NetNews Offline 2/NetNews Offline Volume 2.iso/news/comp/sys/amiga/misc-part1/8928

Text File | 1996-08-05 | 15.8 KB | 372 lines

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From: [e-mail] (G. Baldwin)
Subject: Re: New Press Release!
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Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 12:24:11 GMT

Michael van Elst ([e-mail]) wrote:
: [e-mail] (G. Baldwin) writes:

: >You have lost the ability to see the difference between "bloatware" and
: >"CPU intensive software".

: You have lost the ability to see the difference between "bloatware" and
: PC software. In fact, you really need some pretty good eyes.

By these definitions, everything on the Amiga needing more than an 020/14
is PC bloatware that has been ported.

I know thats not true, and you know thats not true, but what is true is
that there is a lot of software that just needs a fast CPU or some kind
of custom chip and/or DSP to deal with the data.  In any event, even if
every PC program ever made is bloated, what right do we have to sit and
mock it?  After all, we have some of our own "bloatware".  MUI really
comes to mind here.  So don't go saying that PCs and Macs are the only
platforms with big programs.

: >I don't.  I don't plan to buy another Amiga until we have something that
: >meets or beats the competition (like the A500 did when it was *first
: >released*) and is a fairly reasonable cost.

: The A500 did never beat the competition. But it was cheap, cheap enough
: for you to afford it. Now that you can afford more you call it crap.

If I remember right, back when the A500 first came out, the standard PC was
perhaps a 286 or 386SX with either EGA or VGA.  SVGA was just comming
out, and the SoundBlaster made its first appearance.  Those systems
weren't exactly cheap - the A500 wasn't either, but it was a whole lot
less expensive for the things you got.

: >: So this 030/40 computer has _larger and more colorful graphics_ built in ?

: >Have you been locked up in your basement with a text based terminal? Last
: >time I looked around, games used more graphics, with more colors, and
: >higher resolutions.

: The tell us, o wise man, how this is possible with a machine that uses
: AGA graphics.

Hmm.. let me see

  (1) Load up browser
  (2) Load up a page
  (3) Take images that are stored in 8-bit GIF or 24-bit JPEG and
      decompress them.  Take 24-bit pictures and scale them down to 8-bit.
  (4) Display those images

Wow.  The data you are loading is still getting bigger and bigger.  Your
020 still has to decompress them.  If its a 24-bit picture, it still has
to scale them down.  But now instead of having to do this with a bunch of
little 100x100 images, you having to deal with 640x200 titles and all
sorts of other objects.

Again, the data that the machine has to deal with is growing.  Just
because you can't view it in its full res/depth doesn't mean that it
isn't getting bigger/deeper.


: >Web pages have gone from little icons to full page
: >JPEGs or GIFs, full color backgrouns, ANIMs, ect...

: I don't see a problem with that. Anything you need to display these graphics
: takes only a fraction of the time you need to download it.

Hmm.. You should tell that to my A3000/030.  It has such a fun time
playing QuickTimes or MPEGs...  8)


: >that the average person might deal with.  Were you thinking that I meant
: >a new chipset or something?

: You would need more CPU power if you had to deal with a higher resolution
  display.

Which takes more CPU power:
  Displaying a 800x600-24 image on a 800x600-8 screen
  Displaying a 800x600-24 image on a 1280x1024-8 screen

Takes just about the same.  Your grfx chipset may be slower displaying
those graphics at a higher res screen, but the CPU still has to sit down
and scale that 24-bit image down to 8-bits.


: >: Probably half as slow as Word with just 4MB RAM after the second page.

: >Actually, no.  I use Word on both 030 based Macs and slower 486 machines,
: >and Final Writer was bad.

: I have used Word on 030 based Macs and faster 486 machines. And I don't want
: to use that crap every again.

Aren't "State of the Art" Word Processors great?  8)

Yeah, Word is pritty bad, but Final Writer sure isn't a rocket either.
Some of its functions can be about as fast as snail shit.


: >You still ignore the fact that EVERYONE needs a fast CPU, not just people
: >who do image processing.  If that wasn't true, we'd still all be using 8086s
: >or similar CPUs.

: You are all using 8086s or similar CPUs. Of course a Pentium is a bit faster,
: but productivity didn't change much. Most of the advantages come from smarter
: software which is rarely CPU intensive.

Well, thats only partially true.

Yes, the amount of work being done is still about the same, but the way
it is being done has gotten much better.  I'd like to see you use a
non-proportional PostScript font on an 8088.

When we start getting all of these "little" features thrown in
everywhere, you forget how they add up.  And each one takes a toll on
your CPU.  Thats just a fact of life.  I'm sure that if they rewrote much
of the code from scratch with software designers that had a clue, the
shit would haul.  But alas, its impossible to rebuild Word from scrath
every year.


: >guess I overestimated your intelligence.  In general, the faster your CPU is
: >the faster (to a point) the rest of the system is going to be.

: If the CPU is all you have then this might be true.

Then why is it that a system's memory speed increases with faster CPUs?
I'm sure that a PPC 603 could do circles around the memory speed of a 68030.

When I took my old A2000 and put an 020 in it, my Trumpcard SCSI
interface's average speed went up by about 25%.  When I latter dropped a
030 in it, the speed didn't go up much at all (maxxed the card's speed
out).  Why did I even bring this up?  You said that there would be no
reason for people to move up to a PPC system until there was some PPC
software out.  I beg to differ - even if your system was spending a lot
of time doing 680x0->PPC conversions, things such as I/O, memory bus
speed, and a few others things WOULD be faster.  I'd like to see an 030
system deal with a SCSI-FAST/WIDE interface on the bus.


: >From
: >person experince I have noticed that (in general) things such as Grfx,

: Your personal experience with PCs ?

With PC's, with Amigas, with Macs, ect...

: >I used to be the same way.  "What do I need an MMU for?"  Then I got into
: >the situation of wanting one.  If there weren't a large number of people
: >who would like an MMU, this discussion would of never come up.

: Sure. But as of yet, most people that would like an MMU just want it because
: they don't have one. There are very few applications of an MMU with current
: software and the people that really use an MMU will also want some faster
: CPU. A perfect situation to sell the cheap, non-MMU chip to new users and
: accelerators (with MMU) to the few people that need it.

: >What kind of people do you think make software in the Aminet?  People who
: >only own high end machines???  I don't think so. Many of them only own
: >030s right now.  I happen to be one of them.  I don't own a high end
: >machine, I own 2 mid level machines.

: Well, I consider my A3000 (with 68030/25) "high end".

Thats is probably one reason why we don't agree on anything.  I consider
an A3000/030 to be a midline machine.  Even an A4000/030 just fits into
that.  Now a system with a fast 040 or an 060 with either AGA or moreso
with a Grfx card is closer to what I call "high end".

I consider any machine with an 020 to be "low end".  Anything with a 68000/7
is "just old".

: >it so that we could not pop out the EC030 and put a full blown 030 in
: >(the EC030 is surface mounted).

: There were several CPU cards with 030s and 040s.

I know.  But the Commodore 030 card for the A4000 did not have a socket.

: >When I started developing, I couldn't
: >use Enforcer.  And some of my firends who don't develop want to use an
: >MMU so they could get that extra speed out of the OS or out of
: >ShapeShifter.

: Do you see that you are in a small minority ?

I am in the minority for using an MU for those reasons.  If that were it,
I wouldn't be kicking up such a fuss.  But one of the things that an MMU
can provide the average person is Virtual Memory.  I know of a lot of
people with 2MB systems that would like to do a task on occasion that
takes more memory than they have.  I often have the problem on my 6MB A3000
or even on my 18MB A4000.

: >Some of them wanted to use Unix.  But I guess these aren't
: >things for base machines....

: Indeed.

I use NetBSD on my A3000/030-16 with 6MB of RAM.  Thats not exactly a
power system.  In fact, its not much more powerful than an A1200.

: >I guess that all of those people who use
: >ShapeShifter on their 020 based A1200s must be a myth that pro-MMU people
: >just made up.

: I consider this a myth.

Once again, I guess I should go get my eyes checked.  I've seen SS run on
a 68EC020/14 A1200 with 4MB of FAST.  I must of been smoking something at
the time.

: >Why should I pay another $600-$1000 for a crapola PC when for an extra
: >$30 I can have a full blown 030 and run it on my system.

: Because you pay an extra $300.

$300?  Where did you get that figure from?  If I were to use a 030/25
instead of an EC030/25, it sure wouldn't cost any $300.  And the ultra
expensive 030/50 is only $170 in single quantities.  And sheesh, IF you
didn't have the memory already (you should have 6MB anyways), and extra
4MB is only $75.

: >You yourself agree that an 040 or 060 can't run "PC or Mac bloatware"
: >because its not fast enough, and that its too costly (esp the 060, and both
: >the 040/060 meory subsystem).  Now we have ourselves a CPU line that is very
: >fast, and very inexpensive for what it does, and you think that using it
: >is a bad idea.  Why?

: Because you cannot sell machines with PPC now. There is no software for it,
: no operating system, nothing. If you want to sell Amigas now, they must
: use 68k CPUs.

I understand that.  But the point is, by the time this new "Walker" comes
out for the Winter of 96/97, there should be a working port of AmigaOS
4.x for the PPC.  True, it won't be fully PPC, but any support software
that was created in C/C++ will probably be ported, and Exec, Graphic, and
some other I/O libraries that are mostly/all ASM will be ported.  I can't
see them spending over a year on the conversion and not have a port.


If worse comes to worse, it would be like the A3000.  We'd be running
beta OS versions.  But instead of having tons of bugs, we have a few bugs
and a load of 680x0 routines to emulate.  Hmm... kind of like what System
7.5.x is like right now.  8)


: >: >when a PPC 603 emulates 680x0 code faster than your 68EC030/40 can
: >: >execute it?

: >: It doesn't.

: >PPC603e and on an old Mac with an 030/33 in it.
:                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

: That's why you see the PPC emulate it at equal speed.

I never said that a PPC would beat out a 68040 or 060 in emulation.  I
said that it just about matched that of a mid-level (33 or 40MHz) 030.
For many people with 000s, 020s, or slow 030s, this will actually seem
faster for them.  And I am positive that some functions (even w/o 3rd
party native software) will be much faster.  In a few months after the
first 4.x DevKits get out, the number of Amiga (PD) PPC apps wil rocket.


: >we loaded up the PPC version and the difference was astonishing.  It was even
: >faster than the 040/40 Mac that we had in the lab.

: Obviously, but with zero PPC software for the Amiga this is pretty academic.

Again, if its mainly people with older systems upgrading, emulation will
be faster for them than what their old CPU could do natively.

: >Tell me right now, no bullshit.  Why do you think that a PPC is a bad choice?

: I never said this. We are discussing the new Amiga model which was just shown
: by AT. This model could never have a PPC.

Who knows.  A lot can happen in a year.

: >Why is it pure fantasy to drop the 680x0 line?

: It is pure fantasy to ask for a PPC computer now.

Now, no.  The machine is not being released now.  Christmas 1996.  Yes.
I can see a substantial port of AmigaOS out by the time the new machines
are released.

: >I went looking in Motorola's own page

: ... to find that a reasonably fast 603 is more expensive than a 040.

Sorry about that cut.  I meant to say that I couldn't find prices for the
PPC.  And in any event, I found that the price of a LC040/25 was only
a little more than double of that of a 68EC030/40 (its cheaper than a
030/50 in fact).  Now if they were to stuff a 680x0, wouldn't it be a
wiser investment to just put a 040 in?

True that after the cost diff and having to use a 040 mem subsystem the
price would be about $100-$150 higher, but in a system where the estimated
retail cost would be $800-$1000, an extra 10% wouldn't make much of a
difference.

: >The EC030/40 would of been a great CPU to use when the A1200 first came
: >out, but not now.  Agreed, it is a good CPU, but its just not what the
: >Amiga needs.

: Try some logic. If you sell an Amiga now it needs an 68k CPU. If you sell
: an Amiga now it has to be cheaper than PCs (in a usuable configuration),
: otherwise it has to compete with PCs, which it can't. Selling 060 Amigas
: might be good for you or me, but not for AT.

Well, what market is it going to fit in?  Down in the $400-$800 range you
are competing with 486s, 040 based Macs, and high end game consoles.  An
even harder market to have to face.

: >staggalers.  Is that the kind of platform we want?

: Do we want AT being bancrupt because they build hardware that doesn't even
: sell to a few power users because it is just to expensive ?

1400DM sounds fairly expensive to me. (compared to what the A1200 used to be)

: >(4) If a $400 Amiga doesn't compete with game consoles or with $1500 Macs
: >    or PC with some kind of plan, it will just have to duke it out with used
: >    equipment from other platforms which can do more for less $$$.

: That's the big problem. But selling 060 Amigas for $6000 doesn't cut it.

: >That is basically what you are saying that we should do with the Amiga by
: >giving it an EC030/40.

: I say that with an EC030/40 it can be cheap enough to get new customers that
: want a computer but that can't afford to buy a $2000 PC.

There is a large price gap between a $1000 040 based Amiga and a $2000
Pentium system.

The problem is that we can't compromise on what a "good price" is.  I
belive that the days of a $400 box (short of a console with customized
chips) is over for now.  There are just too many things that a system
needs... hard drive, CDROM, few MEGs of memory, somewhat fast CPU.  It isn't
like we are trying to sell off a car with a big V8 engine in it, but rather,
something with a small V6.  Something that can pull itself up a hill or that
can tow a moderate load if the need arrives.  Such a system can be put
out for a mere $1000, yet be neither too expensive, nor to shy on the
options.

: --
:                                 Michael van Elst

: Internet: [e-mail]
:                                 "A potential Snark may lurk in every tree."

                       Greg Baldwin ([e-mail])
     Amiga junkie and user since 1987    Computer Science & DTV Student
     Commodore64 fan since about 1983    http://www.eskimo.com/~drizzit
               Tyranical EFNet #Amiga Channel Operator "Drizzit"