[comp.sys.apple] Serious Computing

ehsu@husc7.HARVARD.EDU (Eric Hsu) (02/06/90)

In article <1990Feb4.102221.23801@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> cs122aw@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Scott Alfter) writes:
>In article <1361@crash.cts.com> paul@pro-europa.cts.com (Paul Hutmacher) writes:
>>        The Amiga is a superior machine because there are more game titles
>>        produced and ported to the Amiga platform than there are for the Apple
>>        IIgs platform.
>
>Whoopee shit!  So you can get more games for the Amiga.  Does that make it the
>better machine?  I don't think so.  Games are the last thing I'd consider when
>buying a computer.  Your logic is on the level of a ten-year-old joystick
>junkie, apparently.  Thanks to you, I know where the games are now.  When I
>want to do serious computing, I'll stick to the Apple II.

	Whoa! Let's calm down here. I sympathize with Scott's annoyance,
but let's not get so uppity. Some twenty-year-olds (me !) like games too.
In fact a fair number of CS majors (I'm not one) that I know grew up on IIs.
They first played games on the Apple II and then began hacking out programs 
on the II, then emerging into full CS-dom in college. I wonder if the same 
sort of cycle is happening on the Amiga machines? I dunno. 
	Now that I've digressed, I'm remembering a little of the fun and 
comraderie of me and my friends programming little Applesoft games, trying
to top each other. To me, that's what personal computing's all about. I kind
of miss that now. Maybe it's because I'm at college now, but I don't see much
of that any more. Does it still happen? That is, are there any non-serious 
programmers out there?

						Nostalgically,

						Eric Hsu
						ehsu@husc4.UUCP
						ehsu@husc4.Bitnet
Eric Hsu                           ehsu@husc4.Bitnet, ehsu@husc4.UUCP

huang@husc4.HARVARD.EDU (Howard Huang) (02/06/90)

>>>     The Amiga is a superior machine because there are more game titles
>>>     produced and ported to the Amiga platform than there are for the Apple
>>>     IIgs platform.
>>
>>Whoopee shit! So you can get more games for the Amiga. Does that make it the
>>better machine? I don't think so.

I think what the original poster intended to show was the software support
that the Amiga receives compared to the IIgs.

Even otherwise, games can indicate a machine's graphics capabilities, speed,
etc.  Presumably a game written using the Amiga's higher resolution (is it
640 x 400?) and customized graphics chips would run faster and smoother than
a similar game on the IIgs.  Of course, this isn't how you should select a
computer, but I'll bet a good game does attract customers to a particular
machine.

>In fact a fair number of CS majors (I'm not one) that I know grew up on IIs.
>They first played games on the Apple II and then began hacking out programs 
>on the II, then emerging into full CS-dom in college. 

Count me in. Apple IIe fiend to Apple IIgs almost-fiend (hey, college is
hectic!)  I really liked the "easiness" of jumping into the Apple II
monitor to poke around in the machine -- machines like the Mac, Commodore
64, and IBM didn't offer that kind of openness (did they?).  It was great
to read Disassembly Lines in NIBBLE or to get DOS 3.3 RWTS to actually 
read a sector off a disk.

These days users are insulated from all this internal stuff.  Personal
computing is, like lotsa other things, meant to be PRODUCTIVE.  People
want to BUY programs like AppleWorks GS, not write their own little
database.  Nobody wants to type in programs from magazines anymore because
they don't have the time and the programs can't compare with commercial
products.

I guess this is a sign of better technology.  Ah well.  I still have my
back issues of NIBBLE to keep me company :-)


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Howard C. Huang                        Internet:  huang@husc4.harvard.edu
Sophomore Computer Science Major       Bitnet:    huang@husc4.BITNET
Mather House 426, Harvard College      UUCP:      huang@husc4.UUCP (I think)
Cambridge, MA 02138                    Apple II:  ftp husc6.harvard.edu