bryan@ihnet.UUCP (b. k. delaney) (07/31/85)
I hate to dampen the Amiga fire, but the Amiga is a doomed machine. How can I say this before 1 Amiga is sold? Simple, this is history repeating it self, all over again. Remember the Comodore C-64 and the Atari 800? It was obvious to anybody, who seriously looked at BOTH machines, that the 800 was a better computer. But the Atari cost twice as much. Guess which one, really sold. Want more proof? Looked what happened last December, Atari sells 1/2 million 800XLs at 89.95 while C-64 sales down 90%, and most people thought C-64 sales down due to "soft market", how come Atari sold 1/2 million, price/performance. Enough history here is today: Amiga 256k 1 internal floppy $1295.00 "better machine" Atari ST-260 1 internal floppy $ 499.00 "1/2 the price" Need I say more ? ihnet!bryan Bryan K. DeLaney AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville IL
eric@topaz.ARPA (Eric Lavitsky) (08/02/85)
>From bryan@ihnet.UUCP (b. k. delaney) Wed Jul 31 08:45:21 1985 >Subject: Amiga vs. ST >I hate to dampen the Amiga fire, but the Amiga is a doomed machine. >How can I say this before 1 Amiga is sold? Simple, this is history >repeating it self, all over again. Remember the Comodore C-64 and >the Atari 800? It was obvious to anybody, who seriously looked at >BOTH machines, that the 800 was a better computer. But the Atari >cost twice as much. Guess which one, really sold. Want more proof? It was obvious to who? - most certainly to Atari owners it was. I had seen an 800 before I bought my C64 and as far as I was concerned, the *only* thing the 800 had over the C64 was Star Raiders. My C64 had better sound, more memory to deal with and equal graphics (maybe not in color flexibility.) >Looked what happened last December, Atari sells 1/2 million 800XLs >at 89.95 while C-64 sales down 90%, and most people thought C-64 >sales down due to "soft market", how come Atari sold 1/2 million, >price/performance. Enough history here is today: >Amiga 256k 1 internal floppy $1295.00 "better machine" >Atari ST-260 1 internal floppy $ 499.00 "1/2 the price" >Need I say more ? Yes. I don't care much about last December. Atari desperately sold out as many machines as it could. Jack Tramiel needed the instant cash to fund the ST. I'm sure Atari didn't turn a real profit on those machines. The ST-260 doesn't even exist and the regular ST is having problems. Amiga 512K, 1 880K internal floppy $1500 Atari 512K ST, 1 400(?)K floppy ~ 700 And the Amiga at least has a Basic (Microsofts best effort to date - Atari has expressed doubts as to whether they will ever market one), true multi-tasking and much more color flexibility than the ST. It's sound also beats the ST by a large margin and it is more easily expandable (up to 8.5 Meg of Ram total). There are already LISP, LOGO, Pascal, C compilers available for the Amiga - what has the ST got? The ST will never be able to preform the same as the Amiga. I'm willing to pay double to not be left in a hole in a year when I want to expand my machine. I can't guarantee the Amiga will sell - that remains to be seen. I don't believe anyone should judge it prematurely - you must see it first. Put it next to an ST or a Macintosh, then re-read the machine's specifications and decide if it is the machine for you and to grow with you. Eric -- ARPA: LAVITSKY@RUTGERS UUCP: ...{harvard,seismo,ut-sally,sri-iu,ihnp4}!topaz!eric SNAIL: 16 Oak St., Flr 2 New Brunswick, NJ 08903
hull@hao.UUCP (Howard Hull) (08/04/85)
> I hate to dampen the Amiga fire, but the Amiga is a doomed machine. > How can I say this before 1 Amiga is sold? Simple, this is history > repeating it self, all over again. Oh yeah. And why aren't there more Pterodactyls down by the pond? > Remember the Comodore C-64 and the Atari 800? It was obvious to anybody, > who seriously looked at BOTH machines, that the 800 was a better computer. > But the Atari cost twice as much. Guess which one, really sold. Precisely the point. There are a lot of Atari 800, Comode C-64, & RS COCO owners out there who are ready to place their 8-bit nibble juggler over the nearest waste basket, let go of it, and let it take any old world-line it pleases just to get their hands on a machine with a 68k, an accessable bus, a set of coproc chips to handle the hard mundanities, a flexible window/keyboard environment to snuggle up to the soft stuff, and a choice of TV or hirez monitor color graphics to keep track of what's goin' on. The only crock is "only one internal disk drive". > Want more proof? I'll listen. > Looked what happened last December, Atari sells 1/2 million 800XLs > at 89.95 while C-64 sales down 90%, and most people thought C-64 > sales down due to "soft market", how come Atari sold 1/2 million, > price/performance. Because they are (until September 15th anyway) still the guys with the closest approximation to the desired performance/price. > Enough history here is today: Ok, poke your bet, man. I'm going for the Amiga, and I've talked to a bunch of others who see it that way, too. > > Amiga 256k 1 internal floppy $1295.00 "better machine" > Atari ST-260 1 internal floppy $ 499.00 "1/2 the price" > > Need I say more ? No, just go buy yourself an att7300 next year when they're down to $3000. > ihnet!bryan > Bryan K. DeLaney > AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville IL Howard Hull {ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | harpo!seismo } !hao!hull
michaelk@azure.UUCP (Mike Kersenbrock) (08/04/85)
> I hate to dampen the Amiga fire, but the Amiga is a doomed machine. > How can I say this before 1 Amiga is sold? Simple, this is history > repeating it self, all over again. Remember the Comodore C-64 and > the Atari 800? It was obvious to anybody, who seriously looked at > BOTH machines, that the 800 was a better computer. But the Atari > cost twice as much. Guess which one, really sold. Want more proof? > Looked what happened last December, Atari sells 1/2 million 800XLs > at 89.95 while C-64 sales down 90%, and most people thought C-64 > sales down due to "soft market", how come Atari sold 1/2 million, > price/performance. Enough history here is today: > > Amiga 256k 1 internal floppy $1295.00 "better machine" > Atari ST-260 1 internal floppy $ 499.00 "1/2 the price" > > Need I say more ? > > ihnet!bryan > Bryan K. DeLaney > AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville IL > So how do you explain the IBM (PC/XT/AT)? Maybe IBM will buy Commodore, and put the IBM sticker on it & call them entry-level workstations. Voila! Mike Kersenbrock Tektronix Software Development Products Aloha, Oregon P.S. - Note that if Atari sells twice as many 520ST's as Commodore sells Amigas, then Commodore will still be the bigger company in terms of revenues. Assuming margins are proportional, Commodore is still the winner insofar as owners are concerned. P.P.S.- The battle will probably won in terms of software, and just how much momentum can be gotten "up front". Also, the Amiga is an "open architecture machine" which allows Commodore and add-on builders to make money for each other (like the IBM PC). Is the Atari 520ST open? Note: the Mac isn't.
horton@fortune.UUCP (Randy Horton) (08/05/85)
>> I hate to dampen the Amiga fire, but the Amiga is a doomed machine. >> How can I say this before 1 Amiga is sold? Simple, this is history >> repeating it self, all over again. >Oh yeah. And why aren't there more Pterodactyls down by the pond? >> Remember the Comodore C-64 and the Atari 800? It was obvious to anybody, >> who seriously looked at BOTH machines, that the 800 was a better computer. As long as they didn't care about sound and couldn't read a spec sheet. >> But the Atari cost twice as much. Guess which one, really sold. That's right, the C64 has outsold ALL personal computers in units sold. . . . >> Enough history here is today: >> >> Amiga 256k 1 internal floppy $1295.00 "better machine" >> Atari ST-260 1 internal floppy $ 499.00 "1/2 the price" . . . Just as the C-64/Atari/Apple ][ have a different market than the IBM PC-AT, the Amiga has a different market than the Atari ST. Comparing the Atari ST to the Amiga is like comparing a Timex to a PC-AT. I think that the Atari ST sounds like a fine machine, and a good value for the money, but it is just not in the same league as the Amiga. I am not trying to start any arguments, just pointing out that there are a variety of machines with a variety of capabilities, with a variety of prices, for a variety of people. Every machine has it's pros and cons. I hope that the Atari ST and the Amiga both do well. It is the MAC that will really suffer as a result of these two machines. As usual, Apple will be selling less machine for more money. -- +---------------------------------------------+ | allegra\ Randy Horton @ Fortune Systems | | cbosgd \ | | dual >!fortune!ranhome!randy | | ihnp4 / | | nsc / Clever disclaimer goes here | +---------------------------------------------+
nather@utastro.UUCP (Ed Nather) (08/06/85)
> Maybe IBM will buy Commodore, and put the IBM sticker on it & call them > entry-level workstations. Voila! > > Mike Kersenbrock Gosh. Didn't they use up all their stickers on the PC Jr. and the PC Portable? Somehow, for those, voila never came. -- Ed Nather Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin {allegra,ihnp4}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather nather%utastro.UTEXAS@ut-sally.ARPA
ravi@eneevax.UUCP (Ravi Kulkarni) (08/08/85)
>Just as the C-64/Atari/Apple ][ have a different market than the IBM PC-AT, >the Amiga has a different market than the Atari ST. Comparing the Atari ST >to the Amiga is like comparing a Timex to a PC-AT. I think that the Atari ST >sounds like a fine machine, and a good value for the money, but it is just >not in the same league as the Amiga. I am not trying to start any arguments, > ... I think your analogy of comparing the timex and pc-at with the atari 520ST and amiga is a little off base. I have seen a lot of hype about the amiga, but when I look at the specs the difference is not that great. I haven't seen the amiga but I am willing to admit that it is a more powerful machine, because of the special bit blt hardware and the multitasking os. Where people have to make the judgement is it worth all that extra money. The bitblt stuff is great if you are playing games or doing animation but I don't think it adds much for other applications. Even serious applications such as cad/cam don't benifit because at the resolutions we are talking about the 68000 is plenty fast enough. The multitasking feature is a definite plus, but again here it is not multitasking in the way us unix users are used to. Since there is no memory management the programs have to be well behaved and are limited to 32k segments. This is worse than the ibm pc which has 64k segments but at least has the option of large model compilers. The ST has the capability of running this type of multitasking os as well since it's io is asynchronous and has a prioritized interrupt controller and a dma controller. I imagine something like OS9 would run very well. The sound issue is a wash as the amiga has better builtin sound but the ST has integrated midi controllers into the machine. The ST has as open an architecture as the amiga through the 1Mbyte/sec dma channel. In fact if we are allowed to talk about vaporware, atari is planning on an expansion box connected to the high speed dma channel with better graphics capability and 32bit processors. So you decide if you want to pay $800-$1000 for an atari ST with a hard disk interface, with midi controllers, equivalent memory and processor speed to an amiga or pay $2000 for an amiga with bitblt support, better builtin sound, multitasking and don't forget to add more money for the hard disk interface, and the midi controllers. I didn't want to take sides in the ST vs Amiga argument, as I think the amiga is a nice machine, but it seems that the amiga is being over hyped both in the press and on the net. For example none of magazines reviewing the amiga compare features and price with the ST but only with overpriced products like the mac and the ibm pc. -- ARPA: eneevax!ravi@maryland UUCP: [seismo,allegra]!umcp-cs!eneevax!ravi
chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) (08/08/85)
In article <402@azure.UUCP> michaelk@azure.UUCP (Mike Kersenbrock) writes: > >So how do you explain the IBM (PC/XT/AT)? Simple. IBM has a lock on the office market. Many offices won't buy anything that doesn't have IBM's name on it (living in the unix world biases your perceptions. In the 'real' world, all the money spent on Unix boxes is barely pocket change to IBM...). That creates a strong demand for IBM compatible stuff for people who want to be able to read data but don't want to spend money for the name, and strong demand in the home office market as well since a businessman wants to be able to take his stuff home and work on it... Its amazing what you can do with a product with a questionable price/performance ration if you're IBM... If you want to look at exactly how powerful the name of IBM is in the office marketplace, look at the PCjr. Without the political power of the IBM name in purchasing offices, the machine flopped, because it couldn't compete in an open market. The real advantage IBM has is that its market ISN'T open... -- :From the carousel of the autumn carnival: Chuq Von Rospach {cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA Your fifteen minutes are up. Please step aside!
doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (08/12/85)
> Where people have to make > the judgement is it worth all that extra money. The bitblt stuff is > great if you are playing games or doing animation but I don't think > it adds much for other applications. Applications????? Is there anyone on the net who gives a tinker's damn about applications? The important thing is to have a 68000 CPU and nifty specs for sound and graphics. It doesn't matter if you ever *use* that stuff or not. Besides, hopefully someone will put Unix on an ST or an Amiga. That's another important thing to have, even though you have no use for it. -- Doug Pardee -- CalComp -- {seismo!noao,decvax!noao,ihnp4}!terak!doug
kdmoen@watcgl.UUCP (Doug Moen) (08/12/85)
>The multitasking feature (of the Amiga) is a >definite plus, but again here it is not multitasking in the way us >unix users are used to. Since there is no memory management the >programs have to be well behaved and are limited to 32k segments. Not true. Programs can be arbitrarily large (since addresses are relocated at process startup time) and they don't have to be well behaved (since address faults, etc are trapped on a per-process basis). I got this information from one of the people who designed the Amiga's multitasking operating system. All in all, I was very impressed by the number of things that they got right. -- Doug Moen (watmath!watcgl!kdmoen) University of Waterloo Computer Graphics Lab
horton@fortune.UUCP (Randy Horton) (08/13/85)
>I didn't want to take sides in the ST vs Amiga argument, as I think >the amiga is a nice machine, but it seems that the amiga is being >over hyped both in the press and on the net. For example none of >magazines reviewing the amiga compare features and price with the ST >but only with overpriced products like the mac and the ibm pc. This is a very good point. The ST and Amiga are somewhat similar machines, and actually there will probably be *some* overlap of their markets. When you look at the prices of both systems *WITHOUT* the monitors, they are not all that far apart. I don't really think that it is fair to call one simply a BETTER machine. My C64 is better than my UNIX box, for playing games. But for serious work... I think that the choice between the ST and Amiga would depend on the needs and priorities of the individual, since they do have their different capabilities. -- +---------------------------------------------+ | allegra\ Randy Horton @ Fortune Systems | | cbosgd \ | | dual >!fortune!ranhome!randy | | ihnp4 / | | nsc / Clever disclaimer goes here | +---------------------------------------------+
jww@sdcsvax.UUCP (Joel West) (08/14/85)
> >> I hate to dampen the Amiga fire, but the Amiga is a doomed machine. > >> How can I say this before 1 Amiga is sold? Simple, this is history > >> repeating it self, all over again. > Just as the C-64/Atari/Apple ][ have a different market than the IBM PC-AT, The Apple II and C-64 market rarely overlapped, in either price or capabilities. The II was a home/business machine (also a home-business machine) and the C-64 was the best game machine at the best price. > I hope that the Atari ST and the Amiga both > do well. It is the MAC that will really suffer as a result of these two > machines. As usual, Apple will be selling less machine for more money. It's quite obvious that the market for home computers, let alone expensive high-priced home computers, is finite. The Mac has made only a small penetration into the general office market recently, primarily for chart- and slide-making (one per groups, vs. one IBM PC per user). The Atari will not have a business impact; the Amiga, because of its distribution and the not-hidden-enough name ("Commodore") will have a negligible impact, primarily in some graphics and video applications. The 1986 open Mac will likely put any corporate Mac owners back off the fence and into Apple's camp, should they be tempted now by Amiga. I'm not saying the Amiga doesn't have better hardware (I've never seen one. Have you?), but software, distribution, marketting, and even market psychology are far more important to success. So, getting back to the original question: which 2 computers will survive in the home market? The Mac be one, because it already has a foothold, software, and a fanatic group of owners. The Amiga vs. ST? The last battle obviously went to the C64. Which do you bet on, the company (Commodore) or its president (Tramiel, now with Atari.) Both companies are in precarious positions, so I suspect that this year's Christmas sales will probably decide the war. Joel West CACI, Inc. - Federal (c/o UC San Diego) {ucbvax,decvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww jww@SDCSVAX.ARPA "A Macintosh owner at any price!"
kev@voder.UUCP (Kevin Hoskins) (08/16/85)
> ....The 1986 open Mac will likely put any corporate Mac owners back off > the fence and into Apple's camp, should they be tempted now by Amiga. > > Joel West CACI, Inc. - Federal (c/o UC San Diego) > {ucbvax,decvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww > jww@SDCSVAX.ARPA > > "A Macintosh owner at any price!" Okay, I'll bite. What the heck is an "open Mac" and why will it push corporate Mac owners off the fence?
peter@baylor.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (08/16/85)
> Applications????? > > Is there anyone on the net who gives a tinker's damn about applications? Careful, your sarcasm's showing! > The important thing is to have a 68000 CPU and nifty specs for sound and > graphics. It doesn't matter if you ever *use* that stuff or not. > > Besides, hopefully someone will put Unix on an ST or an Amiga. That's > another important thing to have, even though you have no use for it. I don't know about you but I'm not a little kid who needs hir hand held when se plays games. I'm not a beancounter who uses prepackaged applications in Lotus. I'm not a writer like Jerry Pournelle who needs the world's greatest word processor. I'm a programmer. Without us, there will never be any applications. We need to be able to do 10 or 15 things at once so we can get software out before the press calls it vaporware. We need multitasking. UNIX is our application. -- Peter da Silva (the mad Australian werewolf) UUCP: ...!shell!neuro1!{hyd-ptd,baylor,datafac}!peter MCI: PDASILVA; CIS: 70216,1076