NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/comp/sys/amiga/advocacy/32099

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-23 | 9.6 KB

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Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
From: [e-mail] (David Navas)
Subject: Re: Future Amiga chipsets
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Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 22:50:39 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jerry Shekhel) writes:
>: Well, personally, I would define crippled as any machine whose principle
         ^^^^^^^^^^  ^

>Does anyone else define it that way?  Face it, your definition is totally
>arbitrary.

Thanks for pointing that out to the masses that might have missed that.

Just to make sure no one misses this point, these are all my own ideas.
Really, not begged, borrowed, or stolen.

>Really?  Well, in *my* universe the average hard drive isn't capable of
>more than, say, 1.5-2MB/sec, which ISA can easily deal with, with plenty of
>room to spare.  What about your universe?

In my (ideal) universe, a bus would be doing a lot more than running a
(single, even) harddrive.

Now let's just make sure everyone is following now.  "ideal", now that
means that it's an expression of a level of "perfection".  "my ideal,"
that means that -I- made up that universe.

I claim that my universe would be a lot more fun to live in than yours.

>: "implies that it has difficulty performing everyday tasks"
>: Think about this for a minute.  How are you defining "everyday tasks"?
>I define "everyday tasks" for an expansion bus as "interfacing with normal
>peripherals found in most personal computers".  Is that an unfair definition?

No, it is exactly what I've been telling folks around here.  That (I
forget who's article I originally responded to) somebody had defined
"everyday tasks" as average use, "interfacing with normal peripherals" is
just as good.

Let me ask this question more explicitly -- Is something not useful because
it's not normal?  Are there not current peripherals that can NOT be
hooked up to a regular ISA bus because of ISA's lack of bandwidth?  Would
you NOT find these peripherals attractive?

>What good is a 550 GB/s bus if all your peripherals being cranked at once
>don't add up to 5MB/s?

Because people would start making peripherals that could use the bus?

Are you really missing the chicken-and-egg scenario you are proposing as a
"defense"?

>Where are you getting your information?  LocalBus supports any type of
>peripheral, not just video.  Look at a Gateway ad; most of their PC's now
>ship with LocalBus disk controllers.  Besides, the fact that a bunch of
>frustrated Amiga fanatics consider PC's "banally mediocre" has no bearing
>on reality.  Your attempt to pass it off as common knowledge is typical as
>well as laughable.

So I can expect five slot LocalBus PCs in, say, three years?  That would be
nice, I hardly consider it to be true.  We've seen a lot of PC bus
architectures come and go.  I have yet to see a concerted effort to actually
replace ISA, though :(  I give LocalBus a lot more chance of succeeding
than anything else, we'll see what happens to it over this next year.

Additionally, I would not consider myself and the people I know "a bunch of
frustrated Amiga fanatics."  Firstly, -I- am not an Amiga fanatic.  I do
write programs for the architecture, and I do so because I enjoy doing so.
I was, however, quite fair about kicking the Amiga just as hard as I was
kicking the PC.  -BOTH- architectures have some really fundamental flaws
that -do- frustrate me.

Secondly, there is only one person I know within this entire (something like
1500 person) company I work for that -has- an Amiga.  Which implies I know
rather a few more PC programmers (and Mac programmers) than I do Amiga
programmers.  I have yet to find someone that extolls the virtues of ISA,
though....

Thirdly, laugh all you want, but try and get a job with any decent workstation
company by telling them you have an in-depth knowledge of Intuition gadget
construction on the Amiga, or fixing ISA-bus conflicts on the PC.  Watch as
you get laughed out of your interview.

Understand that I hold the Amiga market as much (if not more) responsible
for the current mediocrity so prevelant in the PC industry today.  The
folks at Commodore should at least feel free to change the way things work --
alienating 3 million people when there's a market 1000 times as large if they
did something right wouldn't be a problem.  Alienating 100million clone
owners, that would be a considerable risk....

>Your point, please?

Sorry, maybe you missed it.  The point was that without someone else
actually driving innovation into our beloved PCs, we'd have been in even
worse shape.  Again, the driving force for change in the PC industry does
not come FROM the PC industry.  This is dangerous.

>Nice speech, but totally pointless.  Technology doesn't exist for technology's
>sake -- it has to be useful for human beings, *today*.  I have to have a

Technology exists for technology's sake UNTIL it is useful for
human beings *today*.  Today, computers are just NOT useful to the
average human being.

>computer *today*, and *today* there aren't any peripherals which would
>seriously tax the ISA bus.  Why should I spend extra for a fast bus and

Sure, where would you plug them in?

But you're wrong and you know it, there are plenty of peripherals that
would seriously tax the ZIII interface, nevermind ISA.

You can't afford them because they're not mass produced.  They're not
mass produced because there's no place to plug them in.

>get *nothing*, when I could spend the money on a 24-bit graphics card and
>get *something*?

What, a more vivid representation of the real world?
How does that, in your words "help you now"?  I agree, this is a great thing
to have, but it is inconsistent to your "useful for human beings *today*".
The whole idea of a 66Mhz 486 is inconsistent to the same.  That doesn't
make it a bad thing -- far from it.  It is merely inconsistent to praise
the progress in one area and attempt to defend that lack of same in
other areas.

Please note, you may replace the above argument and talk about the Amiga's
resolution, lack of DIG, lack of VM, etc.  And I would agree with you, too.

>Thanks for the advice :-P  Come on, face it.  Computers are tools.  When I'm

I'm sure the advice was worth everything you paid for it.  :)

Computers are tools when you tell me what it is I can do with them.
Until then, they are a way for me to make a living.

>in the market for a drill or a screwdriver, I'll take the one which is the
>most capable of helping me with the tasks I need to accomplish, even if
>there's another one whose specs look more macho on paper.

Sure, because you have a use for a screwdriver or a drill.  I have not found
an application that "Joe Consumer" has any use for (above and beyond something
like a Sega Genesis).
That's probably why more people own screwdrivers and hammers than computers.

>I ask you again.  What can't my ISA PC do directly because of ISA bus
>limitations?  Look, I'll even help you by mentioning one thing: DMA to
>memory above 16MB can't happen due to the ISA's 24 address lines, but then
>again, it's invisible at the end-user level.  Is there anything else?

Disk arrays of any reasonable size (you did want to do multimedia on that
multimedia box, right?).  Signal analysis of any seriously complex kind
(video HDTV-speed sorts of signals, for instance).  Real-time analysis of
nuclear decay sequences in even middle-end particle accelerators.

[Okay, you did ask, right?]

On a little more serious plane, think about this for a minute.  Our
intelligence is a direct result of the number of CONNECTIONS between our
neurons, and NOT the power of our neurons in and of themselves.  Seems to
me that 100million PCs with a really wicked-fast connection architecture
could do some almost "interesting" things, like a REAL version of AI.

And that, folks, is a whole lot more interesting than real-time image
manipulation which is going to be driving a multi-billion dollar industry
under the rather dubious title of "multimedia".

>Status symbol?  A computer?  Ha!  Not within my group of friends, unless
>you're talking about "nerd status" or something such.

So, just what DO you do with your PC, then.  I mean, besides work?

Tell me why 100million people need one?

>: Let's face it, we don't write 20 letters a day, we don't
>: do daily mailings to 100s of relatives, most of use don't balance our
>: checkbooks with or without a computer, and as far as requiring a database,
>: I'd bet more families have encyclopedias.

>Are you the same person who complained a few paragraphs before about
>people who base their computer purchasing decisions on what they can
>do with computers RIGHT NOW?  Think about it, and when you make up your
>mind, let's resume this discussion.

Yes, I was taking the reverse argument "that PCs are useful" and then showing
how that's incredibly silly.  PCs are NOT useful.  They WILL be someday.
Until that day, technology drives technology, not some unrealistic version
of the universe where even "word processors" are somehow useful....
[And they are, no doubt about it, but are they worth several thousand
dollars in software and hardware useful?]

Round 2?
Ding.

David C. Navas                        [e-mail]
Working for, but not speaking on behalf of, Oracle Corp.