jcb@loral.UUCP (Jay C. Bowden) (10/09/85)
Commodore has quite a heritage to live down, in my eyes,
with respect to program loading times from the disk.
The biggest reason I know of why the C64, which seemed to
have a lot going for it otherwise, proved to be essentially
unusable for *serious* applications was the crippling
speed of the link to the disk. The first time I saw the
Flight Simulator message: "Program Load Time 2:50" my
jaw dropped to the floor! The machine only has 64K of RAM,
but takes 3 minutes to load it?
So that's why you all have thrown your C64's in the closet,
and are chomping at the bit to buy a new Amiga. The
question in my mind is, have they done it again?
It is interesting to note how previous computer experience
can taint a persons perceptions w.r.t personal computers.
People who had worked with 80 column screens COULD NOT
STAND the thought of using an Apple (40 col) for word processing.
After a Kaypro or other vanilla CP/M machine, waiting 3
minutes for 64K bytes of RAM to load from the disk is
UNTHINKABLE. But, did either of these constraints limit
the products success? Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
- Jayaer@alice.UucP (A. E. Rosenberg) (10/15/85)
In re to the post that Commodore has a reputation to live down, because the C64 took a horrendously long time to load programs- maybe with the public... yes. But Commodore isn't attaching very much of its name *at all* to the Amiga, and the disk drive is *totally unrelated* in the Amiga to the C64. If it *is* slow, though, as some Atarians would have us believe (didn't act that way in the store, though) Commodore *will* have a reputation to live down... D. Rosnberg ..!ihnp4!alice!aer -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- D. Rosenberg on Murray Hill /-\|/-\|//\|/-\ ATT/BTL ..ihnp4!alice!aer -- "These are My Opinions." -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
guest@ccivax.UUCP (What's in a name ?) (10/22/85)
> So that's why you all have thrown your C64's in the closet, > and are chomping at the bit to buy a new Amiga. The > question in my mind is, have they done it again? > After a Kaypro or other vanilla CP/M machine, waiting 3 > minutes for 64K bytes of RAM to load from the disk is > UNTHINKABLE. But, did either of these constraints limit > the products success? Sometimes ignorance is bliss. > > - Jay After seeing demos of Both the ST AND the AMIGA, it is obvious that both machines are reasonably fast. Both load 256K in 20-30 seconds, disk access/program load time is not a major factor. The graphics do flicker in high-res (this could be fixed using a better scan rate). The impressive area is the multi-tasking.