From: Aric.Caley@ofa123.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: REAL FALCON 030 SPEC
X-Sender: newtout 0.02 Sep 21 1992
Date: 30 Sep 92  09:30:00

> Organization: University of Tasmania, Australia.
> From: u894776@bruny.cc.utas.edu.au (James McCoull)
> Message-ID: u894776.717808655@bruny
> Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
>
> etxansk@garbod20.ericsson.se (Anders Skelander) writes:
>
> > When I owned both machines, I got the impression that such software
> >as assemblers, high-level language compilers etc, generally ran faster
> >on the ST. My overall impression was that the Amiga was kept back by
> >slower CPU speed and unbelievably slow disk access.
>
> Finally!  Someone on this group who isnt saying that having a well
> designed
> OS is good enough - you need a usable OS as well.

Slower CPU speed: The A500/A2000's CPU speed is only slightly less than
an ST.  And of course, there are a multitude of ways to get a faster CPU
on an Amiga.  True, disk access was slow; but we have FFS and now with
3.0 the DCached FFS that is plenty fast.  Plus it stores 880K versus 720K
(or 1.76meg with HD disks).  Not to mention that, if you want, you can
read/write Atari disks directly.

As for other software things "generaly running faster" - I doubt there is
any OS facility on the Atari that is significantly more efficient than
the AmigaOS equivalent (and I know there are many AmigaOS services that
just simply dont exist on the Atari).

High level language compilers may seem faster on the Atari simply because
(and this is just a guess) the compilers just dont spend as much time
optimizing the code, like Amiga ones do.

And, finaly, "..the Amiga was kept back by..."  Kept back?  In case you
hadn't noticed, the Amiga is far more popular and more well supported
than the Atari.  Kept back?  When we have 20+ MIPS machines?  I dont see
any '040 based Ataris.

(I guess this is more directed at Anders Skelander. Oh well..)

> Lets face it - some people bought STs merely because lots of software
> ran better on an ST than an Amiga.  Better - as in faster and more usable.

For instance?

> Compare a minimum configuration A500, versus an ST or Archimedes, or even
> an old 8 bit machine like the BBC Microcomputer.  Which machine is the

I believe the Arch will kill both the A500 and the ST.

> least
> usable - which machine has the slowest [perceived] disk
> accesses, which machine
> has the most awkward and ugly GUI?

I havent seen the Arch, and I doubt the BBC Micro has a GUI.  That leaves
the ST and Amiga.  Last time I saw the ST, its GUI was absolute crap
compared to Workbench 1.3, which is absolute crap compared to Workbench
2.0 (much less 3.0).  Have you seen Workbench 2.0?  Its really nice
looking, easy, and fast.  I remember the ST's GUI as being extremely slow
where the Amiga's was very fast.

>      Its a pity the machine with the best hardware comes out worst eh?

OK.  Now we're getting somewhere.  You've either A: Admited the Amiga has
the BEST hardware, or, B: The Atari came out being the worst.

Either way, you loose.  If its A, you are simply wrong, and I defy you
to prove it.  You (and no-one else for that matter) haven't offered any
specific evidence (correct or otherwise) to support your claim that the
Amiga OS is not usable, that the Amiga is slower than Ataris, or that
the Amiga GUI is "awkward and ugly" compared to the Atari (GEM).

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