mjsagar@sandia.gov (9123 SAGARTZ, MATHIAS J.) (07/14/89)
Computer Graphic World has decided to acknowlege the existence of the amiga. Rick Cook has an excellent article in the July issue, well worth a look. Random quotes: "A close look at the Amiga reveals that it has some unique architectural features that give it some special strengths in animation and video applications. And the software available for those applications is excellent." "...CAD and desktop publishing software lags far behind what's available for other computers." "Running a multi-tasking operating system without hardware memory protection is the equivalent of doing a high-wire act without a net." "If technical excellence was all that counted, the Amiga would be well on the road to success." "This kind of competition [with Apple and the MS-DOS worlds] will point up two of Commodore's greatest weakness -- its marketing and support capabilities" (Whatever do you suppose he means?) "The Amiga's ultimate success in the personal computer market is going to depend largely on how well Commodore can address its problems." (We could be in real trouble here guys!)
srp@modcomp.UUCP (Steve Pietrowicz) (07/14/89)
in article <19638@louie.udel.EDU>, mjsagar@sandia.gov (9123 SAGARTZ, MATHIAS J.) says: > > Computer Graphic World has decided to acknowlege the existence of the > amiga. Rick Cook has an excellent article in the July issue, well > worth a look. Random quotes: > > [quotes deleted] For the most part the article was right on the mark, but they did have a couple of problems....for example, there was no mention of HAM, and they said the Amiga was limited to displaying only 32 colors on the screen at once. You notice the ad Commodore had in that same issue? Just got my issue of UNIX TODAY too....there's an article in there about the Xhibition show, and they mention GFXBASE's color X for the Amiga. Nice to see a mention of that! Steve -- Stephen R. Pietrowicz UUCP: ...!uunet!modcomp!srp CIS: 73047,2313 Modcomp-Home of *REAL* real-time UNIX | Preemption windows? Don't make me laugh!
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (07/17/89)
In article <19638@louie.udel.EDU> mjsagar@sandia.gov (9123 SAGARTZ, MATHIAS J.) writes: >Computer Graphic World has decided to acknowlege the existence of the >amiga. Rick Cook has an excellent article in the July issue, well >worth a look. Random quotes: Personally, I got the impression that Rick knows squat about the Amiga and that he relied on third party information for his article. It started out saying that Amiga is a great video machine and then went on to prove that it wasn't worth sh*t. What kind of article is that? Here are some more quotes: "..At 320 by 240 resolution the amiga can display 32 colors out of a pallete of 4096, and at 640 x 480 resolution, it can display 16 colors (although that can be stretched with overscan)" ?! What about ham mode? or even half-brite? and what is 320 x 240 and 640 x 480? It's 320x200 and 640x400, or with overscan it's around 720x480. No where in the article does he mention that the Amiga can use 4096 colors. He goes on to say that the color range is met or exceeded by VGA. VGA only allows 256 colors at 320 x 200, and 16 at 640x480. "The workbench is incomplete, and such basic jobs as formatting a floppy disk must be done from the CLI" This is plain wrong! Then he goes on to say that the Amiga has problems with crashes, and in practice, isn't as reliable as MSDOS, because it doesn't have hardware protection for memory. Now what does parity checking do for the PC? If you get a parity error, does it fix it? No. It just crashes. And the PC I have here at work crashes more than my Amiga does. And he says: "When an Amiga crashes, it usually flashes a message saying 'Guru Meditation' followed by a 16 digit number. The Joke is that a guru chants 'OM' and OM is shorthand for Out of Memory - A common cause of Amiga crashes. This is funny the first time you hear it." Hear it? Anyone out there hear their Amiga chant "OM"? And of course if you only have 1/2 meg of memory and you are trying to multi-task too many things, then yes you will run out of memory. I have had my PC at work crash if it runs out of memory too. Then he tells about all the woes of hooking up different third party hardware on the Amiga, that much of it don't work with each other because Commodore hasn't been effective at working with third party manufacturers. Now I know that the Amiga 100 had some major problems with this, but the 2000 ad 500 aren't any worse in getting hardware to work with each other than is any other PC. - If I were a new computer user, who knew nothing about the Amiga, After reading this article, I would run screaming to my nearest IBM salesrep yelling "Save me! Save me!" -- John Sparks | {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps ||||||||||||||| sparks@corpane.UUCP | 502/968-5401 thru -5406 Don't worry if you're a kleptomaniac, you can always take something for it.
chiodo@cbnewsd.ATT.COM (john.chiodo) (07/18/89)
In article <174@modcomp.UUCP> srp@modcomp.UUCP (Steve Pietrowicz) writes: >in article <19638@louie.udel.EDU>, mjsagar@sandia.gov (9123 SAGARTZ, MATHIAS J.) says: >> >> Computer Graphic World has decided to acknowlege the existence of the >> amiga. Rick Cook has an excellent article in the July issue, wel >> worth a look. I was happy to see the amiga reviewed and the article was okay but had some MAJOR flaws. >For the most part the article was right on the mark, but they did have >a couple of problems....for example, there was no mention of HAM, and they >said the Amiga was limited to displaying only 32 colors on the screen at >once. He also forgot Half-brite .... which reminds me of his intellegence 8-) He is a little inconsistent by mentioning a 6-bit plane mode and then says the limit is 32 colors. I can not understand how a computer graphics magazine could review a computer and NOT EVEN MENTION two of it's best graphics moes. >You notice the ad Commodore had in that same issue? Yes What really burned me up is when he said that the workbench is so incomplete that you could NOT format a disk from it. This really shows Mr. Cooks expertise on the Amiga. Heck it is even in the Commodore manuals!!! With v1.4 overhauling workbench many readers will be once again mislead. Mr. Cook mentioned the amiga crashing alot, but NEVER mentioned the hardware configuration, application software he was running, or any more insight to the GURU other than "it's cute the first time but gets old quick". >Just got my issue of UNIX TODAY too....there's an article in there about >the Xhibition show, and they mention GFXBASE's color X for the Amiga. Nice >to see a mention of that! >Stephen R. Pietrowicz UUCP: ...!uunet!modcomp!srp CIS: 73047,2313 I will have to check it out Well I have a letter for Computer Graphics World and I hope they print it to make there readers aware of the HAM and the lies about workbench. ___________________________________________________________________________ att!ihlpb!chiodo John Chiodo ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
nor1675@dsacg2.UUCP (Michael Figg) (07/18/89)
In article <19638@louie.udel.EDU>, mjsagar@sandia.gov (9123 SAGARTZ, MATHIAS J.) writes: > > "Running a multi-tasking operating system without hardware memory > protection is the equivalent of doing a high-wire act without a net." > I wouldn't go that far, although it sure would me nice to have the memory protection. And it sure is nice to have the multi-tasking now instead of waiting for it. --------- "How many buds in a baud?" -- "Hot Damn! Groat Cakes Again Michael Figg Heavy on the thirty weight!" DLA Systems Automation Center Columbus, Oh. (614)-238-2446 (Temporarily)
dwl10@uts.amdahl.com (Dave Lowrey) (07/19/89)
When "dis-information" about our favorite toy/tool/friend/....
appears in print, don't just bitch.... WRITE THE EDITOR!!!
At the very least, s/he will know that perhaps the author of the article
might be questioned before another article is assigned/accepted.
At the very best, a correction or retraction will be printed.
Most likely, something will get printed in the "Letters to the Editor"
section.
Remember, slandering a person is against the law, slandering a computer
isn't. Since the computer doesn't have the law behind it, it's only
defense lies with us!
TO ARMS!!!!! :-)
--
"What is another word | Dave Lowrey | [The opinions expressed MAY be
for 'Thesaurus'?" | Amdahl Corp. | those of the author and are not
| Houston, Texas | necessarily those of his
Steven Wright | amdahl!dwl10 | employer] (`nuff said!)sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (07/19/89)
In article <566@cbnewsd.ATT.COM> chiodo@cbnewsd.ATT.COM (john.chiodo,ih,) writes: >Well I have a letter for Computer Graphics World and I hope they print it >to make there readers aware of the HAM and the lies about workbench. Me too! I hope they print one of them (or both!), Cook is a dweeb. Notice that he did the same thing with the Mac and there were several letters in the front of the magazine about this. He sounds like a total msdos convert. If so, why does he bother to write about other machines? Just to tear them down? Also in the same issue of CGW: PC Animation Hugs the Inside Lane - Gregory MacNicol says on page 61: "Still, all these achievements notwithstanding, the Amiga, like any other platform does have it's limitations. Since it has a maximum resolution of 640 by 400 and offers only 64 displayable colors, its users miss out on full color capability as well as anti-aliasing" ! Where do these guys get their information?!?!?! They continually mix different resolutions (640 x 400) and colors (64, halfbrite at low res, should be 32 halfbrite in hi res) and forget about HAM. ON the same page as this quote is a full color HAM picture that is obviously anti-aliased!!!! Almost every rendering package and drawing program I know of uses anti- aliasing! I noticed the above error after I wrote my letter about Mr. Cooks article, so I didn't get to mention it to them. Maybe I should write another letter? -- John Sparks | {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps ||||||||||||||| sparks@corpane.UUCP | 502/968-5401 thru -5406 A virtuous life is its own punishment.
chuckh@hpindwa.HP.COM (Chuck Hacala) (07/21/89)
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) writes:
: ! Where do these guys get their information?!?!?! They continually mix
: different resolutions (640 x 400) and colors (64, halfbrite at low res, should
: be 32 halfbrite in hi res) and forget about HAM. ON the same page as this
: quote is a full color HAM picture that is obviously anti-aliased!!!!
FLAME ON
Halfbrite is a 6 bitplane mode (like HAM), thus it only works in lo res. You
do not get 32 halfbrite colors in hi res! Next time, make sure you have your
facts straight before you criticize someone else!
FLAME OFF
Chuck Hacala >B-{)