seanc@pro-party.cts.com (Sean Cunningham) (05/03/90)
While I don't like the discussion of Apple, or their products (generally)...while we're on the subject of how "great" a company they are, and how much they have their act together, and how much they know how to do things...why don't you checkout the latest issue of PERSONAL COMPUTING magazine. It gives you some insight into the way things are handled INSIDE Apple...or in this case, how they aren't handled. Some other interesting things...Jean Luis Gassee "pooh-poohed" the idea of preemptive multitasking on a personal computer at one of their conventions. Even though he's not with Apple anymore, I wouldn't expect mutitasking to be a part of even 8.0 of their OS. The MacWorld article that I read suggested that he checkout an Amiga 500, which handles preemptive multitasking, costs under $1K, and is used extensively for entertainment and multimedia. While their ][fx may be getting some headlines (although I believe C= strategically announced the A3000 to steal their thunder), it seems funny that people still can't get over the INITIAL cpu speed. Sure, it is fast. Faster than an A3000...stock. But you could buy 3 A3000s for the price of a ][fx, and network them together. While it is the first Mac to have SCSI/DMA, and it DOES double their performance (from 1.5MB/sec to 3MB/sec MAX), this falls short of the new SCSI ][ protocal which has a 4-5MB/sec ceiling. DMAC on the A3000 however, has a throughput of over 20MB/sec. While there isn't a harddisk in the world that could transfer at this rate, it leaves the possibilities open for high-speed SCSI networks. So YES the Mac ][fx is revolutionary if you compare its performance to earlier Macs, but the A3000 is a much more balanced system, and its initial pricetag leaves you money to do further expansion. The Mac][fx still has the 10MHz MAX NuBus speed, and a 20MHz I/O bus. The only part of the A3000 that isn't 25MHz (on the 25MHz model) is the 7.16MHz NTSC section that the Agnus, Paula, Denise, and Gary sit on. All of the new custom chips opperate at CPU speeds, or twice CPU speeds. Also, the PDS (processor direct slot) on the Mac has nowhere NEAR the potential of the CPU slot on the A3000. The PDS slot is 120pin, 20MHz. The CPU slot is 25MHz, 200pin, and can address 128MB of RAM. WorkBench 2.0 blows Finder, Windows, and PM away. AmigaVision makes HyperCard look like child's-play. The networking products for the Amiga are cheaper (and for those of you worried about networking the A500, according to the latest Amazing, the A560 is an Arcnet card for the A500, under development). The ONLY thing we're missing is a good true-color system...but I'm confident that there will be one, if not many, soon. After you get over "CPU-Clock Shock", and start looking at the actual supporting hardware in the two machines, the A3000 is by far the more technologically advanced, and more capable. And if that isn't enough, it's cheaper...almost disgracefully inexpensive. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc | ARPA: !crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc@nosc.mil | " Fanatics have their INET: seanc@pro-party.cts.com | dreams, wherewith they | weave a paradise for RealWorld: Sean Cunningham | a sect. " Voice: (512) 994-1602 PLINK: ce3k* | -Keats | Call C.B.A.U.G. BBS (512) 883-8351 w/SkyPix | B^) VISION GRAPHICS B^) \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
david@twg.com (David Herron) (05/06/90)
In article<2498@crash.cts.com>seanc@pro-party.cts.com (Sean Cunningham) writes: >networking products for the Amiga are cheaper (and for those of you worried >about networking the A500, according to the latest Amazing, the A560 is an >Arcnet card for the A500, under development). The ONLY thing we're missing is >a good true-color system...but I'm confident that there will be one, if not >many, soon. oh good.. somebody else noticed the arcnet-for-A500 card. I was gonna mention that. As for "good true-color". At FAUG the other night there was a presentation by Digital Creations of DCTV, you can see it mentioned in the current Amiga World too. DCTV is slightly similar to HAM-E in that it encodes bitmaps in a funny way to pass a compressed video image out to special hardware which decodes the compressed image into a real one. But that's where the similarity ends.. DCTV does varying bits/pixel the most being 24 bits/pixel. The data stored on the system is the same size as, for instance, a full size HAM picture. That is, ~150 Kbytes as opposed to 1.5 megs for a normal 24 bit image. The pictures are displayable with normal ILBM display programs, by simply wrapping the bits in an ILBM IFF wrapper. This is apparently a slight misuse of the standard but is a good expedient because they were able to show Deluxe Paint III doing an animation their data files -- in full 24 bit glory. (mis)using ILBM is only one of many possible storage formats they support.. How does it look? It looks like a real picture! Well.. a real picture that has a fuzzy lens. I mean, there's natural looking gradations of color from place to place, no abrupt changing from one tone to another, etc. Some of the sample pictures were of fuzzy/hairy animals (bears, people) and unfortunately the individual hairs were too fuzzy to make out -- even when I was standing right next to the monitor and watching *CLOSE*. Somehow a digitizer snuck its way into the design. The digitizer is the way they got all the pictures used in the demonstration. During the talk portion of the demo, an assistant was busily digitizing away. It was as easy as pointing the camera, clicking something, and watching a 24 bit image come up on the screen. It did take 6 seconds though so you're limitted to stills. The animation I mentioned above was a claymation sort of thing generated by setting a godzilla toy on a lazy susan and turning it around, waving it's arms, moving a car through the background and snapping pictures from time to time. Hey, it worked.. This thing is really really good ... Expected availability is mid summer. expected price is $500. -- <- David Herron, an MMDF weenie, <david@twg.com> <- Formerly: David Herron -- NonResident E-Mail Hack <david@ms.uky.edu> <- <- (funny quote under construction)