NetNews Offline 2/NetNews Offline Volume 2.iso/news/comp/sys/amiga/misc-part1/150

Internet Message Format | 1996-08-05 | 7.4 KB

Path: warp.ipacific.net.au!news
From: [e-mail] (Angus Mann)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware,comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: 1996 Amiga Home Computer?
Date: 2 Jan 1996 13:31:01 GMT
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>There's been lot's of discussion here lately about the future of our
>beloved machine.  PPC or not, Memory Protection or not, PCI or not.
>Lots of questions, lots of different views.

>I, probably like many here used to have a C64, when I first saw the Amiga
>1000 at the public launch in London running the infamous bouncing ball demo
>I fell in love with it :)  I bought my first A500 nearly 3 years later in
>'88, and at that time it was quite simply the best value for money computer
>around.  That 500 lasted 4 years (I did treat it rough!) and I went
>straight out and bought another.  Two days later the 500+ was in the shops,
>damn.  Mid '92 I was still using a 1 MB 2 drive A500.  I wanted a better
>machine.

I got my first Amiga (500) in late '87, after a few years on a Microbee
(Australian brand...ran a kind of CP/M, but pretty much only Microbee software,
which was pretty simple, but given that it was a 2 colour machine, it wasn't
bad :)) After playing a few games on a friends' C=64 I decided I wanted one (at
that stage I was young, and figured anything with a printer would do
word-processing fine), and then I heard about this "new-fangled" Amiga, which
was much better than the C=64, but could also run C=64 games (well it turned
out the ReadySoft emulator was needed, along with an extremely expensive
1541/1581 drive (or whatever the numbers were) so I stuck with simply Amiga
stuff. But compared to the 2-colour, pretty static softwareon the Microbee, the
16-32 colour graphics alot of the Amiga games I got were, well, more than
astounding :) (I had Faery Tale, and Guild of Thieves to start with - the
latter being Mag. Scrolls had superb graphics). And of course the speech
synthesis blew me away :)

(Ooops, got a bit carried away talking about the past there...had better move
on :))

>I gave serious consideration to a PC, but I bought an A1200 because it was
>the best value for machine on the market.  In the last 3 years I've
>expanded my system much more than my 500.  120 MB hard drive, CD-ROM,
>24-pin and Bubble Jet printers, GVP 68030 + 4 MB, v32 bis Modem, and most
>recently an Amiga M1438S monitor.

I looked at getting a new machine at around the same time, but decided to stick
withmy Amiga, and upgrade it. Didn't do anything at the time (was waiting for
the AGA machines, and didn't want to spend A$3000 on an A3000 just to see it
supeceded soon after), and so since then I've added bits to my machine. 25Mhz
'030, more RAM, larger hard drive...and it does me for alot of what I want,
although the lack of >16 colours in hi-res, and the flickering in interlace,
the slow-ish speed when using new applications, and the lack of datatypes
really bugs me...

>What I've spent in the last 3 years would buy me a really good P130 today,
>but I preferred the modular approach of expanding my system as and when
>I've needed to, and of course I preferred the AmigaOS.

What I've spent on this Amiga (I've got another basic setup, which rarely gets
used) could easily buy me four P133s today, but hey, I've had over 8 years of
great fun using this machine, so I'm not complaining. Sure I'd love a Pentium
machine running Word (whatever) for Windows 95, or whatever AmiPro's called
now, as well as many other PeeCee applications, as well as Netscape and
entertainment softlike like MechWarrior2, Doom or all the new Sierra&LucasArts
games, but none of them are necessary.

>In '96 I will almost certainly continue to upgrade, a much bigger HD first,
>then probably an 060 with 8 MB.

I'm still upgrading this machine, but not with anything that I won't be able to
use on a new machine when I can afford it. I don't know if I'll get a new
Amiga, or keep this one (and strip it of alot of stuff) and get a PeeCee, so
everything I buy I make sure I can use on either. Recently upgraded my old 20
meg A590 drive, but got a SCSI-II drive three times the size I really
wanted/needed, simply because I knew it'd work much faster in a machine with a
SCSI-II controller, and that I'd need the xtra disk space someday, especially
if I went PeeCee...

Unfortunately I've pretty much taken this machine as far as it will go without
spending money on add-ons that mightn't be used in 6 months-a year, and with
the only worthwhile upgrade being to an AGA machine, I'm kinda hesitant, as the
change to a new machine would be costly, and prevent me getting a P5 in the
near-ish future....

>So what's my point. Well it's dead simple.  The Amiga is no longer the best
>value for money machine around, not by a long shot.  It is the cheapest
>Home Computer, it does come with some very good productivity software that
>let's you do quite a few different things.  However it is simply years
>behind everything else.

Definately not value for money any more. The last few years, every time I've
gone out and bought something for it, I've realised that I'm paying far more
than I would for a higher capacity/better performance  product for a PeeCee,
but I didn't have much choice since I couldn't switch platforms, and wanted to
use my existing software more efficiently...

>In 1990, a humble 1 MB A500 could play games as well as the popular PCs,
>it could do a lot of things as well as the PCs.

Then VGA became popular with PeeCee games, C= did nothing, and the Amiga lost
out. Even if there'd been an upgrade chipset that allowed for 256-colour mode
(without the extra bandwidth AGA gives) it would've helped the Amiga games
scene alot (IMHO), as it would've allowed existing owners to play software
without the GFX looking like the murky, badly converted PeeCee GFX they were...
Considering the PeeCee owners simply had to upgrade their CGA/EGA cards to a
VGA card to get the great graphics, it would've allowed the Amiga market to
expand for a while, until a more long-term solution was provided...

>I've just paid 300 GBP for the Amiga Monitor, for three times that I could
>have bought a decent P90 system.  That doesn't bother me too much, I've got
>a reasonable Amiga system that does most things I want to do - for now.

But at least you can use it on a future machine, if need be. If I could get a
flicker-fixer for this machine I would, and then of course get a Multisync to
get with it, but right now there's no use in my switching from my trusty 1084
and 1084S..

>Bottom line is this, if I were buying a system from scratch today, I
>wouldn't even consider an Amiga, it's too old and too damn expensive.

Even as an avid Amiga-lover I certainly wouldn't. I'd look briefly at the
PowerMacs, but daresay I'd end-up getting a Pentium...

>As for the new Amigas, if they ever arrive, ATg have really got to be
>looking at PPC, or at the very least an 060 @ >50 MHz, and with much faster
>video by the end of '96.  6 MB at least with at least .5 GB drive as
>standard, selling at todays price.  If not ATg will die.

But even then, the Amiga will (once again) be playing catch-up to the Macs and
PeeCees...just as it did with AGA compared to the newer colour Macs and SVGA
when the A4000 and A1200 came out...

Angus Mann

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