From: dudley@cebaf4.cebaf.gov (John Dudley)
Subject: Re: TECH: Amiga VR?
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu
Organization: CEBAF
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 18:47:48 GMT


In article <1992Dec11.053128.29164@u.washington.edu>,
dstampe@psych.toronto.edu (Dave Stampe) writes 

> Not true.  A 486/50 with ATI VGA Wonder card, 80 meg disk, 2 meg RAM,
> etc., can be got for US$1600 these days.  No video accelerators are needed
> by REND386.  
> Problem with the Amiga is that the segregated chip bus, costom video
> hardware, etc. that made its name 6 years ago (a century in computer years)
> are now crippling it.  It takes too long to access video memory, and too
> long to program the chip registers to do really fast poly drawing (esp.
> for tiny polys).  The CPUs have gotten too fast in comparison to the
> hardware.  The other problem is the flakiness of the Amiga OS-- people
> would rather build their own tools or use those available than have the
> machine crash once an hour.
> 
> > Plus, you can get a card for (I think...dont' quote me on this) $300 or
> >so that makes your Amiga act exactly like an IBM...and it's not software,
> >so as far as I know, it's reasonably fast...
> >
> Again, not really true.  The cards I've seen are about $800, and painfully
> slow in video access.  You're virtually plugging an entire PC (memory and

This is really strange. For some strange reason whenever a debate is put forth
on the Amiga vs. IBM/clones, prices on both sides tend to always either rise
sharply or drop steeply. The truth is that the 386SX cards for the Amiga can
be had for very slightly under $300.  There is no such thing as an $800 
bridgeboard.... That would be ridiculous when you could get an entire IBM
system for that much.  And under $1600 for a 486/50? I've yet to see prices
that low for any 50mhz machine, let alone a 486 w/80meg... Most of the
486's i've seen go for CHEAPLY around this much for a 486SX machine.
 
> Now, I'm not saying the Amiga is out.  But it will need a major hardware 
> advance on the chipset, a less flakey OS, and some VR-oriented software like
> REND386 designed for speed before it can really compete.  Maybe its
> reason for living has passed-- who knows?  It depends on support from
> writers, developers and users, and it's been losing that steadily.
> 
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> | My life is Hardware,                    |         Dave Stampe          | 
> | my destiny is Software,                 | dstampe@psych.toronto.edu    |
> | my CPU is Wetware...                    | dstampe@sunee.uwaterloo.ca   | 
> | Am I a techno-psychologist, or just an engineer dabbling in psychology?|
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Actually, the Amiga has been revamped.  In September, Commodore released the
AGA series of Amigas (Advanced Graphics Architecture), a 32 bit chipset that
includes resolutions up to 1024x748 and up to 256,000+ colors in any 
resolution (from a 16.8 million color palette). It also has some VGA-compat.
modes as well. This is a 32bit chipset featuring 24bit color graphics.  

The low-end of these new Amiga's is the Amiga 1200, which goes for $599 MSRP.
(don't know the actual retail price yet). This is a 16.x mhz 68020 machine.
The Amiga 4000/040 is a 25mhz 68040 machine.
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds