wizard@sosaria.imp.com (Chris Brand) (01/17/90)
After follwing the heavy discussion about Amiga or not Amiga, about insufficient graphics capabilities and so on, and after many not too good personal experiences and disappointments I am completely loosing my faith in the Amiga. I love the machine, I really do, but.... For example, I just saw a documentation on TV about Computer Graphics on PCs. I was not astonished not to see any Amigas, but I was astonished when I saw what is possible with a normal Messy-Dos thing. Resolutions, colors, speed the Amiga can only dream of. Of course, you'll say, with the proper graphic cards, monitors and so on the Amiga could do the same. However, none of this really exists, the only hi-res graphics board (the Sang Transputer) has NO software that uses its capabilities. And - even if a SA4D, a TurboSilver or a PhotonPaint is adapted.....how well do they compare to PC based systems? The animation examples I saw were miles beyond the power of the best animation programs for the Amiga. Another example: DTP with a MacII. Yeah, I know, Computer Buyers Guide voted ProPage 1.3 "best buy" before Pagemaker3.0 or Ventura Publisher, but I cannot import a photo in the quality I saw in this film and use it. Even if I was ready to spend a lot of money, I can't do it! Now, I can hear you say "all right, but such a PC system costs tens of thousands, and my Amiga costs only..." Well, "only".....for my 2500 with a total of 5 megs of ram, a multisync, a flickerfixer and of course a harddisk I had to spend today about 6'500 US$ here in Switzerland. For that price, I get an already pretty well equipped 386er WITH Unix/Xenix (without the usual "it's coming, it's coming"), VGA without flicker and so on. Or - as much as I dislike Intel processor based system, I can't help but envy those with a 486.... If anybody could convince me that I'm wrong, I'd appreciate it....:-) -- ------------------------------------ Chris Brand - wizard@sosaria.imp.com "Justice is the possession and doing of what one is entitled to" - Platon ------------------------------------
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (01/23/90)
wizard@sosaria.imp.com (Chris Brand) writes: >personal experiences and disappointments I am completely loosing my faith >in the Amiga. I love the machine, I really do, but.... >For example, I just saw a documentation on TV about Computer Graphics on >PCs. I was not astonished not to see any Amigas, but I was astonished when >I saw what is possible with a normal Messy-Dos thing. Resolutions, colors, >The animation examples I saw were miles >beyond the power of the best animation programs for the Amiga. >Another example: DTP with a MacII. Yeah, I know, Computer Buyers Guide >voted ProPage 1.3 "best buy" before Pagemaker3.0 or Ventura Publisher, but >I cannot import a photo in the quality I saw in this film and use it. Even >if I was ready to spend a lot of money, I can't do it! Yep, your right. now go away. ... Just kidding :-) Help! stop me now, I am being dragged into one of those "mine is better than yours" Arguments! I regularly use an Compaq 386 machine, with Paradise 16 VGA card, so I know a bit about graphics on a MSDOS machine. 1> VGA is nice. 256 colors out of 256,000. With my Paradise this works even in 640 x 400 mode. Not bad eh. but... 2> Gee, nothing is standard on a MSDOS machine. In order to use this terrific VGA (256C @ 640 x 400) The programs themselves have to support it specifically. The same with printers. no system printer drivers like on the Amiga. 3> In 640 x 400 mode, VGA is *S L O W*, even on a 386 machine. Dpaint II crawls. And printing out is murder. Using a HP paintjet, it took my Amiga 8 minutes to print out a 320 x 200 picture. On my 386 machine, it took 25 minutes. Of course this could be just because Dpaint II is a dog on MSDOS. But that is because it has to have all those printer drivers built into it, rather than use a system driver like on the Amiga. 4> Animation is not better than the Amiga. Flight simulator is only slightly faster on my 386 than on my Amiga 1000. You would expect a terrific increase, right? After all, a 386 is many times the speed of the 68000. The Amigas blitter really makes a difference. I haven't seen any good animation on a MSDOS machine. And if you want to record it on video tape, you have to buy Yet-Another-Unstandard-Video-Adaptor-That-Hardly-Nobody-Supports (tm) The only thing MSDOS has that I want, is some good business programs and CAD packages. But hey, that is what the bridgeboard is for, right? At first the Bridgeboard was more expensive than going out and buying a clone, but lately it has been getting more affordable. Yes MSDOS is definatly catching up with Amiga. Too bad all the improvements are non-standard. Every board is different, and it get old real fast. I don't know much about the MAC, so I can't comment or compare it with the Amiga. -- John Sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps. Accessable via Starlink (Louisville KY) sparks@corpane.UUCP <><><><><><><><><><><> D.I.S.K. ph:502/968-5401 thru -5406 When in charge, ponder. When in doubt, mumble. When in trouble, delegate.