and supposedly a fully-functional
>MIDI interface. Have you ever used the synth to play music? Can 
>you whip up a tune in 1 minute from startup? Can you play 
>music into your MIDI interface while having the SB-Pro playyour other 
>MIDI keyboards? Did you ever think that for 100 dollars more you could 
>have bought a 32-voice MT-32 with better sound-synthesis??? 
>I have a ECE midi interace and one MT-32. Both of which can be purchased
>for under 400 bucks. If you are aching for a piece of composition software, 
>DMCS from EA is now selling for 15 dollars and works better than 
>any compostion program I have seen for the PC's (in that price range ;-)).
>I even transcribed a 8 stave 40+ measure of the song PAMELA from TOTO, 
>using all of my MT-32's voices. Sounded like a CD! Took a lot of time, 
>but hey I did it. 

	I bought my SBPro for games, it gets great support, and I happen to
   think it sounds better then the Amiga I had.  Although this really depends
   on how well the programers used the SBPro. 

>Ok, how about viruses? 
>Well i can tell you that I haven't had a virus in 2 years, 
>and I don't even run Virus Killing software upon startup. 

	Same here.  Except I've NEVER had a Virus on any of my systems, Amiga
   or PC, and I don't run virus checkers either. 

>Compare this to your typical MAC, afterwhich the Amiga is stereotyped by PC 
>users. I bet all of you have had at least 3 viruses, while I have had only one!
>Call me lucky? Well, I also have a 400 disk library of floppies that 
>I collected over the past year. Most of these are European software. 
>I dare you use this much Euro-software. Shall I mention the 
>word "Michealangelo". (Evil Grin) That's what I'll do, write MSDOS 
>viruses for a living. He he he he. What the hell would I care?
>I know it is no joking matter. But just think, most doctors use 
>MSDOS and MAC computers. Just imagine how many medical records were lost!
>Oh how much AIDS patient's records were tweaked by some MAC/MSDOS worm-virus. 
>Safety is the question.

	I know you said its no joking matter, but I don't think thats a very
   good attitude to take about viruses.  Thats people lives you're screwing
   with.  Anyways, I would hope that those Micros that have critical data on
   them, are running virus killing programs.  But, if you feel the need to 
   screw over people's lives go ahead and write your virus.

>I could go on talking about things such as the graphics boards 
>that can draw 100 million pixels a second and the '030 acceleration boards
>for the Amiga 500 that sell for 500 dollars and run at about 40mhz, 
>but I will not. Just keep this in mind, the 486 is just a sped up 
>386 with some extra cache instructions. The 040 is a whole different CPU that 
>has some RISC architecture and many more features than a 486 (also faster).
>By the way, I bought my Amiga 3000 for 2300. A 68040 just costs me an 
>extra 1500 dollars, which I have, but I have set my mind on buying a 
>386 for my mother, who must use PC's for her work. 

	Why would your mother be using PC's at work?  According to you the
  Amiga is soooooo superior, why aren't business's buying them in droves.
  
							G.Greene

  
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy