From: gblock@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Gregory R Block)
Subject: Re: Atari Falcon Discount Supermachine  Re: Sydnes is gone?!!
Organization: University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 20:41:04 GMT

jyoung@nyx.cs.du.edu (Jeff Young) writes:
: Sorry it is happening NOW with worldclass midi programs Notator and Cubase!!

Oh, boy...

: NO! Advantage magazine said 68882 socket on board so you are wrong.

(I was referring to the A600 not having a socket for the 68881/2,
because it wouldn't work on a 68000 anyways...)

: Falcon is AT LEAST 4 X faster than A600 and includes much much much
: more so price of A600 is very poor value.  Compare to Falcon then
: A600 should be almost free.

Or at least 1/2 the price.  And it's there.

: YOU are looking into memory board now??! MANY months passing and

I, yes, I.  I was looking at the schematics.  Do I look like a
hardware manufacturer?  I didn't think so.  If _I_ had a 600, _I_
would consider designing a memory expansion board for _MY_ use.  Did
you see the "personal" tone in there?

: nobody selling cheaps boards for A600 yet?  WHY??
: IF 1993 comes and no boards come out then A600 is finished.     

Not.  Don't even assume that one little thing will mean the demise of
the A600 just because it's not cheap enough to make you happy.  People
will still buy the 600.  And boards DO exist, they just have to come
down in price, which happens over TIME.  You know, the thing that
watches keep track of.

: YES you wish you has fast Falcon direct slots that people said is
: TWICE faster then PC EISA bus.  You WISH A600 have anything but

You shallow idiot.  Nearly EVERY personal computer sold by Apple and
the A2000/A3000/A3000T have a processor slot.  They've had them for
years.

And they're NO EXCUSE for not having a real bus.

: memory cards with terrible price and slow 2400 modem card (high
: priced too).

The point is, only Falcon developers will develop for that "processor
slot".  PCMCIA cards are being developed by IBM and PC-hardware
companies as WELL as Amiga developers.

See the differnce?  PCMCIA also has a much larger market, which means
higher sales possibilities, hence more reason to get INTO the market.

: ??? What is price of awesome DSP you want?? 

Look at what some of the more advanced DSP's can do.  Most hardware
mags have something on DSP's in them.  Take a look at those.

: When you have $700 computer to sell tell everyone specs pleae!

Considering you really have no idea when it will be sold or how much
it will actually cost, you're AWFULLY confident.

: Sorry Paula not doing 16 AND 8 bit stereo DMA like in Falcon.  Paula
: cannot even do 1.44 floppy!

And that suddenly means that it's not possible for a custom chip,
rather than wasting a DSP, couldn't handle audio fed from DMA?  The
paula handles DMA just fine, all it needs is more bandwidth.

: Ok we are waiting for cheap memory card...WHERE IS IT??

You waited, what, all of 2 seconds for that?  Give it a few months.
(Note:  For a CHEAP one.  Memory cards DO exist, they're just somewhat
expensive.)

: Sorry you are wrong again!  Advantage magazine said memory slot is
: like other slot so ANY kind of 386 or 040 or huge memory board can
: go in two slots.

ARGH!!!  You just don't get it, and I'm not going to explain.

: C= waited 2 years to bring out 68040 board but it is ONLY for A3000T
: and A3000 people still waiting for board from C=!!

Why wait?  It's NOT C='s job to make a version of every little
peripheral that one could want.  Their job is to design systems.  It's
what they do.  Their job is to design OSes.  It's what they do.

: Atari will tell all in few days then everyone will know truth!

Don't forget to post it here so that us poor, unguided fools can see
the light.

: Sorry you are wroing again!! Advantage magazine with Falcon and
: said blitter is doing VERY SPECIAL things now and Atari will
: show all at German show.  Wait for truth.

Sure.  Whatever.

: Sorry you are wrong again!! Even C= said there is many millions of
: music people who want powerful music and sound machine.  Even in
: stereo store almost EVERY thing is including DSP in it.  So 
: entire world will look for low priced Falcons with DSP.

You have GOT to be kidding.  You're sounding more and more like Slu
Aspiks as this post goes on, you know?  Suddenly it's gone from many
millions to the entire world.  Do you have any idea how much of a jump
in logic that is?

: ??? IF Apple brags about networking then Atari will brag about MEMORY
: PROTECTION and true multitasking and 32 BIT bus and DSP and SCSI @
: and IDE and 16 bit stereo DMA and video overlay and ...!!!!!

They've GOT half of that.  They've GOT the 32-bit bus.  They've GOT
DSP's that get used for something other than audio.  They've GOT SCSI
on board, and they've got no USE for IDE.  They've GOT DMA on
higher-end models, and they've GOT 16-bit audio.

Of course, they've also got 24-bit graphics, and the Falcon doesn't.
They've got a matured and relatively well-designed OS, and the
Falcon's may be relatively well-designed, may not, but it is NOT
matured.  As a matter of fact, compared to System 7, its relatively
featureless.

: Sorry Apple better not compare with Atari in commercials or people
: will scratch heads and buy millions of Falcons!

You'd have to be dumb to believe that.  Besides, everyone knows that
Apple is best known for making indirect comparisons in their commercials.

: Falcon has overscan to TV too and people will not have to buy $200-$300
: flicker fixer.  A600 has HIDDEN price because if people add up 
: all things to FIX it then they will find poor value.

If the Falcon needs a VGA monitor, then it's not compatible with
video.  Overscan will do little good, as will overlay.

: Sorry you are wrong again! Advantage magazine said it is standerd
: parallel but is SUPER port so it will be fast and great with 
: new things Atari will show at German show.

Umm, "super port"?

: Many billions of people have Sony mini headphones so putting in mini
: phone is very smart.

Many "billions" of people do not.  However, lots of people have stereo
systems they like to hook their systems up to.  Professional audio
hardware often uses RCA jacks.  Do you see the connection here?  It
doesn't make the Falcon look very professional, does it?

: C= is looking for people with Falcon 56001 DSP talent!

First:  it's not the "Falcon 56001".  It's Motorola's puppy.  And I
don't remember them looking for DSP programmers.

: Hello whatRyou? Olympic mascot?? A600 has more than 2 joystick?! WHEN?

Wake up, pal.  I'm saying that there's no need for two digital only
ports and two digital/analog when you could have 4 digital/analog.
Especially if they're going to have 4 in there regardless.

: With A600 it is IMPOSSIBLE feature so you better save $$$ for hard drive.

No, it's not.  HD drives exist.

: Better ask C= what happenend to SCSI2 port in A600!!

There's no point in putting a SCSI port into a machine targeted to hit
the lowest of low-ends.

: Better ask people what is wanted DIG and memory protection or
: resource traking!  Millions will take Falcon feature.

Many would take resource tracking, though it does sound, through the
descriptions, like it has SOME amount of resource tracking.  And there
are those who want fast graphics, where DIG would be more of a
limitation than a blessing.  Others don't want to slow down message
passing by having memory protection.

: How come you skip memory protection part??? Amiga community MOVING
: TO PC community if 3.0 does not improve features soon.

Like hell.  Where do you get off thinking that you somehow have some
"inner knowledge" of the workings of every Amiga owner?  I care not
about DIG or MP.  Resource tracking, for me, would be far more
valuable.  If I want MP, I'll run Unix.  Fortunately, if I DO decide
to run unix, we've got SysV.

: Pagestream on Amiga is better than Calamus??  How come you did
: not name better ones?  Too hard?!

There are BETTER programs.  FrameMaker comes to mind, and it's not
available for the ST OR the Amiga.  It's available for Unix under X,
though.  Then there's stuff such as Ventura Publisher.

: WHO is lieing you or Amiga Format magazine?? 30-40% is LITTLE?!

Probably Amiga Format.  Considering the A600 is no different than my
2000+ECS+2.04.  And I'm having nowhere near that much compatibility
problems.  As a matter of fact, the only program I had problems with
was Pen Pal, and that was buggy under 1.3.

: You said 10X more on Amiga. OK NAME 40!!

Display
Clock
Say
Commodities Exchange
IHelp
More
AutoPoint
Blanker
HDToolBox
(various VideoAdjust programs)
PrintFiles
MicroEMACS
KeyShow
InitPrinter
IconEdit
GraphicDump
Colors
Calculator
CMD
Fountain
NoCapsLock
Preferences editors:
	FONT
	ICONTROL
	INPUT
	OVERSCAN
	PALETTE
	POINTER
	PRINTER
	PRINTERGFX
	SCREENMODE
	SERIAL
	TIME
	WBCONFIG
	WBPATTERN

Is that a better list?  And no, that isn't all of them.  There are
lots of little programs available through PD, too.

For instance, this really neat program called ClipManager will let you
view any clipboard unit's FTXT CHRS, ANNO, and AUTH chunks, gives you
a list of all clipboard units that are "active", and gives you a scan
of each IFF file.  It lets you load and save from IFF and ASCII files.
And it lets you copy data between units and between the clipboard and
HotLinks.

Better?

: ??? Advantage magzine said DSP in Falcon used for MANY things...cheap
: fast modem, fax, IDSN..sorry Paula cannot handle in A600!
: Atari is giving software to developers so DSP can be programed to
: do many many things.

But it can't do them ALL AT ONCE.  To use the DSP as a modem you have
to give up having audio in OR out.  To use it to modify audio in
realtime, you can't play it in realtime.  Do you see its limitations
yet?  One of the DSP's best uses is the modification of data, like
fast fourier transforms & stuff.  If you want to put sound into the
machine, modify it in realtime, and put it out in realtime, you can't.
Because the modification, audio recording, and audio playback all
require use of the DSP.

: Sorry you are wrong again!! MultiTOS is very much like unix and
: Atari will tell everyone at German show soon.

Like and equal are two different things.  Learning about MultiTos will
NOT teach them unix.  Period.

Greg

--
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(:	  "Flesh-pressing:  It's not just for politics anymore."         :)
(:	gblock@csd4.csd.uwm.edu			Gregory R. Block         :)
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy