From: fheitkamp@desire.wright.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Amiga or Messy-DOS
Date: 19 Nov 92 07:43:49 EST
Organization:  Wright State University 

In article <1992Nov19.094831.58856@qut.edu.au>, barham@qut.edu.au writes:
> etxtsg@solsta.ericsson.se (Thomas Grennefors  TX/DKF) writes:
>>
>> I'm considering buying a new computer. My 500 starts to feel limited and
>> slow, and unreliable.
> 
> You would expect an A500 to start feeling slow - even with all its
> wonderful coprocessed graphics, it's still only a 7MHz 68000
> (comparable to an XT really).  It IS 1985 technology after all.

	Wrong.  Wrong.  A 7mhz 68000 is more comparable to a 12mhz 286
	speedwise.  And since it is a 32 bit processor in the programmers
	sense, it is really comparable to a 386sx.  XTs only ran a 4.77
	mhz, if I remember correctly.  That 1985 technology was at least
	3 years ahead of its time when compared to PCs.

> In what way is it unreliable?  I have an A1000 from 1986 and it's
> still going strong!
> 
>> So the computers i considering is A3000, A4000, 386 or 486.  The
>> requirements i got on my to be new computer is, colour monitor,
>> 20Mhz or more HD, and it should be reliable and easy to use.
> 
> Reliable keeps popping up!
> 
>> The main arguments against the Amiga is its reability. It's not to reliable.
>> Some programs work on a 500 with 1.3 but not on a 500+ or if you have extra
>> chipmem and so on. Thats one of the strong points of the PC. Most (i know
>> its not all) works on most machines. You can of course have requirements like
>> VGA or 2M mem needed, but then again you can have these requirements on the Amiga.
>> Overall the PC feels more stable than the Amiga. I'm getting tired of RW errors
>> on my diskettes, gurus and plain crashes.

	Gee I've never seen read-write errors and crashes on PCs?  Abort?
	Retry? Fail?.   Internal stack Error.  You can't run xxx with
	Windows.  Or just sit their and look back at you.  At least the 
	Amiga crashes and resets itself or shows you an error message of
	some sort.
> 
> Ok, so you mean reliability for software?  There aren't many modern
> programmes (games excluded of course) that wont run on ANY Amiga.
> The same thing has happenned on PCs and Macs as new versions of the
> operating system have come out.  Commodore bend over backwards to
> maintain compatibilty with programmes that don't follow the rules
> (too much in my opinion).  Since I've gotten 2.04 I've never found a
> single programme that hasn't run!  Even Music-X (version 1.0) works
> fine! Even stuff I've written works fine!  2.04 is a very "reliable"
> and stable operating system.
> 
>> Another drawback of the Amiga is the future support and new
>> software. This seems to be somewhat uncertain right now. One of
>> the strong points of the PC is that you can be certain that you
>> can get support, expansion parts and new software for a long time
>> to come.

	We'll see.
> 
> I don't think the future of the Amiga is particularly uncertain, and
> by that I mean support and software.  The Amiga is finally starting
> to get some of the recognition it deserves as a serious computer.
> Commodore are finally telling people that Amiga's exist.  New
> machines are finally showing up.  Things are just starting to look
> rosy!
> 
>> The programs i use most (apart from recreational software) is word
>> processing and a data base. It is much easier to find good DB or
>> word processing program for the PC.

	Yes, Yes, I love data base and wordprocessing.  I can't WAIT
	to turn on my computer and do that!

> 
> Well, you can probably find some of the BEST (in many peoples
> debatable opinions) word processors and database packages for the PC,
> but you can certainly easily find many GOOD (in fact, EXCELLENT) word
> processors and database packages for the Amiga.  These days you can
> even read your friends word perfect file (if you REALLY want to).
> 
	Gosh, WHAT an advantage.  I'm sold.  I want to read my friends
	WP file!

>> Another thing to consider is the price. A 486 is about $3000 here
>> in sweden. A 3000 costs about $3500 and a 4000 is somewhere around
>> $4500.
> 
	486s are dirt cheap.  For sure.

> Of course, the only PC you can get for less than an equivelent Amiga
> is a clone... Weren't we talking about reliability as a requirement
> somewhere?
> 
>> A drawback  with a PC is of course Messy-DOS and Windows.
> 
> This IS a major drawback %^)
> 
>> The good things about the amiga is of course ... come to think about it i
>> cannot name one that the PC cannot match. Can anyone else do this?
> 
	If you have used an Amiga for some time, you will loathe using
	MS-DOS, there is no comparison.  The Amiga is so much more user
	friendly.

> The Amiga is just a damn nice, well integrated, powerful,
> userfriendly machine.  A PC is just a heap of junk (even if it has a
> V8)
> 
>> No flames please (but i realise that this is highly unlikely when posting
>> to this group :-). Anyone that can come up with any good arguments to why i
>> should stick with the Amiga. And no. Amiga is cool is not a good argument.
>> Let me see if you can convince me that i should stick with the Amiga.
> 
> No flames indeed.  PC style architecture is a thing of the past
> (IMHO) - Amigas are the way of the future.  Also, Amiga is cool
> (sorry %^).  Seriously, though, I use a 33meg '486 at work with an
> accelerated VGA card, soundblaster 16, Videodisk player and Super
> Video Windows video overlay card (but only 8meg of memory and I have
> to run Windows and soon Windows NT - ouch!).  At home I have a 7MHz
> Amiga 2000HD with 3meg of memory and a 1081 (yes, an original)
> display and guess which I prefer?  Admittedly I am longing for an
> A4000 (maybe even an A1200 to get AGA on the cheap?) for that extra
> burst of speed, but I would NEVER BUY A PC!
> 
> Oh, you wanted some serious, comparison, fact and figure type
> reasons?  They have been bandied about here often enough, and when it
> all comes done, pretty well everything the Amiga can do a PC can do
> also (if you add enough hardware), but just not as nicely %^)
> 
>> Thomas Grennefors         ! What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
>> Ericsson Telecom,Karlstad ! What do you mean, an African or a European swallow?
>> etxtsg@solsta.ericsson.se ! Well...I don't know...AAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!
> 
> Tim.
> -- 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> | t.barham@qut.edu.au (Tim Barham) - SUPER PLEB!                     |
> | Applications Programmer for the Computer Based Education Section,  |
> | Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Qld, Australia      |
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> | "You're so open-minded that your brain leaked out..."              |
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
-Fred
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy