From: barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett)
Subject: Re: Avoid the Amiga 4000
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 20:59:44 GMT

In article <copes.718604729@marsh> copes@cs.curtin.edu.au (Simon Cope) writes:
>barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett) writes:
>
>>   Over two and-a-half years ago, when the Amiga 3000 came out, many people
>>remember how much I flamed the system because of the few improvements it 
>>offered in the overall characteristics that make the Amiga an Amiga.  But to
>
>You flame anything that comes out.

   Only stuff that comes out that is not up to par.

>>   The A4000 is a different story.  With the A4000, the only substantial
>>improvement is color.  And it becomes clearer every day at just what the costs
>
>Do not forget it is 4x as fast...

   To improve the usability of the increased color.  But according to some
people, it still is not quite fast enough.  Some have said that the 640x400
non-interlaced 256-color mode is slower than the 16-color mode on the A3000.
This would make it unusable, IMO.


>>have been to improve the color capabilities.  In the key area of display 
>>resolution, the A4000 is substantially inferior to the A3000, do to the fact
>>that the A3000 has a Display Enhancer and the A4000 does not.
>
>Pardon Me?

   You don't deserve to be pardoned.

>>   The Display Enhancer in the A3000 is arguably its best feature.  It allows
>
>With respect to the C= engineers who designed the display enhancer, at its
>best it is a hack, at worst a nuisance.

   When is it ever a nuisance?

>>all resolution modes (except for the Super HiRes modes, which are limited in
>>color capability on the A3000 anyway) to be boosted to a high-quality 31Khz
>>display.  
>
>Or the Euro72 and Super72 modes.

   the Euro72 modes work fine with the display enhancer on the A3000 I use.
You have no clue about what you are talking about.

>>Resolution modes that were non-interlaced before are improved
>>substantially by removing the scan-lines.  And interlaced modes are now totally
>>flicker-free.  Because of the Display Enhancer, the A3000 is usable with lots
>>of very high-quality monitors.  I know one person who found a bargain on a
>>19" workstation monitor which syncs down to 31Khz, offers a brilliantly sharp
>>picture with lots of colors (as many colors as any computer can put out),
>>and just plain works beautifully with the A3000.  With the Display Enhancer,
>>the user never has to worry about whether or not his or her monitor can sync
>>down to 15Khz because it never has to.
>
>Anything over 16" is really a waste of space on a machine limited to 768x580 
>res graphics.  And you should buy a monitor to suit the machine, not the ego
>of the owner.  A good monitor for the Amiga is one that syncs from 15-32 Khz,
>not "down to 31 Khz".

   Why?  If a person is not interested in video, wants all displays to be
non-interlaced and scan-line-free, then the only monitor to use is one that 
will handle high frequencies.


>>   The A4000 is a totally different story.  At first, I was a little confused
>>about the function of the scan-doubler and promoter features of the AGA Lisa
>>video chip. 
>
>Not very surprising, you're a very confused and deluded person. 

   You seem to be much more confused.

>>I thought at first that Commodore had basically moved the 
>>Display Enhancer internally to the Lisa chip.  I realise now that I was wrong.
>
>Very.

   Yes.  I was wrong to expect progress.

>>The scan-doubler is not new at all, and is present in pretty much the same
>>form in the ECS Denise.  In fact, it should be possible to generate the 
>>A4000's DblPAL and DblNTSC modes on any Amiga with the ECS Denise, but with
>>very tight color restrictions.  
>
>Yes.  Its basically called Productivity Mode.

   Not quite.  The DblNTSC mode and Productivity modes are similar but not the
same.  Productivity is output at 31Khz, DblNTSC is output at 29Khz.  The
resolutions differ as well.  You have no clue about anything.  

>>I have also found that the "Promoter" is not
>>hardware at all, but simply a function of AmigaDOS 3.0.  With 3.0, the OS
>>can be told to intercept calls to open NTSC and PAL screens, and open DblNTSC
>>and DblPAL screens instead.  
>
>Gee, you got something right.

   I'm surprised you admitted it.

>>The biggest problem with the A4000 by far is its lack of a Display Enhancer.
>
>Its actually one of the best things about it.

   Not if you want to use a monitor than can only handle the higher 
frequencies, and there are many reasons to use such a monitor.

>>With the A4000, it is no longer possible to purchase a monitor that will only
>>handle scan frequencies of 31Khz and up.  
>
>You we're stupid to buy one in the first place.

   Tell that to the many people who have bought such monitors for the A3000.
When the A3000 came out, Commodore said that VGA monitors could be used with
it with no problems, and even introduced the 1930 VGA monitor for use with 
the A3000.  Commodore gave no indications that future Amigas would not be 
able to use VGA monitors.

>>If an Amiga problem insists on 
>>opening a standard 15Khz NTSC or PAL mode screen, the screen will be opened
>>at 15Khz no matter what.  The "Promotion" feature of the OS only works for 
>>a tiny few, well-written Amiga programs, and no games.  This means that a user
>>of an A4000 will have to put up with a flickering display in programs such
>>as PageStream, and games such as SimAnt and SimEarth that can open interlaced
>>screens.  And there will be nothing that the user will be able to do about it
>>until the software is updated to support the A4000.  Additionally, all games
>>will have scan-lines on an A4000.
>
>Promotion will work on any intuition program that has been written to C=
>guidelines.  The things it doesn't work on are badly written programs that 
>tried to cheat on the rules, and will now suffer.  Not scandoubling games is
>probably a good thing.  Its pretty hard to shoot something that is ghosting
>all over the screen because it is moving more than 15 times per second...which
>is what happens on the A3000 with a deinterlacer due to the way they work.  If
>you don't believe me then more the mouse pointer round fast, then compare it
>to the A4000 one.

   I have played games on the A3000 with the display enhancer turned on, and
it has NEVER been a problem.  I have never really noticed the ghosting that
you speak of.  Its there if objects ont he screen move REALLY raplidly, but
how often do you see this happening in most games?


>>   What would this mean to someone such as the person I mentioned above, who
>>already has a monitor that cannot sync lower than 31Khz?  
>
>It means they should have read the manuals.

   They read the manuals that came with the A3000, which say that the A3000
works fine with monitors than can only handle frequencies from 31Khz and
higher.  And bought monitors accordingly.  

   BTW, I have not been able to find ANY low-radiation multisync monitors 
that can handle frequencies as low as 15Khz.  Some people do worry about 
low-freqency electromagnetic radiation from computer monitors, and the A4000
would force these people to use normal monitors that emit high amounts of
this radiation.  

>>   In short, many A3000 owners who have been using high-quality monitors will
>>have to replace their monitors with inferior ones usable on the A4000.  I have
>>thoroughly checked to monitors that can handle frequencies as low as 15Khz,
>>and few such monitors have ever been manufactured.  Many of the ones that
>>were developed have been discontinued since I checked for them over two years
>>ago.  The Commodore monitors are just about the only monitors available now
>>that will work with the A4000.
>
>That's called marketing strategy, something you obviously haven't heard of.  And
>As for not many being made, I'm sure there are many Nec 3D owners who would 
>disagree.

   It goes along with Commodore's marketing strategy to force Amiga owners to
only be able to use Commodore's HD drives, I suppose.  It's not a marketing
strategy that I agree with.  

>>A3000 instead, and upgrade it with a third-party video card as soon as DIG
>>becomes available for the Amiga.  (The A4000 retrogrades in more than just the
>>area of display resolution, though.  Due to its use of IDE instead of SCSI,
>>the A4000 retrogrades in the area of HD access and HD speed as well)
>
>The cost of an 040 card more than outways the difference between the A3000 and
>A4000.  And seeing you're in love with games, DIG wont do you much good.  I 
>also seem to recall you were one of the whingers who told C= to cut the costs
>of their machines, and advocated an IDE HDisk.  Talk about two faced...

   I have never advocated IDE instead of SCSI.  You have no clue.

>Soft promotion if far superior to the old deinterlacer.  C= have saved you
>having to reach around behind your machine to switch of the deinterlacer every
>time you play a fast game or use a 24khz graphics mode.

   I have never found the need to flip the display enhancer switch on the
A3000 I use.  The 24Khz Super72 modes are interlaced, and the monitor I use
cannot handle interlacing.

>copes@cs.curtin.edu.au

   Get a clue.

---
| Marc Barrett -MB-  |  email: barrett@iastate.edu
--------------------------------------------------
              A4000: JUST SAY NO!!!