guest@ccivax.UUCP (What's in a name ?) (01/25/86)
> > > (the amiga *is* a business machine and would lose that market if it's > > price was lowered too much.) /* Written 6:51 pm Jan 12, 1986 by > > cs195@sdcsvax.UUCP in ccvaxa:net.micro.amiga */ > ---------- > I'm sure the Amiga people will be glad to know they have that > market to lose. > > A "business machine" is defined by the people who buy it and the > people who write software for it. > > I think the Amiga is a pretty nifty machine, with a lot of > potential. Calling it a business machine is ludicrous. > There is a lot of debate on whether either of these machine is a "business computer". Perhaps a new definition of "Business, Personal, and Personal Business" computers is needed. A VAX 11/750 an ST, and Amiga both run at nearly the same speed (Integer math only). For the "big 5" applications, ( word processing, planning/budgeting, small databases..., reports and documents that are published via office-copier ) all of these machines will do about as well. The VAX is a business machine in the sense that it will do large data-bases that wouldn't be needed for "personal use". Updating a 2 gigabyte file hierarchy and having it available instantly to 100 users is not a task I would assign to an Amiga (it doesn't have 40-100 terminal ports). There are machines that do that well (such as a CCI 5/32, Altos, and maybe even a PC-AT) that were designed to handle that kind of heavy usage. On the other hand, try using nroff to send presentation quality graphics to a daisy wheel printer on a 4.2 system, and compare that to what you can do with an ST or Amiga in about 1 hour with one of those Draw/Paint programs. You might get a reasonable looking table after two or three hours of hacking at a 'tbl|nroff' document, but none of the really good font and shading stuff you'd get with an ST/Amiga and an OKI printer. As far as the "Toy Computer" syndrome, remember that the first 2600 (the only true toy) and games were written by a man who wrote missle simulations for the department of defence. Even the "Star Raiders" style games show the potential for real-time simulations. Carl Peterson (Accelerated Schools, Denver Co.) pointed out that for education, simulations were superior to "drill and practice" or "text tutorials". Some schools use variations of the "Hammerobi" game as a way of teaching economic principles. Home/Personal computers will have to provide "entertaining education" to fuel a strong "Third Wave" of computers. Considering the "First Wave" was the Timex/Sinclair and the second was the Commodore-64, the "Third Wave" could be worth several million units. Of course, C-64 owners discovered that their "game machine" could also be a useful "Tool" in such persuits as paying the family bills, mailing "form letters" to all the "Children, Grandchildren, Uncles, and Cousins". The Atari/Amiga has the ability to become a "cottage machine". If a person wants to stay at home and update data-bases, type resume's, or print form letters, they can do it with these new machines as well as the person with the VT100 sitting at the office desk. The real key for the "Personal Business" computer will be the ability to make efficient use of the resources of the "Business" computer such as the VAX. Some examples: Given a relational data base such as those produced by lorder, cflow pass 1, join or any other "parent child" relationship, draw and organizational chart of it in somthing like a yourdon structure chart. Produce a "3 dimensional" chart similar to the above, but "mouse-clicking" let's you see the "children" and "mouse-left button" lets you see the description. An old article in kilobaud (1976) described a 3-d datebase that was accessed using two joysticks (could be mice or track-balls today) the viewer could see both the top and front (isometric view) of the data-base and access anything in it by positioning on the three co-ordinates. This is as opposed to the 2 d windows. Produce a system like the above for accessing/navigating a unix hierarchy. Devlope peer-peer communications protocols where the operating system of the "Host" is an integral part of the "Personal Computer". For example when you want to "open" a file that lives on a VAX, let the VAX traverse hierarchies, read indexes... and manage a "virtual path" between the open file and the PC. This is an optional feature of OS-9 68K and could be the strongest case yet for adopting it. OS-9 also supports a full, standard graphics 'driver'. The IBM-PC can't do this because so many of the desk accessories, copy-protected applications and other "Micky Mouse" programming practices for that machine try to access "BIOS" routines directly to the "Physical Device". Also, allow bi-directional "piping" between the two processors to allow remote execution of such common tools as filters... on the the "Unix" machine with input and/or output provided by the PC. Develope a "graphic interchange language" that could be read like a text file to enable things like print-spoolers, choice of editors, and conversion of text data to graphic data. Alternatively, develope a generic graphics interchange format that would allow the same flexability with graphics that unix text files provide for the unix tools. Some things I would like to see after using MAC programs: graphic versions of 'grep', 'awk', and 'sed' as well as the ability to search for say 'a box containing the words "application services" in a 'project' document and draw a line to, or be positioned at that point. a graphic version of m4 so one could produce 100 boxes containing (1 line per box) the lines of text, centered in the smallest possible square, or in squares of a specific size. The output should be usable by either the (Machine equivelant to) Paint, Draw, Project, Draft, or Cad editors. the equivilent of a 'join' capability where supplementary text can be joined (added into, or opened from) a box on the graphic 'picture' document. also the ability to 'join' by drawing a line from one box to another based on the lable contained within the box. A 'format standards' document in each applications manual, to allow conversion from one applications format to another. the equivilent of a 'diff' capability to allow using features of two editors, and be able to convert, add, remove those features added by the new editor. For example, after using the 'project' editor, and using the shading and 'spray can' features of the paint editor, the 'project editor' can't be used again. If the original document is manipulated, the 'paint stuff' has to be done all over.
mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (01/28/86)
With regard to the argument over whether the amiga can be considered a business computer: I think it's largely a question of attitude. One place I have worked at had an existing stock of CT workstations which were used for minor word processing, and occaisional use of traditional business products such as Multiplan. Then a few Macs showed up. These proliferated rapidly when it was discovered that that they multiplied productivity of graphic design and project planning spectacularly. THe problem I see in the marketplace is that, sad to say, the is a great lack of imagination as far as the use of these machines is concerned. When the IBM PC came out, people thought of business products as things like Visicalc, Profitplan, and like things: things that people had always done on mainframes, and which they now were bringing into their offices. The one real advance at this stage was the spreadsheet method; other than that, no one stopped to think what kinds of things they could do. In this respect, the PC was the perfect business machine; it was merely a scaled-up, incompatible version of the CP/M machines already in existence, with "IBM" on the wrapper to make it socially acceptable. So when the Lisa came along, and then the Mac made it affordable, relatively few people jumped at the chance to be able to do a lot of radical new things. Certainly part of the failure had to do with marketing. But I think that, given the obvious application to a lot of business tasks, the greater part of the fault lies in the lack of imagination of the business community. C. Wingate