HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: bill@west.msi.com (Bill Poitras)
Subject: Re: Byte's Amiga 4000 review...
Reply-To: bill@west.msi.com
Organization: Molecular Simulations, Inc.
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 20:08:17 GMT

Peter /\/\odin (e91petmo@odalix.ida.liu.se) wrote:
: Well, I know this is nothing but your own opinion, but exactly WHAT is
: Windows good at?... eating disks? ...oh, I know! Running Excel and MS Word!
: I give up, NO WAY could MY Amiga do that (in its present set-up)!

1) Device Independant Graphics
2) Device Independant Sound (including the PC speaker)
3) Device Independant Printing
4) Running Lotus 1-2-3 and Lotus Ami Pro (a spreadsheet and WP)
5) Running a lot of other lot of other software at various video
resolutions (1024x768, 1280x1024, 800x600, 640x480) at various color
depths (24bit, 16bit, 8bit) by virtue of point #1 (DIG).

NO WAY could YOUR Amiga do that (in its present setup)!

--
+-----------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------+
| Bill Poitras    | Molecular Simulations Inc.    | Tel (408)522-9229       |
| (bill)          | Sunnyvale, CA USA             |                         | 
|                 | FAX (408)732-0831             | bill@west.msi.com       |
+-----------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------+

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: bull@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: RISC Amiga?
Date: 12 Jan 93 17:36:26 +1100
Organization: Computer Centre, Monash University, Australia

papresco@cantor.math.uwaterloo.ca (Paul Prescod) writes:
>>      The lifetime of the Motorola 68k line of chips DOES seem to be rather
>>limited.  The 68060 won't be out until at least a YEAR after the Pentium or
>>so, and the performance estimates for it aren't *stunning* for a hot new chip.
>>(last I heard, they were expecting about 70-80MIPS on it....) By 1994, they
>>might even be mediocre.
>
> Yes, and once the 68060 IS released (probably over a year from now and
> behind schedule), how long will it take for a stock Amiga to
> incorporate it.  They are selling PCs that can use the Pentium already.

        It would take as long as the time to develop a board to plug into
the CPU slot which is part of every A2000, A3000 and A4000 (although
the slot is different on the 32 bit A3000 and A4000). A few weeks to come
up with the initial prototype pcb (by someone who knows what they're
doing). The fact of the matter is that the motherboards of the 3 Amiga
systems named above already have the facilities to accept such a card. Now
it's just a matter of waiting for the chip (and card) to be developed.

        Now, who is it that is making "Pentium ready" PC's?

           Bull@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au  OR  bull@monu1.cc.monash.oz
                    DOD# 251  '84 VF 750   Closet Ducatisto
             Disclaimer. If you love your llama, let it lambada.
From: marks@castle.ed.ac.uk (Mark Steyn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: An Amigan does it *again* Re: clone prices & doom & gloom
Date: 5 Jan 93 13:30:13 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

das9674@ucs.usl.edu (Stephenson Daniel A) writes:

>Incredibly Boring Machine?  Civilization is a BLAST, too.  Do you think
>it would be sped up but gee-whiz graphics chips?  Hardly.  Wait, you Amigans
>DO have Civilization available for AmigaDOS, don't you?

Yes, Dan we do have Civilization.  It's also coming out with 256 colour
AGA support.  In other words - It's not a very big stick :-)

Sorry, couldn't resist.

	Mark

-- 
"Of course you realise, this means war"         \ Mark Steyn :         \
            "Speak softly                        \ marks@castle.ed.ac.uk \
        And carry a big stick"                    \ mpjs@dcs.ed.ac.uk     \
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: fihsu@athena.mit.edu (Hsu I-wei)
Subject: Re: HELP--AMIGA OR IBM PC CLONE?
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 19:59:50 GMT

In article <C0nIsp.H9K@news.iastate.edu> barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N. Barrett) writes:
>In article <1993Jan10.112010.11073@athena.mit.edu> fihsu@athena.mit.edu (Hsu I-wei) writes:
>>In article <1993Jan10.043322.7254@src4src.linet.org> scottw@src4src.linet.org (Scott Weintraub) writes:
>>>The Gateway comes with MS-DOS and Windows and of course the A4000 comes with
>>>WB 3.0.  Gateway then enables you to choose from a small assortment of   
>>
>>Ok, but the A4000 comes with one or two software packages itself. I forget what
>>they are, but you fail to mention them for some reason.
>
>   You conveniently forgot what they are.  They are Final Copy and ADPro.  Both
>are garbage, and can't even begin to compare with Word for Windows or a 
>Windows image-processing program.  (I say that ADPro is garbage because it is
>a totally hands-off image processing program.  Almost everything is done 
>completely blind, so that you cannot see what you are doing.  And it has no
>image editing and painting features.  This is more escusable for a program
>running on an older Amiga, but for a program for an AGA Amiga it is garbage)

First, I wasn't aware that Gateway offers an image-processing program bundled
with their computer systems. Maybe I "conveniently" overlooked it in the
advertisement huh. Let's see if you can find it.

Second, Final Copy and AdPro are arguably two of the best programs available
for the Amiga. Just because they don't compare to Word for Windows or a
windows image-processing program (did you conveniently forget the name of one
of them?), you can't fault C= for the choices of software to bundle with the
system. They picked two very popular Amiga software packages. Perhaps the
addition of SAS C/5.10 as a possible choice would make things better.

[rest of Marc's article which tries to start a completely different topic
deleted]

>
>---
>| Marc Barrett -MB-  |  email: barrett@iastate.edu
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>"No, I just think that a computer grafted on top of another computer
>is a kludge.  It has nothing to do with the AGA chipset." -- me

Francis

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: lindblad@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Jarkko Lindblad)
Subject: Re: HELP--AMIGA OR IBM PC CLONE?
Organization: University of Helsinki
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 19:54:09 GMT

Evan Torrie (torrie@cs.stanford.edu) wrote:
> skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls) writes:
>  
> >Intel talks about OverDrive, "speed doubling", and that sort of thing 
> >in their ads.  Nowhere do they explain that only the internal circuitry
> >is double speed.  Motorola could say the same thing about the 68040 as
> >it too runs at 50MHz internally...
> 
>  Sigh.  The 040 doesn't complete an instruction every 50MHz clock. The
> 486/DX2 does.

Well, neither does. 486DX2 _may_ complete an instruction every 50 MHz
clock cycle, but only rarely do. Only simple memory -> registrer,
register -> memory moves and simple register -> register operations as
well as branch not takens are executed in one clock.

-- 
Jarkko Lindblad         | sleep my friend and you will see
lindblad@cc.helsinki.fi | that dream is my reality
------------------------| they keep me locked up in this cage
          - MetallicA - | can't they see it's why my brain say rage
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: slhmz@cc.usu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Make WorkBench A WORK Bench!!!
Date: 12 Jan 93 16:30:46 MDT
Organization: Utah State University

>>	The only program I am impressed with to date is Final Copy II, since
>>it gives you a choice of opening a custom screen or WB screen. Using the Wb
>>screen and rescaling, I learn to appreciate having a multi-tasking system.
>>
> 
>      Personally I'd rather have the screens, but for those who _like_ a 
> cluttered workbench, there are plenty of apps thgat use it.  The ones I have
> on my system right now that can run on WB include PageStream, ProWrite,
> Art Expression, ProCalc (I _think_...), and one or two others.

  Here Here!  I also like the screens *much* better.  If you enjoy multitasking
  10 programs at once on you A3k, just wait till you try to do it all on
  one screen.  It is literally HELL! 
  
  That's one reason why I *HATE* windows!

--
FAith Gibson
 
> 
> -- 
> Don Lloyd           | Publications Editor, AmigaNetwork |AmigaNetwork Voice Mail
> don@chopin.udel.edu | AmigaNetwork BBS (The Original!)  | Info by voice or FAX
> GeNIE: D.LLOYD7     |    (302)368-3942 (v.32bis)        |    (GVP PhonePak)
> BIX: DRL            |    (302)368-1067 (USR HST)        |    (302)368-4673)
From: peterk@cbmger.de.so.commodore.com (Dr Peter Kittel Germany)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: A4000 Pricing
Date: 11 Jan 93 08:14:13 GMT
Reply-To: peterk@cbmger.de.so.commodore.com (Dr Peter Kittel Germany)
Organization: Commodore Germany

In article <1ikd7sINNil5@mercury.kingston.ac.uk> cs_e445@ceres (Vlod Kalicun) writes:
>
>Why does the Power Up only apply to the states.
>The Europe market is quite a big chunk for C= and yet we don't get
                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>any of these offers.

Well, I think this *is* exactly the reason.

:-)

-- 
Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel  // E-Mail to \\  Only my personal opinions...
Commodore Frankfurt, Germany  \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk
Wer's nicht kann, soll's bleiben klopfen oder Steine lassen!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: papresco@cantor.math.uwaterloo.ca (Paul Prescod)
Subject: Re: More Amiga OS weaknesses and strengths
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 17:40:16 GMT

>Hmmm.. heres something you find interesting..
>
>Theres a program called GigaMem, which gives you I GIG of VM.
>Its reviewed in Issue 43 (Feb) 1993 of Amiga Format (UK mag).
>ohh BTW HB Marketing are distributing it here in sunny(??!?) England.
>
>Regards..

Too bad it doesn't work on 040s and isn't part of the operating system.

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N. Barrett)
Subject: Re: More Amiga OS weaknesses and strengths
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 07:15:52 GMT

In article <C0Go2H.KKo@starnine.com> mikeh@starnine.com (Mike Haas) writes:
>>In article <C0CJnH.4DL@news.iastate.edu> barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N. Barrett) writes:
>>
>>Besides, Apple manages
>>to sell three times as many Macintoshes as Commodore sells Amigas, every
>>year 
>
>Is THAT all?  Only 3 times more?  That's pretty good...
>
>Used to more than that... they're losing ground!  :-)
>
>Way to go, C=!   Thanks for pointing that out, Mark!

   Commodore is the one that's losing ground.  The Amiga used to outsell the
Mac a few years ago.  Only about three years ago, the Amiga and Mac were just 
about even in unit sales.  Now the Mac outsells the Amiga by three-to-one.
I don't know why you're so happy about that.

---
| Marc Barrett -MB-  |  email: barrett@iastate.edu
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"No, I just think that a computer grafted on top of another computer
is a kludge.  It has nothing to do with the AGA chipset." -- me
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: m92mmy@tdb.uu.se (Mattias Myrberg)
Subject: Re: The Mac is not ideal (was Re: Amiga OS weaknesses and strengths)
Organization: Alien Dreams Department
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 17:46:08 GMT

Now, I'm not at home with the word preemptive multitasking,
-what does it really mean ?

A friend (he's a clone-freak) of mine always goes on about
the "true" multitasking in OS 2 (he claims Windows doesn't multitask)
and he doubts that the Amiga is able to multitask.

What the #$%$#! is this "true multitasking" ?

-I don't like Macintosh..I don't like Apple...


/Mattias

_______
Mattias Myrberg

m92mmy@bellatrix.tdb.uu.se
From: stevew@mksol.dseg.ti.com (steve wootton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: More on 3DO
Date: 12 Jan 93 02:49:18 GMT
Organization: Texas Instruments, Inc

In article <C0pw4v.IvC@rahul.net> mike@rahul.net (Mike Smithwick) writes:
>The article states : "If you have ever seen graphics done on a high-end
>workstation, then you have seen a good representation of the graphics
>and effects you can get on the 3DO machine. It includes 3-D rendering,
>360 degree rotation, and shading features that allow you to see
>through a 3-D rotating object...Although you could not classify this 
>system as a graphics workstation by any means, it is a graphics workstation
>quality playing device."

EE Times, 11 January, says... "The [pair of animation-cel engines
working in parallel] can manipulate a theoretical peak of 64 million
pixels a second, according to 3DO president and CEO Trip Hawkins; 40
million to 50 million pixels/s is average.  This compares with 1
million pixels/s for today's 16-bit CD-ROM players and 3 million
pixels/s for 32-bit CD-ROM players."

...   "The 3DO Interactive Multiplayer accepts software
developed specifically for it, and can also play audio CDs, Kodak
PhotoCDs and video CD-ROMs, eventually including those based on MPEG
compression.  3DO has a graphics capability arguably superior to any
other consumer CD-ROM-based system, and it hopes to harness that
capability with the established popularity of music CDs and ride them
both to success."

Sounds pretty good for something starting at $700, with support from
Paramount, Virgin, Ocean, Dynamix, Psygnosis, Maxis, Spectrum HoloByte,
Matsushita (Panasonic showed a prototype 3DO system at CES), AT&T,
Time-Warner, MCA, and Electronic Arts.

-- 
Steve Wootton  --  stevew@mksol.dseg.ti.com
Hey, don't blame TI... they haven't told me what to say.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: davidme@qdpii.comp.qdpi.oz.au (David Meiklejohn)
Subject: Re: HELP--AMIGA OR IBM PC CLONE?
Organization: Qld Dept Primary Industries
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 22:48:32 GMT

In article <C0r1vr.I93@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu> papresco@lagrange.uwaterloo.ca (Paul Prescod) writes:
>
>In fact, many, many Amiga users own a DOS machine and an Amiga.  Why
>not have an OS/2 machine instead...it saves money.

A PC running OS/2 is not equivalent to an Amiga.  I gave serious consideration
to going this way, but it's not the same - not by a long shot.

>Differnt buses for different things.  ISA is low end and backwards
>compatible.  EISA is fast, MCA is faster, VESA is fast for the single
>user, PCMIA is good for laptops and large amounts of data.

I wouldn't put it quite that way.  ISA is cheap.  EISA is faster, with some
more advanced features, while retaining backwards compatibility with ISA.
MCA is the product of a clean break from the past - a fresh design.  It's a 
good bus, but not popular.  I wish it were.  IBM did this to themselves by
requiring license fees on MCA implementations.  VESA is seen as a cheap
alternative to EISA where higher performance than ISA is required.  PCMCIA is
designed for external slots for memory and interfaces.  It has nothing to do
with large amounts of data.

>How much assembly programming do people do these days?  Who cares what
>the instructions are...I program C for portability.  68000C is the same
>as any other C.

If you have to convert from C written for a real OS to something to run
under DOS, you'll learn all about memory models and the need to declare
arrays huge, etc.  The underlying cpu architecture (64k segments) impacts
on the C code.


-- 
David Meiklejohn (davidme@qdpii.comp.qdpi.oz.au)
 - PC's, Unix, and networks by day, Amigas by night...
Currently residing in Mareeba, Far North Queensland, Australia
From: Paul_Trauth@agwbbs.new-orleans.LA.US (Paul Trauth)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Should I get an A4000 or wait
Distribution: world
Date: 12 Jan 93 02:06:13 CST
Organization: The Amiga GateWay BBS * New Orleans, La.

In a message dated Mon 11 Jan 93  9:05, Jaxh@dcs.ed.ac.uk (jon Hanson)
wrote:

 JH> I definitely want to get one the AGA Amigas, but which one ? The
 JH> A1200 seems like a
 JH> deadend once WB4.0+RTG etc appears, and the A4000 costs a bomb. Is it
 JH> worth waiting
 JH> for an AGA Amiga with a '030 ? If so, how long am I likely to be
 JH> waiting ?

I've got no advice here. I'm wondering the same thing.

I've decided to wait, mostly because i don't have the bucks to drop on an
a4000, or even an a1200. Oh, sure, i could sell the 2000, but i want to
keep it for backwards compatability. Besides, i spent a lot of time on
painting the case.

Probably by the time i save up any chunk of money, the next set of spiffy
custom chips will have appeared...

-- Via DLG Pro v0.995

- be zorch, daddi-o --------------- paul (raccoon) trauth ----------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internet -> paul_trauth@agwbbs.new-orleans.LA.US        \\\///\\\///\\\
Usenet   -> rex!agwbbs!paul_trauth                      \\\///\\\///\\\
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
  "eagles may fly, but a weasel will never get sucked into a jet engine"
From: root@rkamiga.UUCP (Rick Kelly)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re:  CBM mention on 12/11/92 Computer Chronicles
Distribution: world
Date: 9 Jan 93 11:32:23 EST
Organization: Rick's Amiga

In article <1993Jan8.150936.18188@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> jerry@msi.com (Jerry Shekhel) writes:
>Jack Radigan (jprad@faatcrl.faa.gov) wrote:
>:
>: >That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.  Don't you relize that the
>: >minimal-RAM machine wouldn't run AT ALL without VM?
>:
>:   Although 4Meg is the bare minimum for OS/2 by itself, loading it down with
>: several applications pushes the bare minimum up to 8, maybe 12Meg of ram, it
>: all depends on how large your swapfile gets to figure out if you're pushing
>: the system too much.  When that happens, you add more memory, which drops
>: the amount of memory swapping down.
>:
>
>I agree that if you swap constantly, it's time to add more RAM.  That's why
>I wouldn't use OS/2 on a machine with less than 8MB.  However, my point was
>that you can't blame VM for the bad performance of a machine with not enough
>RAM.  Without VM, that machine/software combination wouldn't run at all, and
>that is even worse performance than bad performance.  It's like blaming the
>crutch for your inability to do the 100-yard dash while your leg is broken.

However, there is nothing worse than being in a work environment, having
a machine that is thrashing a lot, and then trying to convince your stingy
boss to buy you more ram.  

"You don't need more ram, you've got paging."

But that's another story.

Paging is needed on today's desktop business machines because they are expected
to do the work of minis and mainframes.  This isn't necessarily a good thing.
The advent of DCE is going to be a kick in the groin for a lot of workers
whose machine is on a network.  Network administrators will be setting up
software to look for and use unused cpu cycles on other nodes of the net.

So your net server is paging too much?  Just move the load elsewhere on the
net dynamically.

--

Rick Kelly		Rick's Amiga		Framingham, Mass.

		   merk!rmkhome!rkamiga!root

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,aus.computers.amiga
From: storm@cs.mcgill.ca (Marc WANDSCHNEIDER)
Subject: Re: A1200 : What's Good About It ??
Organization: SOCS - McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 15:22:46 GMT

In article <9301007.26989@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> rayhann@mundil.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Rayhann CHEE) writes:
>Dear People..
>
>	I just want to find out, what's the concensus on the A1200?
>	Haven't seen any reviews of it yet but lacking the $$$$ for
>	the A4000, I was debating to trade in my old but loved A500
>	and buy one of these.. thing is how is it expansion wise?

	The main advantages are the 14.3 or so Mhz 68EC020, the new AGA
chipset, and the 2MB Chip RAM that come with the machine.  There is an
expansion slot under the machine, and there is supposedly a PCMCIA slot on the
left hand side of the machine.

	The main advantages are that it will be faster than an unaccelerated
500, and the extra memory is kinda nice.

	If you can afford it, I'd do it.  I'll probably pick up a 4000 later
on this year, but this does look like a nice intro machine.

	Toodlepip!
	marc 'em.

-- 
  storm@cs.mcgill.ca           McGill University         "-- Attack ships on
  Marc Wandschneider           Montreal, CANADA             fire "
	Any opinions expressed are not mine, but those of the Demon Lord
      Yeegeheeegenogohugu who possessed me whilst I munched on Raisin Bran.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls)
Subject: Re: Byte's Amiga 4000 review...
Organization: University of Mississippi, Dept. of Computer Science
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 19:31:36 GMT

In article <1993Jan12.161059.11930@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> jerry@msi.com (Jerry Shekhel) writes:
>Skip Sauls (skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu) wrote:
>: >:
>: >: How long have they had a popular widely available multitasking OS for the
>: >: Intel architecture?
>: >
>: >Well, UNIX was available in 1984, and OS/2 in 1987...
>:
>: Popular, Jerry, popular...
>
>Skip, we all know how to conveniently limit the scope of a discussion.  Let's
>get on with it.

Get on with what?  

>: >I've read two of their books, and there was no mention of the Amiga...
>:
>: Of course it didn't make it in the books, didn't you know that IBM has
>: an Amiga filter for all of its publications?
>
>Is this supposed to be taken seriously?

What do you think?  I, for one, don't consider anything in this group
to be serious and I have a great time with it.  In fact, my Amiga has 
little peripheral connected to the serial port which shoots a grain of
salt into my mouth every time I read c.s.a.advocacy...

>: >If you think a 1200 is as fast or powerful as a 486sx, you are sadly
>: >mistaken.
>:
>: Sure, the 486sx has a lot of raw CPU power, but not much more.  It doesn't
>: have a blitter, it doesn't have a copper, it doesn't have sprites, and it
>: doesn't have a sound coprocessor to help it out.
>
>Sure it does, if you add S3 video and Ultrasound audio!  Get with the times,
>Skip.

Okay, the Orchid S3 based Farenheit board is $290 in Computer Shopper and
I've heard that the UltraSound is around $130.  Add that to the price of
the Gateway 4SX-25 and you're price is over $1900.  Sort of takes you out
of A1200 territory, doesn't it?

>+-------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------+
>| JERRY J. SHEKHEL  | Molecular Simulations Inc. | Time just fades the pages |
>| Drummers do it... |     Burlington, MA USA     | in my book of memories.   |
>|    ... In rhythm! |        jerry@msi.com       |         -- Guns N' Roses  |
>+-------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------+

Skip Sauls, Amiga Advocate
skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy