smaug@eng.umd.edu (Kurt Lidl) (08/04/89)
From the July 31, 1989 issue of PC-Week (Hardware Section): Amiga Winning Hearts and Minds As Low-Cost Graphics Machine (By Evan O. Grossman) Long considered the non-conformist cousin of the PC, Commodore Business Machines Inc.'s Amiga is starting to fill a niche in companies as a low-cost graphics workstation. Citing the computer's superior graphics and audiop capabilities along with the ability to run PC and Macintosh software through emulators, Amiga advocates say the machine offers better presentation graphics for a lower cost than its mainstream competitors. "We're a large company, but somehow our budget never is large, and the Amiga is much less expensive than anything else," said Rich Gold, a design project manager with toy maker Mattel Inc., in Hawthorne, Calif. A full-featured Amiga with color graphics and a hard disk costs almost half as much as a similarly configured Apple Macintosh II, yet offers better performance, Gold claimed. The Amiga line starts with the 500, a system with no expansion slots that sells for $799. The top-of-the-line Amiga 2500, based on the Motorola 68020 processor, comes with 3M bytes of memory, a 68881 math coprocessor, four Amiga expansion slots, three AT expansion slots and a 40M-byte hard disk for $4,699. Commodore plans to release a 68030 version of the Amiga in the next few weeks, which will bring the computer's processing power in line with the Mac IIx, sources said. Although most users called graphics the highlight of the computer, they also use it with Commodore's IBM emulator card for word-processing or spreadsheet applications. The Amiga comes with three AT compatible bus slots, and Commodore sells an 8088 IBM XT-compatible emulator card for $799 and an AT board for $1,499. Even with full IBM emulation, Amigas are still reserved largely for graphics tasks. At dairy-products maker Kraft Inc., the company's three Amigas are not on its Novell network, said Kristal Lindstrom, computer coordinator at Kraft's Springfield, Mo., office. Kraft's Amigas are used primarily by individuals who do graphics presentations, she said. The Amigas can emualte a Mac with the addition of the $199.95 A-Max cartridge from the Toronto-based Ready-Soft Inc. The Amiga user would also need to add a set of Macintosh ROMs and a Macintosh disk drive to enable the Amiga to run most Mac software, including Aldus Corp.'s PageMaker and Microsoft Corp.'s Excel, said a Commodore official. Commodore Business Machines Inc., of West Chester, Pa, can be reached at (215) 431-9100. [Re-produced without permission.] -- ================================================================== == Kurt J. Lidl (smaug@bacchus.eng.umd.edu) (301) 345-6243 == == UUCP: uunet!mimsy!bacchus!smaug (301) 454-1526 == ==========="Amiga : The Computer for the Best of Us..."===========
wizard@sosaria.UUCP (Chris Brand) (09/14/89)
Since I see nearly every day that many people have terribly misleading information about the Amiga, I wrote an Amiga Review. A rather long one, in fact, the WP File is 25 K, probably going to be nearly 30 when it's finished. Now - of course it has little sense to bring a article to persons who already know everything that's in it, so the target groups would be the MessyDos-, Mac- and Unix-users. Any suggestions what I could do with it? Post it to comp.sys.ibm.pc, comp.sys.mac and so on and then immediately flee to the south pole where (hopefully) nobody knows me? -- ---------------------------------------- Chris Brand - wizard@sosaria.ccs.imp.com "Justice is the possession and doing of what one is entitled to" - Platon ----------------------------------------
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) (09/16/89)
In article <0048.AA0048@sosaria> wizard@sosaria.ccs.imp.com writes: | Since I see nearly every day that many people have terribly | misleading information about the Amiga, I wrote an Amiga Review. | A rather long one, in fact, the WP File is 25 K, probably going to be | nearly 30 when it's finished. Good for you. | Any suggestions what I could do with it? Post it to comp.sys.ibm.pc, | comp.sys.mac and so on and then immediately flee to the south pole where | (hopefully) nobody knows me? Not wise. Might I suggest that you post a *short* message to those groups saying that you have an article that introduces the Amiga and clears up some misconceptions. Then anyone interested could email you and ask for the article. Of course, this means that you must do a little more work. Perhaps if response is good, you could ask an ftp site and a mail server to offer the file for you. PS - It might be prudent to have a friend double check it before you send it out to the world. :-) -- Jim Wright jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu
cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (09/16/89)
In article <0048.AA0048@sosaria> wizard@sosaria.ccs.imp.com writes: >Any suggestions what I could do with it? Post it to comp.sys.ibm.pc, >comp.sys.mac and so on and then immediately flee to the south pole where >(hopefully) nobody knows me? I'm posting this answer because if half the people who do this sort of stuff (post opposing computer reviews in a foreign group) it will cut down on a lot of net junk. The proper way to approach this is to post to those groups that you think might be interested, something to the effect of : "If you have ever been interested in what the Amiga can do, or what it is like, I have a fairly extensive review I would be happy to mail to you." Then only the people who want to see it will, and the flamers are left with nothing to flame. If you get a whole bunch of requests to post it, post is somewhere innocuous like comp.sys.misc and point everyone at it with a message like : "That review I mentioned is posted in comp.sys.misc, go over there and read it if you are interested." --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you. "If I were driving a Macintosh, I'd have to stop before I could turn the wheel."
wizard@sosaria.UUCP (Chris Brand) (09/17/89)
OK, here it is...the Amiga Review. Since I got several requests for it, I'm
posting it to comp.sys.amiga and nowhere else. Sorry for those who
absolutely don't care about it, but I think all of us are interested that
the Amiga spreads further and further, and if this document gets handed
around it could help a littlebit to do this (I hope :-)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE AMIGA REVIEW
----------------
Copyright 1989 by
Christopher Brand
Jubildumsstrasse 44
3005 Berne
Switzerland
Phone: (031) 442863
UUCP: wizard@sosaria.ccs.imp.com
This document may be freely distributed as long as this copyright notice
stays unchanged. It may, however, not be sold.
If anybody plans to reprint it, I would be grateful if he (or she) could
call or mail me to tell me the where and how.
I wrote this document in good faith and did not change any facts
deliberately. I'm working on Amiga as well as MS-DOS and have read a lot
about the Macintosh. However, things change so rapidly there might be some
facts that are today untrue. I apologize if this is the case. I also
apologize for the errors in grammar and spelling, my native language is
Swiss German, not English.
The System
----------
The Amiga was released by Commodore-Amiga, Inc. in 1985
under the label Amiga 1000.
Since then, it has undergone several major changes. Today,
two models are available:
- the Amiga 500, designed as a super-homecomputer with
limited expandability
- the Amiga 2000, a full expandable machine designed for
professional use in a more "classical" PC look with
separated keyboard
Basically, the two models differ only in the amount of RAM
they come with and the way they look. The A500 has got 512K
while the A2000 comes with 1 Meg. The operating system as
well as the chips used as exactly the same. However, the
A2000 has what is called OSA, open system architecture. This
means that there are several slots on the motherboard into
which cards can be inserted. The A500 lacks these slots.
The Amiga family is based upon the Motorola 68000 CPU, the
least powerful of the 680x0 family, comparable from the
point of computing power to Intel's 80286, but significantly
faster with about 1.5 MIPS (millions instructions per
second). An 8 Mhz 68000 is about as fast as a 10-12 MHz
80286. The 68000 runs at a frequency of 7.14 MHz, which is
important for video applications (see Graphics).
The Amiga system is prepared to use any of the 680x0
processors currently available. Basically all you have to do
is to replace the 68000 with one of the more advanced types
(see Expandability).
2.Usage
-------
A typical Amiga screen looks very much like a Macintosh
screen, although Amiga's Workbench (the surface or user
interface) is in color. The system entirely depends on a
mouse. Applications are started by clicking an icon, a
little image on the screen with the name of the program
beneath it.
This system is very easy to use and does not pose any
problems for the novice user. The Amiga can be used right
after it is installed, without having to learn cryptic
commands to start software.
Everything is based upon windows and screens. Windows are
"normal" like the Macintosh windows, they can house
spreadsheets, text processors and so on. Screens are
something very unique to the Amiga; every screen can have
its own resolution and number of colors (see Graphics). The
amount of windows and screens is only limited by available
memory, unlike other systems like the Atari ST that are
limited to a few windows.
The more advanced user tends to use the mouse less and the
keyboard more, since he's faster with it. The Amiga takes
care of this and also offers CLI, a command line interpreter
that looks very much like the standard MS-DOS surface. You
can combine the Workbench and the CLI to run simultaneously
without the slightest problem (see also Multitasking).
It is also common that applications use keyboard shortcuts,
so you can use an program like WordPerfect either with the
mouse and pull-down menus or only with the keyboard by
pressing certain combinations of keys.
The fact that the Amiga can be used like a Macintosh or like
a MS-DOS machine gives it a great flexibility, not achieved
by any other PC today.
The normal media to store data upon are 3 1/2 inch disks
that hold 880 K of information, or harddisks, which can be
obtained from 10 to 600 Megs. Laser Discs are until now not
available.
The AmigaDOS is quite slow concerning disk drives (see
Disadvantages), but in harddisk mode transfer rates of
nearly 1 Megabyte per second are possible to achieve.
While half a year ago autoboot harddisks were something
special to the Amiga community it is today standard
equipment.
3.Graphics
----------
Something the Amiga has been famed for ever since it touched
the market are its graphic capabilities.
The Amiga has several modes that differ in resolution and
number of colors. The following modes are available, the
number of colors indicating the maximum of different colors
that can be displayed simultaneously out of a palette of
4096.
- Lo-Res 320x256 4096 Colors
- Med-Res 640x256 16 Colors
- Video-Res 320x512 4096 Colors
- Hi-Res 640x512 16 Colors
It is clear Lo-Res can also be used with less than all 4096
colors at the same time, e.g. with only 4 colors out of a
palette of 4096.
The Amiga is able to open what are called screens. Screens
are some kind of super-windows. They have no borders, cannot
be resized but can be moved up- or downwards (see also Next
Steps). Each screen has got its individual resolution and
number of colors and the amount of screens open at the same
time is only limitied by available memory.
The "normal" Workbench screen for example is a 640x256 pixel
screen with 2 bitplanes, that makes 4 colors. These 4 colors
can be chosen freely from the palette of 4096.
If you open a new application like a Desktop Publishing
program, it is probable that it wants a different resolution
with a different amount of colors, e.g. 640x512 with only 2
colors, black and white.
The new screen does not close the old Workbench screen, the
Workbench with all its features is still available, all you
have to do is to drag down the DTP-screen until the
Workbench screen is revealed. Then you can continue your
work with Workbench while the DTP application is e.g.
printing (see also Multitasking).
A very interesting mode is Video-Res. 320x512 pixels
resolution is about the same as standard television has, and
with 4096 different colors displayed at the same time you
get pretty impressive pictures in TV quality.
A wide range of graphics application exist for the Amiga,
many of which are as good or even better than professional
graphics/animation packages used by TV stations while
costing only a fraction of these (see Software).
In the near future, a graphics board will be available from
Commodore with about 1280x800 pixels resolution including
256 from 16.7 Mio colors displayed at the same time. The
prototype was already to be seen at the CeBit earlier this
year (see also Next Steps).
The fact that the system runs at 7.14 MHz comes from the
standard television video signal, NTSC resp. PAL that uses
this frequency, too. The Amiga video signal can be recorded
to video as is, without any expensive conversions needed.
This makes the computer an excellent choice for video works.
Indeed the Amiga is already used by several TV stations all
over the world as a inexpensive and often better alternative
to the titling machines commonly used.
With a genlock you can mix the Amiga's video signal with
that of another video source. Color 0 is transparent, that
means wherever in a computer image or animation Color 0 is
located, the video picture from the other source shines
through. This makes it very easy to add titles or objects to
an existing video without having to use expensive mixers or
cutting devices.
Many different brands of genlocks exist today, for the home
user as well as full professional genlocks that can be used
even with the superb but expensive 1 inch video format
employed only by television stations (because of its price).
When recording Amiga's signal to video, the black border
that can be seen on the monitor usually to the left and
right shows also on video. To eliminate this, the Amiga is
able to switch to overscan mode, filling the entire display.
Overscan also increases the resolution, giving these numbers
for the four modes:
- Lo-Res 384x300
- Med-Res 768x300
- Video-Res 384x600
- Hi-Res 768x600
768x600 points is the highest resolution a standard Amiga
can display.
However, for users who do not want to use the Amiga for
video, the signal of 7.14 MHz can pose a problem, since it
flickers in interlace mode. This is not a fault of the
Amiga, but of the video signal NTSC and PAL themselves.
The flickering comes in the resolution Hi-Res and
Video-Res. If a user plans to use these resolutions a lot he
can buy an inexpensive graphics card that eliminates the
flicker completely and gives him a display of an excellent
quality, even better than VGA on IBM computers (see
Disadvantages).
The drawing speed of the Amiga is outstanding. To find
computers with the same capabilities you have to go to the
high-end workstation market, where you're lucky to get a
machine for 25'000 US$ (see also Prices).
The Amiga uses custom chips with full Direct Memory Access.
If the computer has to draw a line, the CPU just gives the
graphics chip the command to draw a line from x,y to x2,y2
together with some other information. Then the CPU turns to
other things, while the graphics processor takes care of the
rest, that is to draw the line, get the memory for it and so
on. On computers like the Atari ST, the IBM PC or the Mac
the CPU has to supervise the whole process until the line is
drawn.
DMA is something usual for Amiga users, anyway. Harddisk
controllers use it, expansion boards of all kinds do and so
on. This (among other) gives the computer its great speed.
4.Multitasking
--------------
The Amiga is a full multitasking system. That means you are
not limited to run only one program at a time. People who
have never seriously worked with a multitasking machine
often tell you that it's no more than a nice toy. But
everyone who really works with multitasking knows better.
Here are just a few examples of how useful multitasking can
be:
- Printing documents in DTP or even normal word processing
packages can go on for quite a long time. On an IBM
computer, for example, the computer is blocked. You have
to wait until the printing is finished. Even if you use a
printer spooler, the printing process slows the computer
down so much that you can't even write with a acceptable
speed anymore.
On an Amiga word processing packages like WordPerfect
start another task that takes care of the printing. The
editor window is free during the print process and it does
not remarkably slow down. So you can continue to work
while your previous document is being printed.
- The other day, I was downloading files from a local BBS
(to download means to transmit files via telephone using a
special application called terminal program). While
downloading, the terminal program is usually blocked, so I
decided to look at the files I already had downloaded. I
pulled down the terminal screen to reveal the Workbench
screen, opened a CLI window (you remember, the CLI is the
Amiga's DOS interface where you can enter commands like
"dir" or "copy"), unpacked and tested the new software. In
the meantime, beside the terminal application and the CLI
window, another task was running calculating a difficult
animation. If I had no multitasking, to do all this would
have taken me at least twice as long as it really did.
The IBM OS/2 is said to support multitasking, but until now
there are no applications available and of what one hears it
must a very inefficient multitasking system due to the
hardware.
Computers like the normal MS-DOS machines or the Atari ST
have no multitasking capabilities at all. The Macintosh is
also no real multitasking system. It is true that on a Mac
several applications can be loaded at the same time, but if
have a word processor and a spreadsheet loaded, then while
you are working with the word processor the spreadsheet does
absolutely nothing but to wait until it is reactivated.
On the Amiga, the spreadsheet can actually calculate while
you're typing something.
5.Expandability
---------------
5.1.Enhancing The System Power
------------------------------
The normal Amiga is based upon the Motorola 68000. For
applications like animation packages this processor often
has not enough computing power. To expand the Amiga is
very simple. One slot is called processor slot. There are
many different cards bearing the 68020 or the 68030,
processors with much more computing power that the 68000.
The 68020 e.g. can do 4.2 MIPS (the 80386 only 3.5 MIPS;
MIPS are Million Intructions Per Second), the 68030 even
up to 8 MIPS. Often these boards come with dynamic 32-bit
RAM, enhancing the system power even more. Although the
bus is only 16 bit wide, the CPU can access RAM with full
32 bit, giving the system a fantastic performance rate.
Such cards are not very expensive, for example the
Commodore 68020 card with the 68881 mathematical
co-processor and the 68851 page memory management unit
plus 2 megabites of dynamic 32-bit RAM comes to less than
US$ 2000.-.
The installation of such a card could not be easier - just
plug it into the slot an that's it. The system
automatically recognizes 680x0 CPUs as well as additional
RAM and makes full use of them.
There are also Transputer boards available for the Amiga.
Everything is autoconfiguring. The harddisks are, memory
is (the Amiga can use up to 9.5 megabytes of memory, be it
16 bit or 32 bit type), processor cards, graphics
boards....everything. You also don't have to include
special drivers.
With the exception of only two or three very old programs
every software automatically recognizes additional memory
and makes use of it.
5.2.Enhancing The Graphics Power
--------------------------------
Unfortunately, not many other graphics cards than the ones
to eliminate the flicker are available for the Amiga
today. But soon the Commodore graphics card is to be
released which should satisfy the demands for a higher
resolution and a bigger palette for some time.
Another card called the Frambuffer is able to display 16.7
Mio colors at the same time, but it is at the moment only
in NTSC format available, making it for Europe more or
less useless. A PAL version, however, is being developed.
On September 1989 AmiExpo a transputer based graphics
system was shown that has a resolution of 1280x1024 on
screen with 16.7 Mio colors. Again, it was only a
prototype.
5.3.Enhancing The Compatibility
-------------------------------
In its standard version, the Amiga is compatible neither
with MS-DOS nor Macintosh nor UNIX software, but the Amiga
can be made compatible with all three systems:
- Commodore offers an XT card and an AT card, giving the
Amiga the power of an IBM XT resp. an IBM AT. The XT
card runs at 4.77 MHz, which is much too slow, but it
can be expanded at little cost to run at 8 MHz. The AT
card is running at 8 Mhz like a standard IBM AT. The
degree of compatibility is very high, higher than with
several so called compatible PC's. Software like the
Flight Simulator or the IBM Debugger that usually cause
problems on compatibles run without problems. The Amiga
harddisk can be partitioned so that the XT or AT card
can also use it. While IBM applications are running, you
can still work with the Amiga - the IBM software runs in
an Amiga window under full multitasking and uses the
parallel and serial ports of the Amiga.
Among the Amiga slots are two that can be used only by
cards for IBM software. Of course to make use of such a
slot you also need either the XT or the AT board. You
can easily connect e.g. a VGA board, it works fine. Two
slots in the Amiga can be used by either Amiga or IBM
cards and three other slots (excluding the processor
slot) can be used only by Amiga expansions.
- For a few months now, a Macintosh Emulator is available
for the Amiga as well. It is called A-Max and runs 90%
of all Macintosh software, including Hypercard,
Pagemaker or MS Word. The display is only black and
white, as a standard Mac display. Mac II graphics are
not supported.
The A-Max makes full use of every byte of memory of the
Amiga system as well as some other processor (68020,
68030) if available. Thus, the software may run much
faster than on a Mac; and this on a machine that costs
not as much as a fully configured Mac SE.
There is, however, one great disadvantage of the
A-Max system: it does not support every harddisk. The
next release of A-Max will be able to use any harddisk,
says Readysoft, the producer of A-Max. Beside that, many
technically well-versed people are working on this
problem, so a solution is likely to be available soon.
- Commodore is expected to release the UNIX System V for
the Amiga every week. It needs a 68020 or 68030 card to
run and includes a special version of X-Windows. Since
it is not yet openly available, it is not clear where
the problems lay, but it is hardly possible that some
software will not run properly. For the UNIX operating
system the Amiga will just be a normal workstation with
a 68020 (or 68030), the 68881 (or 68882) and the 68851
together with 25 DMA channels. Again, the prototype
could already be seen at the CeBit this year, where it
worked very well.
The capability to run software of four different operating
systems gives the Amiga an incredible power. Never before
a computer existed that can run software of MS-DOS,
Macintosh and UNIX together, not to forget the Amiga OS
that has many excellent applications as well.
6.Software
----------
Since the Amiga is capable of running software from several
operating systems with the proper hardware, thousands of
applications of every kind exist.
What is most interesting, of course, is to know what
applications exist for the Amiga OS.
The standard applications are covered by good products like
WordPerfect for word processors, MaxiPlan Plus for
spreadsheets or Superbase Professional for database systems.
However, the average business application is not as good as
its counterpart on Macintosh or MS-DOS, because the system
is rather new and the big software producers for MS-DOS or
Macintosh only start to develop products for the Amiga. For
most users however, the available software should be more
than good enough. The software is as easy to learn and use
as on the Mac, since both systems use the mouse and true
windowing with fast pull down menus, while MS-DOS software
is often horrible to use and learn, since the MS-DOS is not
designed for windows and pull-down menus.
More and more applications use ARexx, some kind of batch
language that comes from IBM mainframe computers. It is used
to let applications communicate with each other while they
run, making the transporting of data between e.g. a
spreadsheet and a terminal program very easy.
Concerning graphics applications, the Amiga has a very wide
choice of products to offer. Especially animation software
and Desktop Video programs are available in big numbers,
with an excellent quality often beating software that costs
ten or twenty times the price of the Amiga package. Every
serious Amiga user knows of terms like true keyframe
animation, Phong shading, ray tracing and so on because
everything of that exists for the Amiga at amazingly low
cost.
Video digitizers costing less than US$ 200 producing
pictures of TV quality, scanners using 24 bit graphics,
genlocks, titling software, presenting software and so
on....the Amiga is a excellent choice when it comes to
graphics.
The desktop publishing market is fast growing on the Amiga.
Although there is no program today as good as PageMaker 3.0
on a Mac II, the DTP software for Amiga is taking up
rapidly. With a standard format for all graphics called IFF,
it is extremely easy to digitize something, correct it with
a paint program and use it in a DTP package; all software
use the same format.
However, software covering business problems like accounting
does not yet exist on Amiga in versions that could
concurrate with their MS-DOS counterparts. The few existing
applications are only usable for home accounting, never for
the serious user (see Disadvantages).
7.Disadvantages
---------------
Of course, the Amiga system has also its disadvantages:
- The AmigaDOS is slow. Disk drive performance is low, too
low for such a machine. However, there is already a new
file system that is today used only with harddrives, which
makes the DOS very fast. The limit with this Fast File
System, as it is called, is 2.5 gigabyte.
With the new OS version 1.4 it will be standard for disks
as well (see Next Steps).
- The flickering in Interlace mode is not really a fault of
the Amiga but of the NTSC/PAL video norm. However, for CAD
e.g. it is unbearable, and you have to invest about 450
US$ for a graphics card which also requires a MultiSync
monitor costing another 750 US$. However, the serious user
will not buy the normal Amiga monitor anyway.
- The Amiga crashes more often that a Mac or an IBM
computer. Again, this is not a fault of the computer or
OS, but of bad programming. Most programmers are used to
program on single-task machines. To write proper programs
for multitasking OS' is much more difficult, and since not
everybody is keeping to the advices Commodore gives,
crashes may come, especially if you use many programs at
the same time without knowing what they do to each other.
With the time, however, one learns which software work
together and crashes come not more often than on any other
computer.
When the Amiga crashes, it gives you a number explaining
why the computer crashed. It almost never happens that the
computer can't be rebooted again, as this is rather often
the case with MS-DOS computers.
The next release of the OS will cover this problem also,
just eliminating the task that caused the problem from the
system. This can already today be achieved by adding a
litte software tool to the system. It then crashes only in
severe cases.
- Today, the highest resolution is 768x600. If a user wishes
to have more resolution, he just has to wait until one of
the announced cards is available. So no graphics expansion
can be done today, except for the card that can display
true 24 bit images (16.7 Mio colors) and a special DTP
monitor that has a resolution of 1280x800 points with 4
levels of gray.
- Not all business applications exist for the Amiga. There
is a lack especially concerning accounting software or
high-quality business graphics software like Harvard
Graphics. There is the way to go round this by adding a XT
or AT card to the system, but at a cost.
- Networking is still rather difficult. No ready-to-go
packages are available.
8.Next Steps
------------
The next version of the OS, Kickstart V1.4 will be released
at the earliest next summer but it will solve several
problems:
- A new file system will be standard also for disk drives,
making them very much faster (up to 400%)
- The system won't crash anymore but just kill a bad task
- A new chip set is will be released with the 1.4. This chip
set will include a new graphics mode called Productivity
Mode, with 640x512 non-interlace, thus in this mode there
won't be anymore flickering. To use it, a Multisync
monitor is needed.
Of course any of these feature can still change.
A Amiga 3000 that is a complete 32 bit machine is being
developed.
The graphics card from Commodore will help solving the
problem of too low resolution. Several software products
already can make use of a palette of 16.7 Mio colors.
9.Prices
--------
These prices are possible prices. They may vary, especially
since these are European prices, but to give an idea what an
Amiga system costs, they are exact enough.
- Amiga 2000 with 1 meg of RAM, 1 880 K disk drive,
keyboard, mouse, system software and a RGB monitor
US$ 1250.-
- Amiga 500 with 0.5 meg of RAM, the rest as above
US$ 950.-
- 68020/68881/68851 Accelerator Board with 2 megs of 32 bit
RAM
US$ 1900.-
- Harddisk Controller DMA >900 K/sec
US$ 470.-
- Flicker Fixer
US$ 450.-
- XT card 8 MHz
US$ 550.-
- AT card 8 MHz
US$ 1250.-
- Macintosh Emulator incl. Mac disk drive
US$ 650.-
10.Conclusions
--------------
Commodore has sold a million Amiga this spring, by now they
should be going towards the 1.5 Mio.
More and more soft- and hardware companies accept the Amiga
as a serious machine with excellent capabilities and, due to
this, create new products for it or convert existing
applications to it.
The Amiga has itself established.
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Chris Brand - wizard@sosaria.ccs.imp.com
"Justice is the possession and doing
of what one is entitled to" - Platon
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