From: skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Atari Falcon Discount Supermachine  Re: Sydnes is gone?!!
Date: 27 Aug 92 15:03:37 GMT
Organization: University of Mississippi, Dept. of Computer Science

In article <Chris_Millar.0476@lppl.mi.org> Chris_Millar@lppl.mi.org (Chris Millar) writes:
>As a matter of fact, Atari DID lose 20 million - First quarter of 1992, I  
>believe - according to their Quarterly Report - I think you overestimate   
>Commodore's financial security, and underestimate Atari's. (I am a         
>stockholder, you see - I get all of the 10K forms)

I am honestly surprised that either company has survived into the 90s...

>I am not bragging about the Falcon's audio capabilities, although they DO  
>eclipse those of any other computer in it's price range (and several others
>for that fact.) I see you have christened yourself "master of debate"...

No, there are others who far outshine me when it comes to debates.  I would
rather be known as a "master antagonist".  :-)

>I am merely stating a fact.  The 16 bit DMA sound engine can produce or 
>record sound at up to a maximum of 50kHz - if you require a faster rate, you 
>can "kick in" the DSP and utilize it at up to 1Mhz.  It's as simple as that.

Why are so many different sound generators needed?  The NeXT has really nice
sound and it only has the 56001 and a couple of DACs.  I'd imagine that the
Falcon could have been even less expensive had they just used one sound
system instead of 3 (or is it 4?).  The old ST sound chip is about as complex
as the old SID chip in the C64 (or maybe even less so), so why not let the
DSP emulate it?  There is a program for the Amiga that plays SID files and
all the Amiga has is Paula, not a fancy DSP.

>You are, in fact, correct about the Falcon's resolution - for some odd
>reason, nothing on the net's or online services had cleared this matter up 
>until a couple of days ago.  Maximum true color resolution is 640x400 
>interlaced.  Maximum colors in 640x480 resolution is 256 colors, or 8 bit 
>planes.  

I think that the Falcon's video is a big improvement over the STs and that
it will probably have pretty good performance.  Although I'm no fan of the
ST or Atari, I did think that the Falcon's specs sounded great.  It is
unfortunate that the real thing has lost a bit since it has been transformed
from vapor into a solid.

>As far as your "crack" about "pseudo-true color", what is fake about it?  
>the definition of True Color has been distorted as of late - many claiming 
>that True Color is 32 bit graphics or higher.  The REAL definition of True 
>Color is an unlimited palette - which the Falcon has in "True Color" modes.
>The fact that only 16 bit is displayable is besides the point - unlimited  
>palette is the key.

By that definition practically any machine can have true color.  I could use
a 24 or 32 bit palette on my Amiga and only display pseudo 12 bit color using
the HAM mode.  Check out ADPro for an example.  If the Falcon's "true color"
mode displays 32k colors or 64k colors, then there are not enough colors to
fill the screen without repetition.  Also, the 256k color palette does not
have enough colors to be considered true color.  You can only get 32 shades
of each color with the 18bit palette and visible banding will occur if you
attempt to generate smoothly shaded objects.  

I'm not trying to say that the Falcon's video is bad, but it just barely
matches the SVGA PCs and Macs in some areas and falls on its face in others.  

>You are correct that TOS is BASED on 68000 CP/M, but a BASE does not define
>the entire system - I could easily add that the Amiga was designed to be a 
>game machine - does that make any difference now? I don't think so.

It does make a difference.  Had C= released a game console version of the
Amiga a few years ago and put a little effort into marketing we might have
kids buying Amiga carts instead of those for the Genesis and SNES.

As for the OS, well the early versions of the Amiga OS also left much to
be desired.  The early TOS appeared to be much more stable, but then again
it should as the code was much less complex.  The difference is that the
Amiga's OS has been vastly improved over the years without resorting to
third party hacks.

>I think that you underestimate the programming prowess of Alan Pratt.  He  
>completely redesigned MiNT to hook into TOS - it is actually a rather      
>brilliant piece of programming - unfortunately Mr. Alan Pratt has been
>hired away to work on the Taligent project (IBM/Apple).  

Let's hope that he is allowed to use his brilliance on something worthwhile.

>You mentioned a "kludge", well, AmigaDOS 1.3 comes to mind........

You won't find an argument from me on that one.  I deleted the 1.3 crap
from my hard drive over a year ago and have never looked back.

>Yes, the A600 borders on the "toy" range, but I believe it has a market
>-and that it will sell.  The Falcon, too, has a market, and is has a
>price/performance ratio that puts it directly up against the Mac LC II, Mac
>Classic II, and IIsi.  

If that is the case then the Amiga has nothing to worry about.  I was in
Chicago a couple of weeks ago on business and had the mis-fortune to spend
a day using a IIsi.  It had 10M of RAM, a 100M HD, 8bit 640x480 monitor
and a 1 bit 1152x900 (or something like that) 19" monitor.  That machine
with its 20MHz 030 felt so damn slow I thought that someone must be
playing a joke on me.  They also had an LC II, but no one wanted to use it
because it was even slower than the IIsi.  If the Falcon expects to make
it, it had better be a hell of a lot faster than the snails from Apple.

>In essence you are making yourself look rather ridiculous - your 
>close-mindedness and anti-Atari bias are clouding your view of reality 
>- may I suggest an institution?

Have you stopped to consider how ridiculous you look posting Falcon specs
and propaganda in an Amiga newsgroup?

BTW, I'm already in an institution, of higher learning that is.  :-)

>I fail to understand your logic about Calamus SL.  I assume you are an
>Amiga user (brilliant leap of reason there, eh? <G>), that being said, 
>since when does the "most popular" application mean anything in terms of
>function?

I'll tell you what it means.  It means that users can go to any bookstore
and find lots of tutorials, hint books, and other references related to
the application.

>Their are millions upon millions of PC users, does anyone besides an Amiga 
>user use an Amiga?  Does anyone besides an Amiga user use a Video Toaster? 

Your first sentence doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I think that I
understand what you are trying to say.  No, there are not many (if any)
people using the Amiga who are not Amiga owners.  There are pockets of the
machines in places, but C= is doing their best to keep this from happening.

>(Well, actually, yes - those DOS-box to Amiga links-ups are lame.) All of 
>these are rhetorical questions - whether people actually use something
>doesn't define how good it actually is.  You probably feel that your Amiga 
>is the best computer, yet millions would dispute that - even if it was 
>technically superior.  

It has been quite some time since I have had such delusions about the Amiga.
I do wish that the parent company was not guilty of child abuse in the form
of neglect and retardation of development.  Despite all of C='s efforts to
kill the machine, it has managed to survive and even prosper in some parts
of the world.  Atari is equally guilty of child abuse because it did not
enroll its child in the needed special education programs to help it compete
on a normal level.  Atari has made several announcements over the last few
years about new siblings which would be better, but it is obvious that the
parent's genes are abnormal.

>The same goes for Calamus SL - extraordinary features, VERY nice modular 
>design, and a reasonable price. (Although, it IS a professional program 
>- reasonable price for professionals, maybe.)

Great, but who is going to give up their Mac or PC running Quark, PageMaker,
Interleaf, etc. to buy an Atari?  And given the max res of 640x480 and the
total lack of an expansion slot for a video board, who would want to use
the Falcon for desktop publishing?

Skip Sauls
skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu