HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: New Product Opinions
Date: 14 Sep 92 18:21:15 GMT
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA

In article <jayson.03gz@tbag.tscs.com> jayson@tbag.tscs.com (Jayson Phillips) writes:

>On 4Sep1992 barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett) writes:

>>   The IBM slots don't cost more than a few dollars to install.  

>These IBM slots cost more than many people seem to realize.  

No, Mark is actually right here, they cost very little.

>Take four slot connectors  with,  say,  100 pins each.  That's 400 solder 
>connections that have  to be tested for continuity.  

The backplane card has to be tested.  It's tested on an automatic tester, all
pins at once.  Once you're going to test something, it doesn't make that much
difference how many pins are there.  In theory, the number of pins can make the
chance of failures go up, but in practice the regular 0.100 connectors cause
manufacturing failures only very rarely.

>The slot connectors themselves actually cost  more than chips that might 
>take up the same space.  

These are PC Clone connectors, the cheapest edge connectors known to man.  Do
you have any idea how many of these things are made (think of all those PCs,
then multiply by maybe 5 on the average).  As for "chips that might take up the
same space", that's a straw man if ever I heard one.  First off, there's no need
for any new chips on an A3000 or A4000 backplane, that would just be unused PCB
if the PC connectors weren't there.  Plus, the cost of chips that could be put
there doing no specificed function spans several orders of magnitude -- I could
probably fill it with jelly bean TTL for under $1.00, or big expensive RISC
chips and DSPs for over $1000.

>Then  there's  the  logic  chips  needed to interface  these  slots to the 
>rest of the system.  

There is no logic between the PC slots and the motherboard, that's provided by
the Bridge Card, if you get one.

>The  mother  board  has  to be larger to accomadate the slots which means the 
>case has to be larger to accomadate the mother board.  

NOT!  The slots are on a backplane card, and as mentioned, we pay for the PCB
space whether the slots are there or not.

>If  there  had  been a cheaper A3000 without IBM slots I'd have bought that
>instead  of  the  current  A3000.  

Wow!  A savings of what, $15?  It would have cost C= more to make the two
models.

-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      BIX: hazy
	"Work like a horse, drink like a fish"	- Psychefunkapus
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett)
Subject: Re: Interlace video (Was Re: PC (OS/2) / Amiga debate)
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 05:37:30 GMT

In article <1992Sep5.185133.1137@msus1.msus.edu> lkoop@TIGGER.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU writes:
>In article <1992Sep5.225517.12947@news.iastate.edu>, barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett) writes:
>>In article <1992Sep05.031953.27917@microsoft.com> iank@microsoft.com (Ian Kennedy) writes:
>>>
>>>If one does not like interlace flicker on their Amiga then they can
>>>get hardware to fix it. It's cheap and you can fix ANY amiga to solve the
>>>interlaced video flicker "problem".
>>
>>   Not in the SuperHiRes or Productivity interlaced mode on the ECS, and not
>>on the Productivity or Super72 interlaced modes on AA.
>
>    Productivity mode is a non-interlaced mode by nature.

   Productivity is non-interlaced, but Productivity interlaced is --
SURPRISE!!  -- INTERLACED.

>                 ----------------------------------------
>           LaMonte Koop -- SCSU Electrical/Computer Engineering
> Internet: lkoop@tigger.stcloud.msus.edu -OR- f00012@kanga.stcloud.msus.edu
>              "You mean you want MORE lights on this thing???"
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

---
| Marc Barrett -MB-  |  email: barrett@iastate.edu
--------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: ata@hfsi.uucp (John Ata FSO)
Subject: Re: Amiga 4000/Atari Falcon
Reply-To: ata@hfsi.UUCP (John Ata FSO)
Organization: HFSI, McLean VA.
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 20:18:19 GMT

In article <1992Aug28.151546.22611@ctr.columbia.edu> jerry@connection.prospect.com (Jerry Shekhel) writes:
>lindblad@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Jarkko Lindblad) writes:
>>: 
>>: What?!  Where in the above did I bash the Amiga?
>>
>>Perhaps you did not do it intentionally, but your words "Didn't think
>>so." immediately appeared in my mind as "Naah, Amiga can't do even
>>that, it sucks"....
>>
>
>Jarkko, this is PARANOIA, pure and simple.  If you're really this obsessed,
>get some help.
>
>>
>>Okay: OS/2 is _not_ real time operatoing system. And this one alone is
>>enough to proove you that OS/2 lacks some functionality AmigaOS has.
>>
>
>AmigaOS is a real-time OS?  Since when?  What real-time features does it
>have that OS/2 does not?
>

My recollection is that usually real-time OS's are time sensitive
and guaranteed to respond to an event by a certain time.  Having a
multi-tasking or multi-user OS with virtual memory makes this very
difficult to attain since the timing would depend totally on the
amount of disk I/O (paging) of other objects in relationship to
the object at hand.

>| Jerry J. Shekhel  | Molecular Simulations | Time just fades the pages      |


-- 
John G. Ata - Technical Consultant | Internet:     ata@hfsi.com
HFS, Inc.		  VA20     |     UUCP:     uunet!hfsi!ata
7900 Westpark Drive	 MS:601	   |    Voice:	(703) 827-6810
McLean, VA  22102	           |      FAX:	(703) 827-3729
From: root@rkamiga.UUCP (Rick Kelly)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re:  C= (Sweden) does things right!
Date: 12 Sep 92 18:38:29 GMT
Organization: Rick's Amiga

In article <copes.716192784@marsh> copes@cs.curtin.edu.au (Simon Cope) writes:
>borgen@stud.cs.uit.no (Boerge Noest) writes:
>
>
>>C= is dropping much of the 'tie-and-suit' apperance, and has decided that
>>hackers&demogroups are a major group of Amiga users. Therefore they are
>>sponsoring a democompetition: 1st price an Amiga 3000 100HD/25Mhz 6M ram.
>>2nd price A600 (with HD?). 3rd price A590.
>
>>This seems to be in line with reports of usergroups getting support from
>>C=.
>
>C= oz seems to be the same.  They are supplying nearly as much material to
>user-groups as to developers.  The only things devs are getting over them
>is pre-release info & products.  And they apparently aren't going to ship
>2.1 unix here.  Bummer.  :-(  If they did some research, they would realise
>they could sell tons of unix boxes to the unis.  Ship one with 2.1, 400M HD,
>10Mb ram, monitor for a decent price and they would sell heaps.  A lecturer
>asked me about them, but reckions they're not worth it at the price, because
>they get suns for A$7500.
>Perhaps when Dillon finishes porting BSD 4.4 we will see some cheaper systems,
>that use an 040.

I think you're going to have a long wait.  Matt has basically dropped the
BSD 4.4 project until he sees the outcome of the AT&T/BSDI suit.

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

		think!unixland!rmkhome!rkamiga!root
From: jprad@faatcrl.UUCP (Jack Radigan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Random tidbits regarding WOC & A4000
Date: 14 Sep 92 01:19:47 GMT
Organization: FAA Technical Center, Atlantic City NJ

peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:

>Negligably. If you celebrate buying a new computer with a steak dinner
>at a moderately good restaurant you've wiped out the price advantage, and
>there are plenty of sources of SCSI drives since it's standard on the Mac
>and on *all* workstations and serious UNIX PCs.

  The dinner is optional, not a prerequisite to purchasing the system. ;-)

  True, there are plenty of sources of drives, all of them more expensive
than IDE drives of equivalent storage and quality.  The other, non-HD devices
are not needed by average users.  And, that's my point, if you need them, you
can get a SCSI controller of your choosing instead of having to use a 
Commodore supplied, and possibly less sophisticated implementation of one.

>Anyone planning on keeping their computer more than a couple of years.
>Plus, SCSI can control tapes as well. I've investigated the various
>floppy-tape kludges, and I'm not trusting my data to them.

  No doubt that they can control them or that people *might* need them
eventually, but try to look at it from the average users point of view, not
that of a power user which are the minority, not the majority.

>SCSI isn't "high end". It's "minimal acceptible". It's as much a requirement
>for me as multitasking, and most Amiga buyers are likely to have the same
>opinion or they wouldn't be buying Amigas... they'd be getting least common
>denominator PC-clones. Putting IDE in the 4000 (what is someone who's not a
>power user doing with a 4000 anyway?) is going to REALLY hurt sales. I'd take
>a 3000 with SCSI over a 4000 with IDE myself.

  I really think that IDE is a non-issue among average users.  The talk in a 
local dealer confirms this as well, all people care about is being able to 
buy cheap hard disks, they don't appreicate or care what SCSI does for them 
technically, only economically since it does the one thing that they do care 
about, store data.

  -jack-
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough)
Subject: A4000 Limitations (for sound)?, video,...
Organization: University of Toronto, Dept. of Statistics
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 09:20:51 GMT

The recent announcement of the A4000 doesn't mention any limitations
with respect to sound. As I understand it the AGA graphics are coprocessed
with a 32bit path to the chip(?). Does this mean one can move 8 bit graphics
(and the other modes) around the screen in a snappy way? Comparable to local
bus video on the PC or faster?
 
The announcement mentions 8 bit sound. Is there a technical reason for not
including 16 bit sound? Does the design of the A4000 include any limitations
w.r.t. implementing 16 bit (or higher) sound (as, I gather the A3000 has in
the video area)?
 
Given the new graphics subsystem, would a VGA bridgeboard now be possible (with
PC tasks running as Amiga one)?

What about CDTV and the A4000? That is, is there an A570 equivalent for the
A4000 planned?
 
Lot's of questions...The A4000 appears most interesting.
 
Philip McDunnough
University of Toronto
philip@utstat.toronto.edu


Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: fineberg@wupost.wustl.edu (Charles M. Fineberg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: World of Commodore summary, 9/12, part 2 (LONG)
Date: 14 Sep 1992 17:44:26 -0500
Organization: Washington University in Saint Louis, MO USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: wuarchive.wustl.edu
Keywords: new chipsets, WOC

marks@castle.ed.ac.uk (Mark Steyn) writes:

>I seem to have missed the original posts and would be grateful if
>someone could mail them to me.

  This is my first ever "Me too" post.  Our version of innd went nuts
and expired everything over 24 hrs old...
	Charlie
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: jeffo@uiuc.edu (J.B. Nicholson-Owens)
Subject: Re: A4000 Specs? Who knows.
Reply-To: jeffo@uiuc.edu (J.B. Nicholson-Owens)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 07:36:10 GMT

Marc N Barrett writes
> This works well on paper, but not in reality.  Consider for instance
> the situation with Amiga CD-ROM drives.  If Commodore is going to
> bring out CD-ROM drives for every Amiga, they will have to bring out
> FOUR different models: one for the A500, one for the A600, one for
> A2500 & A2000HD & A3000 systems (with SCSI interfaces), and one for
> the new systems with IDE  interfaces. 

What a joke that makes the Amiga.  If this is accurate, CBM will probably  
end up recommending a SCSI card for the IDE systems (thereby suckering you  
into giving them even more money for cleaning up their own mess) just so  
you can buy (you guessed it) ANOTHER of their products.

> Now consider the situation on the Macintosh platform; even  after the
> new Amiga systems hit the market, Apple will have about three times
> more Macintosh systems on the market as Commodore has Amiga systems.  

And probably always will.

> Yet Apple only has to bring out *ONE* CD-ROM drive that will work on ALL
> Macintosh systems currently on the market.

As do other vendors who are actually keeping up with technology.  But this  
isn't the only place where Amiga is sorely lacking in technical expertise:  
video, sound, operating system (gee, I really *enjoy* working with an OS  
that allows one crashed process to bring down the ENTIRE machine!).  Why  
won't CBM stop trying to make products for today based on technology of  
yesteryear?

Thinking about the future never seemed to be CBM's strong suit anyhow.  No  
reason why they should start now.
--
-- Jeff (jeffo@uiuc.edu)
-- no NeXTmail please
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: copes@cs.curtin.edu.au (Simon Cope)
Subject: Re: Stuff
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 06:46:06 GMT

daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes:

>In article <copes.716017389@marsh> copes@cs.curtin.edu.au (Simon Cope) writes:

>>The A600 may be more expandable than C= is letting on at present.  Apparently
>>there is a bunch of unused circuitry on the board.  Golem of germany have
>>announced an 030 accelerator for it which DOESN'T require the 68000 to be
>>chissled off the board.  Figure that one out.            

>Maybe it works like some of the Mac accelerators (I don't know much about the
>A600 design, this might not work on an A600).  On non-slotted Macs, like on the

Busy on more important things I see.  Good.  :-)

>A600, the 68000's bus arbitration signals don't really go anywhere.  If you're
>lucky, BR* and BGACK* go to a pullup resistor (actually, you only really need
>BGACK* for an accelerator).  The accelerator clamps on top of the 68000 and 
>takes the bus away from it, and you're off.  That's hardly designed-in 

A mate suggested a similar thing when I mentioned it to him.

>expandability -- anything that has to wedge itself into a socket or over a
>chip is by its very nature something of a kludge.  But even kludges can be
>useful.

Yep, as third party engineers demonstrated with the proliferation of A500
'expansion' cludges, if it can be done, it will be done.  C= seems to be trying
to stop this, but really have only delayed it a bit again.

>-- 
>Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
>   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      BIX: hazy
>	"Work like a horse, drink like a fish"	- Psychefunkapus

--
copes@cs.curtin.edu.au

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: jerry@connection.prospect.com (Jerry Shekhel)
Subject: Re: IBM lamers at their worst - uiuc siggraph meeting
Organization: Molecular Simulations, Inc.
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 16:02:20 GMT
X-Posted-From: connection.prospect.com
X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

matt@gbrmpa.gov.au (Matt) writes:
>
>Yep, that's right, Amiga is the only computer that can lay graphics
>onto video tape.
>

Bullshit.  My 1981 Atari 800 can do the same thing.

>
>matt.
>
--
+-------------------+-----------------------+--------------------------------+
| Jerry J. Shekhel  | Molecular Simulations | Time just fades the pages      |
| Drummers do it... | Inc.  Waltham, MA USA | in my book of memories.        |
|    ... In rhythm! |     (617) 890-2888    |              -- Guns N' Roses  |
+-------------------+-----------------------+--------------------------------+
|           ...! [ princeton mit-eddie bu sunne ] !polygen!jerry             |
|                            jerry@polygen.com                               |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
From: nan@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Nan Zou)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Unreal demo!
Date: 6 Sep 1992 15:35:53 -0500
Organization: Kansas State University
NNTP-Posting-Host: matt.ksu.ksu.edu

mlelstv@specklec.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Michael van Elst) writes:
>nan@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Nan Zou) writes:

[ 24-bit vs. HAM8 ]

>>As to disk storage for images, ever heard of JPEG?

>Ah.. and what about movies which needs to be decompressed at 30fps ?
>Without special hardware (which is independant of the base machine)
>you can only use simple techniques (i.e. not JPEG). And HAM8 inherently
>needs less storage.

Apple's QuickTime format uses JPEG compression, and it works, how well is
another matter.

This HAM8 mode is the one giving 256K pseduo true colors, right?  That's 18
bits per pixel, not a whole lot less than 24 bpp, correct me if I'm wrong.

-- Nan
From: mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: A4000 Specs? Who knows.
Distribution: world
X-NewsSoftware: GRn 1.16f (beta) by Mike Schwartz & Michael B. Smith
Date: 6 Sep 92 20:41:25 PST
Organization: Amiga makes it possible

In article <1992Sep4.034729.24084@usage.csd.unsw.OZ.AU> 8800529@hydra.maths.unsw.EDU.AU () writes:
> In article <mykes.0dbb@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG> mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz) writes:
> >
> >It would have been nice if a USEFUL notepad application shipped with 2.0x.
> >Every doc file for every PD program and even the readme's for commercial
> >apps SHOULD be done in NotePad, IMO.  Food for thought.
> >
>
> 	Why would one want to edit those files ? You have lost me. What you
> probably mean is that you wish there was something like a ... more ???
> 	Well there is one and that's what it's there for.
> 	If you realy need editors, how many more do you need ?
> 	ED, MicroEmacs, Edit !
>

Notepad supported multiple fonts.  More does not.  You don't want to edit
documents? :)  Even if you just view them, multifont documents are a lot
nicer to look at.  I rest my case.

> >--
> >Amiga programmer of: GRn, MailMinder, Budokan, Beyond Dark Castle, Dark Castle
> >Sega Genesis programmer of: Dick Tracy and Marble Madness.
> >Mike Schwartz  (ames!zorch!amiga0!mykes or mykes@amiga0.sf-bay.org)
> >1124 Fremont Ave.
> >Los Altos, CA 94024
> >
> 	George
>

--
Amiga programmer of: GRn, MailMinder, Budokan, Beyond Dark Castle, Dark Castle
Sega Genesis programmer of: Dick Tracy and Marble Madness.
Mike Schwartz  (ames!zorch!amiga0!mykes or mykes@amiga0.sf-bay.org)
1124 Fremont Ave.
Los Altos, CA 94024
From: ralph@bugend.edvina.se (Staffan Vilcans)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Unreal demo!
Date: 9 Sep 92 11:30:16 GMT
Organization: Bugend BBS

rjc@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) writes:

> pointer:  For some of the best plasma effects I have seen in a long tome,
> get the new demo from Assembly '92 on the Amiga called "Reflect".
> Availible on wuarchive.wustl.edu:systems/amiga/demos/euro.

And I thought that effect was called "shade bobs" as it works in the 
same way as the shade effect in DeLuxe Paint. I belive that's what it's 
called in the demo as well...

---
Only beer makes it possible in a mental hangover...
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: sck@watson.ibm.com (SC Kennedy)
Subject: Re: C= (Sweden) does things right!
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 21:44:45 GMT
Reply-To: sck@biko.watson.ibm.com (SC Kennedy)
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T. J. Watson Research Center

In article <copes.716440967@marsh>, copes@cs.curtin.edu.au (Simon Cope) writes:
|> root@rkamiga.UUCP (Rick Kelly) writes:
|> 
|> >>Perhaps when Dillon finishes porting BSD 4.4 we will see some cheaper systems,
|> >>that use an 040.
|> 
|> >I think you're going to have a long wait.  Matt has basically dropped the
|> >BSD 4.4 project until he sees the outcome of the AT&T/BSDI suit.
|> 
|> Berkeley released BSD4.4 last week.  Does this mean its over?

Nope, It's only just begun. Unix System Labratories (read: AT&T) is suing
BSDI (makers of bsd386) and the Regents of California (sp? UC Berkley) 
for selling a Unix without having an AT&T liscence. They are claiming (from
what I have read) that the NET2 tape includes AT&T source code and therefore
products derived from that are also covered under the AT&T liscence.

Another thing they seem to be saying is that because the workers for CSRG and 
BSDI have most likely seen the AT&T source at some time in their careers, they
should not be doing OS development. THIS IS WHAT I HAVE GLEANED FROM THE
POSTING I SAW. IT MAY NOT BE ACCURATE. DON'T FLAME ME FOR THIS NOR MAKE
THIS ANOTHER LONG THREAD ABOUT HOW THIS SUCKS. There is more than enough
bandwidth going to this over in comp.unix.bsd & alt.suit.att-bsdi

NOTE: NONE OF THIS IS 100% ACCURATE. THIS IS ONLY WHAT I REMEMBER 
FROM READING comp.unix.bsd & alt.suit.att&bsdi (or whatever it is called) for
more accurate legalese or more accurate news, find the actual court papers and
read away.
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scott C. Kennedy (sck@watson.ibm.com)  | This post does not reflect the intent 
Distributed High Performance Computing | or actions of my employer, and their 
IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Facility | actions don't reflect mine either.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I had this dream the other night. I went to work one day, and nobody 
remembered who I was. So, I decided to take the day off. - 2nu
From: nan@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Nan Zou)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Interlace video (Was Re: PC (OS/2) / Amiga debate)
Date: 7 Sep 1992 01:49:59 -0500
Organization: Kansas State University
NNTP-Posting-Host: matt.ksu.ksu.edu

mlelstv@specklec.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Michael van Elst) writes:
>nan@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Nan Zou) writes:

>>other half repainted 60 times the next cycle.  So you have 60 frames every
>>2 seconds, or 30 frames per second, compare that with a non-interlaced 60Hz
>>display which gives 60 frames per second, isn't that what we'are talking
>>about?

>This is the point of misunderstanding. You said that an _interlace_ display
>flickers. My point is that _interlace_ isn't the cause for the flicker
>but the reduced refresh rate. The _interlace_ itself actually reduces
>flicker (when comparing two systems with the same refresh rate).

You're correct, as someone explained to me in email (thanks David), when
you have a 60 Hz interlaced display, the field rate is actually 120 Hz (not
too commonly found as suggested by David), which will look better than a 60
Hz non-interlaced display, half of the lines being repainted 120 times/sec
is less noticable than all of the lines being repainted 60 times/sec, with
eyes focused on small sections of the screen.

I got the meaning of refresh rate confused with the meaning of field rate,
mea culpa.

So my original statement should've been reworded as: non-interlaced display
looks better on the eyes than an interlaced one given the same field rate.

-- Nan
Xref: sparky comp.sys.amiga.advocacy:23886 comp.sys.amiga.misc:13827