From: nwickham@nyx.cs.du.edu (Neal Wickham)
Subject: Re: 1200/4000 pricing
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Reply-To: nwickham@nyx.UUCP (Neal Wickham)
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 92 10:45:36 GMT

In article <1hr0b2INNb7c@mozz.unh.edu> ggg@kepler.unh.edu (Gregory G Greene) writes:

>
>	Well, for just a little more you can get a GW 2000 33/486 local bus
>   system with 250 meg HD, 8 meg ram, VESA local bus ATI ULTRA PRO graphics
>   card.  It sells for $2495.  Add OS2 at $79, and Gravis Ultrasound for $140,
>   and it's still a pretty good deal at $2700.  At least this way you won't
>   have to deal with a slow VGA card and the ISA bus for graphics.
>
>							Greg Greene

Yeah... I've been looking at a Flex 486DX on a VESA bus for about $2000.
But honestly, why do I need all that power in a PC?  I am an engineer and
will probably want to learn AutoCad but won't do any real work at home
with it.  Most of the other Apps I'm interested in either don't require
a lot of CPU or are better on the Amiga.  I need a PC to run Primavera
for example, but a 386sx would work for that. 

And I believe that Amiga and CD-ROM are going to have a beautiful 
relationship as where the multimedia stuff I've seen on the PC suck.
And Windows NT will be hitting the market soon so I can count on throwing
Windows 3.1 out the "window" in a few months and can probably plan on
needing a 2 or 3 hundred MB hard drive.  And if I have a hard drive that
big, then I better get a tape backup and I will probably need another
4 megs of ram for NT and maybe much more for other Apps.  And I can't
emulate Mac on the 486 so I can plan on replacing all this top-drawer
Mac DTP software I have with some Windows equivalent.  And in my field,
Macs are quite commom and there is a chance I will need to run Mac
software rather than PC.

And then there is video.  As soon as I can afford to, I'd like to get
a camcorder and play around with video.  And I may even be able to make
money on the side with it in Construction Egineering which is my field.
...but I would at least like to mess around with it. ...you know, take
a camcorder back-packing or skiing and then make a little scenery video
with music and special effects. ...give my left brain a little work-out.
(...something Marc Barrett needs to do!)
 
Geese... and I'll bet the new AGA games, flight simulators, entertainment,
and multimedia software are going to be killer.  Amiga and PC are going
to be parting ways, big time.  The VESA local bus... fast VGA... what
are they good for?   They are new and it will not be like AGA where 
there is a standard base machine for games/entertainment software to
be written for.  ...24-bit gfx, what are you going to do with it on the
PC?  24-bit files are huge.  Are you going to JPEG everything and defeat
you higher resolution advantage?  I think HAM8 has tremedous advanates
over 24-bit. ...and it is built into the *all* new base machines so that
all kinds of software will use it.  

I have to get a PC, but I'm uneasy about it even with a $2000 486DX.  I
think what I might to is just buy the cheapest used 386sx clone I can
find and then take a wait and see.  I just really don't need a 486.  I'd
like to see the CD-ROM Amigas and the Quad Sync monitors which I hope 
have composit input.


                                    NCW
 
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