[net.micro.cbm] Amiga preliminary impressions

trudel@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Jon) (08/26/85)

	Well, I just happen to share an apartment with Mr. Lavitsky,
one of the lucky guys to get a developer's machine.  He's been too
occupied with the machine to log in and respond, but here goes.


> 
>   In *what* RAM is the OS in ? I remember having read in a previous
> article there would be *extra* RAM for the OS. Or is the OS placed
> in the few 256K one has ?
>   It is said the RAM containing the OS is write protected,
 
	The Amiga's OS is not finalized.  Right now, the Amiga
requires a 'Kickstart' disk which loads the OS into a seperate RAM
section that is non-volatile, and does not reset when rebooting takes
place.  It is seperate from the standard 256K RAM that is normally
accessible to the user.  According to Eric (and then again, maybe
not), this will later be replaced by 192K of ROM.  This is mainly due
to the fact that the earlier versions of the OS are a little buggy.
When Eric logs in to read this, I'm sure he'll be able to clear up any
misconceptions I have.

	Speaking of the Amiga, I am extremely jealous of Eric.  The
Amiga is a great machine, and from what I've seen, I am very
impressed.  I have seen excellent graphics.  The sound chip really
nsteals the show for me, though.  It is able to reproduce a wide
variety of sounds, including a baseball stadium organ.  Unfortunately,
most of the software Eric has is all prerelease, and didn't come with
much documentation, so I couldn't give a full review of the machine
yet.  I'll let Eric do that.
-- 

					   Jonathan D. Trudel
					arpa:trudel@ru-blue.arpa
	 			uucp:{seismo,allegra,ihnp4}!topaz!trudel
				Bill: He's hip, he's hot, and he's hairy.