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- Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.misc
- Path: brighton.openmarket.com!decwrl!waikato!kcbbs!planet!not-for-mail
- From: finnh@ak.planet.gen.nz (Finn Higgins)
- Subject: Re: Why are europeans dumb enough to buy amigas?
- Message-ID: <5276.6678T615T2793@ak.planet.gen.nz>
- Nntp-Posting-Host: ppp0-05.ak.planet.gen.nz
- X-Newsreader: THOR 2.22 (Amiga;TCP/IP) *UNREGISTERED*
- References: <Dpr8A7.n3C@eskimo.com>
- Date: Sun, 14 Apr 1996 04:35:40 GMT
-
- >Zilch (zilch@flatearth.xs4all.nl) wrote:
- >: On Tue, 02 Apr 1996 10:22:42 -0800, robert loss
- >: <rlossrd@cc.curtin.edu.au> wrote:
-
- >: > I use Pentium P6's at Uni with all the fruit, with Windows 95, on 17inch,
- >: > 64
- >: >bit wide display cards, and I must say that they are powerful. Windows 95
- >: >is HUGE.
-
- >: You'll be even more horrified when you see the real biggies like OS/2,
- >: Windows NT or just about any UNIX version I can think of. Modern
- >: operating systems are big. The Amiga OS would also grow in size as it
- >: grows in functionality. All those help systems, screen, hundreds of
- >: screen, printer and other device drivers, network functionality,
- >: guided tours, sample animations, small applications like terminal
- >: programs, media players, etc. take space.
-
- >You are right. Operating systems and their support software takes space.
- >But some Amiga owners think that if your OS takes more than 6 DD floppies
- >than its big and bulky. They think that if they don't need it, then
- >nobody else in the world does. It really makes me sad to see how small
- >and closed some people are trying to make the Amiga.
-
- I don't think an OS should _have_ to take more than 10mb of disk space, and
- no OS should need more than 2 meg of ram to load. Windoze needs 4, which is
- stupid for an OS. OSs are just the enviroment than software runs under, and
- if you have used all your ram up loading the OS, then you are stuffed for
- actually doing something. I have no objection to a CD full of enhancements,
- but they should not be neccecery.
-
- I have yet to find something under Win95 that works better than it's amiga
- counterpart.
-
- >: > But I prefer to do all my work on the Amiga because it still
- >: >runs faster than those Pentiums. For example, I created an animation in
- >: >Corel Draw 6.0's 3d renderer, and rendered a postage stamp video of it.
- >: >Probably about 200x200. After 12 hours it still had not completed (100
- >: >frames). On Imagine 3.0 (which I got of the cover of a magazine for $10
- >: >Aussy) I rendered a 780x512x256 colour 50 frame animation and it took 38
- >: >hours. Now with all the P6's power I would have figured it would be
- >: >quicker, but then again it was inside Windows 95.
-
- >: Next time please don't compare apples with oranges. If a program like
- >: Corel 3D Renderer is slow in Win95 that doesn't mean doesn't mean that
- >: the OS slows it down, it just means that that Corel program was a slug
- >: to begin with. Try running the Windows versions of Imagine, Lightwave,
- >: Caligari/Truespace on that same P6 machine and then compare it with
- >: your accelerated 1200 ...
-
- >Comparing Lightwave for the Amiga with Lightwave on the PC is like
- >comparing Washington Red Delicious Apples to Granny Smith Apples. The
- >AmigaOS version of Lightwave has been fine tuned for the Amiga line
- >running a 68040 CPU/FPU. The PC version right now stands as a fairly
- >generic port, and its math functions haven't been totally fine tuned yet.
- >That WILL come in time. And further, LW for the PC makes great use of
- >Windows' array of high level APIs. The Amiga version of LW has to include
- >the code itself (which may or may not be the best it could be).
-
- >: >The ONLY gripe I have
- >: >with Amiga's is they don't come standard with High Density floppies. Very
- >: >annoying when I can't afford to buy a HD drive. But thems the breaks...
-
- >: A while back I heard they stopped making those Amiga compatible
- >: HD-drives. I guess they'll become even more expensive now. Just
- >: another example of the braindead engineering decisions Commodore made.
- >: It would have been a lot easier on Amiga owners if they could just buy
- >: standard PC compatible HD drives and VGA monitors off the shelves
- >: instead of hunting down expensive HD drives or 15 Khz monitors.
-
- >I don't understand why people have this mind-set that having a HD floppy
- >drive means life or death for the Amiga. Last time I checked, there were
- >MANY other problems with the platform that needed attention. You
- >shouldn't even be using a floppy drive. You should be using a hard drive.
- >Hell, you can get 1 GIGABYTE drives for $199.
-
- Most Amiga users do have HDs now, I don't know many people without one. And
- before you say it, only one person I know has a drive less than 100meg, and
- he is upgrading soon. I have a 260meg drive in my Amiga, which is big
- enough for me.
-
- > The fact that the OS is still so tied to 10 year old custom hardware
- > comes to mind. If it weren't for this, we could just use a generic
- > floppy controller. Much cheaper, much faster, much higher availabilty.
- > But with a generic floppy controller, we couldn't run all of our demos
- > and games that use special hardware dependant trackloaders...
-
- That's what comes of hitting the hardware directly.
-
- > As for the VGA monitor problem, that is a problem with both the hardware
- > and software. The hardware problem comes to mind because Commodore did
- > not make the AGA chipset with an internal Display enhancer. We wouldn't
- > need such a device if software designers wouldn't base their timing on
- > screen raster time.
-
- The Amiga does have its problems, just not as many as the PC, that is why we
- use it.
-
- >Alas, I could go on for hours but you get my point.
-
- yeah.
-
- Finn Higgins
-
-