jxf6805@ritcv.UUCP (J Froehlich) (08/09/85)
I just finished reading the latest info on the Amiga from the Commodore news- group. I don't want to start any "debates", but I find it strange that not a single mention of the Amiga was to be found in the Mac newsgroup. Are we failing to acknowledge the competition?
bhyde@inmet.UUCP (08/10/85)
I for one am very happy not to have any discussion of the Amiga in this news group... "The Amiga? That's the machine that one ups the MacIntosh right, more memory, more sound, more color, even has less software than the Mac did when it was introduced." ben hyde, cambridge
royt@gitpyr.UUCP (Roy M. Turner) (08/12/85)
In article <8883@ritcv.UUCP> jxf6805@ritcv.UUCP (J Froehlich) writes: >I just finished reading the latest info on the Amiga from the Commodore news- >group. I don't want to start any "debates", but I find it strange that not >a single mention of the Amiga was to be found in the Mac newsgroup. Are we >failing to acknowledge the competition? Well, two things: when I see one of the things, and not just hear or read about it, then I'll talk about it--maybe; mainly, though, this is a MacIntosh newsgroup...let Atari and Commodore use their own! (-: Roy "Me? I'm a MacBigot...but you would be too, if you'd shelled out the cash I did...!" -- The above opinions aren't necessarily those of etc, etc...but they should be!! Roy Turner (a transplanted Kentucky hillbilly) School of Information and Computer Science Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!royt
eric@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Eric Lavitsky) (08/12/85)
In article <26700024@inmet.UUCP>, bhyde@inmet.UUCP writes: > > I for one am very happy not to have any discussion of the > Amiga in this news group... "The Amiga? That's the machine > that one ups the MacIntosh right, more memory, more sound, more > color, even has less software than the Mac did when it was introduced." > ben hyde, cambridge Eh?, you'd better get your facts straight. The Amiga will have 20+ packages available upon release - I've seen many of them. How many did the Mac have? 2...3? All I can remember are MacPaint and MacWrite - care to refresh my memory as to the other 20? Eric -- ARPA: LAVITSKY@RUTGERS UUCP: ...{harvard,seismo,ut-sally,sri-iu,ihnp4}!topaz!eric SNAIL: 16 Oak St., Flr 2 New Brunswick, NJ 08903
cjn@calmasd.UUCP (Cheryl Nemeth) (08/13/85)
Is the Amiga actually out of the vaporware phase?
tecot@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Edward Tecot) (08/14/85)
> (I won't bore you with everyone else's comments which you have already seen)
Well, I have already seen the Amiga (at SigGraph up in MacroMind's suite)
and beleive me, it is nothing to talk about. The only things that it can do
better than a Mac would make a great game, but nothing more. To give you an
idea; Commodore rants about their "multitasking". I had this "multitasking"
demonstrated for me. It ran two processes simultaneously and they took four
times as long as if the processes had been run consecutively. Some
multitasking; it's there, but no one will want to use it.
--
_emt
-----
ARPA: tecot@{CMU-CS-K.ARPA|K.CS.CMU.EDU}
UUCP: {seismo|ucbvax}!cmu-cs-k!tecot
"They pelted us with rocks and garbage!"keith@ssc-vax.UUCP (Keith Nemitz) (08/14/85)
> I just finished reading the latest info on the Amiga from the Commodore news- > group. I don't want to start any "debates", but I find it strange that not > a single mention of the Amiga was to be found in the Mac newsgroup. Are we > failing to acknowledge the competition? Well, I just got my hands on an amiga and I liked it. I like my Mac too. Now there are two computers for the best of us. However, this is a mac board and this is the place to be to talk about macs. Anybody got C or Pascal or Modula-2 source to a 68000 dissasembler? I need to be able to dissasmble 68000 code sitting in the DATA fork, of all things! keith (* This is to notify you that your left hemisphere is at war with your right hemisphere. Please do not be unduly alarmed. You were not using either of them anyway. *)
jimb@amdcad.UUCP (Jim Budler) (08/15/85)
In article <3241@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> eric@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Eric Lavitsky) writes: >In article <26700024@inmet.UUCP>, bhyde@inmet.UUCP writes: >> >> color, even has less software than the Mac did when it was introduced." >> ben hyde, cambridge > >Eh?, you'd better get your facts straight. The Amiga will have 20+ >packages available upon release - I've seen many of them. How many >did the Mac have? 2...3? All I can remember are MacPaint and MacWrite - >care to refresh my memory as to the other 20? > I have to agree with both of them. I saw over 20 packages for the Mac prior to announcement day. I saw 3 released within a month of announcement day. There is a long way between packages seen before release and packages people will put their name on./ -- Jim Budler Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (408) 749-5806 UUCPnet: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amdcad!jimb Compuserve: 72415,1200 "... Don't sue me, I'm just the piano player!...."
peter@baylor.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (08/15/85)
How about a "net.micro.windows" or a "net.micro.BitBlt", for machines with
crufty graphics user interfaces as their main selling point?
There are going to be more and more of them, and they do have a lot in common
(despite the fanatics flames)...
--
Peter da Silva (the mad Australian werewolf)
UUCP: ...!shell!neuro1!{hyd-ptd,baylor,datafac}!peter
MCI: PDASILVA; CIS: 70216,1076peter@baylor.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (08/17/85)
> Well, I have already seen the Amiga (at SigGraph up in MacroMind's suite) > and beleive me, it is nothing to talk about. The only things that it can do > better than a Mac would make a great game, but nothing more. To give you an > idea; Commodore rants about their "multitasking". I had this "multitasking" > demonstrated for me. It ran two processes simultaneously and they took four > times as long as if the processes had been run consecutively. Some > multitasking; it's there, but no one will want to use it. What do you want? It should take less time? Hell, you could probably run programs faster on UNIX if it was single-tasking... if the two programs are an editor (input bound) and a compiler (cpu bound) I dare say you'll see a speedup. -- Peter da Silva (the mad Australian werewolf) UUCP: ...!shell!neuro1!{hyd-ptd,baylor,datafac}!peter MCI: PDASILVA; CIS: 70216,1076
cdshaw@watmum.UUCP (Chris Shaw) (08/17/85)
In article <3241> eric@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Eric Lavitsky) writes: >In article <26700024@inmet.UUCP>, bhyde@inmet.UUCP writes: >> >> "The Amiga? That's the machine that one ups the MacIntosh right >> ben hyde, cambridge > >Eh?, you'd better get your facts straight. The Amiga will have 20+ >packages available upon release - I've seen many of them. How many >did the Mac have? 2...3? All I can remember are MacPaint and MacWrite - >care to refresh my memory as to the other 20? > >Eric This is a bogus comparison. At its official release date, nobody had seen a Mac except for a few developers. (I think). At the Amiga's release, thousands of people will have seen it, touched it, etc. The "real release" in September is a marketing ploy designed to get the Amiga all the advance publicity one could want. The fact that Byte had an article in August indicates (given publishing deadlines and a lack of a "last minute" air to Byte's reporting) that the machine could just have easily been released in May or June. Of course, that would mean that the public would discover bugs galore in the software, and Commodore would have to promise up a storm about forth- coming software. I'm not saying that this is all a bad thing, this ploy of Commodore's. In fact it's quite intelligent. I just wish that the public at large (or at Usenet in this case) would not fall into the trap of making nonsense comparisons. Face it, Apple won this race in February 1984. No matter how you slice it, the Mac has a humongous head start, and a huge installed user base. No nonsense about number-of-software-packages-at-release is going to change the fact that the Mac has (at least) an order of magnitude more packages now than either the ST or Amiga. And no, I don't own a Mac. Chris Shaw watmath!watmum!cdshaw or cdshaw@watmath University of Waterloo In doubt? Eat hot high-speed death -- the experts' choice in gastric vileness !
hall@ittral.UUCP (Doug Hall) (08/17/85)
I think there's a difference between the software supposedly available for the Amiga and the software that was supposedly available for the Mac. Before the Mac came out, there were a lot of people saying, "We're working on such-and-such" or "it'll be available shortly." From what I've read, a lot of folks have stuff ready for the Amiga NOW, not just beta test, but waiting to ship as soon as Commodore does. I suppose some might feel safe in saying that, since they know they have some time before Amiga ships, but I'll wager that there'll be more available for the Amiga when it ships then there was for the Mac. I hope the Amiga is a success, because I keep looking for the machine that the Mac never was. I was one of the first Mac software developers, back when you "had to have a Lisa" to do Mac development. The more I used the Mac, the more I longed for a machine with some kind of open bus, and a way to throw away all the icons and menu bars and other such garbage. (Ok, so you can get rid of the junk if you really want, but the first problem requires major surgery.) At any rate, I want to use my machine the way *I* want to use it, not the way Apple or Commodore or anyone else wants me to. I finally decided that the Mac was the computer for the rest of them, and obviously it's done very well without my help, thank you. Now, back to the Amiga vs. ST business. Does the ST really have an external bus? I mean like Address/Data and all that good stuff? Or does it depend entirely upon the DMA channels for this? I know the Amiga has everything but the kitchen sink coming out the side, and I'd rather have that than just a DMA connector. Anybody know? Also, is anybody besides me interested in getting OS9/68K running on the Amiga? Somebody's bound to have thought of it by now. Doug Hall ITT Telecom, Raleigh NC decvax!ittatc!ittral!hall
barmar@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin) (08/18/85)
In article <495@cmu-cs-k.ARPA> tecot@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Edward Tecot) writes: > It ran two processes simultaneously and they took four >times as long as if the processes had been run consecutively. Some >multitasking; it's there, but no one will want to use it. I WOULD! When I use the Mac, I usually use the Switcher with the following configuration: Finder, a terminal emulator, and an application. If the application were one that has to think for any period of time, I would want to be able to use the emulator while it is running. Or, while transfering a file in the emulator I would like to be able to run the application or Finder. In either case, the fact that the system slows down a little is not important, since the emulator is mostly I/O bound anyway. -- Barry Margolin ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar
maddog@tolerant.UUCP (Bill Arnett) (08/23/85)
> In article <495@cmu-cs-k.ARPA> tecot@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Edward Tecot) writes: > > It ran two processes simultaneously and they took four > >times as long as if the processes had been run consecutively. Some > >multitasking; it's there, but no one will want to use it. > > I WOULD! When I use the Mac, I usually use the Switcher with the > following configuration: Finder, a terminal emulator, and an > application. If the application were one that has to think for any > period of time, I would want to be able to use the emulator while it is > running. Or, while transfering a file in the emulator I would like to > be able to run the application or Finder. In either case, the fact that > the system slows down a little is not important, since the emulator is > mostly I/O bound anyway. > -- > Barry Margolin > ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics > UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar I WOULD TOO! There are rumors that future versions of Switcher may allow such things. -- Bill Arnett {ucbvax}!tolerant!maddog Tolerant Systems, Inc. San Jose 408/946-5667
pritch@osu-eddie.UUCP (Norman Pritchett) (08/28/85)
> Now, back to the Amiga vs. ST business. Does the ST really have an > external bus? I mean like Address/Data and all that good stuff? Or > does it depend entirely upon the DMA channels for this? I know the > Amiga has everything but the kitchen sink coming out the side, and I'd > rather have that than just a DMA connector. Anybody know? Also, is > anybody besides me interested in getting OS9/68K running on the Amiga? > Somebody's bound to have thought of it by now. > > Doug Hall > ITT Telecom, Raleigh NC > decvax!ittatc!ittral!hall I'm interested in knowing if anybody has the intention of putting os9 on the Amiga too (I personally wouldn't mind trying a crack at it myself). I was just reading about AMDs new disk controller chip set and started getting some neat ideas for disk-sharing between several os9 machines. The chip is the Am9580 hard disk controller. The name is misleading because it can actually control a mixture of four hard AND floppy disk drives. Instructions to the controller are stored in the host's memory in linked-list control blocks which are DMA'd by the 9580. The controller can handle a 32-bit linear address space (but lets face it, how many systems have 4Gbytes of real memory?) so what if you use the top couple of bits in the address to select a host? ... -- ----------------------------------- Norm Pritchett UUCP: cbosgd!osu-eddie!pritch P.O. Box 3393 CSNET: pritch@ohio-state Columbus OH 43210 BITNET: TS1703 at OHSTVMA Bellnet: (614) 422-0885