From: bloc1469@ee.ee.uwm.edu (Gregory R. Block)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: A4000, A Marketable Machine?
Date: 11 Oct 92 15:00:42 GMT
Organization: Electrical Engineering Dept. University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.89.2.33

In article <jayson.03vl@tbag.tscs.com> jayson@tbag.tscs.com (Jayson Phillips) writes:
>A marketable machine.  Now there's a thought.

Yup.  Unfortunately, while they have a marketable machine, they have
no marketing.  ;)

>The future?  040 machines came out 2 years ago.  Where were you guys?

Working on other things, obviously.  :)  You've seen some of the
future:  The advent of a modular CPU system base.  The AA (AGA sounds
so... intel-like) chipset has lots of advancements, and one can see
where there can be even more advancement.

>giving  you" rather than a "what does the market want" machine.  The market
>wants  SCSI,  16-bit sound and non-interlaced hi-res.  Of course CBM is not
>required by any law other than supply and demand to give the market what it
>wants.

See, that's where you're losing some of your readers...  SCSI-II and a
DSP are on the way, everybody and their grandmother has heard about
it.  No, they're not on the motherboard, but whether or not they need
to be is also still up in the air.  Then, you mention non-interlaced
hi-res.

Have you not read anything about AGA?  Ever heard of DblPAL/DblNTSC?
What do you think that is?

>After  giving  CBM $6000+ for A1000/A3000, that 8-bit color and 040 without
>SCSI,  16-bit_sound  and non-interlaced_hi-res isn't good enough to get yet
>another $3200 of my money.  Your milage may vary.

It's got your "non-interlaced hi-res".  It doesn't have scsi, but it's
got an IDE that's not all too bad.

>I  bought  them  because  they  were the best bang for the buck compared to
>anything  else that was available at the time.  The A4000 hardly carry's on
>that tradition.  As far as that goes even the A3000 was lacking the already
>widely available 8-bit color when it came out over 2 years ago.

Not in those resolutions, and not at the speed at which AGA allows you
to manipulate those resolutions.  I've seen a 4000...  I've yet to buy
one, but I plan to, R.S.N.  Just waiting for something in particular,
y'see.  Anyways, that's not important.  What _IS_ important that
again, the Amiga has got a revolutionary chipset.  It's not that it
does "8-bit graphics".  It's that it does 8-bit depth out of
24-bits+transparency in ALL resolutions, that it's got a new ham mode
that will give you a full color change in two pixels that ALSO works
in ALL resolutions, and that it's got some really good advancements in
it.

Standard video resolution for ECS people to do video work in at any
speed is 320x400x6.  Standard video resolution for full-screen
animation on an AGA machine is 640x400x8/HAM8.  See the difference?

>The "clone of the month" does 1024x768 in 8-bit color and is also very well
>supported  with software.  Not that I care to buy one but it is a cheap way
>to  get  hi-res 8-bit color.  And yes, the A4000/040 is cheaper than an 040
>Quadra.   But  then  so is a color NeXT Station with 12-bit color, 1130x870
>display and DSP.  Hmmmmm, now there's a thought.

You should watch that.  First, that 1024x768 in 8-bit color isn't very
fast, and it very likely isn't a 24-bit palette.  Second, the
A4000/040 isn't going to be the only A4000 available.  And you've got
to wonder if that color NeXTStation comes with the color display and
enough hard-drive space for everything, which is quite a bit...

And again, we're comparing workstation resolutions.  It's a well known
fact that the AGA chipset doesn't give you that.  However, work is
being done that will detach the OS from the hardware to give RTG.

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Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy