From: skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls)
Subject: Re: Re: Re: A4000 Specs? Who knows.
Organization: University of Mississippi, Dept. of Computer Science
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 13:52:50 GMT

In article <64965@cup.portal.com> TomK@cup.portal.com (Tom R Krotchko) writes:
>>If you need or want SCSI, I'm sure that several 3rd parties will oblige.
>
>Oh boy! More funky controllers that break at the sight of a tape
>drive or CD-ROM (take a bow, GVP et al).

Hey, I'm no fan of GVP either.  

>>How many Amiga owners do you know with >100M hard drives?
>
>Pretty much everybody who uses it as more than a game console. You
>have one, why assume you're the only person who has a HD that big?

I've only had the 200M drive for a few months.  I survived for a year
on a 50M drive by simply deleting the euro-hacks after viewing them
a couple of times.  :-)  

It is funny that several posters have been arguing how small and 
efficient AmigaOS is and that we don't need large HDs like PCs and
Macs do.  Now the same people are screaming that the new machine(s)
must have SCSI because everyone needs large HDs.  What gives?

>>I'm having trouble filling my 200M HD.
>
>Quick! How much space will a 640x480x8bit planes picture take up?

As I deal with SVGA pics of that res and depth each day, I can tell you
that it is 307200 bytes if you don't use any compression.  Funny thing
is that I have no trouble storing lots of these beasts on a 486-50 with
a couple of 235M IDE drives.  I store them as raw data only when I want
to get the maximum speed loading the graphics, otherwise it is much
more sensible to use a format that does a bit of compression.

>>I'd also bet that the number of IDE drives being sold for PCs will mean
>>that the prices will only get better.
>
>Even the PC world is going SCSI. Which means the prices of SCSI drives
>will drop faster than IDE. In 18 months, SCSI drives might even be
>cheaper than IDE drives.

When the under $1000 boxes start shipping with SCSI standard I might 
begin to agree with you.  I've seen a few PCs that come with SCSI,
but most of these are of the high-priced 486 EISA variety.  Of course,
compared to C='s absurd A3000T-040 price, these things are inexpensive.

>>And if you don't need a tape drive or other SCSI devices it will meand that
>>the machine is that much more affordable.
>
>That's what I call penny wise and pound foolish. You're going to buy a
>multi-thousand dollar computer, and then try to save, what...$50? And
>then as soon as you try to get a CD-ROM player, you're running to the
>store for a $200 controller that would've been virtually nothing
>if included originally. Sorry, but saving $50 on an expensive computer
>is a fool's bargain if it comes at the expense of future expandability.

I've been using a PC at work lately and have become convinced that if 
the Amiga is to compete price-wise, it needs to be unbundled.  This will
allow buyers to purchase an inexpensive base box and then upgrade when
they can afford it.  C= could have done this much earlier by offering an
A3000 without the FPU, hard drive, and RAM.  This "stripped" A3000 could
be offered at a lower price and fill the huge void in C='s product line.

I'll play the Devil's Advocate and defend C='s choice on using IDE instead
of SCSI.  What if you need some sort of drive array or an intelligent
disk controller with a cache?  You'll end up buying a controller because
the stock one simply won't do in that case.  

It's really funny that everyone is getting worked up on a machine that is
still vaporware.  The machines specs have probably been decided upon for
quite some time now and nothing we say or do will change it.  If the new
machines do ship with IDE only, will many simply turn their noses up and
walk away?  The only thing that is more ridiculous is the persons who
keep threatening to sell their Amigas if C= does not provide them with
an upgrade to the AA chipset.

>TomK@cup.portal.com
>Tom Krotchko
>
>P.S. If your HD is larger than 120M, you *need* a tape streamer. I don't
>have the patience or time to sit feeding the thing floppies for 2 hours.

If there was a backup program for the Amiga which was as quick as PC Tools,
you wouldn't have too.  I back up my working directory (5-12M depending on
the project) daily in a couple of minutes on 2-3 high-density floppies.  
Of course, this is on a 486-50 with fast IDE drives, but I'd bet that an
040 Amiga could keep up if the software existed.

Skip Sauls
skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu