From: danaf@bray1a.its.rpi.edu (Frank R. Dana Jr.)
Subject: Re: New Byte, no A4000, ugly Macs...
Reply-To: danaf@rpi.edu
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 07:37:38 GMT

In article <1992Sep22.014624.16157@ra.msstate.edu>, skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls) writes:
|> 
|> Well, I just got in the new issue of Byte, but there was no mention of
|> the A4000.  :-(  However, there is a review of the new Mac Performa 
|> line which debuted after the A4000.  Did C= forget to pay off the boys
|> at Byte this time or something?

Hmm... don't think the (old...) crew at Byte would have missed that one. The 
Byte writers really love the Amiga, they're just wishing the editors would let
them print more about it...



Knowing Commodore, they forgot to tell them about the show!   9)

|> The Mac Performa 600 is without a doubt the ugliest Mac I've ever seen.
|> If anyone thinks that the A4000 looks like a Clone, wait until you see
|> this homely beast.  It is similar to some of the cheezy MPC boxes with
|> the goofy "power-swoop" front end like the Gateways have.  Throw in 
|> what has to be the strangest looking 5.25" bay and a big Clone-like 
|> Performa logo and you get one ugly machine.  Apple has paid big bucks
|> to have some nice cases designed for several Macs, this one looks more
|> like it is the winning entry from a contest in MacWorld or something.

But does it "Performa"? My A2000 is butt-ugly, I still prefer it to the A3000,
no matter how "pretty" the 3000 might be. There's more important things...

|> As for specs, it is basically a IIci with faster CPU, no FPU, mono sound
|> (yep, you read it right, mono sound in what purports to be a consumer
|> multimedia machine, sheesh!), VRAM instead of the troublesome dual-bank
|> IIci design, and an accelerator slot instead of the cache slot.  And of
|> course that horrendous case...

Hm... not much of a "performa" after all.

|> 2.  There are lots of people who keep whining about the A4000 and how
|> it doesn't have this and doesn't do that.  Check out Apple's latest
|> offerings and tell me that they are doing any better.  The Performa 600
|> has a 31.33MHz 030, no 882, 4M RAM, 512k VRAM, three old NuBus slots,
|> CPU slot, 8bit mono audio, and a slow Mac SCSI interface.  Stock, it
|> can display 256 colors at 640x480 and with a 1M VRAM upgrade it can
|> display 32k colors at the same resolution.  Hardly a match for the A4000
|> with the AGA...

Apple doesn't HAVE to to better... they're still ahead! (In many areas...)

|> So you say "the Performa isn't meant to compete with the A4000, the Quadra
|> is!"  Okay, you may be right, but remember that there will be an 020 or
|> 030 version of the A4000 which will fall into the same price range as the
|> Performa. 

...Someday. I love the way people quote "future-babble" like it's some sort of
gospel, send down from On High in the hands of a wise man, the Great Eggbreath.
Let's wait and see, huh?

|> I was reading about the Performas on one of the Mac groups and a few of 
|> posters were remarking that the Performas were for people who are too
|> stupid to use a Mac.  Funny thing is, that is exactly how most computer
|> users feel about Mac users.  :-)

Hmmm... I kinda like that.    8)

|> Skip Sauls
|> skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu

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=======Amiuser============Frank R. Dana, Jr.============Doc Ami=======     
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy