From: skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls)
Subject: Re: Future Amiga chipsets
Organization: University of Mississippi, Dept. of Computer Science
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 02:53:25 GMT

In article <Bz84Aw.CGt@news.iastate.edu> barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N. Barrett) writes:
>In article <1992Dec13.024304.18878@spartan.ac.BrockU.CA> tmc@spartan.ac.BrockU.CA (Tim Ciceran) writes:
>>In article <Bz5v54.93u@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu> papresco@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu (Paul Prescod) writes:
>>
>>>Why don't you pick up a PC magazine, it would be quite a shock.  The PC
>>>world is undergoing quite the transformation.  VESA local bus coupled
>>>with Graphics coprocessing and a bunch of new sound cards.  Perhaps,
>>>though, you are right, maybe CBM isn't innovating, just buying other
>>>people's parts and slapping them together.  It's been YEARS since they
>>>did anything INNOVATIVE.
>>
>>It's taken 12 years to establish a bus standard which offers reasonable
>>performance and you call that innovative? What a dog and pony show.
>
>   How do you base this statement?  The IBM 8-bit XT bus offers good 
>performace with the 8086 and 8088 processors for which it was designed.  The
>16-bit ISA bus also offers good performance with the 80286 processors for
>which it was designed.  

What a riot!  Marc Barrett, the Queen of Bitching saying that the XT
bus is somehow good!  Get a clue Marc, no one, not even the most die-hard
Clone advocate will agree with you on this one.  Why in the world do you
continue to make such ridiculous statements?  The only thing in any way 
good about the ISA bus is that there are so many different types of cards
available.  The funny thing is that most of these cards are trying to make
up for the fact that the PC is such a dog.  The sad thing is that Intel
finally introduced a decent CPU with the 386 and 486 only to have the Clone
makers cripple it with such a horrible bus.

>   Granted, the industry had to wait a while to get a bus standard that offers
>good performance with the Intel 32-bit processors, but the wait wasn't 12
>years.  The 80386 has only been available for less than four years.  (I forget
>exactly how long the 386 has been available)

Again, you are making a ridiculous statement only because you are trying to
prove that you really are a total idiot.  How many machines do you really
think use the EISA bus?  Pick up a Computer Shopper or visit your local
Bozo Clone Emporium and see how many 386 and 486 machines actually have an
EISA bus.  The machines being sold today are equivalent to a 1970's style
family automobile with a late 1980's high-performance engine, new tires,
a paint job, and a CD player.  The car looks okay, goes fast, sounds good,
and even seems to handle better, but it still drives like crap.

>   BTW, is the Amiga market totally free of long waits for updates to basic
>technologies?  How long will we have to wait for virtual memory from 
>Commodore?

We?  What do you mean "we"?  I and I suspect many others are sincerely hoping 
>that you will not last much longer...

Please explain to me why I want VM.  On every system that I have used, be
it Windows, UNIX, or what have you, the performance has not been acceptable
and the only remedy is to add more real memory.  If an Amiga is ever as 
slow as a Clone running Windows with VM, I guarantee you will finally get
the mass exodus that you have been hoping for.

>(I noted in the transcripts of Lou Eggebrecht's (sp) talks that Commodore has
>no plans for virtual memory)  How long did the Amiga market have to wait for
>decent color capability?  How long will the Amiga market have to wait for
>updates to the sound capabilities in the lowest-common-denominator Amigas?

Decent color capability?  Marc, coming from you that sounds a bit like a
compliement.  Has something recently crawled out of your ass and made you
a happier person?  Oh come on Marc, you know that it still flickers in the
800x600 mode!  You aren't happy with that and you know it.

As for updates to the sound capabilities, why have you not been bitching
about the capabilities of the Macs and the Clones?  Could it be that you
realize that the standard Amiga sound is still competitive with those
platforms after all these years?  No, I just don't believe that you are
capable of that...

>How long will the Amiga market have to wait for memory protection and OS
>features to make AmigaOS virus-resistant?  How long will the Amiga market have

Viruses?  What viruses are you talking about?  I have used Amigas since
early 1986 and have never encountered a single virus.  Yet they are a real 
threat to Clones and to your precious Macs.  You must have a huge asshole
to keep pulling all of this bullshit out of it.

>to wait for device-independent graphics?  How long will the Amiga market
>have to wait for CD-ROM support from Copmmodore for the higher-end Amigas?

Less time than you think...

>How long will the Amiga market have to wait for MPEG decompression hardware
>products for the high-end Amigas?

Oh, so now it is _hardware_, a few weeks ago it was _software_.  I bet you
were really pissed off when that MPEG player appeared last week, weren't
you?  How many high-end Macs and Clones come equipped with MPEG hardware?
For that matter, how many computers period come with it?  Get real.

>>For 90% of the PC industry, R&D means replicate and duplicate.
>
>   Hardly.  In the PC industry, most of R&D is spent on software-oriented
>research and development.  The Amiga market seems must more infatuated with

Don't be such a moron Marc.  When he said R&D, you know good and well
that he meant hardware and not software.  If you think that the hordes
of Clone makers are doing any R&D beyond playing catchup and cost-reduce,
you are really stupid.  Even the Big Boys like IBM, Compaq, HP, DEC, and
others are spending money redesigning their Clones to compete with the
low-end crap that is killing the industry.

>hot hardware and less oriented toward real computing applications.  This is
>possibly because 90% of Amiga owners are the types who have more credit than
>brains, and are continuously spending 80% of their family's after-tax incomes
>on Amiga hardware.

You really aren't doing yourself any good making such ridiculous claims as
this one.  Of course, it's not as if you have any credibility to lose...

Marc, I just purchased an A4000 and more recently 4M RAM and several new
software packages.  I am going to buy a 17" multisync, SCSI-II board, and
several other really neat peripherals in the next few months.  But I can
assure you that I am spending nowhere near 80% of my income, after taxes
or otherwise, on Amiga hardware and software.

>| Marc Barrett -MB-  |  email: barrett@iastate.edu


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

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy