From: John.Carver@launchpad.unc.edu (John Carver)
Subject: Re: HELP--AMIGA OR IBM PC CLONE?
Organization: University of North Carolina Extended Bulletin Board Service
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 20:09:27 GMT

>1) How would, say, an Amiga with a 68040 compare in raw number crunching power
>   to the same speed (MHz) 486 DX system?

I recently ran benchmarks comparing an Amiga 4000 (25 MHz 040) to a 33
MHz 486 from one of the big name clone vendors (Compaq?).

The results were: on SpecFP (floating point benchmarks) the 25 Mhz 040
beat the 33 MHz 486 by about 60%.  On SpecINT (integer benchmarks) they
were relatively close - the 040 was about 5% faster.  This is similar to
the results seen by magazines such as Tested Mettle when compating 486
and 68040 systems.  However, note that 486s come faster in clock speed -
you can get a 66 MHz 486, but the fastest 040 is 33 MHz right now. 
These should be about the same in performance, with maybe a slight edge
in integer performance to the 486.

>2) Can Amigas take things like 20" monitors with video cards that permit very
>   large graphics modes (like 1200-or-so pixels square)?

Sure, there are video cards up to 2048x2048 interlace or 1280x1024
non-lace.  However, 20" monitors of high quality are EXPENSIVE no matter
which system you get them for.

>3) How easy is the Amiga to program yourself?  Are there REALLY GOOD
>   optimizing compilers available at reasonable cost, such as FORTRAN,
>   C, and BASIC?

Most people on the AMiga use C, but FORTRAN and BASIC are available, of
course.  The Amiga has something like 2500 functions available in shared
libraries which you can access to do lots of neat stuff.

>4) I've seen the wonderful graphics screens that Amigas can generate.  How
>   expensive are grahics packages to really use the Amiga to its advantage?
>   They are quite expensive for IBM clones (really GOOD software).

As a general rule, the Amiga software is cheaper for the same
functionality - it has to be, given the nature of the Amiga market
(lots of low end Amigas in Europe).  Imagine 2.0 + Essence, while far
from the best rendering package for the Amiga, is still quite good and
costs around $250, while a package equivilant in functionality for the
IBM tends to run close to $2000.

>5) One BIG pain I've had with PC programming is in FORTRAN and BASIC, where
>   the amount of memory I can use is limited.  For example, the FORTRAN I
>   have only lets you access 640K of memory!  Even if you had 20 MB! 

The amiga does not, and has never suffered from the 640K bug that DOS
has (or the 8+3 filename limit).  You can access all your memory
transparently.  There are 64 Mb RAM cards available, and you can
populate the 4000 motherboard to 18 Mb.  There are even rumors of 512
Mb RAM cards using 16 Mb SIMMS.  You could, if you wanted, malloc()
youself 31 Mb of RAM, and not have to address it in 640Kb chunks.  VM
is also available, but most people don't find it necessary due to the
effeciency of AmigaDos.  I have 9 Mb and I often have 6 or 8 major apps
running - such as Imagine, DeluxePaint, a term program, a word
processor, and GNU emacs, along with 30 to 40 smaller processes like
screen blankers, snap utilities, etc.  With all that I still have
plenty of free RAM.  And the RAM: disk on the AMiga is dynamic - it grows
or shinks according to how much you put in it, so you don't have to
waste RAM for it when you don't need it.

>   trivially use all 10MB at once (minus the memory used for the operating
>   system, of course) for declaring arrays, etc?  This is very important

Yes - its all transparent.  Has been since 1985 when the Amiga came out.
NO extended/expanded memory managers or any of that.  You can delare it
all for an array, minus a few hundred Kb for the operating system.

   John


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