$032|1-Taking the PC Plunge!



$123                     To switch, or not to switch...

                            By Robert Glover

$9ac
Okay,  you're depressed.  Depressed about how little known the Amiga is.
Or  at  least  that's  how  it  appears.  At any rate, you find yourself
considering  more  and  more  the  possibility  of  moving to the PC and
selling  your  beloved Amiga.  Let's take a look at what you're going to
need to be as happy with your new PC as you go.

First,  I'm  going  to  assume  that  you  have  at  the  very  least  a
semi-powerful  Amiga  system.  This means something along the lines of a
souped  up  A500  or  A1200,  or  perhaps  an A2000 with plenty of extra
memory,  and  maybe  a  graphics card.  An accelerator isn't necessarily
required,  but essentially a decent hard drive and plenty of RAM is what
I mean.  Not one of those shitty A600 consoley things.

Now,  in  order  to  have  as nice a machine (in essense) as your Amiga,
you'll  have  to run Ody seems to really like NT that much right now, so
I'll stick with OS/2.

OS/2's  requirements  are  (at a minimum) a 386SX with at least 6 meg of
RAM,  and  about  60  meg  of  free  hard disk space.  However, for best
overall  results,  plan on a 486DX/33 with at least 12 to 16 meg of RAM,
and a 340 to 500 meg hard drive.  I'm not kidding.  Everyone I've talked
to  says that even a big 486DX2/66 can be a bit slow with OS/2, but like
with  Windows, memory is the key.  With 16 meg of RAM, you'll hOS/2 from
having to rely on virtual memory too often.  Remember, OS/2 is huge.  In
fact, it comes on about twenty high density disks, or an optional CD ROM
disc (I highly recommend this), to simplify things.

$ff0
[My 486 has only 8MBs of RAM and W95 has set up 10MBs of VMM and if your
hard drive starts getting full your PC slows down then crashes!  Kei]

$9ac
So  let's  settle  on  a  486DX/33 with 16 meg of RAM and a 340 meg hard
drive.   Without  a  monitor or video card, you're looking at 1800-2000,
depending on the brand.  This is a VESA localbus system, too, BTW.  Now,
there  are several good choices for video cards.  My first choice is meg
of  video RAM.  This is the fastest 32-bit video card on the PC to date,
and  OS/2  drivers were recently released for it.  Drivers?  Yes, you'll
have  to be sure whatever video card you choose has drivers available to
run OS/2 in any mode above standard VGA's 640x480.

$ff0
[Hmm  your  prices  are wrong.  You can pick up a fast 486 for £300-£600
these days.  You can get a P75 for £400 if you shop around!  Kei]

$9ac
Basically,  the  cards  it supports are any S3 cards (Viper, Genoa, ATI,
etc.),  plus the video systems in IBM's own PS/1 and PS/2 series.  And a
good  video  card  will set you back anywhere from 100-400, depending on
wha  I  have  heard through the grapevine that the Genoa is the best one
for  the  money,  being  available mail order for about 95.  It ranks in
performance-wise   along  with  the  ATI  Ultra  Graphics  Pro,  yet  is
reasonably priced, and can take another meg of video RAM, for a total of
two.

So  we'll  add another 150 to our 1800 figure, to make 1950 (I added the
extra  meg  of video RAM, for good measure).  Now you're going to want a
good  CD  ROM system.  See, part of what is making the PC take ofare the
wide  array  of  multimedia software available.  This includes Microsoft
Bookshelf,  a nice all-in-one reference library, Grolier's and Compton's
multimedia encyclopedias, fabulous games like Seventh Guest, and so on.

So  you'll  need  a sound card and a CD ROM.  What to get?  Well, forget
about  those  cheap 300 packages at Best Buy and Wal Mart.  They are the
older MPC Level 1 kits, that have 16-bit sound cards (like Sound Blaster
16  or  Media  Vision),  and  a  150K/sec  350  ms  CD ROM ited for this
fast-paced  marketplace.  Also, OS/2 will not run on anything but a pure
SCSI  CD  ROM.   So  plan on a sound card that has a true SCSI port, and
Sound Blaster doesn't.  Two choices are the Pro Audio Spectrum 16 or the
Gravis  Ultra  Sound.   The Gravis is a nice board, but lacks support by
many  games, as it is not Sound Blaster compatible.  It is, however, the
closest  thing you'll find to a 16-bit version of the Amiga's Paula chip
as  you're  going  to  get.   Sound Blaster has beenazine as having poor
sound  quality.   This  is because Sound Blaster (like it's competitors)
have  pre-sampled sounds in ROM, which are called by programs and games.
That's why games like X-Wing sound so "synthesizery." The Gravis, on the
other hand, has onboard RAM and will accept true digitized samples, much
like  Paula does.  You give up some compatibility, but the sound quality
makes  it  worthwhile.   Or,  you could get a Gravis, and then pick up a
used Sound Blaster Pro (8-bit card) cdifferent IRQ, and have the best of
both worlds.

IRQ??    What's   that,   you  ask?   Well,  the  PC  doesn't  have  the
auto-configuring  convenience that the Amiga does.  Every time you add a
new  board, you'll get to set its interrupt request setting (IRQ), and a
host  of  other  things.   I  won't  go into detail here, because, well,
frankly, it makes me shudder just thinking about it.

The Pro Audio Spectrum 16 or Gravis boards will run you about 150 on the
street, so our price is up to 2100.  Rhave a monitor selected.  We'll do
that  a  little  later.   Next we need a CD ROM drive.  A good multispin
drive  (which  means  it  can  do  150K/sec  or  300K/sec)  plus  have a
reasonable  seek time of 300 ms or better will cost about 400 bare.  Now
our total is up to 2500.

Okay...   now  we  have  the computer, the memory, the sound card, video
card  with  2  meg, and a big hard drive.  Now we need a monitor.  There
are some important things you need to know about monitors.

I've  done  a  lot of look different computer stores and discount chains
(Best  Buy,  Wal  Mart,  Sam's,  Sears, etc), and found a lot of things.
First  of  all,  the  monitors  that are included with 99% of these pre-
packaged  systems  are  garbage.   The  monitor  is  probably  the  most
important  part  of your computer.  Without a good monitor, you won't be
able  to  get  the  most out of the system.  Either the resolution isn't
high  enough,  or  the  size  of the screen isn't large enough, or worse
still  --  the  refresh  rate  isn't  eft  with  lots  of  flicker.  The
"standards"  for  PC  resolutions  are  800x600  at  72  Hz and 1024x768
non-interlaced  at  74  or  76  Hz.   The Packard Bell monitors you find
around  town do 800x600 at 50 Hz and will do 1024x768 at 72 Hz, but it's
interlaced,  so  there  IS  flicker.  Furthermore, these monitors have a
lousy 0.39 mm dot pitch (or worse -- I've seen Tandy monitors -- the VGM
225  --  with a 0.52 mm dot pitch!), which makes the text fuzzy, even at
640x480.

A GOOD monitor will cost you at I have in mind is a

new Philips 15" flatscreen at Best Buy.  Actually, they want 468 for it.
Or,  you  can  buy a refurbished NEC 4D directly from NEC for about 450.
Both  of  these  monitors are excellent -- both have a dot pitch of 0.28
mm, and have a very crisp, clear picture.

So  by  the  time  we  get a good monitor and pay tax or shipping, we're
looking  at  500.  So our total is now up to 3000.  Again, this is for a
486DX2/66  machine with 16 meg of RAM, a 16-bit sound card with SCSa 340
meg  IDE  hard drive, and a decent monitor.  That is what is required to
have  a  PC  that can equal your Amiga in terms of usability and overall
pleasure.   Dealing  with  Windows  is far too frustrating to count, and
since it can't multitask worth a darn, it doesn't really count anyway.

Now,  to  maintain  a  bit  of  fairness,  we are talking about a pretty
decked-out  PC  versus  a fairly baseline Amiga.  Yeah, the PC will have
better  overall  sound and graphics, but it takes so much money tos easy
to use as your Amiga.

I  know  what you're saying now...  "What if I were to take an Amiga and
max  it out, for comparison?" Okay, let's do that.  We'll start with one
of those blowout Amiga 3000's from Creative Computers.  They're 900 with
5  meg  of  RAM, a 120 meg hard drive, and one floppy drive.  Add 400 to
bring  memory  up  to  18  meg  (which  includes 2 meg of Chip RAM), for
1300US.   Let's  add  100  for  a second floppy drive (what the heck)...
1400US.   Now we'll add 450 for one oo II boards that'll do 1600x1280 in
24-bit  if you have enough RAM in the computer...  1850.  And a refurbed
NEC  4D  for  500US  2350US.   Oh,  and  in  case  we  need  to  do NTSC
resolutions,  let's  grab  a  used 1084 for 150...  2500.  The only real
difference  now is that the A3000 is a 25 MHz 68030 compared to a 66 MHz
486.  There is a bit of processor power difference, but I'm not going to
count  it,  on  the basis that you pretty much need a 66 MHz 486 to make
OS/2  run  well.   Oh, and the 120 m is due to the size of the operating
system on the PC.

Now,  an  alternate  system to consider is an Amiga 1200...  for 380 you
get  a base machine.  Add an MBX1200z or equivelent RAM board with 8 meg
of  Fast  RAM  and a 25 MHz FPU for about 400 for a total of 780.  Add a
120  meg,  2.5"  IDE  hard  drive  for  about 220...  1000.  Or instead,
instead  of  the  RAM board, add a 50 MHz 68030 on an MBX1200XA and a 25
MHz FPU for about 600, to total about 1200.

So the bottom line is that in orde as an Amiga, you're looking at a good
3000  minimum, whereas you could have a nice Amiga system with plenty of
bells and whistles for between half and 25% less.

$ff0
[Your  info  is  a bit dated however, I prefer the old saying "The Amiga
1000  can  do  more  in  1MBs of memory than the PC can do with 4" -BYTE
magazine.  Kei]
$9ac


end