HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: pss1@kepler.unh.edu (Paul S Secinaro)
Subject: Re: Amiga 4000/Atari Falcon
Organization: University of New Hampshire  -  Durham, NH
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 11:58:42 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.234519.24627@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> abs0@coos.dartmouth.edu (Kelvin Leung) writes:

>>Not much.  There are some minor (minute) MMU and instruction set differences
>>and a built-in FPU and cache.  It just runs a hell of a lot faster than a
>>386/387 combo.
>
>may I repeat myself once again... "What can a 486 do that a 386 can't?"

I'm not sure what your point is here.  I could as easily ask: "What
can a '040 do that a '030 can't?", or "What can a MIPS R4000 do that
an R2000 can't?".  Obviously, speed is the difference, and in the
computer world, speed is usually more important that added features in
the instruction set, IMHO.  There are things you might be able to do
with a faster processor that you wouldn't be able to do with a slower
one, even though it's binary compatible (real-time MPEG decompression,
or something like that, for example).

>now... what does those minor instruction difference has anything to do
>with my question?  please remember... we are talking about running IBM
>software... is there any 486 specific software out there?  (and please
>dont tell me NeXTSTEP 486, as it isn't out yet).  More importantly,
>how many people actually use those 486 specific software?

No, but I can show you some 386 specific software that is much nicer
to use on a 486 (MathCAD comes to mind - it's not actually
386-specific, but who runs Windows on a 286 these days?).  As I said,
speed is an inherent factor in the usefulness of a CPU.  This is
especially true for real-time tasks, where you often have strict
timing requirements.

>	option 2:
>              get one of those A500-->A2000 tower thingy.  Some of them
>              gives the A500 all the A2000 slots... which means an A500
>              can use the VideoToasters, C='s accelerator, C='s scsi adaptor...
>              what for, you may ask... well... once you got your C= 030 acc.
>              and scsi card, you can then run UNIX.   you think 25Mhz isn't
>              fast enough?  then add that 50Mhz accelerator... now,
>              does that rival a UNIXstation?  

That's fine, but how much is all this going to cost?

>Besides... if you did manage to convince some of us to jump boat to 
>the IBM market... well... congratulations.  However, the same group of
>people would easily jump boat to another system when someone else
>convinces them...           

I'll jump boat to anything that gives me a good deal (in my
perception).  I find that most PC users are not religious about their
computers.  Many buy on price/performance or software availability,
and that can be a good thing.  I'm still waiting for those cheap R4000
Windows NT boxes that were supposed to flood the market, though.  I'm
not holding my breath :).


Paul
-- 
Paul Secinaro
pss1@kepler.unh.edu
Synthetic Vision and Pattern Analysis Laboratory
UNH Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: u894776@bruny.cc.utas.edu.au (James McCoull)
Subject: NEW AMIGAS!
Organization: University of Tasmania, Australia.
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 04:43:55 GMT

NEW AMIGAS? NO! NEW ARCHIMEDES! FROM THE LOW END TO THE HIGH END!

Well no information on new amigas, but I can tell you that a machine called
the "A4000" was released last thursday.  No relation to the rumoured amiga 4000
- this machine is a *real* non-vapour machine.  It was released along with
a number of models [of varying performance] - prices start at #499 [uk]
for a one megabyte machine, with 2 megabytes of rom [possibly the worlds most
approachable low-end operating system? this baby includes *many* useful tools
and resources on rom, also read my lips "MP"!], with a 2 megabyte high density
drive.

This new line of machines represents a continuation of the ARM2/3 risc line
of microcomputers that were released in 1987 or so.  The very machines that
provided a high performance grey-scale font system back in 1987, 4.5+ MIPS of
processing power, and resolutions of over 1280x256 in 256 colours
[non interlaced, of course VGA and multisync resolutions were available].
Today with the release of the new machines [basically
faster, cheaper and revised models], providing tools such as text editors,
sprite editors, structured graphics editors, simple interpreted language,
many outline fonts and much much more - all on rom, means that computers
offering power without price are back again!

For interested folks, I recommend you take a squiz at the following news
groups!
	comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
	comp.sys.acorn.announce
	comp.sys.acorn.tech

Also feel free to contact me for further information on these machines!

PS: I am only posting this for the folks who may have heard about the new
amiga machines... and are dissapointed.

BTW: if you live in the USA [marketing decision coming up...] its probably
best to forget about getting one of these little beasts.  Support for the
machines is/will be  strongest in UK, EUROPE, NZ, AUST, as well as quite
a few random places around the globe.

__

James McCoull  u894776@bruny.cc.utas.edu.au

Amiga      - Price without power?
Archimedes - Power without price!
Atari 	   - Nice machine pity they've gone broke!?

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: trevore@vast.unsw.edu.au (Trevor Elbourne (Supr. Hell) BE)
Subject: Re: OS/2 vs. AmigaOS 
Organization: University of New South Wales
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 10:22:34 GMT

: The Amiga is lacking in IPC mechanisms.  It doesn't have enough
: support for multi-threaded applications, which is probably why we
: haven't seen too many of them.


How can the amiga support multi-threading when the OS doesn't use
virtual memory management? Multi-threading means strating up another
process in the same address space, thus allowing fine grained sharing
and reduced context switch overhead. The amiga only has *one* address
space and all processes use it, so in effect the whole system is
multi-threaded. But this isn't really true as multi-threading only
applies to virtual memory systems.

: 
: >Ty Sarna				           tsarna@endicor.com
: 
: -- 
: Colin Adams       Honours Student - James Cook University of North Queensland
:   "And if I seem a little strange, well that's because I am." - The Smiths 

Cheers
	Trevor Elbourne
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: mlelstv@specklec.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Michael van Elst)
Subject: Re: More AmigaWorld Lies
Organization: Max-Planck-Institut f"ur Radioastronomie
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 09:15:57 GMT

In <52918@dime.cs.umass.edu> barrett@snoopy.cs.umass.edu (Daniel Barrett) writes:
>	Hell, in a nearby town, there are *two* stores that specialize in
>the Amiga on the same *street*!  I guess I can conclude that every street
>has 2 Amiga dealers, making the total... oh... seven hundred thousand?

Nonono... you must use the average dealer density per square foot.
As Carl Sagan would point out there must be billions and billions...

Regards,
-- 
Michael van Elst
UUCP:     universe!local-cluster!milky-way!sol!earth!uunet!unido!mpirbn!p554mve
Internet: p554mve@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
                                "A potential Snark may lurk in every tree."
From: tsarna@endicor.com (Ty Sarna)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Best rumor of the week!!
Date: 2 Sep 92 10:11:10 GMT
Organization: Endicor Technologies, Inc., San Antonio, Texas

In article <52702@dime.cs.umass.edu> barrett@scooby.cs.umass.edu (Daniel Barrett) writes:
> 
> 	I heard a rumor that "Jeff Young" is actually an assumed name
> that Irving Gould uses when he wants to post to USENET.  Any truth
> to this?

You DODOHEAD! Me know jeff young really JOHN DVORAK PC MAGAZINE. Take
look any issue pc magazine, see INSIDE TRACKS column of JOHN DVORAK. 
See way dvorak UNNECCESSARRILLY EMPHASIS parts of sentance STRANGE
PLACES like JEFF YOUNG. strange BIFFLIKE GRAMMAR JEFF YOUNG and PRETEND
SUPPORT FALCON really cover so we no know he really OVERPAID CLUELESS
WRITER. st amiga mac owner know YOUNG/DVORAK is actual ENEMY MOTOROLA
COMPUTER USER. so mr young go take STOOPID BYTEORDER CHIP and shove up
you LITTLE ENDIAN. user MOTOROLA COMPUTER know TRUTH that bigendian
softwares CHEAPER AND BETTER than you WINDOWS and MICORSOFT WORDPERFECT.

sorry AMIGA ADVOCACY reader but this result INSOMNIA and EASY USENET
ACCESS at LATE NIGTH TIME.... now go try SLEEP and HAPPY DREAMS AA
CHIPSET.


Ty ;-)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: mlelstv@speckled.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Michael van Elst)
Subject: Re: Does the AmigaOS pre-emptively multitask?
Organization: Max-Planck-Institut f"ur Radioastronomie
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 20:31:38 GMT

In <1992Aug31.183436.42688@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> thompson@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>Does all this mean that the AmigaOS does not have pre-emptive
>multitasking?  If a programmer can design his application to tie
>up the system, does this mean that the system is not strictly
>pre-emptive?

No, the difference is that a program has to do something to be nonpreemptive
(and no standard program does this). Under a nonpreemptive OS a program
explicitely has to call a function to give up the CPU.

Regards,
-- 
Michael van Elst
UUCP:     universe!local-cluster!milky-way!sol!earth!uunet!unido!mpirbn!p554mve
Internet: p554mve@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
                                "A potential Snark may lurk in every tree."
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: cpca@marlin.jcu.edu.au (Colin Adams)
Subject: Re: Atari Falcon Discount Supermachine  
Organization: James Cook University
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 92 04:05:37 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.150337.27436@ra.msstate.edu> skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls) writes:
>Why are so many different sound generators needed?  The NeXT has really nice
>sound and it only has the 56001 and a couple of DACs.  I'd imagine that the
>Falcon could have been even less expensive had they just used one sound
>system instead of 3 (or is it 4?).  The old ST sound chip is about as complex
>as the old SID chip in the C64 (or maybe even less so), so why not let the
>DSP emulate it?  

The old ST sound chip is worse that the C-64 SID chip.  It is the same
chip that was found in the Z-80 based Amstrad CPC I used to have 
(still have somewhere in a box) and the sound was utter crap.
It would require some tricky software to emulate the thing though -
it was programmed by writing directly to the chip registers.  They
would have problems with lots of old games.

>Skip Sauls

-- 
Colin Adams       Honours Student - James Cook University of North Queensland
  "And if I seem a little strange, well that's because I am." - The Smiths
From: root@rkamiga.UUCP (Rick Kelly)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re:  No Figs in the Apple Newton
Distribution: world
Date: 3 Sep 92 17:09:27 EST
Organization: Rick's Amiga

In article <1992Sep2.015301.16333@news.iastate.edu> barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett) writes:
>In article <1992Sep1.004948.21129@ra.msstate.edu> ada@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Sunga Rettaf) writes:
>>In article <kdarling.715298464@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu> kdarling@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes:
>>>jprad@faatcrl.UUCP (Jack Radigan) writes:
>>>>TomK@cup.portal.com (Tom R Krotchko) writes:
>>
>><< Legal discussion deleted >>
>>
>>>I believe that ATT and someone else is coming up with a line of PDAs
>>>to compete with Apple's Newton... only theirs are called "Hobbits"!
>>>Wonder if they'll have to pay for that name?
>>
>>Will Commodore be offering a PDA of any sort?  It might be difficult
>>for them to develop a hand-held Amiga compatible, but they might at
>>least offer something which uses the many IFF files available.
>
>   Apple invested has invested a great deal of money in a manufacturer of 
>low-power RISC microprocessors in developing the Newton.  Apple has also 
>devoted a sizable amount of their $200+ Million per year R&D budgets in
>developing the Newton.  With Commodore's R&D budgets hovering around 
>$25 million or less, I can tell you now that the answer to the question of
>whether or not Commodore will develop a PDA is clearly "NO".

It will be interesting to see what will happen with the Newton.  I see its
main market as being gadget freaks.  It really won't replace laptops as it
doesn't not run full featured word processor and spreadsheet software. There
are already products like the Casio B.O.S.S that will keep track of personal
data like phone numbers and addresses, among other things.  There are already
pen entry computers out there, and they aren't doing all that well.

The newton can send faxes.  From its size, it would appear that it contains
a 600 mw cellular phone.  These low power cellular phones are known for poor
reception when used in fringe areas.  It will probably work best outside,
rather than inside a building.  And if the whole unit is powered by one set
of batteries, it will probably spend a lot of time on the recharger.

From what I understand from reading BusinessWeek, the premise behind the
Newton is that Skully likes to have a fax machine wherever he goes.

--
Rick Kelly		Rick's Amiga		Framingham, Mass.

		think!unixland!rmkhome!rkamiga!root

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: matt@gbrmpa.gov.au (Matt)
Subject: Re: AmigaWorld LIES about Amiga Links
Organization: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 12:23:53 GMT

In article <1992Aug31.094150.7646@news.iastate.edu> barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett) writes:
>
>   What is my point about all this?  This is only the beginning for games on
>the IBM platform.  Now that some games have already started coming out that
>support SVGA, more will come.  It will be a *LONG* time before enough Amiga
>systems have sold with AA chipsets to justify software developers producing
>games that support comparable resolutions and color capabilities on the
>Amiga.  

IBM/Clones are only good for certain types of games, everyone will agree
on that, and we all know which categories these are.

As for atmosphere, I have never played a game on a personal computer that
could compare to the Amiga.

I completed Monkey Island on my 2000/030, I completed Monkey Island 2 on my
486+SB and much preferred the Amiga, it has a much nicer feel, even with the
8bit colour on the PC.

I couldn't care less if Amiga games never came out with AA support, I'd rather
see Applications support, games function well enough already.

Stop stressing out so much Marc, as Arnie says "Relax, you'll live longer"

matt.
----
matt@matt.gbrmpa.gov.au (486/OS2+TCP/IP)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com (Dennis Heffernan)
Subject: Re: NEW AMIGAS!
Organization: Xanadu Enterprises Inc.
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 19:19:00 GMT

In article <u894776.715409035@bruny> u894776@bruny.cc.utas.edu.au (James McCoull) writes:
|NEW AMIGAS? NO! NEW ARCHIMEDES! FROM THE LOW END TO THE HIGH END!
|

	Thank you so much for this information.

	Now get lost.


dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com   ...uunet!tronsbox!dfrancis     GEnie: D.HEFFERNAN1
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I don't understand why you make such a big deal out of everything...haven't
you learned; if it's not happenning to me it's not important?" -Murphy Brown

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: cpca@marlin.jcu.edu.au (Colin Adams)
Subject: Re: Amiga 4000 & HYPE!
Organization: James Cook University
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 09:44:55 GMT

In article <joe.715241690@milton> amigo@milton.u.washington.edu (The Friend) writes:
>
>	well what can I add here? I may as well waste some bandwidth to
>throw in the towel about a few things of IBM vs. Amiga.. first off my
>standpoint is from the PC side  - I'm ex-Amiga owner turned PC because...

[ reasons deleted ]

>	Yup - none of this is reasonable to the .advocacy folks.. Amigas
>are supremely the best. At one time it was true, but that was 4-5 years ago..
>todays technology is much further along, though doesn't include
>the same hardware design as the Amiga. 

I don't think you see much of that attitude in this group anymore.  
Most people know we have fallen behind in a lot of areas and IMO there 
is little chance of ever catching up.

>In brief, even the A3000 hasn't
>come much further then a CPU upgrade since the Amiga's introduction in '85...

Well we're about to get an upgrade.  Too little, too late?  I really think
it will all depend on C='s pricing policy.

>						Joe Anon

-- 
Colin Adams       Honours Student - James Cook University of North Queensland
  "And if I seem a little strange, well that's because I am." - The Smiths 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.misc
From: jseymour@medar.com (James Seymour)
Subject: Re: CDTV is dead.
Organization: Medar, Inc.     Farmington Hills, MI
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 16:46:15 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.062917.3751@desire.wright.edu> fheitkamp@desire.wright.edu writes:
>In article <1992Aug24.194349.13994@kas.helios.mn.org>, rhealey@kas.helios.mn.org (Rob Healey) writes:
>
>[ lots of your typical advocacy whinning and bitching deleted ]
>
>( start rattling of chains, groans and mournful sighs....)
>
>( ...and some wolves howling and a scream or two...)
>
>> 	of the upper level in the jobs of people who knew what to do. That we
>> 	are doomed to Mac's and PC's for all of eternity because of this rather
>        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>	half dead corpses walking around dragging PCs anMACs chained to
>	them.
>	

Somebody that's obviously had to code for these things :-).

>> 	than Zorro based architectures is a large enough crime in and of itself.
>> 	That they'd let the R&D, sales support and software development slide
>> 	as well is adding insult to injury.
>> 
>> 		-Rob
>
>	Sorry,  Halloween is only a couple months away :-)
>Fred Heitkamp3


-- 
Jim Seymour				| "If NT is the answer, it must
...uunet!medar!jseymour			|  be a really silly question"
jseymour@medar.com			|      Warner Losh
CIS: 72730,1166  GEnie: jseymour	|      Computer Power Software
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls)
Subject: Re: Atari Falcon Discount Supermachine  Re: Sydnes is gone?!!
Organization: University of Mississippi, Dept. of Computer Science
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 20:01:09 GMT

In article <1992Aug29.210032.19728@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> jyoung@nyx.cs.du.edu (Jeff Young) writes:
>In article <1992Aug27.152935.28954@uwm.edu> gblock@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Gregory R Block) writes:
>
>>And that's just wishful thinking.  On both counts.  People aren't
>>"refusing" to sell the 600, and like I said, it's not really that
>>non-compliant.  Nearly every new game will run and most old ones do.
>
>Many people remember Amiga Format magazine news about Amiga dealers
>REFUSING A500+/A600 because many softwear not running.

And many people remember you posting the same seneless drivel over and
over again week after week...

>Not sure if Curry, High Street, JLP, Littlewood, Argos selling A600.

And I'm not sure if you have a neanderthal brain or a chimpanzee brain.

>>_Game_ machines.  Did you see your own mistake?  The A600 is NOT a
>>game machine.  It is a computer intended to be sold to the same market
>>that the C64 sold to, once upon a time.
>
>??? A600 is not game machine??! A600 is selling to SAME people buying
>C64??? You are right!  C64 is BUSINESS machine!! C= designers CHOP
>OFF A600 numberpad because BUSINESS people complaining! BUSINESS
>people telling C= to not include clock in A600 because time not
>important!

You bozo, they chopped off the numeric keypad so that morons like you
wouldn't get confused by seeing the same characters on more than one key.

>Even for hobby machine A600 is poor value because developers now
>like 68030, DSP, SVGA color, SCSI2, LAN, 16 bit stereo, MIDI,....

As far as a hobby machine goes, at least it has a bus.  Good luck trying
to expand the pathetic little bird from Atari.

>>motherboard signals.  However, unlike the Falcon, those same systems
>>also give you a REAL bus, Zorro II/III.
>
>REAL bus Zorro III and PCMIA have REAL crazy price tag. My prediction..
>A600 will be big flop in America because people NOT REAL stupid.

Compared to you, the stupidest person that I've ever met looks like a 
genius.  You are a perfect example of what has happened to the American
educational system due to a Democratic Congress.  

Skip Sauls
skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu



Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls)
Subject: Re: Re: A4000 Specs? Who knows.
Organization: University of Mississippi, Dept. of Computer Science
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 20:58:01 GMT

In article <64950@cup.portal.com> TomK@cup.portal.com (Tom R Krotchko) writes:
>>>Not SCSI??? I would be surprised, and disappointed!
>>
>>As someone has already pointed out--this might be a smart move on
>>C='s part.  A4000 owners can then go out and buy those large and inexpensive
>>IBM harddrives.
>
>There's virtually *no* difference between the prices of IDE and SCSI
>harddrivers; perhaps $50. Worse, IDE is rarely found in drives much
>bigger than 300M, and I'm not sure if a 1G IDE drive even exists.

If you need or want SCSI, I'm sure that several 3rd parties will oblige.
How many Amiga owners do you know with >100M hard drives?  If we had to
suffer with bloated code like Windows we might need the big drives, but
I'm having trouble filling my 200M HD.  

>The reason the IDE drive is cheaper is the price of the "controller".
>A SCSI "controller" is considerably more expensive than an IDE "controller".

I'd also bet that the number of IDE drives being sold for PCs will mean
that the prices will only get better.

>But it would imply a SCSI card would be an option for this machine, mostly
>because expansion becomes a tad problematic on an IDE interface.

And if you don't need a tape drive or other SCSI devices it will meand that
the machine is that much more affordable.

>TomK@cup.portal.com
>Tom Krotchko

Skip Sauls
skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu
From: darling@cellar.org (Thomas Darling)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Atari Falcon Discount Supermachine  Re: Sydnes is gone?!!
Date: 2 Sep 92 02:45:46 GMT
Organization: The Cellar BBS and public access system

skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls) self-destructs:

> You and all your Atari Falcon worshipping buddies

You are invited to locate one post, anywhere, in which I said the Falcon was
better than any other computer, and quote the relevant section.

Failure to do so will prove your level of honesty to be on par with "Read my
lips: no new taxes."  Or, "I'll create 15 million jobs."  Or even "I will be
the education president."

But then again, that's already been proven.  Savor it, bucko.

^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^\\\^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~
Thomas A. Darling \\\ Fact HQ Studio * record production * dance re-mixing
darling@cellar.org \\\ music for film * The Cellar BBS:215/654-9184 * FACT
v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~\\\~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~v~