HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Don't let the Amiga Die (Part II)!!!
From: jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz (John Bickers)
Date: 27 Dec 92 20:23:14 PST
Organization: TAP

Quoted from <1992Dec27.015438.1612@usl.edu> by das9674@usl.edu (Stephenson Daniel A):
> >John Bickers (jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz) wrote:

> >: > Come on, Peter -- that's a bit cynical.  I can show you several OS books
> >: > which consider DOS an OS.
> >:
> >:     And this is really naive. I can show you several magic books which
> >:     consider magic to be real.
> 
> Oh GOD you sound stupid!  Can you not think of *any* better
> analogies than this?  I won't bother shooting holes in it as it is.

    Take a few seconds to think about it. My example is quite invalid,
    right? So is Jerry's. That is my point. Saying that there are
    "several <foo> books which consider <a> to be <b>" is utterly
    meaningless, because it's well known that you can find a book to
    back up almost any point of view, no matter how ridiculous. The
    limiting factor isn't the degree of foolishness of a topic, its
    that only a finite number of books exist.

> >: > My Atari 800 ran useful applications in 16K.  Not exactly a miracle of
> >: > modern technology.
> >:
> >:     So you're saying your Atari 800 is better than a PC?
> 
> There you go again!

    There is a phrase for this which escapes me, but has something to
    do with reducing an argument to its simplest elements to show how
    absurd it is.

    Jerry's statement about the 800 was also meaningless, because it
    depends on his definition of "useful application". Applications
    that are currently considered useful, with the feature level that
    current applications and operating systems seem to require, would
    not run on his Atari 800. They would and do run on Amigas, PCs and
    Macs.

    Sure there are a limited range of applications that can run very
    well on an Atari 800 or a VIC-20, but they are even tinier in
    scope than the DTV/OS/etc stuff the Amiga is pushed for.

> Dan Stephenson                                         das9674@usl.edu  
--
*** John Bickers, TAP.                   jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz ***
***    "Radioactivity - It's in the air, for you and me" - Kraftwerk    ***
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: jerry@msi.com (Jerry Shekhel)
Subject: Re: a MB style flame against IBMs
Organization: Molecular Simulations, Inc.
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1992 20:18:33 GMT
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
X-Posted-From: hemi.msi.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

Colin Stuckless (colins@garfield.cs.mun.ca) wrote:
: >
: >Jeff, you didn't take that post seriously, did you?  It was just some
: >ignorant moron pissed off at MB, trying to seem intelligent by being
: >sarcastic.
:
:   No, Jerry. It was a 'real life, everyday experience' that the guy had using
: a clone and Windows. He didn't like it. He was not impressed. He likes his
: Amiga a lot more. This seems to be a basic concept that you have yet to
: grasp.
:  

Well, to me it seems like he spent most of his "real life, everyday
experience" in FantasyLand.

:
:  \`    \~    \-    \  colins@garfield.cs.mun.ca             
:
--
+-------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------+
| JERRY J. SHEKHEL  | Molecular Simulations Inc. | Time just fades the pages |
| Drummers do it... |     Burlington, MA USA     | in my book of memories.   |
|    ... In rhythm! |        jerry@msi.com       |         -- Guns N' Roses  |
+-------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------+
From: TomK@cup.portal.com (Tom R Krotchko)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: The 'Screens' debate:
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 92 18:53:51 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
  <1992Dec25.033622.2768@usl.edu> <1992Dec29.191135.798@microsoft.com>

>MDI = Multiple Document Interface. It is an API for handling
>an application with multiple documents open at once under once
>"parent" window. I really don't see how it is like the screen
>system on an Amiga at all.

>MAIL : IANK@MICROSOFT.COM                        Crime and Puzzlement

Because, the MDI groups logical screen elements together, exactly
the way an Amiga Screen does.

This may not be the original intent of Amiga Screens, but that is
certainly one of their best uses now. In a "single tasking" GUI, its
pretty obvious that any sort of window that pops up belongs to the
one task that is running. But in a "many tasking" GUI its confusing
to a user to have multiple dialogs popping up on the same screen.
The Amiga Screen eliminates the visual clutter (and confusion) as
does the MDI.

Incidentally, very few applications make full use of the MDI.
I've found users prefer when an application is done completely
within the MDI as opposed to "standard" windows style.

And as I suspected, not everyone within Microsoft fully understands
how the MDI makes Windows considerably more powerful. The guys writing
it do, since Win3.1 makes writing MDI apps a snap (I love the way that
sounds).

TomK@cup.portal.com
Tom Krotchko
From: jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz (John Bickers)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: PowerSnap vs the OS/2 2.0 clipboard.
Date: 29 Dec 92 11:28:19 PST
Organization: TAP

    Encouraged by Dan Stephenson and Jerry Scheckel's (sp?) glowing
    descriptions of the OS/2 clipboard, I dug into the on-line docs to
    try it out. One interesting fact is it doesn't seem to be possible
    to clip stuff from the on-line doc viewer.

    Anyway. It works using Mark/Copy/Paste menu items. Not all
    programs support the clipboard. Such programs have these items
    forced on them by the OS, in their control menu, though this only
    seems to happen for command sessions (ie, CLIs). So if you want to
    clip the text under an icon, or the text in a menu item, or the
    text in a window title bar - you are stuck.

    This is LAME LAME LAME compared to PowerSnap. It is useless. The
    cut/paste scenarios I described in a previous article, between
    MicroEMACS and VLT, would be MUCH harder and MUCH more tedious
    between MicroEMACS and TE/2 under OS/2.

    Argh! Gak! Ptui! It's a real disappointment, and IMHO completely
    wipes any kind of validity from previous arguments about useful
    support for cutting and pasting.

    Do the OS/2 users out there know of a utility that works like
    PowerSnap, where any text matching a font known to the OS can be
    snapped from anywhere, and the resulting text stream fed into any
    program that accepts keystrokes? With the snapping action being as
    simple as holding down a button while marking the text, double-
    clicking on words, or triple-clicking on lines?
--
*** John Bickers, TAP.                   jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz ***
***    "Radioactivity - It's in the air, for you and me" - Kraftwerk    ***
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: lindblad@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Jarkko Lindblad)
Subject: Re: Does reading this group make you depressed? The story of a victim.
Organization: University of Helsinki
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 19:19:59 GMT

Marc N. Barrett (barrett@iastate.edu) wrote:

>    No.  I am countering your lumping of development tools like text editors
> and programming languages with productivity software.  You can't compare them
> at all.

Jesus... so I guess that programming languages, text editors,
AmigaTeX, Real 3D and others are not productivity software. Oh Jesus,
then I guess they're games.

> >> > And of course we all know how
> >> >one definately can not hook all those CD-ROMs available via SCSI.
> >> 
> >>    Uh huh, and CD-ROM drives are really good examples of software, too.  NOT!
> >
> >And where did you say software?
> 
>    I stated that there is no Amiga CD-ROM or (good) productivity software 
> available for the Amiga.  Perhaps my qualifying productivity software with the

Yes, and this is exactly how I and they other guy understood it. Then
you started whining. There are loads of Amiga CD-ROM drives - they're
just not called Amiga CD-ROm drives as uyou can hook them to PC's too.
With SCSI. Did it get too complex for you?
	What is productivity software n your opinion? Just word
processors and spreadsheets, I guess. I don't think you mean databases
as we do have several different Superbase-versions. WordWorth and
Finalcopy are pretty good text editorts, probably not as good as MS
Word for Windows, but good enough for 99% of users. This 99% does not
include you, I know. Then there are ProCalc (never seen) and Maxiplan
spreadsheets - probably not too good ones, but porobably not too lousy
either. 99% of computer users don't use spreadsheets. You do.

> word "good" confused people.  I did this because the Amiga does have some
> productivity software available, but no really good productivity software

Corection: no software with label MicroSloth. And then there's no
Intel inside either. Cygnus ED professional is exellent, Exellence is
told to be pretty good, as is WordWorth 2, Real 3D 2.0 is really good,
and so on, but none of these qualifies as productivity software as
they're for Amiga.

--
Jarkko Lindblad
lindblad@cc.helsinki.fi
-- 
Jarkko Lindblad         | sleep my friend and you will see
lindblad@cc.helsinki.fi | that dream is my reality
------------------------| they keep me locked up in this cage
          - MetallicA - | can't they see it's why my brain say rage
From: jdutka@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (John Dutka)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Tandy Unveils 16-Million-Color CD-ROM Multimedia system
Date: 21 Dec 1992 19:38:31 GMT
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
NNTP-Posting-Host: bigwpi.wpi.edu

In article <BzLGBw.J22@news.iastate.edu> barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N. Barrett) whines:
>>You mean the CDTV (A500)?
>   The CDTV isn't a computer.  Commodore said so.

Emphasis on the word SAID.  Since they seem to be marketing this nice little
package called the professional bundle, which includes a keyboard, mouse, and
disk drive, with WorkBench 1.32, and I'm typing this on a CDTV now, it seems
to be a computer to me.  Deal.





-- 
| John A. Dutka, Jr.   | Micro Credo:                                        |
| jdutka@wpi.wpi.edu   | Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift.    |
| Worcester Polytechnic Institute ___________________________________________|
From: jason@aspen.math.uh.edu (Jason Grimes)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: A4000 or NOT
Date: 21 Dec 92 23:59:57 GMT
Reply-To: jason@aspen.math.uh.edu (Jason Grimes)

In article <1h0i71INNp3t@uwm.edu>, bloc1469@ee.ee.uwm.edu (Gregory R
Block) writes:
|> In article <10280@cbmger.de.so.commodore.com>
peterk@cbmger.de.so.commodore.com (Dr Peter Kittel Germany) writes:
|> >I beg to differ. I learnt computing on some (wannabe) mainframes, but the
|> >first micro I really used and loved was a PET. I had the chance to at least
|> >try a bunch of others and also do real work on a few different ones, but
|> >I always returned to my Commodore one with big relief. And that was long
|> >before I joined the company.
|> 
|> Wow, kiddies, wasn't that a fun story?  Now, I know that one from
|> somewhere...  ;)
|> 
|> Actually, I'm curious:  Did the PET have graphics, or was it text
|> only?  I don't remember the PET.  (I'm a youngin' though...)  I just
|> have vivid memories of being very young and staying up far too late
|> playing Bard's Tale II.  I finished BTII, but the habit of staying up
|> far too late seems to have stuck in me.  Guess that's why I'm such
|> good EE material.  ;)
|> 
|> Greg
|> 
|> --
|> (: (: (: (: Have you overdosed on smileys today?  Why NOT!?! :) :) :) :)
|> (:   "Commodore has never proven to me, to my satisfaction, that      :)
|> (:    Marc Barrett is still alive."			       -Wubba :)
|> (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: (: () :) :) :) Wubba, the Dark Angel :)

My first experience with a computer was with a CBM PET 4016 and compared to
the other computers of the day ( TRS 80's and Apple II ) the PET was way cool.
It had a 40 column screen with 16 KBytes of memory and a graphics character
set.  We programmed ( in basic ) most of the popular video games like
Defender, Space Invaders, Centiped, and a couple of others.  They didn`t 
look or play like the real things, but, it was fun anyways.  All of the
programs
were saved to cassette tapes, which took about 10 min. to save and read.  We
also had a PET 4008, two PET 8032`s, and a Super PET. This was in 1979 to 1984
I think.

Jason
From: Steve_Halliburton@naraltd.raider.net (Steve Halliburton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Relations, familial etc.
Distribution: world
Date: 21 Dec 92 01:36:11 CST
Organization: Narabedla Limited BBS

Say, Marc--Marc Barrett--are you by any chance related to a guy named Donn
Dubuque? Or maybe you know him?

(readers of fido AMIGA_VIDEO will catch the reference)

-- Via DLG Pro v0.995

 /|  /| /|  / /~~  /|
/-| / |/ | / (_I~ /-|  1000, 512K, one floppy!
a n d   s t i l l ,   l i f e   i s   g o o d!
Steve_Halliburton@naraltd.raidernet.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.misc
From: peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Amigaguide Management System
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900
Distribution: inet
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 16:07:10 GMT

In article <paul.046e@dragons.DIALix.oz.au> paul@dragons.DIALix.oz.au (Paul O'Neill) writes:
> And where should I post the final release?

comp.sources.amiga, please.
-- 
Peter da Silva.  <peter@sugar.neosoft.com>.
 `-_-'   Oletko halannut suttasi tnn?
  'U`    
Tarjoilija, tm ateria el viel.
From: atkin@cs.umass.edu (Marc Atkin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Does reading this group make you depressed? The story of a victim.
Summary: The Amiga situation is not as bad as it appears from reading the net
Date: 29 Dec 92 23:11:00 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts CS Department
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article [...], barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N. Barrett) writes...
>In article [...] barrett@astro.cs.umass.edu (Daniel Barrett) writes:
>>In article [...] atkin@cs.umass.edu (Marc Atkin) writes:

[...]

Thanks Marc for responding to Dan's response to my article: It results in a 
wonderfully cute author list. (At least I think so!)

To re-iterate the point of my original article:
From reading the net one can get the impression that nobody in the world knows
about the Amiga. Together with the relatively low volume of Amiga sales in the
US this can easily turn Amiga advocates into Amiga fanatics, which isn't
necessarily a good thing.

Fact is that the Amiga is very well-known in Europe (just look at how much of
the recent PD-software has been authored by European programmers), but Europe
as a whole is under-represented on the net. Together with the human tendency to
prefer whining and complaining to pointing out good things, this results in 
overly negative picture of the Amiga situation on the net.

Of course there are many things that are not anywhere near perfect. I too
would like to see CD-ROM equipped Amigas and more aggressive advertising.
But "The Amiga is going to die real soon now" type postings are unjustified
IMHO and potentially harmful - especially if people believe them.


   Marc Atkin            //
U of Massachusetts      //                " Goosnargh. "
   at Amherst       \\ //
atkin@cs.umass.edu   \X/
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.misc
From: peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Byte A4000/A3000T-040 Review
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 01:05:03 GMT

In article <1992Dec29.072401.6373@desire.wright.edu> fheitkamp@desire.wright.edu writes:
> 	Yeah, right.  You're gonna sue Commodore?

Me? No, my warrantees ran out long since, and I only opened my 1000 about 6
months ago when a small child stuck an unmentionable object in the disk drive.
But suing them in small claims court for the repair cost of stuff that should
be covered would be quite reasonable.

Speaking of 1000s, anyone know where I can get a keyboard or a hack to put
another keyboard on? The same small child trashed out the "T" key.

> 	Remember most people like and use the Amiga IN SPITE of Commodore
> 	not BECAUSE of Commodore.  Anything that knocks down Commodore would
> 	kill the Amiga.  

Right. A couple of hundred bucks here and there, kill the Amiga?

> 	Commodore is just trying to protect their butts from ignorant
> 	( electronically speaking ) users who blow up their machine and
> 	try to get it fixed under warranty.  Knowlegeable and careful
> 	users like most of us here wouldn't fit that catagory.

That's not what their lawyers say. Or are you saying CBM is asking us to lie?

> 	you could collect all your expansion boards and have them put in in
> 	one shot.  Most dealers would probably charge $30 or so to do it.

No, more like $50/board. My local dealer is a total sleazeball. Ripped
me off for $160 on some expansion RAM. *AFTER* I went to the trouble of
borrowing a RAM tester and testing each chip myself.

> 	Instead of complaining, think of a solution, that would be
> 	acceptable to all.

Common usage: if you cause damage to the machine, it's not covered. No matter
whether it's because you screwed up installing a board or you spilled coke
on the keyboard (speaking as one who just replaced a bunch of rotted traces
on his keyboard here). If you're using the computer according to the
instructions, then it should be covered.

So, if CBM screws you over on this, and won't listen to reason, sue 'em in
small claims court. It'll cost them more just to send someone to show up at
the trial than the repair would cost. Make sure you DIDN'T mess the machine
up yourself first, though.
-- 
Peter da Silva.  <peter@sugar.neosoft.com>.
 `-_-'   Oletko halannut suttasi tnn?
  'U`    
Tarjoilija, tm ateria el viel.
From: douddy@cnsvax.uwec.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Freedom
Date: 21 Dec 92 10:39:22 -0600
Organization: University of Wisconsin Eau Claire

The next time you are reading a message, say by Mr Annoying himself, Marc
Barrett, (and working under VMS News 6.03) please type:

KILL/FROM

You'd be positively amazed at how much more sense this news group makes.  I
guess its like the gausian distribution: 95% of the problem is caused by 5% of
the population.  Try Kill, you'll like it.  You'll make your mind a better
place. 

I am not advocating censorship, just freedom from mindless dribble.

Dustan Doud
DOUDDY@CNSVAX.UWEC.EDU
University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire

'It's not like the universe isn't going to run down anyway'

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: das9674@usl.edu (Stephenson Daniel A)
Subject: Marc Barrett, Superstar!
Organization: University of Southwestern Louisiana
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 05:45:13 GMT

Seriously though, it sure seems like you guys jump all over Marc
and call him insulting names and degrade his posts over some
over the most TRIVIAL or DUMB things!  Why? don't you have something
better to do?  An example of this sort of pathetic flaming might be
a dozen follups on my term 'DUMB things!' two lines up, saying things
like 'Har har, yeah, *real* DUMB, that Marc', etc etc.

Get a life!

--
Dan Stephenson                                         das9674@usl.edu  
"Yes Dan, I have heard of Ultima Underworld.  From my point of view it
 appears to be a rather large stick which you seem to be using to beat
 everbody in this group with." -Mark Steyn, comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N. Barrett)
Subject: Re: Future Amiga chipset
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 17:37:44 GMT

In article <38092@cbmvax.commodore.com> andy@cbmvax.commodore.com (Andy Finkel) writes:
>I don't think you can count him as 'here'.  He probably doesn't buy
>Amiga hardware or software, and certainly doesn't contribute
>to the Amiga community (unless you count his campaign to keep WordPerfect
>off the Amiga as a 'contribution'.)

   I was trying to keep a bunch of people from wasting their time.  I have
exchanged e-mail messages with the president of Word Perfect Corp., way back
when they first announced that they were abandoning the Amiga.  If anything, 
it was primarily due to the letter-campaign that I initiated that Word Perfect
gave the Amiga a few more months.  But by time they finally abandoned the Amiga
for good, it was obvious that no amount of letters was going to help the
situation.  What the Amiga needed at that time, to keep WP writing for the,
was not a bunch of letters from people who would not buy their software 
anyway, but results from Commodore in selling Amiga systems in the high-end 
and mid-range markets where WP sells most of their software.

>The 1200 is probably a going to be a big success.  That will probably
>change things.  (BTW, where'd you hear EA was dropping the Amiga ?
>That doesn't match with what I've heard)

   You hope.  The noose around the A1200's neck is the software situation.  And
Commodore is not taking the steps they need to improve this situation.  As a
for instance, take a look at the letter written to me by the people who 
developed 'DataTax'.  These people do not believe the Amiga has a large enough
installed base in the U.S. to support even one good tax preparation program.
The letter was posted to comp.sys.amiga.announce a few days ago.

---
| Marc Barrett -MB-  |  email: barrett@iastate.edu
--------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: tmc@spartan.ac.BrockU.CA (Tim Ciceran)
Subject: Origin Ports (or is it Ports of Origin?)
Organization: Brock University, St. Catharines Ontario
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 21:20:52 GMT

In article <1h4pmaINN7t9@mozz.unh.edu> ggg@kepler.unh.edu (Gregory G Greene) writes:
>'>Did you say "Origin"?  The company which is reported to be porting everything
>'>they've ever (I exaggerate) written to the Amiga?
>
>	Really, its news to me.  Richard Garriott said in a couple interviews
>   a while ago that Ultima 7 would never be ported to any other platform.  I
>   guess he could have changed his mind though.  I know that Wing Commander
>   is being ported (it may be out already), and supposedly Ultima Underworld
>   is being ported (rumors say due out summer 93). I think WC will be the test.
>   If it sells well, Origin will continue to support the Amiga, if not, they
>   will drop Amiga support like a hot potato.

The real question however, is whether Origin is overseeing the port, or 
whether they are simply allowing a contractor to develop and distribute
the product under the original name. This is often the case with EA.
The advance word on the Amiga version of WC is that it is excrement^2.

Only AGA would do it justice and the volume just isn't there yet. One
would have to wonder whether developing first for AGA would be more
feasible, as derivatives could be developed in the same way that EGA and
CGA versions of many PC games are released.

-- 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Tim Ciceran, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Brock University, Canada. 
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who