From: addison@pollux.usc.edu (Richard Addison)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: PC (OS/2) / Amiga debate -- hopefully a rational debate, an I an ideali
Date: 10 Sep 1992 22:16:47 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: pollux.usc.edu

In <1992Sep10.144956.15164@ctr.columbia.edu> jerry@connection.prospect.com (Jerry Shekhel) writes:
>addison@pollux.usc.edu (Richard Addison) writes:
>>jerry@connection.prospect.com (Jerry Shekhel) writes:
>>>AutoConfig is nice, but you get to use it, what, once every couple of
>>>years or so?

>>The Amiga uses AutoConfig (tm) every time it boots.

>The way I understand it, Micro Channel PC's store the configuration info of
>their boards in CMOS non-volatile RAM, so configuration only happens once.
>I don't know about EISA.

The only time I came close to dealing with putting a card in an MCA
machine was when IBM first introduced them.  I seem to recall that the
configuration task became one of flipping the right software switches
(with a configuration program) rather than flipping the right dip
switches and moving the right jumpers.  Some boards might do some of
this automatically now, I don't know.

>>>As for "real-time", what is it about AmigaOS that makes it
>>>more "real-time" than OS/2?  Please limit your answer to facts.

>>Why do you ask others to limit themselves to facts when you don't?

>You misunderstood me.  Opinions are fine with me -- just don't try to
>pass them off as facts, and don't post any lies.

Place a marker here ^^^ folks.

>>>Do all Amiga owners do video stuff, or is it just something you
>>>can whine about other systems not being able to do?  By the way,
>>>call Boffin Limited at (612) 894-0595, and ask them about their
>>>$199 VGA-to-NTSC cable.  Wow, less than the flicker-fixer even!

>>OK, the $199 converter (internal or external) is essentially an
>>NTSC encoder.  For $299 you can get one with S-Video and an RGB
>>pass-through.  The complexity of this is a good deal less than
>>a flicker-fixer, by the way.  Consider what it does, I feel it
>>is over-priced.

>Overpriced it may be, but at $199, it puts to sleep all the arguments
>about video being super-expensive on PC's.

Your "solution" does not address gen-locking.

>>Anyway, these converters rely on reprogramming the VGA card to
>>attempt RS-170 scan rates.

>How can an external converter reprogram the VGA card?  Answer: it can't.
>Somehow (I really don't know) it converts VGA output to NTSC.

OK, folks refer to that marker above.

I remember several months ago, Jerry, that you said that you posted in
this group in order to be a bullshit detector.  After all this time,
maybe it is about time that you finally begin using a bullshit detector
on what you write before you send it out.

Your comment about how the Boffin Limited VGA-to-NTSC converter works
is your opinion.  However, you are passing it off as a fact.  Furthermore,
you are posting a lie.

Since you graciously supplied a phone number, I called Boffin Limited
before I posted my earlier reply.  The person who answered my call
confirmed my suspicions:  Their VGA-to-NTSC converter includes software
that reprograms the VGA board to produce NTSC scan rates.  The hardware
produces a composite video signal from this.  The more expensive
model will produce S-Video.

Note then that the hardware, available in both internal and external
models, does no scan conversion.  This is not surprising considering
that real-time scan converters are typically very pricy.

To summarize:  The converter does not reprogram the VGA card.  But,
the included, and necessary, software does this.  The converter does
not somehow converter VGA output to NTSC.  It converts signals that
are similar to RS-170 to NTSC.

So again I ask:

Why do you ask others to limit themselves to facts when you don't?

>>But, then how close does the video signal come to meeting the NTSC
>>specifications?  [Is the horizontal scan rate 15734 Hz?  Is the
>>vertical scan rate 59.94 Hz?  Does it change the phase of the color
>>subcarrier when it should?  Does the color subcarrier burst occur
>>at the right time?]

BTW, the person I talked to at Boffin Limited did not know about how
well their solution matches NTSC specifications.  Considering their
method, I doubt that can be very close.  But that's not their fault.

>The things you ask in brackets are way out of my league, but the ad
>says that it *is* NTSC.

Finally, some facts!  :-)  However, I can't verify the first part.
It may end up only being your opinion that those questions are out
of your league.  Certainly, it is something you could do something
about.

And, for you general edification and well-being, I'll just mention
that NewTek's promotion material for the Toaster shows the results
of examining the Toaster's output on NTSC measurement equipment.
Of course, that's because they are targeting their product to
people who would want to see those numbers.

>>When the PC arrived, I was writing software for a microcomputer that
>>was both multi-tasking and multi-user.  The total memory was not limited
>>to 64K ram, either.  Granted, the file system was primitive (it had no
>>subdirectories), but the system allowed for multiple logical drives on
>>a single physical device.  BTW, we did have a 70 megabyte harddrive.
>>(It had 14 inch platters and took a couple of minutes to spin up).

>This computer was hardly mainstream, no?  In those days, that 70MB hard
>drive cost, what, around $4,000?  I was talking about the Apple ][ and the
>Atari 400/800.

The harddrive was additional.  Smaller harddrives (we called them
Winchesters back them) were available and supported.  The company
was producing various machines in their line of computers before
the Apple ][ became so popular.

Anyway, it was a different market back then.  Today's mainstream is
an entirely different world.  [Hey guys, can I qualify as a FOG
old-timer?  The first programs I wrote where on a time-sharing
machine with which I had to use a genuine Teletype (tm).  The
first college-level class I took was on an IBM 1170 with (gasp!)
punch cards.  There were hobbyist computers before the PET, the
TRS-80, and the Apple.  I even used some of them.  But, I digress.]

{Oh, the proper way to read that gasp here is to imagine Stimpy
finding a mountain made of left socks.  Sorry about all the
(parenthetical (and somewhat irrelevant)) remarks.  It's beginning
to look (way) too much like Lisp.}

>>Of course, when the IBM PC was introduced, it did not support
>>subdirectories either.

>Oops, you're right.  I forgot about that.  Subdirectories arrived with
>DOS 2.0, right?

Maybe you remember how Microsoft proclaimed that their goal was to
extend MS-DOS towards XENIX.  I found this interesting considering
how much MS-DOS (being based on [if I remember the name correctly]
Q-DOS from Seattle Computer Systems [or some such] which was modeled
after CP/M) resembled DEC's proprietary operating systems.

>>And your point about the planned obsolescence being insane:  IBM works
>>this way.  When IBM brought out the PC, it had tried various other
>>small machines with non-IBM microprocessors.  They even had a machine
>>based on the 68000.  And they had a machine, the DataMaster, that
>>was based on the 8085.

>Then why did the PC *not* end up having an IBM microprocessor?  I really
>don't think that the shortcomings of the PC were planned, as you say.

Sure they were.  Their plan was to attract more customers by offering an
entry level system.  When customers' needs grew, their plan was to
move them up to their bigger machines.  That was IBM's basic strategy
until the market showed them otherwise.  At that point they began
expanding the capabilities of the PC.  [By the way, IBM offered a
harddrive (shared through a network even) for the DataMaster before
they introduced the PC/XT.]

>>What kind of support is there for the IBM PCjr?  Or for the IBM PC,
>>for that matter?  You can't even get ROMs for the IBM PC from IBM
>>anymore.

>What a loss.  Let's get something straight.  IBM has always had excellent
>(if costly) support.  They supported the PC and XT for a lot longer than
>any other vendors supported their bottom-end clones.

Just where was IBM's excellent support for the PCjr?  [The only support
I see now is a company in Lincoln, Nebraska called Legacy Computers.]

>>Or, maybe more typically, the user pays someone to do the configuration.

>Or, maybe even more typically, the user reads the installation guide and does
>the configuration himself.

Actually, some users might read the installation guide, maybe even try
the configuration on their own, and them go pay someone to do the
configuration.

Just remember that the typical user does not read and post to Usenet.

-- 
Richard

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy