From: skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls)
Subject: Re: HELP--AMIGA OR IBM PC CLONE?
Organization: University of Mississippi, Dept. of Computer Science
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 03:27:43 GMT

In article <C0owp0.D15@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu> papresco@cantor.math.uwaterloo.ca (Paul Prescod) writes:
>>And what happens if you don't want to use Windows?  You hope that there
>>is a driver for your application or game that works with your board.  If
>>not, you are SOL.  
>
>VGA is acceptable.  It's better then the Amiga used for years.

Really?  Do you know what VGA is?  Max res is 640x480 with only 16 colors.
For 256 colors, you drop down to 320x200 or 320x400.  There is no support
for overscan, there are no sprites, and there is only limited panning and
scrolling in hardware.  The only area in which it is superior to the Amiga
is the 18bit palette versus the Amiga's 12bit palette.

>Productivity is more important then games anyways.

Not according to several Clone advocates around here.  Greg Greene and
Dan Stephenson together play games more than all of the pro-Amiga posters
combined.  But then again, they do own game machines...  :-)

>If you don't want to use Windows for productivity, you can use OS/2.

Most people just use plain old MS-DOS.  Sales of Windows software is up,
but that will change once copies are available and people can start 
stealing them from work like they do now with DOS apps.

>>If DEC advertises the Alpha as a 200MHz chip and explains that it is 
>>100MHz or 50MHz external, it is not a scam.  But most bozos will believe
>>that the whole computer runs at 200MHz unless they are informed of what
>>is really going on.
>
>Intel named the chip 486DX2.  It is a different chip.  What would you
>prefer them to name it...the 486DX2inside1outside.  It is the computer
>manufacturers responsibility to explain the specs of the MOTHERBOARD.
>It is Intel's to explain the specs of the CPU.

Funny that none of the system assemblers who advertise in Byte explain
that in their ads...

Intel talks about OverDrive, "speed doubling", and that sort of thing 
in their ads.  Nowhere do they explain that only the internal circuitry
is double speed.  Motorola could say the same thing about the 68040 as
it too runs at 50MHz internally...

>>Intel conveniently left out the fact that the DX2's do not run at 66 or
>>50MHz externally, confusing many people.  In fact, I've seen people become
>>very upset when they realize that they'd been had by Intel...
>
>Yes, I'm sure you have.  I'm sure you told them:"Guess what, your CPU
>isn't really faster then a 50Mhz 486." which is bull.

No, I explained that their motherboard is still only 33MHz, not the 66MHz
that they were led to believe.

>>Then they should explain that in their ads.
>
>Their ads feature an OLD motherboard getting a NEW CPU.  What are
>people supposed to think????  That the motherboard is the same, but the
>CPU is faster.  That's exactly the case.

You give the average Clone buyer too much credit.

>>Did I ever say anything about slowing the chips down?  I don't think so.
>>My point is simply that Intel should not try to fool people into believing
>>that the DX2 machines are full blown 66MHz Clones...
>
>Who is intel trying to fool?  The DX2 machines are the fastest machines
>for most applications period.  They are the closest we will get to a
>66Mhz motherboard for a while.  (actually, that's a lie, 486s running
>at 66Mhz have been selling for years, but not in any quantity, and I
>wouldn't vouch for the reliability)

Why not simply come clean and say that the motherboard is only 33MHz?
Is it that hard to be honest?  Sheesh, Commodore could claim that the
Amiga's custom chips run at 14MHz or 28MHz and that AGA Amiga's are
64bit machines using this sort of reasoning.

Here is an A4000 spec sheet as if written by Intel and the Clone sellers:

A4000/DC2-50

50MHz 040DC2
28MHz AGA bus with 64bit video
Zorro III bus with 150M/sec capability
Local Bus IDE interface
Local Bus Video interface
Custom HD floppy, supports higher density than Clones
16384x16384 max screen size
24bit palette
4 voice 14bit 56kHz audio

See how misleading this is?  Yet one could claim these things if deception
is necessary.

>>The bottleneck is having to be compatible with the XT, AT, and ISA designs.
>>Put a 386 or 486 in a 32bit design without all of the crap that makes up
>>a Clone and you'd have a nice computer.  Throw out the need for 8088
>>compatibility and you'd have an even nicer computer.
>
>Zorro and ISA coexist on the Amiga motherboard...why not on a VESA
>motherboard, or an EISA/ISA or MCA/ISA or an EISA/ISA/VESA mother
>board.  There is no cost (other then monitary) for that backwards
>compatibility.

VESA is doubtful.  If and when EISA or MCA become popular, Commodore
might indeed see the need for such a thing.

>>Unfortunately, the new video and audio applications aren't going to fit
>>into the cache as well as the older business apps.  A multi-megabyte
>>30fps 1024x768 24bit animation won't fit in the cache.
>
>Hopefully when this is common, a coprocessing daughter board will be
>doing the work.

Why do you need one?  Doesn't the board you mentionned in Byte do this
already?  Why is a coprocessor necessary?

>Besides, we are talking about TODAY.  You claim the DX2 is a scam.  I
>say it's just advancing technology.

No, the way that the DX2 is marketed is a scam.

>>>can't wait for the motherboard to catch up...it never will.  Alphas
>>>will be running at 200Mhz, probably on a 50Mhz board...are you going to
>>>call this a scam?
>>
>>If DEC doesn't say that in their ads, yes, it is a scam.
>
>What is dec supposed to put in their CPU ads: If you buy this CPU and
>put it in an actual computer, the motherboard won't be running at
>200Mhz, because that would be  a fire hazard....give me a break.  REal
>companies don't do stuff like that. I don't see commodore advertising:
>"Beware, the A1200 has a 1980 (or was it earlier) CPU...it is out of
>date." "Beware the hard drive on the A4000 is slower then the hard
>drive on the A3000, so that might be a better purchase."  

Well, you are wrong on both counts.  The 68020 was not introduced in
1980, heck, I'm not sure that the 68000 had been around long at that
point.  And my A4000's hard drive is faster than my A3000's hard drive.
Above I describe what Commodore could do to fool people like the Clone
sellers do.
 
>Intel makes a chip, publishes the specs, releases them for benchmarking
>and sells them.  That's their business, not hand holding.

No, their business is making money, just like everyone else.  But Intel
should be accountable for their deceptions, especially when their average
customer is such a moron.  "Duh, it does so run at 66 mega-hurts!  Says 
so right here on the box!  What 'chu mean it ain't no real 66 mega-hurts-her?"

>>So you use OS/2?  If you are using Windows, you are not using an OS, you
>>are using a glorified program launcher which mimics an OS.
>
>As a matter of fact, I do use OS/2.  But I think your ridiculing of
>Windows is silly.  Call it what you like...it's still the second most
>popular OS (probably in history).  Amigados comes in somewhere after
>CP/M but before MiNT.

Compared to the joke that is MS-DOS, Windows is an improvement.  But it
is popular because of MS-DOS.  Without it, Windows would be nowhere,
just like OS/2 is.  I hate to tell you, but in terms of numbers of users,
AmigaDOS is ahead of OS/2...

>>Good for you, but too bad you'll have to switch when OS/2 dies.
>
>I'll only switch because OS/2 has truly died, and OS/2 will only be
>killed by a better Windows NT, in which case I'll be glad to
>switch...if I don't like Windows NT, I'll use destiny, NeXtstep,
>Solaris, Linux or BSD386.  Gee, wouldn't it be nice if YOU had that
>many options?  Amiga users wouldn't be so dogmatic about Amigados if
>they had the option of using something else.

If AmigaDOS was a piece of crap like DOS or Windows, we would need a
better option.  AmigaDOS will continue to evolve and we won't need to
throw away everything in favor of something else.

>>So what did you get?  You got a standard based on a brain dead 8086 and
>>a CP/M clone.
>
>The 386 is much closer, architecturally to a 68000.  It can emulate an
>8086 in hardware, true...but that's a feature, not a problem.

Just think how good it could have been without having to include the 8086
crap on chip...

>>  You have 1 major bus and 2 minor buses, with a few new
>>ones trying to break in.
>
>What's wrong with that?  All of them are well supported by their
>vendors, and there is a wide range of peripherals for all of them
>(except, perhaps MCA).  Different busses for different tasks...A EISA
>is great for a server.  VESA is great for single users.  PCMIA is great
>for laptops.  MCA is great for IBM customers :).  PCI will be probably
>be good for both servers and single users.
>
>Where's the problem?

What happens when Joe User sells his PS/2 Model 80 full of nifty MCA XGA, 
SCSI, and M-Motion boards to get a new Gateway 4DX-33?  He has to sell
all of the MCA boards with it because they don't work in the ISA bus.  So
he gets an accelerated SVGA board, IDE controller, etc.  Then, he realizes
that the ISA is too slow, so he sells it to get a 486DX2-66 motherboard with
EISA and VESA slots.  His old cards might work, but they really don't do 
his new machine justice, so he's out more money for local bus video and
hard drive controllers...

>>  You have dozens of different video boards, each
>>of which needs a specific driver to work.
>
>Oh, geez, isn't competition AWFUL!  Actually there are hundreds, and
>that's why the prices drop so much faster then Amiga video boards.

Competition would be great if there was a standard that they all used.
Supporting 20 different SVGA chip sets is absolutely ridiculous, yet
that is what is required to ensure an app will work.

>>  You have several sound boards,
>>but the LCD is barely a step above the lowly C64. 
>
>Exactly which of *TODAY'S* sound boards have you heard?

I have a SoundBlaster Pro sitting in my 486 at work and it is pitiful
next to the Amiga.  

> And the lack of vendor
>>dominance gives you low prices, but makes it tough for even the big boys
>>to turn a profit.
>
>What do I care about their profit.  It just forces them to make the
>peripherals makers lower their prices, and add value.  It's great.
>Look where the the PC has come in 6 years, from CGA, 8086 and DOS.  Now
>look at the Amiga  AmigaDOS 1.3-Amigados 2.0  whopee!  AGA...whopee!
>68000-68040.  The Amiga was about 4 years ahead in technology at it's

Don't forget 3.0 for the Amiga, the Zorro III bus, the Video Toaster,
the DMI EditMaster, the EGS, IV-24, Resolver, Rambrandt, OpalVision, 
DCTV, and other video boards, the AD516 and 1012 DSP boards, and lots
of other goodies.  My A4000 bears as little resemblance to my A1000 in
1986 as my 486 at work does to a Zenith 8086 from the same time frame.

>introduction and now it's playing catch up with SVGA and sound boards.
>That's what competition does.

AGA is superior to SVGA and in many ways the ECS is also.  Only recently
have there been Clone sound boards that surpass the Amiga's sound which
has been available since 1985...

>>You don't know what you are talking about.  Monitors, modems, printers,
>>scanners, hard drives, tape drives, and other peripherals are the same
>>price for the Amiga as they are for the Clones.  How could they not be?
>>I've bought several peripherals over the last few years and only two
>>were from Commodore.  Most came right out of Computer Shopper...
>
>You (or someone) claimed that the world had been "taken in" by
>Microsoft and IBM.  I merely pointed out that things are a lot cheaper
>because of the existence of clones.  If there were no clones,
>everything, software, peripherals, everything, would be more expensive.

I'm not arguing that clones are bad, I'm saying that Clones are bad.
Notice the capital "C", indicating an IBM Clone.  If the world was
using clones of the Amiga instead of Clones, it would be a much nicer
place to live in.

>Peripherals would be more expensive, because computers would be more
>expensive, and therefore do less volume.  Less volume=less economies of
>scale=higher price.  Check out the price of Mac and Amiga perhipherals
>if you don't believe me.

What peripherals?  Memory?  Hard drives?  Modems?  Monitors?  All of these
are the same price as for the Clones because they are the exact same
peripherals.  My Samsung monitor, Seagate hard drive, 4M SIMM, Star printer,
Sony speakers, and Tandy power strip would all work just as well on the
486 I have at work and I paid no more than a Clone owner would for them.

>>Thank you for that lesson, oh master of economics.  I fully realize that
>>companies are out to make money and care very little about the customer.
>>But just because the Clones are big sellers does not mean that they are
>>good.  Chevrolet and Ford sell many times the number of cars that BMW
>>or Mercedes does, yet no one will argue which is the better car.
>>
>And yet, the parts market created by Chevy and Ford probably drives
>down the prices for Mercedes and BMW.  Not that I would admit that the
>Amiga is a BMW and the PC is a ford.  Technology is a very differnet
>ball of wax from automobiles.

Okay, the Clones are like Japanese imports, there are a few really nice
ones, but most are not that exciting.  The Amiga line is more like the
European imports, maybe not as advanced at the best Clones, but a heck
of a lot more fun to drive.

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

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy