Talk:Amiga/Archive 2

message: Even with the link now pointing directly to the Amiga 4000T  page, I still think that link doesn't belong here.
Look at the other links: they're all big sites with vast amounts of information (only pouet.net leaves me some doubts... it sure is a big site, but how is it Amiga-related, at least at a first glance?). The contrast with a page depicting an A4000T and briefly mentioning its hardware component is evident to me.
Before removing the link again, I'd like to hear some opinion, especially that of the link author. Thanks.
LjL 14:09, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, delete it. Mirror Vax 15:21, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Retromadness 

message: If we're going to mention Aminet I think we should have a mention of the Fred Fish collection. I don't know what became of the collection but as someone who used the Amiga extensively during its time, the Fred Fish collection was the best software collection there was and so it deserves mention, especially if someone knows a link to a currently hosted archive.
* And while we are at it, why not name every single game and application out there for the Amiga? The Fred Fish collection was a public domain series, not that it didn't have great tools, but I'd rather point out succesful commercial software to show that the Amiga wasn't just a playfield for hobby-coders.
::The Fred Fish collection was notable and unusual for the time.  It presaged the rise of ftp/gopher (and later web) free software sites.  Also,  much of what was distributed was done in the public domain (not even modern OSS licenses). Hobby coders were a big part of the picture in the US (and elsewhere, to a slightly lesser extent).  Commercial programs are all well and good, but one hell of a lot of current top programmers got their start on Amigas in the 1980's and early 1990's.  You can thank them for things like DragonFly BSD, ReplayTV, BeOS and more things than I can name.  jesup 03:40, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fred Fish Collection 

message: Ive added an article on the Amigas userbase, i hope everyone finds it acceptible - i'm not sure if the last bit sounds neutral enough but i think it makes an important point to potential developers that they can learn something from 'old' hardware and principles - any comments or minor adjustments are welcome, especially if someone thinks it can be put in a better way - but i think this was an important point lacking from the article.
--Insignia1983 17:20, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Remember that the style of writing which is good for something like an editorial or essay isn't necessarily good for an encyclopedia. I've tried to improve it - it's not so much that I disagree with what's said, but that we shouldn't be expressing subjective things like hopes and opinions in what we write for Wikipedia. I hope that makes sense. Mdwh 23:26, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thankyou for your adjustments Mdwh - i'm new to this, and although i tried to keep it encyclopedic i think i need more practise getting the language right.  I can learn a lot from your adjustments so hopefully avoid the same pitfalls in the future.  The essence of what i said is there, except now it sounds more professional and fluent!  Thanks for your guidance!  One point though... i thought Doom used the 'first generation' of very early 3d cards, you know the 2d/3d card combos i think existed?  I must admit i wasnt a pc user at the time, but anyway i suppose its an irrelevant point as i was just trying to use an illustration for the point about getting more performance out of the machine.  Are illustrations necessary in an article such as this or is it best to leave external sources to describing the details of the broad points made in the article?  Thanks, id appreciate any advice you can give!--Insignia1983 00:32, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Doom used software rendering as far as I know; it didn't use an algorithm comparable to what 3D cards do (i.e., drawing texture mapped polygons), instead it draws the walls in vertical slices (see Doom engine). Even Quake originally still used software rendering, and it wasn't until Quake II I believe that 3D hardware could be used as standard. I guess there are other illustrations that could be given (e.g., the various expansions for the A1200) but I don't have an opinion on whether it's needed. Mdwh 02:56, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Doom never used hardware acceleration; it ran using the power of the CPU only. It didn't do proper 3D. It broke the screen into vertical lines, like scanline rendering but vertical. Amiga could never accelerate anything other than flat colour fills, stipple effects, lines of single pixel's width, and blitting. There was a game that used a Doom engine-like approach but it never came close to Quake-like 3D. The blitter just couldn't do textures. - Richardcavell 03:43, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually there were "Quake-like 3D" games - indeed, Quake and Quake 2 themselves were ported - but yes, the Amiga's chipset couldn't be used to accelerate the 3D, which instead had to be done in software or on a 3D card. Mdwh 03:52, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

text:  ... and colour cycling, which is what gave the famous "Boing!" animation it's appearance of 3D rotation. Wonderstruck 11:13, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: User Base:

message: Hi, Amiga fans.
I added a considerable amount of material today. I added more of the hacking, the 'scene', the peculiarities of Amiga software, etc. Hope you like it. Please feel free to comment or modify the text, etc. - Richardcavell 14:26, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The scene 

message: This article is now 35 kilobytes long and needs to be split up. But which sections to split? I'm thinking of moving the sections about the user base to another article but am not really sure how to group them or what to call the new article. JIP | Talk 06:01, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article needs to be split up 

message: I'd suggest moving the emulated operating systems to their own article; they're a little tangential. Also, some of the stuff that I added could be given an article, but I'm not sure what the article should be called. 'Amiga culture', 'Amiga user base', etc... I'd like to add more, actually, about the relationship of the Amiga user base to the 'hacking' culture. I use the word 'hacking' in the legal, friendly sense of the term. - Richardcavell 06:46, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Guys, I've made some big changes here, all in good faith. Please be sure to look over and make sure you're happy. We need to shorten this article; I've created 'Amiga software piracy' and added some of my stuff to 'Amiga demos'. - Richardcavell 08:36, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Splitting the article 

message: Can't believe the first comment was someone asking to delete this article "because noone uses Amigas anymore". That's like saying "Get rid of all the spitfires, the Mustangs, Sopwith Camels and scrap Memphis Belle". The Amiga is part of the history of computing, a part that would leave a vast void with nothing to replace it. I still use my Amiga 1200 quite regularly, in fact I'm currently trying to hunt down a Siamese Networking System so I can have the Amiga and PC running on the same monitor, doing different tasks in different screen resolutions, all on the same desktop.
The Amiga invented "REAL MULTITASKING" something the PC still grinds to a halt on. The Amiga invented "MULTIMEDIA" Microsoft just gave it a name and tried to hijack the feature. In some ways I think if it wasn't for the Amiga and the Atari (to a lesser extent) the PC wouldn't have progressed so far so quickly. I can remember people selling their PCs in the thousands to buy Amigas. The Amiga became mainstream in schools and colleges for it's ease of use and speed. The PC market could have learned a lot from the Amiga, but they preferred the excrutiatingly slow disk based O/Ss and bloatware which is one of the main anchors of the PC tecnology.
:You don't really need to compare deleting the Amiga article with anything; everybody reasonable knows it should stay. Some people, me included, have the same positive feelings as you have towards Amiga, but almost all people who know what an Amiga is realize that the Amiga article should stay, however they feel towards it. Just don't feed the trolls, and we'll all be happy. LjL 12:47, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  My thoughts on Amiga