HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: abs0@coos.dartmouth.edu (Kelvin Leung)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: New Amigas(not 4000)?
Date: 15 Oct 92 16:38:58 GMT
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

2ftqkiln@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:

>OK, we've all heard the rumors(or are the facts) that Commodore will
>be introducing new machines before Christmas and we've also heard 
>that the 4000 was a rush job. So what are the speculations on the 
>new machines? I mean this IS advocacy.;)  Are they going to basically

I disagree with you that A4000 is a rush job.  I think Commodore has
carefully designed the Amiga 4000 and has a sense of what market it is
targeting toward.  Furthermore, the A4000 basically (IMHO) answered a lot
of our complaints.  

One may complains about the lack of DSP 16bit sound, SCSI adaptor and
de-interlacer.  Yet, has any of those complaining people stop and think
about it?? Commodore needs to sell a lot of these babies (hopefully).  
Therefore, it has to target toward general audience.  
1) does everyone who buy an A4000 need 16bit DSP sound?? I heard some
   video-production/multimedia folks complained they were disappointed--
   but that's what that 16bit professional sound card made by 3rd party
   is for... keep in mind that a PC clone and Mac generally don't have
   16bit DSP sound.  It may be hard to justify spending $200-300 more
   on A4000 and get 16bit DSP sound which isn't really supported by 
   the market.

2) SCSI-adaptor: I agree it would be nice... but someone mentioned 
   Commodore did a survey (??) and realised that a lot of people didn't
   really need to have more than 1 harddisk.  Though that might not 
   be true, but if Commodore really did the survey...  besides, a lot
   of people probably have IBM (IDE) harddisks lying around somewhere..
   say from their ex-AT clones.  It might be nice for them to be able
   to use those drives on their Amiga.

3) de-interlacer:  though some people keep complaining that the A4000
   doesn't have a cure-all de-interlacer.  Nonetheless, have they
   even bother to think how much it would cost for a separate 
   de-interlacing circuit?? looking at the amount of data it has
   to buffer, it would cost much more than an A2000 de-interlacer.
   An A2000 deinterlacer is about $200.  Think about how much an
   A4000 one would cost.

Now, if you add $200 for sound, $100 for SCSI and $300 for a de-interlacer,
how much would the A4000 become?  $4000 suggested retail price?? or 
$3400 street price?? now... that is a lot more expensive than a
486 clone... I think Commodore is doing a right thing now:

think about it, we can get an A4000 for $2800 today, and how much
would a similarly configured 486 clone cost?? ~$2500.  Now, that's
justifiable.  I would imagine a lot of people* wouldn't mind spending
an extra $300 for an Amiga instead of a 486 clone.

*the phrase "a lot of people" is refering to Amiga fans, ex-Amiga fans,
 potential Amiga fans, but not necessarily die-hard PC fans.

Just my $.02 worth,
Kelvin
e-mail: abs0@coos.dartmouth.edu
From: DXB132@psuvm.psu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Amiga World's Worst Review EVER!!
Date: 15 Oct 92 21:44:03 GMT
Article-I.D.: psuvm.92289.174403DXB132
Organization: Penn State University

In article <1992Oct15.132237.1424@msus1.msus.edu>,
martin@TIGGER.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU says:

>Hello,

>I just recieved my AmigaWorld yesterday, and I have never been more
>dissapointed w/ a review of a product (much less a MAJOR RELEASE) by them.

Yeah, but the BEST thing about AmigaWorld is that once they do a shoddy
preview, they never do a real review.
From: jonathan@yoyodyne.WPI.EDU (Jonathan F. Zimmitti)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: 68060...Coming Soon?
Date: 10 Oct 1992 18:33:52 GMT
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
NNTP-Posting-Host: yoyodyne.wpi.edu


	I've been hearing rumors that Motorola will be announcing the 
68060 on October 15.  Has anyone heard anything else?  Just thought I'd
let everyone know.

jonathan@wpi.wpi.edu

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: mlelstv@specklec.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Michael van Elst)
Subject: Re: REAL FALCON 030 SPECS
Organization: Max-Planck-Institut f"ur Radioastronomie
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 13:08:16 GMT

In <doiron.0fhh@starpt.UUCP> doiron@starpt.UUCP (Glenn Doiron) writes:
>MPEG on a 56001?????

Sure, at about 5 seconds per frame this should be managable :)

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: breaker@src4src.linet.org (Guy Sisalli)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Dave's Sig/Music Taste
Date: 15 Oct 92 02:01:15 GMT
Organization: The Source for Source Pub Access Unix

In article <1992Oct12.144211.17962@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> robert@geoblue.gcn.uoknor.edu (Robert Lindsay) writes:
>P.S. How much does anyone want to bet that MB likes RUSH?

How DARE you insult Rush like that!! Unless you take that back, I shall be
forced to tell the gang on alt.music.rush, my mother, the springfield boy's
choir, The Police, Louie(my pet slug), and Gotcha the Wondergoose!! So Nyhh! 
:)))))))))))
:
>
-- 
This opinion is mastered to Dolby "B" standards for flame reduction. Decrease
flame responce when reading on non-Dolby equipment.             ///
USENET: breaker@src4src.linet.org                           \\\/// 
-------------------------------------------------------------\XX/-------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie)
Subject: Re: The Real A4000 Argument. Barrett Bashing, Too... :)
Originator: torrie@Xenon.Stanford.EDU
Organization: CS Department, Stanford University, California, USA
Date: 13 Oct 92 18:29:24 GMT

jazz@netcom.com (David C. Navas) writes:

>Gosh, where did you hear that?  Sounds excellent.
>Hey, you didn't expect your 25Mhz A4000 to start suddenly running everything
>on the motherboard another 8Mhz faster, right?

  Actually, there is a product for the Mac IIfx and Mac Quadra (called
OverDrive) which essentially replaces the oscillator chip on the motherboard, 
and increases the speed of the IIfx to 50MHz, and the Quadra to 33MHz.
  This works best on the original Quadras (the 700 included), because
Apple designed all the custom chips to run at either 25MHz or 33MHz.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evan Torrie.  Stanford University, Class of 199?       torrie@cs.stanford.edu 
Embrace rationalism, reject superstition.           Break away from the past.
"...there is only one thing worse than having marketing people on a project,
 and that is having no marketing people on a project."  - Larry Tesler.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: "jonathan forbes" <jonathan.forbes@canrem.com>
Subject: fast polygon routines
Reply-To: "jonathan forbes" <jonathan.forbes@canrem.com>
Organization: Canada Remote Systems
Distribution: comp
Date: 11 Oct 92 01:37:15 EST

-> Of course all your code is fully optimised, the standard
-> addx tricks and so forth, polygon size is flagged at generation time,
-> your perspective transform has 0 muls [huge log/antilog
-> tables :)], you are using a combined spherical and rectangular
-> coordinate system to get your rotates down to around 5 muls [
-> or if you really do have the ram - you have no muls but a two
-> level table lookup scheme].  You are using BSPs, or better
-> still the graph-theoretic edge-adjacency technique.  And for
-> asteroid fields and the like... you are using the forward
-> difference technique.

Sounds like you're very familiar with just the type of game that a
friend and I are writing!  (it's a game with Elite-type graphics -
spaceships and such).

I'm dying to know more about all the fast rotations and other neat
optimisations.  The game currently runs on a PC (yeah, I know,
retch-cough-spleh!, but 256 colour lo-res VGA mode "X" is pretty good,
and the thing goes at about 25 fps right now on a 386/25).  I'll be
porting it to the Amiga [eventually], AGA of course ;-)

Anyway, how do you get perspective transformations and rotations to be
so fast?  Currently, 20% of CPU time is spent on drawing polygons, 20%
on various vector stuff (rotations), 20% on projections, and 40% for
miscellaneous unrelated things.

The program does back-face culling, of course, and that alone requires a
dot product (three mul's) for every polygon.  But it's the projection
routines that take forever - how can you possibly get them so fast?  You
also mentioned log/antilogs - I haven't needed to use either yet -
perhaps I'm missing something?

Also, do you know how to get the "warped edges" effect - when an object
flies close to the player, and whizzes from left to right across the
screen, it's magnified on the edges (it's hard to explain, but I'm sure
you know what I mean - it happens on the introduction to Star Trek the
Next Generation when the Enterprise is at the edge of the screen; pieces
of it are larger, and it doesn't appear to be a very simple projection
transform - it appears to be a function of at least x and y).

Also, what exactly do you mean by using both a rotation coordinate
system and a rectangular coordinate system?  How would it be useful to
use both?

Lastly, an asteroid field will be present in the game, but how does one
handle all of the asteroid vectors; projections, movement, collision
detection, etc. - it must take an enormous amount of time.  What is the
fast collision detection algorithm you mentioned (I could always have
the asteroids not moving, in which case one need only check for
player->asteroid collisions).

Any help at all will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
--
Canada Remote Systems  - Toronto, Ontario
World's Largest PCBOARD System - 416-629-7000/629-7044
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: music@moravian.edu (Steve Heller)
Subject: Amiga in Encyclopedia ad on TV.
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 92 11:55:06 EDT

I'm sure this has been pointed out in great hoards of posts before,
but just in case it hasn't, note that the obnixious teenager who hawks
the Encyclopedia Brittania 1,000 times day on TV has an Amiga 2000 on
his desk...
-- 
*-------------------------------------------------------------------------*
#   export meaning_of_life=$(eval 'grep -i truth mind_of_god | sort -u')  #
# Work: music@moravian.edu  <#!AMIGA!#>  Home: moravian.edu!vortex!lothar #
*-------------------------------------------------------------------------*
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: raist@rmece02.upr.clu.edu (Ricardo Hernandez | 802-36-4453)
Subject: Re: A4000 Flaws?
Organization: UPR-Mayaguez--ASEL Lab
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 19:19:26 GMT

In article <Bw2zI0.MoE@news.iastate.edu>, barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett) writes:
[stuff deleted]

|>    Apple will likely introduce Macs with DSPs far sooner than Commodore will
|> announce Amigas with DSPs.  In one month, from what I've heard.  As for
  
    Marc, will you add nother lie to the list?

    Could happen, but if EVEN YOU SAY LIKELY, most likely :-) it ain't 
gonna happen.  BUY A MAC and be happy.


|> ---
|> | Marc Barrett -MB-  |  email: barrett@iastate.edu
|> --------------------------------------------------
|>       Slick Willie Clinton: JUST SAY NO!!!

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------
          // 
  Raist \X/  Amiga 500, 38Mhz Special MegaMidget Racer
             Avid user of AmigaVision 
             Sending mail from Mayaguez, Puerto Rico
---------
           "If the PC or Mac continues to be the standard,
            the SkyNet will never be built." - my words
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: amuser@cs.curtin.edu.au (Bill Sharp-Smith)
Subject: Re: Flickering mania!!!
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 04:12:28 GMT

david@ariane.cam.org (David Lebel) writes:

>In article <1992Oct10.125027.1378@msus1.msus.edu> martin@TIGGER.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU writes:

>  NTSC:, all resolutions             YES (including SuperHires)
>  PAL:, all resolutions              YES (including SuperHires)
>  MULTISCAN:Productivity             NO  (there's NO overscan in MULTISCAN:)
>  MULTISCAN:Productivity Laced       YES (that's 640x960 of course)
>  SUPER72:, all resolutions          YES (including the 800x600 mode)

A 72Hz-refreshed screen does not flicker at all. Heck, a flicker-fixed
hires screen uses only a 50Hz refresh rate. Workstations use 72Hz, and
it looks real nice.

>  DblNTSC:, all resolutions          NO
>  DblPAL:, all resolutions           NO
>  EURO36:, all resolutions           YES

At least a 36Hz screen is a bit faster than the 25Hz we are used to, and
for some resolutions the lines will be closer together.

By the way, I'm speaking for PAL Amigas. Replace 50Hz with 60Hz, and
25Hz with 30Hz for NTSC Amigas.

-- 

Gary McGhee 
 ________________________________________________________________________
/[  /~7 / / /~~ /  / /~7 | Email: amuser@marsh.cs.curtin.edu.au          ]
 [ / 7 /_/ /_7 //l/ / 7  | By post: PO Box 595, Cloverdale,W. Aust 6105  ]
 [ Amiga Users Group of  |                                               ]
 [ Western Australia Inc | Opinions expressed are my own etc...          ]
 [_______________________________________________________________________]
/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: hyc@hanauma.jpl.nasa.gov (Howard Chu)
Subject: Re:  Falcon is an Ape
Keywords: Me Too!
Organization: SAR Systems Development & Processing, JPL
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 21:34:17 GMT

In article <1992Oct16.090129.4744@sol.ctr.columbia.edu>
falavi@bach.mth.kcl.ac.uk (Farrukh Alavi) writes a pretty damn good posting:
(No seriously, I agreed with every word of it. So, nothing to quote here
really...)

Just a point about the Falcon's overscan - it does seem like a pretty
simplistic thing, just like the old overscan hack for older STs, either
it's on or it's off, but - your software adjusts for the amount of
overscan you actually want to use, so you can just take advantage of
one dimension if you want. The 640x480 true-color mode is an example of
this, a non-overscanned mode would only have a 640x400 resolution. The
VDI just offsets where it starts and stops drawing, no big deal.
-- 
  -- Howard Chu @ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA

All true wisdom is conveyed in one-line witticisms.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: eyvind@Lise.Unit.NO (Eyvind Bernhardsen)
Subject: Re: A3000 is not dead, dammit
Organization: Norwegian Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 20:35:07 GMT

Well, I missed this one in the first article, but:

>|> played power monger while diskcopying 7 disks in the background (
                                          ^^^^^^^
>|> ahem, never mind what they were of course...) of course, he couldn't

How did you diskcopy 7 disks at the same time?  Do you have 14 disk drives?
I thought the PC could only have two...

(I realize that you probably copied them one by one, but you'll agree that 
diskcopying ONE disk is a hell of a lot less impressive than diskcopying 7 ;)

(Oh, and did you notice a performance drop while copying?  SuperDuper for the Amy
will copy a disk with using virtually NO processor time :)

>|> =================================
>|> Brad Wardell  **Happy OS/2 2.0 User**
>|> Project Director
>|> Stardock Systems (SDS)
>|> Western Michigan University
>|> =================================

-- 
     //|                             | DISCLAIMER: I don't HAVE opinions.
    // |                             | I just repeat what everyone else says!
\\ //--|miga: There can be only one. |
 \X/   |         eyvind@lise.unit.no | Did you spill my pint?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: chrisg@cbmvax.commodore.com (Chris Green)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: CBM "Suggestion Box"
Date: 16 Oct 92 16:25:24 GMT
Reply-To: chrisg@cbmvax.commodore.com (Chris Green)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA

In article <67829@cup.portal.com> WPK@cup.portal.com (WPK - micromedia) writes:
>>Can anyone please tell me what is the email address of the Commodore
>>"Suggestion Box"?   thanx...
>
>suggestions@commodore.com


	Please only send specific suggestions for the operating system to
that address. It is only read by software engineering. Also, you
should use the program "report", because there are specific format
requirements for the messages, as they are routed to the appropriate
engineer by a daemon.
	Flooding that address with suggestions/complaints about
marketing, advertising, upgrade policies, etc. would be a waste of
our time, and yours. For those kinds of suggestions, you want to
mail a normal letter to the appropriate commodore department.

-- 
*-------------------------------------------*---------------------------*
|Chris Green - Graphics Software Engineer   - chrisg@commodore.COM      f
|                  Commodore-Amiga          - uunet!cbmvax!chrisg       n
|My opinions are my own, and do not         - icantforgettheimpression  o
|necessarily represent those of my employer.- youmadeyouleftaholeinthe  r
|"A screaming comes across the sky..."      - backofmyhead              d
*-------------------------------------------*---------------------------*
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.sys.next.advocacy,gac.general
From: goyal@utdallas.edu (Mohit K. Goyal)
Subject: Re: PR Blunder of the Millennium!
Organization: Univ. of Texas at Dallas
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 05:45:58 GMT

In article <1992Oct12.042302.28608@utdallas.edu> goyal@utdallas.edu (Mohit K. Goyal) writes:
>In article <1992Oct12.013657.29495@netcom.com> vin@netcom.com (Vin Locke) writes:
>>>|> home in Sri Lanka, with Mars on the screen.'  I glance to the monitor
>>>|> behind him: Mars.  "Rmm... I wonder what kind IBM gave him for
>>>|> supplementing their supplement...rrr...I can *just* make out the
>>>|> monitor...COMMODORE!?!  1084???  Hey, whats that computer sitting next
>>>|> to it...an Amiga 3000!"  I sit back in my chair, chuckling.  The word
>>
>>What I'm wondering is what Clark is using for electricity -- Ceylon/Sri Lanka
>>(the money says "Bank of Ceylon" (and is very pretty!) and the newspaper is
>>called the "Ceylon Daily News" (or some such)) has scheduled as well as
>>sporadic power outages . . . now that would be one hell of a place to be a
>>Unix sysadmin!  Clark must have his own generator.  
>>Speaking of hell, it gets as hot as such down there -- must be tough on
>>the chips.
>
>Why would he need his own generator?  They have electricity in that part
>of the world you know...
>.

Oooops...as pointed out not very politely in email, I goofed and did 
read the message too fast for my own good...

Sorry if I upset y'all...

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: chrisg@cbmvax.commodore.com (Chris Green)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Buy Falcon or A4000?
Date: 15 Oct 92 13:08:01 GMT
Article-I.D.: cbmvax.35915
Reply-To: chrisg@cbmvax.commodore.com (Chris Green)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA

In article <copes.719053019@marsh> copes@cs.curtin.edu.au (Simon Cope) writes:
>Depends on budget, but a4000 is faster, has better graphics and most important
>of all SOFTWARE.
>
	Not to mention the fact that you can actually go to a store and purchase
an A4000 NOW.
-- 
*-------------------------------------------*---------------------------*
|Chris Green - Graphics Software Engineer   - chrisg@commodore.COM      f
|                  Commodore-Amiga          - uunet!cbmvax!chrisg       n
|My opinions are my own, and do not         - icantforgettheimpression  o
|necessarily represent those of my employer.- youmadeyouleftaholeinthe  r
|"A screaming comes across the sky..."      - backofmyhead              d
*-------------------------------------------*---------------------------*
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: ggiles@cie.uoregon.edu (Gregg Giles)
Subject: Re: A4000 is kinda UGLY !!!
Organization: University of Oregon Campus Information Exchange
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 03:40:22 GMT

In article <mac1.718648841@Ra.MsState.Edu> mac1@Ra.MsState.Edu (Mubashir Cheema) writes:
>
> Got my copy of Amiga World today. Well I have to admit this, the A4000
> thats on the cover looks like no computer I have ever seen. Its the ugliest
> of them all.

   Yessir, it's an ugly machine alright. But the A2000 is by far the ugliest
Amiga of them all. You want a box, that is a box. I big, buck ugly, heavy box.
But it's got lots and lots of slots. :-)
   Sure, a more glamorous looking machine would be aesthetically pleasing, but
for now, let's just be glad we got a new chipset. 

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gregg Giles (Dynamix, Inc.)                   BIX: ggiles 
All opinions expressed are my own.            Internet: ggiles@cie.uoregon.edu
Amiga, MSDOS CDROM, Sega Genesis Mega-CD      >>>> Utah Saints Kick Butt <<<< 
Xref: sparky comp.sys.amiga.advocacy:26623 comp.sys.mac.advocacy:1597
From: mike@maths.tcd.ie (Mike Rogers)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: A-MaxII+ ?
Date: 14 Oct 92 20:36:44 GMT
Organization: none

In article <torrie.719000049@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>, torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) wrote:
>  Why would they have to throw it away?  The next release of the
>system software, System 7.1, will run on a Classic (in fact, even on
>the 1986 Plus).  Presumably the software they bought to run on 

Ouch! Sorry, I like my windows to close before the end of the week.
-- 
Mike Rogers,Box 6,Regent Hse,##EveryoneHasTheRightToFreedomOfOpinionAndExpressio
TCD,EIRE. <mike@maths.tcd.ie>##nThisRightIncludesFreedomToHoldOpinionsWithoutInt
###############################erferenceAndToSeekReceiveAndImpartInformationAndI
deasThroughAnyMediaAndRegardlessOfFrontiers...#10 UN Declaration of Human Rights
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: bloc1469@ee.ee.uwm.edu (Gregory R. Block)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Amiga 4000 & HYPE! -Reply to Jerry Shekkel
Date: 7 Oct 1992 10:11:40 GMT
Organization: Electrical Engineering Dept. University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.89.2.33

In article <Bvqsyu.1wI@lut.fi> tsuikki@lut.fi (Teemu Suikki) writes:
>SB has _ONE_ 8bit D/A channel. Amiga has four of them. When playing Amiga mods
>with SB, you have to mix those four channel to one. The result is only SIX bit
>per channel. 
>You can play 16 channels with Amiga, if you mix four channels to one.

And that's not even mentioning that the Amiga, as well as having 4
8-bit data channels, has a 6-bit volume control for each.  Using the
8-bit data channels, and the 6-bit volume for each, it's possible to
simulate a higher bandwidth.

--
(: (: (: (: Have you overdosed on smileys today?  Why NOT!?! :) :) :) :)
(: 	"Yeah, if improving the system is screwing the user base,     :)
(:	 you all need to be screwed more often." -Dave Haynie	      :)
(: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy