dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) (06/09/89)
A very preliminary (Alpha) version of X11R3 color for the Amiga
is available for qualified testers.
It is based on the R3 version (currently in Beta testing
for the Amiga).
Supports 1,2,3,4 bitplanes. for 2,4,8,16 colors from a pallete
of 4096. Cursors have their own colormap since they are
supported in hardware.
Please email/snailmail/call if you are interested.
Equipment requirements:
A2000 class machine
3 megabytes of memory
Ethernet board
7 megabytes of mass storage.
Dale Luck/GfxBase 408-262-1469
--
Dale Luck GfxBase/Boing, Inc.
{uunet!cbmvax|pyramid}!amiga!boing!daleprotcoop@bnr-public.uucp (Joel Avery) (06/10/89)
I hope that X11 does not represent the future of the Amiga windowing environment ... please Mr. Luck, tell me it is not so. 3 meg of memory needed !? 7 meg of mass storage!? One of the things I brag to people here at work about is that while they run Un*x and X-windows in a 8meg/40meg environment, they often run out of memory when multitasking. At home on my Amiga with 512k and 2 floppies, I can do much better, plus my windows are much faster. When I had 1.5 meg of memory, I could just scream with all kinds of stuff running. If the Amiga were to use X11, sure it would be 'standard', but oh what a hog it would be. I, for one, would be sure to drop her. Please, oh please tell me this cannot be so. ------------------------------------------------------------- Alan W. McKay | My opinions are mine, yours are yours. | Eat Food | NEPEAN, Ont. | I in no way pretend to represent the | and | 613-763-8980 | the options of my employer. So there. | LIVE !! |
ray@stevie.cs.unlv.edu (Ray Tripamer) (06/11/89)
In article <566@bnr-fos.UUCP> protcoop@bnr-public.UUCP (Joel Avery) writes: >I hope that X11 does not represent the future of the Amiga windowing >environment ... please Mr. Luck, tell me it is not so. 3 meg of >memory needed !? 7 meg of mass storage!? One of the things I brag >to people here at work about is that while they run Un*x and >X-windows in a 8meg/40meg environment, they often run out of memory >when multitasking. When does unix not multitask :-) ? Running out of memory on a unix workstation does not present the same problems as it does on the Amiga, since a unix machine that runs X typically supports virtual memory (please let's not start up the virtual memory thread again!). Clearly, X Window for the Amiga is not for everyone. Ususally, X Window is run on a computer attached to a local area network. This will not be the case for a lot of Amiga users. I don't think it is the intention of Mr. Luck to have X on the Amiga replace the Workbench, but rather to supply an well-known, useful product for those people who use Amigas on a network. -- Ray Tripamer ray@jimi.cs.unlv.edu
jimm@amiga.UUCP (Jim Mackraz) (06/11/89)
In article <566@bnr-fos.UUCP> protcoop@bnr-public.UUCP (Joel Avery) writes:
)
)I hope that X11 does not represent the future of the Amiga windowing
)environment ... please Mr. Luck, tell me it is not so. 3 meg of
)memory needed !? 7 meg of mass storage!? [...]
Have no fear.
As always, you will have the best of all worlds, each in a screen
of its own. I think it's safe to say that X will never be a required
part of your Happy Amiga Setup. If I'm wrong, it would mean that
the future has more wonderous potential than I can imagine, either
in the price of storage or the quality of compiler shrinking
X.
X fits in nicely, running in an Intuition screen. A fine X terminal, and
if you drag it from the top, there's a computer running back there.
jimm
--
Jim Mackraz, I and I Computing "He's hidden now, but you can see
{cbmvax,well,oliveb}!amiga!jimm The bubbles where he breathes."
- Shriekback
Opinions are my own. Comments are not to be taken as Commodore official policy.dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) (06/11/89)
In article <566@bnr-fos.UUCP> protcoop@bnr-public.UUCP (Joel Avery) writes: > >I hope that X11 does not represent the future of the Amiga windowing >environment ... please Mr. Luck, tell me it is not so. I like choices... The X Window System represents a what may become the accepted interface to programs on most if not all engineering and possibly all professional workstations in the future. The Amiga needs to be able to play ball with all the other players in this industry, whether it be via networks, compatible file formats, or just making the names of similar commands the same. makedir or mkdir? They do the same thing. X Window System brings alot to the Amiga Party. There is alot that the Amiga Window system can learn from X and vice versa. You should see the source to X, it could use a dose of amiga software technology itself. The concept of a network transparent graphics/window system is very appealing to most people. It allows for better distribution of resources. We can take advantage of the particular advantages of hardware and software. The Amiga is great at graphics. She lacks a bit in the database and number crunching field (compared to a Cray). Even more so she lacks in available applications running on her...... X Windows helps provide that. There are many applications CAD/CAM, DTP, CASE, etc. that are being written/ported specifically for/to the X Window system. With X11 on the Amiga we get to take advantage of these programs in a networked environment. If the Amiga does a good job of presenting the program to the user maybe the writer of the application would be convinced to actually make it available native on the Amiga. Under X11 the graphics calls are perfectly transportable. All the programmer needs to worry about is the specific os differences, like file io, etc. The Amiga user interface=== Intuition was designed to allow the application programmer total freedom in the design of their user interface. On the Amiga, the user interface system is actually two parts... Intuition AND Workbench. Intuition has no idea what an ICON is yet it is very important part of the UIMS. The Amiga has one. The X Window system has at last count (I think) at least 6 choices of UIMS. Offering nearly the ultimate in choices of pop up/pull down, tiled/overlapped, etc. User Interface options. Because there is such an effort to make applications work with any UIMS the end user can very likely be assured that the applications they run on their machine will actually act similar to other applications under their choice of UIMS. Enough of theory and some of the reasons why I chose to bring X11 out for the Amiga Computer. > 3 meg of >memory needed !? It is not good to jump to conclusions about required testing environments and minimal environments. Even your 512k ram amiga is really a 3/4m machine. 256k of rom are installed. The X Window system shares some concepts of the Amiga however the implementations do not always coincide. This means duplicated code. For example the Amiga struct Rect is { (xul,yul), (xlr,ylr) }, where as the X Window rect is { xul,yul, width,height }. So there are many area where I wish we could make use of the optimized Amiga routines, but am unable to do so. I'm very happy that we can coexist in a separate screen like any other application that may use a separate screen. Also the three meg is an estimate assuming a NUMBER of concurrent running Amiga X tasks. as well just plain amiga programs running as well. > 7 meg of mass storage!? Again a 7 megs is for testing. We have nearly 2 megs of fonts!!!! Maybe you should check out what the X Window system entails before complaining about the resource requirements. Have you checked out your local desk top publishing packages for the Amiga. How many megabytes do they need for their fonts? We have not stated using shared libraries for the Xlib nor the X toolkits yet. There are several problems that need to be overcome with the integration of a socket library, standard c library into a shared/reentrant environment. The Amiga shared libraries are a needed thing and it is completely in the plans to supply this to X program on the Amiga. > One of the things I brag >to people here at work about is that while they run Un*x and >X-windows in a 8meg/40meg environment, they often run out of memory >when multitasking. At home on my Amiga with 512k and 2 floppies, >I can do much better, plus my windows are much faster. When I had >1.5 meg of memory, I could just scream with all kinds of stuff running. The Amiga graphics/layers windowing system is a very sophisticated and targeted environment. It was designed to speed graphics on programs living on the machine as well as provided special functions because of the special capabilities of the Amiga chip set. The os style funtions are very limited and provide only a subset of what most Unix programmers are used to without talking directly to devices/hardware. When programmers are not seperated from the hardware but a veneer of software for resource control they can write much more streamlined code, however all of the resource control must be done by the application instead of the system, which makes it HARDER to write well behaved applications. I wonder exactly what kinds of programs you are comparing between the Amiga and the Unix environment. There are so many factors I think you are missing that might temper your arguments. Most of those unix machines habe probably 4 (four) times the amount of display bits to update in the same amount of time. Most machines that I know of have not incorporated real blitters yet. Many are still languishing in the archaic cpu does all the work mentality. It turns out that the X window system has many similar concepts as the Amiga graphics/layers/intuition. Trust me. I know ;-) I was there. >If the Amiga were to use X11, sure it would be 'standard', but oh >what a hog it would be. I, for one, would be sure to drop her. So you are ready to pass judgment already? Seems a little premature. Usually decisions are made on a cost/benefit analysis. I'm not sure you are aware of the total benefits of the X Window System for the Amiga, nor am I sure you know what the costs are either. >Please, oh please tell me this cannot be so. The future of the Amiga Windowing environment? I believe in inventing technology/concepts when necessary. However when available technology is available for the asking, then I can only say lets use it and build on it. >Alan W. McKay | My opinions are mine, yours are yours. | Eat Food | -- Dale Luck GfxBase/Boing, Inc. {uunet!cbmvax|pyramid}!amiga!boing!dale
garvin@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu (Michael A. Garvin) (06/12/89)
[Line eater? What line eat
[Many posts about X on the Amiga not included.]
About X11 on the Amiga and the memory/disk requirements and the
"future" of the Amiga windowing environment... here are my $0.02 worth...
We here in the NCSU CC Systems department are looking into the Amiga
X11 package for a number of reasons, primarily due to the fact that it would
present a cost-effective X terminal. Now, many things play into that
statement. When I say cost-effective I mean more than mere $$$. One has to
look at diskless X terminal as being cheap and cost beneficial, but you have
to remember that they are net hogs (inherent in any diskless workstation).
You can step up the ladder to something such as a micro with X, but your
options are limited there. The Mac is the competition which the Amiga will
have to live up to (and, hopefully, excel past) in order to fill this niche.
Cost wise, the Amiga wins. Moving on up the ladder entails Suns, DEC
equipment, etc., and higher cost.
Why would I, the customer, look at the Amiga? For one, with the X
system on a local disk I would be looking at lower traffic than a diskless X
terminal. Yes, one terminal does not an EtherNet load hog make, but in an
environment where one might have many dozen machine talking to a single or
even multiple servers over one or two networks the load will build up.
Another reason is (again) the cost. Dale Luck's numbers (and, when we
hopefully get our system and we can test the Amiga versus other machine, we
can verify with our own test runs) look good. Clearly, the X Amiga will be
able to hold its own against other machine costing MUCH more. Add to all
this the TCP/IP and NFS supplied with the AmeriStar card and you have a VERY
attractive setup.
Now, for the "windowing" aspect. No, no, X is NOT the future on the
500/1000/2000. Maybe the 3000 machine will take this into consideration if
it leans towards a workstation, but WorkBench is the Amiga's environment. I
look to X as another software package available, and, in this case, as a
network windowing package (among other things). It is not a replacement.
On an workstation X is intended to be THE windowing environment. And
rightfully so, in my mind. As for memory and disk, well, when was the last
time you looked at the size of the X11 release and built it? That's what
virtual memory is for. Now, if the VM on the Amiga discussion ever comes
to fruition, then maybe things will change. But until then I find 3 meg to
be reasonable for this application.
Personally, I happen to love the idea of X on the Amiga. It's high
time we began to see this for what it is: war. Specifically, Amiga vs. Mac.
And we're starting to fall behind in several areas. I'm not intending to
start a flame war here, or to start another "which is better, Amiga or Mac?"
discussion. I'm just pointing out that the tide is shifting. I know many
people around this area who now favor the Mac. These are people who, about
1 year ago, would have REALLY looked at the Amiga. But poor service,
lacking software in some areas, and a bad reputation on the part of C-A have
turned their heads. Again, don't get me wrong, I love my Amiga. And I hope
that things are turning. We have many examples to prove this such as X11,
more 3D CAD/rendering/animation packages, improved hardware (with Agnes),
better service from the manufacturer, and ever increasing hardware and
software available.
So, in short (which is what this was supposed to be), I don't see X
as the Amiga's future. I see it as another outstanding application
available for the Amiga, one just like any other. I hope I haven't offended
anyone with this (specifically, Mr. Luck), and I hope I haven't fired out
much bad info. And I hope I haven't cast to gloomy a cloud over the
situation.
As always, everything here is open to discussion/flames. If it's
worth noting, please post. And thank you for your support.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
garvin@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu Michael Garvin NCSU Computing Center
Dislaimer: The above is my personal opinion, and not that of NCSU or the CC.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) (06/12/89)
In article <1148@jimi.cs.unlv.edu> ray@jimi.cs.unlv.edu (Ray Tripamer) writes: >In article <566@bnr-fos.UUCP> protcoop@bnr-public.UUCP (Joel Avery) writes: > >Clearly, X Window for the Amiga is not for everyone. Ususally, X Window >is run on a computer attached to a local area network. This is only ONE of it's benefits. > This will not be >the case for a lot of Amiga users. I don't think it is the intention of >Mr. Luck to have X on the Amiga replace the Workbench, but rather to supply >an well-known, useful product for those people who use Amigas on a network. The X Window System is also a standard execution and programming environment. I can't count how many programs are currently being written nor how many programmers or quantity of R&D being spent on developing X programs. With X11 on the Amiga these programs will be much easier to port to the Amiga since the majority of the work is graphics and we will have the exact same libraries and toolkits available on the Amiga that Sun/VAX/etc. programmers will be using. Hopefully the programmers will isolate the os dependant routines such as fileio, task control from the standard graphics stuff and make supporting other native platforms much easier. Believe me, if I only hoped to sell X11 to people with ethernet boards I should be charging $4000/copy to make up for the investment I've put in it already. ;-) -- Dale Luck GfxBase/Boing, Inc. {uunet!cbmvax|pyramid}!amiga!boing!dale
protcoop@bnr-public.uucp (Joel Avery) (06/12/89)
I am afraid I have jumped to too many conclusions too soon. I now see the benefits of having the Amiga run X11. I also see that it is not in the near future that Amiga will drop Intuition in favour of WorkBench. You speak wisely, Mr. Luck, when you say that I am passing judgement too soon. I am now anxious to see X11 running on Amiga. I hope you can get it going. I realize that something like this could sell tons of more Amigas too! At my place of work we use NFS and X11. All of our work stations run off a file server. If the Amiga could run X11, she too could be used at my office. Wow! I didn't think that could be possible. This means that if Commodore plays its advertising correctly, they could convince companies such as the one I work for to purchase a 5-7000 dollar Amiga instead of a 15-25 thousand dollar HP or SUN. This would help sales in another way since many people could now have a machine at home just like the one at work! _I_F_ Commodore plays its cards right, we could have the next best thing to sliced bread. Sorry that I was so quick to judge, I couldn't see the forest through the trees. ----------------------------- Alan W. McKay | My opinions are mine, yours are yours. | Eat Food | NEPEAN, Ont. | I in no way pretend to represent the | and | 613-763-8980 | the options of my employer. So there. | LIVE !! |
joel@dtscp1.UUCP (Joel Rives) (06/12/89)
In article <566@bnr-fos.UUCP> protcoop@bnr-public.UUCP (Joel Avery) writes: > >I hope that X11 does not represent the future of the Amiga windowing >environment ... please Mr. Luck, tell me it is not so. 3 meg of >memory needed !? 7 meg of mass storage!? One of the things I brag >to people here at work about is that while they run Un*x and >X-windows in a 8meg/40meg environment, they often run out of memory >when multitasking. At home on my Amiga with 512k and 2 floppies, >I can do much better, plus my windows are much faster. When I had >1.5 meg of memory, I could just scream with all kinds of stuff running. >If the Amiga were to use X11, sure it would be 'standard', but oh >what a hog it would be. I, for one, would be sure to drop her. >Please, oh please tell me this cannot be so. While your arguments are sound, they hold true only within the narrow scope of your personal environment. There are several reasons why someone or some organization might wish to run the X Windowing System on an Amiga. One such instance that pops to mind is a cluster of Amiga workstations, which are intermixed with workstations of another brand -- say Sun or DEC. An organization might wish to maintain uniformity and portability across their entire environment -- no matter what type of workstations they currently own or might buy in the future. Universities fall under this category in a BIG way. Certain development environments (such as the one i work in) are also prime candidates for inexpensive workstations that run X. Joel Rives
stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) (06/13/89)
You might have to charge a little more than that:-). But you should think that to run X on an Amiga it will cost you near 10,000$ to have something correct! And if people are looking at prices around for a computer having X,Ethernet, VM,HD,Good GFX etc. The amiga wont be in the first place, and the power/price will not make up! First draw back is in GFX, even a 2500 with a flicker fixer and 19" monitor will only have a max of 640x400, You should be able to open around window of that size without overlaping... Memory, a 2500 is limited to 4 meg?isnt it? And if you need 3 meg that left 1 to the user! and if they remap ROM it will be a joke. All I want to say is, you project is GREAT but it wont push people how want X to get an Amiga for the job.If they are not using the amiga itself they wont find X atrective runing on an amiga. But if there is a A3000 it shouldnt be without it!
thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) (06/13/89)
Well, if Dale isn't going to toot his own horn ... let's do it for him! :-) Dale, as GfxBase, will be showing at "Xhibition '89" in San Jose, CA, from June 25-28 (yes, starts on Sunday). If you need registration forms and/or a number to call to register, either see me at FAUG June 13 or send email. To put it mildly, I was *VERY* impressed by Dale's demo of X at BADGE earlier this year. And in support of Michael Garvin's comments about software, I've recently acquired something for the Amiga that blows the IBM/PC-based applications out of the water: Prolific, Inc.'s PRO-NET and PRO-BOARD (contrasted with p-CAD on the 'DOS machines). And Prolific states: "FOR AMIGA ONLY!" If you don't know what p-CAD and PRO-BOARD/-NET are, these are printed circuit board schematic capture and board layout programs (among other things). One draws schematics on the (hi-res) screen, and from that is produced a netlist from which is produced a PCB. From what I've been experimenting so far, the PRO-NET/-BOARD on my '020 lab Amiga just creams p-CAD running on a 20 MHz '386 clone. I'm next writing progams to convert all the p-CAD databases to the PRO-NET/-BOARD formats ... then EVERYTHING'll be done on the Amiga (HW & SW). Tools such as Dale's X and Prolific's PRO-NET/-BOARD *ARE* the means by which the Amiga gains credibility. Now where's that 50MHz '040 A4000? :-) Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]
bauer@loligo.cc.fsu.edu (Jeff Bauer) (06/14/89)
In article <566@bnr-fos.UUCP> protcoop@bnr-public.UUCP (Joel Avery) writes: > >I hope that X11 does not represent the future of the Amiga windowing >environment ... please Mr. Luck, tell me it is not so. 3 meg of >memory needed !? 7 meg of mass storage!? ... I'm interested in knowing the speed of the server code -- how much of the Amiga graphics library calls did you use? You should be able to optimize the server code to make a VERY fast X server, subjective to, say, the color sun3 server. Also, I hope you say that you really DON'T need the ethernet connection, unless, of course, you need it for the socket library and network access. I'd just like to build & install the standard X libraries & include files so I can build the applications right out of the src tree and have them run. The 3 meg limit looks real, assuming similiar code densities between a sun3 & amiga -- while the working set of the X server and one xterm is on the order of 500K, the entire memory space of both binaries is around 2,656K for X11R3... -- Jeff Bauer bauer@loligo.cc.fsu.edu Control Data Corporation (904) 644-2591 ext. 113
elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) (06/14/89)
in article <19433@cup.portal.com>, thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) says: > And in support of Michael Garvin's comments about software, I've recently > acquired something for the Amiga that blows the IBM/PC-based applications > out of the water: Prolific, Inc.'s PRO-NET and PRO-BOARD (contrasted with > p-CAD on the 'DOS machines). And Prolific states: "FOR AMIGA ONLY!" You must not have seen many of the IBM/PC based applications that do that same job. My brother evaluated a half-dozen AT/'386-based packages, most of them ranging from $3K up, as part of the job of laying out the schematics and PC boards for a new data-aquisition system. Since he prefers the Amiga, he wanted to buy one for home and do some of that kind of work here. But he couldn't find anything decent. He looked at Pro-net and Pro-board, and Pro-net was OK, but Pro-board was totally inadequate. For example, one of their circuit boards was a 6 layer board. Pro-board can't handle that. Another of their circuit boards (for an old project) is about 2 feet square. He wasn't sure if Pro-board could handle that, either. And, finally, Pro-board doesn't have much of an autorouter. Not only is the ordinary autorouter "dumb", but the "rip-up-and-retry" style autorouters that suck the guts out of a '386 simply aren't available for the Amiga. BTW, he's currently using Schema on a Compaq '386. He says it's a mid-range package, halfway between junk and the "premium" packages that cost around 8 grand. Pro-board, in the IBM world, would be classified as lower-mid-range, while Schema would be at the top end of that range. But Schema certainly did the job (6 months from conception to production... amazing what an experienced design team and good CAD software can do for a complex project). BTW, he says that AutoCad makes Amiga programs look like junk, too... and AutoCad is far from the best CAD package available for the PC. He pointed at one ad (in EE Times? ECN?) for a program which would run in '386 mode, for example.... On the other hand, I suspect that the market for Schema on the Amiga is slim to none... would YOU pay $6,000 for such a program? Yes, maybe your company would -- but only for one of the company's computers, which is unlikely to be an Amiga (if your company has Amigas, they're probably in the corporate video production center -- e.g. Texaco was thinking of buying a bunch for their new video center). He's buying a '386. 'Nuff said. -- Eric Lee Green P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509 ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg (318)989-9849 "I have seen or heard 'designer of the 68000' attached to so many names that I can only guess that the 68000 was produced by Cecil B. DeMille." -- Bcase
dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) (06/14/89)
In article <575@bnr-fos.UUCP> protcoop@bnr-public.UUCP (Joel Avery) writes:
=of WorkBench. You speak wisely, Mr. Luck, when you say that I am
=passing judgement too soon.
And one other thing, stop calling me "Mr. Luck", I prefer Dale. %)
--
Dale Luck GfxBase/Boing, Inc.
{uunet!cbmvax|pyramid}!amiga!boing!daledale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) (06/14/89)
In article <19430@cup.portal.com> stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) writes: > > You might have to charge a little more than that:-). >But you should think that to run X on an Amiga it will cost you near >10,000$ to have something correct! >And if people are looking at prices around for a computer having X,Ethernet, >VM,HD,Good GFX etc. The amiga wont be in the first place, and the power/price >will not make up! Can you provide some specific examples? These are some very general and subjective comments without required facts to back them up. > First draw back is in GFX, even a 2500 with a flicker fixer and 19" monitor >will only have a max of 640x400, You should be able to open around window >of that size without overlaping... Not true Let's try 704x484 for actual seeable resolution. With a2024 software(preV1.4) we can open a 1008x1024 screen and PAN around in it. Also the moniterm Viking 1 monitor displays 1008x800 flicker free and X11 for the Amiga supports it. > Memory, a 2500 is limited to 4 meg?isnt it? And if you need 3 meg that left >1 to the user! and if they remap ROM it will be a joke. Get the facts straight. First: 2500 is limited to 9 megs of memory, not 4 megs. The 3 megs for X11 is , 1 meg for server and amigados. 2 megs for user. Remapping the rom will make everything run faster, and I'm beginning to see where the real joke is. > All I want to say is, you project is GREAT but it wont push people how want >X to get an Amiga for the job.If they are not using the amiga itself they >wont find X atrective runing on an amiga. I don't see any evidence that supports this statement. The Amiga is the lowest cost, reasonable to excellant graphics performance computer that supports a full X11 system (server AND Clients). -- Dale Luck GfxBase/Boing, Inc. {uunet!cbmvax|pyramid}!amiga!boing!dale
dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) (06/14/89)
In article <777@loligo.cc.fsu.edu> bauer@loligo.cc.fsu.edu (Jeff Bauer) writes: > >I'm interested in knowing the speed of the server code -- how much of the >Amiga graphics library calls did you use? You should be able to optimize the >server code to make a VERY fast X server, subjective to, say, the color sun3 >server. Several graphics call are used. However there is direct blitter code in the server to deal with graphics that the amiga graphics is not designed for. The product that is shipping now is monochrome only and compares very favorably with a sun3/50 run X11 > Also, I hope you say that you really DON'T need the ethernet connection >unless, of course, you need it for the socket library and network access. Ethernet is only needed for network access. The server and the supplied clients run fine without a network card since they communicate via an amiga message passing scheme. >I'd just like to build & install the standard X libraries & include files so >I can build the applications right out of the src tree and have them run. The libraries and files needed to build clients on the Amiga are still being worked on and are not yet available externally. >Jeff Bauer bauer@loligo.cc.fsu.edu >Control Data Corporation (904) 644-2591 ext. 113 -- Dale Luck GfxBase/Boing, Inc. {uunet!cbmvax|pyramid}!amiga!boing!dale
protcoop@bnr-public.uucp (Joel Avery) (06/15/89)
O.K. ... Dale it is. I just don't feel right calling someone I don't know buy their first name. But since you insist, I'd be glad to call you Dale. -Alan P.S. Does this mean I can come over for Christmas dinner? :-) ----------------------------------------------------------- Alan W. McKay | My opinions are mine, yours are yours. | Eat Food | NEPEAN, Ont. | I in no way pretend to represent the | and | 613-763-8980 | the options of my employer. So there. | LIVE !! |
stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) (06/16/89)
9meg of 32bit ram, I didn't know they had 32bit memory expansion for the A2620! Well I learn everyday... The amiga is DEAD slow without a a2620 and 32bit ram, the GFX are nothing to be proud of.And id you want to get something corect it will cost you! And the amiga is right now limited to 704x484 (OVERSCAN!) and in 16 colors in of course interlaced! All I'm saying is if people want a Graphics computer with X11 the amiga wont be the best idea. To what Workstation are you comparing the amiga for price/power? You should also now that soon 8,000$ workstation will be out, and will cut the amiga of in the profesional area. What I want to say is, for the price of a corect amiga people can spend a little more and get 10 time better.
stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) (06/16/89)
Ok let me explain for the price. Amiga 2500 with 4 meg of 32bit ram, flicker fixer, 19" monitor, ethernet, good DMA SCSI controler, 170meg HD And the rest. A 640x400 is 6 time smaller than 'normal' display.I'm not talking about overscan here, or you could push it a little more and mention PAL amiga's! right now you can get a unix workstation with ethernet, scsi, 170meg HD, 19" sony monitor, 4 meg, 16 mhz RISC (MIPS R2000), 8 bitplanes (with 16 slot for video ram, and the abilitie to do real time 3D animation. the machine as been selling for 15,000$ and in september under 10,000$. Anybody with a head will see that the amiga is a wrong choice!. Have you seen the show 'computer dreams'? well the demo from pixar/disney are done on that 15,000$ machine, the minic of max headroom, the comercial for the last olympics etc etc... And to tell you the speed, the demo about the plan of the house building itself is real time on that machine. Networking:-) Nasa replce it's cray for the big brother of that low end . and the 15,000$ machine is binary compatible with the 120,000$ one.160mips 192 meg, 4.2 gigabytes hlod on 4 HD tape backup etc etc. what are you point of the amiga is the solution of networking with GFX capability?
451061@UOTTAWA.BITNET (Valentin Pepelea) (06/16/89)
Dale Luck <dale@boing.uucp> writes in message <799@boing.UUCP>
> And one other thing, stop calling me "Mr. Luck", I prefer Dale. %)
Ok, we'll call you Boing!
Valentin
_________________________________________________________________________
The godess of democracy? "The Name: Valentin Pepelea
tyrants may distroy a statue, Phonet: (613) 231-7476
but they cannot kill a god." Bitnet: 451061@Uottawa.bitnet
Usenet: Use cunyvm.cuny.edu gate
- Confucius Planet: 451061@acadvm1.UOttawa.CAusenet@cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner) (06/17/89)
In article <19503@cup.portal.com> stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) writes: > >The amiga is DEAD slow without a a2620 and 32bit ram, the GFX are nothing Compare it to other computers in its class, Mac SE or Atari ST for example, and I think you will think the the Amiga is pretty good. > To what Workstation are you comparing the amiga for price/power? >You should also now that soon 8,000$ workstation will be out, and will cut >the amiga of in the profesional area. Well that not surprising, after all the Amiga is aimed towards the home + TV graphics area, not graphics workstation & CAD applications. Do you know what commodore is? A leader in *home* computers. It said so in their jobs.offered posting. This is an example of a short .signature jap@frith.cl.msu.edu
bryan@geo-works.UUCP (Bryan Ford) (06/17/89)
In article <795@boing.UUCP>, dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) writes: >In article <1148@jimi.cs.unlv.edu> ray@jimi.cs.unlv.edu (Ray Tripamer) writes: >> This will not be >>the case for a lot of Amiga users. I don't think it is the intention of >>Mr. Luck to have X on the Amiga replace the Workbench, but rather to supply >>an well-known, useful product for those people who use Amigas on a network. > >The X Window System is also a standard execution and programming >environment. I can't count how many programs are currently being written >nor how many programmers or quantity of R&D being spent on developing >X programs. With X11 on the Amiga these programs will be much easier >to port to the Amiga since the majority of the work is graphics and we >will have the exact same libraries and toolkits available on the Amiga >that Sun/VAX/etc. programmers will be using. Quite true. However, at 400 bucks a copy, don't expect it to become the standard window environment for the Amiga. Don't get me wrong, I know it's a very good price for 'big wigs' who want to connect an Amiga to everything else. But not very many 'normal' people are going to pay that much just for a standard window environment, and if nobody has it, not many programmers are going to program for it. What you will need to do is release a simple, 'bones' library, which just acts as a local interface to Intuition. Only include the functions that most X-Windows programs use. Ideally this would be public domain (if you want to make it a standard), but since I'm not very familiar with X-Windows and I don't know what this would take, I won't make a big stink out of it. Another option might be to create a linkable library that developers can link into programs that use X-Windows. This library would be very much like the one described above, but it would be contained inside each X-Windows program, as an interface to Intuition. That way you could sell it for a lot more (since it's being used directly only by developers). Unfortunately, these programs might have a hard time running under your 'regular', networked X-Windows program. Again I don't know how feasible this would be, but it's an idea to think about. Bryan
stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) (06/18/89)
It's right that it's pretty good from it's class, but add X11, 3meg of 32 bit ram, a 68020 board, ethernet, scsi controler, HD etc... dont make it want to go that way! and where it's going it dont stand a chance exepted for people that want to save the mutch possible for a X11 system.
elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) (06/18/89)
in article <19503@cup.portal.com>, stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) says: > All I'm saying is if people want a Graphics computer with X11 the amiga > wont be the best idea. > To what Workstation are you comparing the amiga for price/power? Dale isn't. Most of today's workstations have enough horsepower to run several users, but it's no fun to do it without X -- might as well just log in to the Vax down the hall, if you're just using a VT100. X terminals have become a hot commodity. The Amiga makes a useful X terminal, albeit somewhat resolution-limited, for around $3500 for the whole thing (erring towards the high side hopefully). This compares favorably with other X terminals out there, apparently, considering that you also get a computer out of the bargain. I'll agree that on a price/power basis, the Amiga is blown away by current low-end workstations. But that wasn't the market Dale's aiming for. -- Eric Lee Green P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509 ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg (318)989-9849 "I have seen or heard 'designer of the 68000' attached to so many names that I can only guess that the 68000 was produced by Cecil B. DeMille." -- Bcase
unland@boing.UUCP (Rick Unland) (06/19/89)
newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga In article <19430@cup.portal.com> stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) writes: >But you should think that to run X on an Amiga it will cost you near >10,000$ to have something correct! I do not know where you are getting your prices from! An A2500 only lists for 4700 or there abouts. X11 is 399 and I think the mouse is 125.00. The last is the ethernet card and those go for 899. if I recall right. So far were around 6200. and I am at the high end of the Amiga market. Lets talk about a 1disk 500 running X over the serial line. I certainly do not think you can spend 10,000 on this setup. >And if people are looking at prices around for a computer having X,Ethernet, >VM,HD,Good GFX etc. The amiga wont be in the first place, and the power/price >will not make up! Well being in the Amiga sales staff of Commodore I think I am a little better qualified to make that judgemnet. I am personaly aware of multiple firms looking at the Amiga and X11 to replace systems allready online. They also feel the Amiga to be much better than an X terminal without resources( A net Hog). > First draw back is in GFX, even a 2500 with a flicker fixer and 19" monitor >will only have a max of 640x400, You should be able to open around window >of that size without overlaping... In this I agree that opening a widow of 640x400 without overlapping is the best way to go but we do have the moniterm 19" with 1024 x 800 that would allow just that. Also in this respect there is not always a reason to have that large a window open. > Memory, a 2500 is limited to 4 meg?isnt it? And if you need 3 meg that left >1 to the user! and if they remap ROM it will be a joke. First if you want to talk 32 bit exclusive than yes the A2620 boards in the A2500 are limited to only 4 megs. But this still allows system memory to expand using the 16bit bus giving system (9Megs Total)! The other alternative is to use a third party acclerator like the CSA or the GVP's or Hurricane systems which allow expansion of the thirtytwo bit bus beyond these limits. And if you do then I think you won't mind giving up the 256k of ram needed for fastrom. Tell me how many PC's do you know of that can have 24 megabytes of Ram? > All I want to say is, you project is GREAT but it wont push people how want >X to get an Amiga for the job.If they are not using the amiga itself they >wont find X atrective runing on an amiga. > But if there is a A3000 it shouldnt be without it! It seems strange to tell someone their project is great at the end of a message like this. Also maybe you should check into the market place a little more before you state what that market will or will not accept. The Amiga with X11 offers far more than just another Xterminal. You also get all the resources of Amiga and that incudes a lot of access to worlds that X doesn't presently fullfill the needs of. And there is one thing you are not taking into consid- eration and that is Multiple use propagation which is one of the best ways to sell large numbers of any product. I this case it serves even better in that X11 by GFXBase allows the Amiga to enter into a market not exactly one of our best. I for one am very glad for the additon of X11 to the list of numerous interfaces now available on the Amiga and think it represents a breakthrough in this arena.
stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) (06/19/89)
I was comparing with low end graphics workstation because Dale said a good graphics terminal... And if you are use to a c64/st etc ok but otherwise 3500$ if you get a A500, and even...
FelineGrace@cup.portal.com (Dana B Bourgeois) (06/19/89)
To add my $.02 to this thread: Steven, you may be right about prices coming down Sun workstations but I won't be buying a Sun for my home. And even for businesses, what is the TOTAL cost of buying onw of those other machines you were talking about when you include the hardware, the software, training, and maintenance vs buying an Amiga? And I read somewhere in a magazine that 'probably' the next major model to come out will have it's graphics based on a commercial graphics processor like the TI model instead of the current custom chips. So if the next Amiga includes at least an '020, space for 16Meg of 32bit memory, SCSI, and something along the lines of the TI graphics chip, would you be happy with the performance?(oh yes, lets say 14+ MHz for an NTSC compatible speed). I bet the price would be competitive since that has been a historical fact with the Amiga models. Dana "what do you expect for $.02 anyway?" Bourgeois @cup.portal.com
stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) (06/20/89)
Dana, read my other reply and you will now why I think that way. I have a price of 8,000$ for a Unix workstation based on a RISC (mips), with ethernet, scsi, 170meg HD, 19" mitsubishi monitor, 24 bitplane video, 1280x1024 resolution, tape drive, '4D' graphics library etc... Well these one is not out yet:-) but You can get better than that for 15,000$ right now...
dave@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (David A Rasmussen) (06/21/89)
From article <19700@cup.portal.com>, by stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem): > > Dana, read my other reply and you will now why I think that way. > I have a price of 8,000$ for a Unix workstation based on a RISC (mips), Flame on: If you aren't interested in testing X for the amiga, why the hell are you bitching about prices under that subject? Flame off: If you want to be cheap about Xwindows, you can probably go get something like Dale's package down the road a ways, and get a slip (serial line ip) handler and run X to your local unix server. This costs whatever your current machine is plus the software package of around $400. Granted, it would be nice to have more cpu power and a nicer monitor, but if you're like me and just wanted X at home or something. I would imagine that slip at 38400 or so, or over a trailblazer modem wouldn't be too bad either. Someone at usenix mentioned a T1 line to their house ;-). If you want to be really cheap you can get Matt Dillon's Dnet package, itself being quite nice but not X compatible. -- Dave Rasmussen, UW Milwaukee Computing Services Division. Uucp: uwmcsd4!dave, Inet: dave@csd4.milw.wisc.edu, Bitnet: dave%csd4.milw.wisc.edu@INTERBIT Bellnet: 414-229-5133. "Hey Mister, are you tall?" "Yes I'm tall but who are all you weird little wonders?" - Tom 'Tbone' Stankus.
garvin@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu (Michael A. Garvin) (06/21/89)
In article <3012@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> dave@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (David A Rasmussen) writes: >From article <19700@cup.portal.com>, by stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem): >> >> Dana, read my other reply and you will now why I think that way. >> I have a price of 8,000$ for a Unix workstation based on a RISC (mips), >Flame on: >If you aren't interested in testing X for the amiga, why the hell are you >bitching about prices under that subject? >Flame off: > >-- >Dave Rasmussen, UW Milwaukee Computing Services Division. Uucp: uwmcsd4!dave, <Sigh> This is getting beaten to death... I don't blame Dale (I used your first name :-) for posting in a while... OK, about this here X thingy. The point isn't really about price (although it is, really, in a way). It's about this: why would people add X to their Mac or their PC? Huh? No, we're not talking RISC, we're not talking 300 meg of hard disk, no UN*X (note, I'm not counting AIX), no huge multiple 1024x1024 24 bitplane windows... and yet, people will do it. I want to be able to, too. I've got this 2000 here, why can't I do this cheaply and not have to get an X terminal (net hog) or a work$tation. Add an EtherNet card (with TCP/IP, NFS, telnet, ftp, rlogin, and more), a 3-button optical mouse, and software. Quick, easy, and relatively inexpensive. And THAT'S what the Amiga, Mac, and IBM people are looking at. ------ It may not be a Sun 4/80 or a PVAX, but it works. It gets the job done. Plus, I get an Amiga. 'Nuff said. Please. Now let's get on with a technical discussion of X on the Amiga, or something else. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- garvin@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu Michael Garvin NCSU Computing Center Disclaimer: these are my opinions; NCSU & CC may feel otherwise. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
alex@xicom.UUCP (Alex Laney) (06/21/89)
In article <19503@cup.portal.com>, stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) writes: > > to be proud of.And id you want to get something corect it will cost you! ^^ ^^ ^^^^^^ > All I'm saying is if people want a Graphics computer with X11 the amiga ^^ ^^ ^ > wont be the best idea. ^^^^ > To what Workstation are you comparing the amiga for price/power? ^ ^ > You should also now that soon 8,000$ workstation will be out, and will cut ^^^ ^ > the amiga of in the profesional area. ^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^ > What I want to say is, for the price of a corect amiga people can spend ^^^^^^ ^ ^ > a little more and get 10 time better. ^^^^ I hope this guy didn't graduate from university! No one with any self-worth would post anything this poorly written. I have never seen anything this poor on the net before! And yet, he posts anti-Amiga drivel, in the newsgroup of Amiga enthusiasts! Go away. -- Alex Laney, Xicom Technologies Corp., Ottawa, Canada (613) 728-9099 uunet!mitel!sce!xicom!alex (NOT alex@xicom) Fax: (613) 728-1134 "You save time, increase the amount of work done and it is easy."
alex@xicom.UUCP (Alex Laney) (06/21/89)
In article <19506@cup.portal.com>, stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) writes: > > Ok let me explain for the price. ^ > Amiga 2500 with 4 meg of 32bit ram, flicker fixer, 19" monitor, ethernet, ^ > good DMA SCSI controler, 170meg HD And the rest. ^ > A 640x400 is 6 time smaller than 'normal' display.I'm not talking about ^ ^^^ > right now you can get a unix workstation with ethernet, scsi, 170meg HD, ^ ^ ^ > 19" sony monitor, 4 meg, 16 mhz RISC (MIPS R2000), 8 bitplanes (with 16 slot ^ > for video ram, and the abilitie to do real time 3D animation. ^^^^^^^^ > the machine as been selling for 15,000$ and in september under 10,000$. ^ > Have you seen the show 'computer dreams'? well the demo from pixar/disney ^ ^ ^ ^ > are done on that 15,000$ machine, the minic of max headroom, the comercial ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ > Networking:-) Nasa replce it's cray for the big brother of that low end . ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > what are you point of the amiga is the solution of networking with GFX ^ ^^^^^^^^^ And the drivel continues!!!! There is just no point in arguing with this dolt. -- Alex Laney, Xicom Technologies Corp., Ottawa, Canada (613) 728-9099 uunet!mitel!sce!xicom!alex (NOT alex@xicom) Fax: (613) 728-1134 "You save time, increase the amount of work done and it is easy."
rminnich@super.ORG (Ronald G Minnich) (06/21/89)
In article <19700@cup.portal.com> stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) writes: >I have a price of 8,000$ for a Unix workstation based on a RISC (mips), >with ethernet, scsi, 170meg HD, 19" mitsubishi monitor, 24 bitplane video, >1280x1024 resolution, tape drive, '4D' graphics library etc... > Well these one is not out yet:-) but You can get better than that for 15,000$ oh, ok, you quote a mythical (probably educational) price for something that is not really available (but will be) then say that you can probably get the same thing for twice that price? What is your point? Some other thoughts: 1) 4mb on an Amiga goes much further than 4Mb on a sun. For a simple reason: sun's page size is 8192 bytes. Think about that for a little while: each process requires at least 2 pages, i.e. 16K. 2) take a look at the Hello World debate on comp.lang.eiffel. Hello, World in C on a Sun 3 is around 70 Kbytes. Off hand i would guess that 4mb on an Amiga goes about 8 times as far as on a Sun 3, and possibly 16 times. Either way, comparing a 4 Meg sun to a 4 Meg amiga is stupid. I think your price quote above proves that Richard Sexton is wrong; portal has much better drugs than berkeley ... ron
stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) (06/22/89)
My comments where only based on 'amiga being a good and inexpensive X
terminal'.(in GFX.).
If you are not looking for UNIX,Speed,good graphics{, performance in general
X on the amiga is perfect, but again I have to say it again ;it will not
aply for other reason.Al my messages where based on that... I didn't say
that X souldnt never be seen runing on an AMIGA but that people how want
performance in general for a good price with X shouldnt think of the amiga.
Hope that make my thought clear to you:-){mark@gcrc.aecom.YU.EDU (mark lyakhovsky) (06/22/89)
In article <800@boing.UUCP>, dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) writes: > In article <19430@cup.portal.com> stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) writes: > > > > You might have to charge a little more than that:-). > >of that size without overlaping... > > Not true Let's try 704x484 for actual seeable resolution. > With a2024 software(preV1.4) we can open a 1008x1024 screen and > PAN around in it. > > Also the moniterm Viking 1 monitor displays 1008x800 flicker free > and X11 for the Amiga supports it. > > > Memory, a 2500 is limited to 4 meg?isnt it? And if you need 3 meg that left > >1 to the user! and if they remap ROM it will be a joke. > > Get the facts straight. > First: 2500 is limited to 9 megs of memory, not 4 megs. > > The 3 megs for X11 is , 1 meg for server and amigados. 2 megs for user. > Remapping the rom will make everything run faster, and I'm beginning > to see where the real joke is. > > > All I want to say is, you project is GREAT but it wont push people how want > >X to get an Amiga for the job.If they are not using the amiga itself they > >wont find X atrective runing on an amiga. > > I don't see any evidence that supports this statement. The Amiga is the > lowest cost, reasonable to excellant graphics performance computer that > supports a full X11 system (server AND Clients). > > > -- > Dale Luck GfxBase/Boing, Inc. > {uunet!cbmvax|pyramid}!amiga!boing!dale To all of this i can simply the price of the new Sun 3/80 is list $5400 With some major discounts from NSF -(National Science Foundation) =35% you can bye a real workstationwith a monochrome monitor with resolution of more than 800x800 pluss the cpu which is 68030 with math processer plus Ether-Net connecter build in, a real operating system Unix 4.3 pluss next release of the Op. Sys will be 4.1 (Open Look) which is X11 For Total of $3400 Mark Lyakhovsky System Manager of local network of Sun's
stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) (06/23/89)
:-) I cant beleive that! So alex you want me to go away? I was thinking of
puting some of my work PD but if people like you dont accept other point of
view or dont andestand that not everybody is born with english for native
langage I dokont think I should!
Anyway if I didin't like the amiga I would have make a images,l{ibrary
to view pictures from gfx workstation like the Silicon Graphics computers,
Also Targa, Alias, Tiff, RGB... of course iff, I also took ushow3.1
fixed 7 bug add{ function like overscan WB interface etc and is still under
1k and is now the only pictures viewer on the amiga that show 100% of the
pictures available...
I also made a workbench interface (mutiple workbench), done a NS.library
With NeWS like menus, screen bitmap editor, task remover, task editor,
colormap utilities etc...
I wanted to post that here intead of Email, since I'm sure alot of people
like you think I'm a ?Bug?...q
Anyway with all the mail I also received I will stop posting, message or
binary/sources.
If you cant accept people from other country with other idea, well I dont
have anything to say here!
Well, This is my last posting... I'm sure I'm making alot of you happy:-)
Untill I take some english class, But my idea wont c{hange.
If people are interested in images tools leave me Email before the 5 of july,
I still hope to make them available before I leave the country...srp@modcomp.UUCP (Steve Pietrowicz) (06/23/89)
in article <19763@cup.portal.com>, stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) says: > My comments where only based on 'amiga being a good and inexpensive X > terminal'.(in GFX.). > If you are not looking for UNIX,Speed,good graphics{, performance in general > X on the amiga is perfect, but again I have to say it again ;it will not > aply for other reason.Al my messages where based on that... I didn't say > that X souldnt never be seen runing on an AMIGA but that people how want > performance in general for a good price with X shouldnt think of the amiga. > Hope that make my thought clear to you:-){ It's always fun to see things like the above when people don't know what the hell they're talking about. 1/2 :-) From what you've been saying here in all your postings, it's obvious that you've never seen X running on an Amiga, and it's even doubtful that you've even used an Amiga for a significant amount of time. (And I'm talking a SIGNIFICANT amount of time, not a couple of hours at a local dealer). If you're going to say things like this, get some facts (LIKE GO AND SEE IT) before you post articles. (Better yet, don't post at all). -- Stephen R. Pietrowicz UUCP: ...!uunet!modcomp!srp CIS: 73047,2313
srp@modcomp.UUCP (Steve Pietrowicz) (06/25/89)
in article <176@gcrc.aecom.YU.EDU>, mark@gcrc.aecom.YU.EDU (mark lyakhovsky) says:
] Posted: Thu Jun 22 09:59:04 1989
] To all of this i can simply the price of the new Sun 3/80 is list $5400
] With some major discounts from NSF -(National Science Foundation) =35%
] you can bye a real workstationwith a monochrome monitor with resolution of
] more than 800x800 pluss the cpu which is 68030 with math processer plus
] Ether-Net connecter build in, a real operating system Unix 4.3 pluss
] next release of the Op. Sys will be 4.1 (Open Look) which is X11
]
] For Total of $3400
]
] Mark Lyakhovsky
] System Manager of local network of Sun's
I'm assuming that this is a diskless workstation, is that true? How much
do you have to shell out to get the disk based SUN system to make the
diskless station work? How much for *color*? And remember that (believe
it or not) not everyone has a SUN. ...And not everyone has "major discounts
from NSF".
--
--
Stephen R. Pietrowicz UUCP: ...!uunet!modcomp!srp CIS: 73047,2313dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) (06/25/89)
In article <176@gcrc.aecom.YU.EDU> mark@gcrc.aecom.YU.EDU (mark lyakhovsky) writes: > > > To all of this i can simply the price of the new Sun 3/80 is list $5400 > With some major discounts from NSF -(National Science Foundation) =35% > you can bye a real workstationwith a monochrome monitor with resolution of > more than 800x800 pluss the cpu which is 68030 with math processer plus > Ether-Net connecter build in, a real operating system Unix 4.3 pluss > next release of the Op. Sys will be 4.1 (Open Look) which is X11 Humm, 4.1? Well you better add another 4m of memory to the 3/80 But it's only b/w ? The Amiga supports color without any extra hardware. Can the 3/80 support color, even with an extra board? The 3/50 is out of the question. Now when I get this 3/80 I just have to plug it in and it comes up? Woops, I need a fileserver some where, or atleast a 150mbyte scsi disk. Not needed for the Amiga. At most a local 20meg disk is just fine, but you can run on a single floppy system with a single boot up floppy containing server and a few X11 files to get going. > For Total of $3400 Let's talk real world prices and not NSF discounts, for me to get one to work on I now need to get an NSF grant? > > Mark Lyakhovsky > System Manager of local network of Sun's -- Dale Luck GfxBase/Boing, Inc. {uunet!cbmvax|pyramid}!amiga!boing!dale
rminnich@super.ORG (Ronald G Minnich) (06/26/89)
In article <818@boing.UUCP> dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) writes: >In article <176@gcrc.aecom.YU.EDU> mark@gcrc.aecom.YU.EDU (mark lyakhovsky) writes: >> To all of this i can simply the price of the new Sun 3/80 is list $5400 >Humm, 4.1? Well you better add another 4m of memory to the 3/80 >Woops, I need a fileserver some where, or atleast >a 150mbyte scsi disk. Not needed for the Amiga. At most a local 20meg >disk is just fine, but you can run on a single floppy system with a >single boot up floppy containing server and a few X11 files to get going. >> For Total of $3400 You got it dale, most of the prices flowing around this list about workstations are pure crap. Now i know why industry goes crazy sometimes when they talk to universities. First off, to that $5400 workstation add a 'file server tax' of, say, $1700 just for its share of the file server resources. That's not even coming close to amortizing the cost of the file server, it is just an almost fair number. There aren't many people who buy a 3/80 with enet and put it in a room ... that connector has to go somewhere, doesn't it? When all is said and done, count on more like $8-9K for that 3/80. And you sure better get lots of memory ... 4.x is fun, but needs a minimum of 8 Mb memory. At Usenix I saw this wonderful IBM PS2/70, 20 Mhz. 386, running X windows. God, it was AWFUL. You had to turn auto-raise off because in some cases it took over 75 seconds to redraw its very small mono screen. Cost? STARTED at $8K, and went up to $15K. ack. Get me an Amiga. ron
raz@kilowatt.uucp (Raz- Berry) (06/27/89)
In article <818@boing.UUCP> dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) writes: >In article <176@gcrc.aecom.YU.EDU> mark@gcrc.aecom.YU.EDU (mark lyakhovsky) writes: >> >> To all of this i can simply the price of the new Sun 3/80 is list $5400 >> With some major discounts from NSF -(National Science Foundation) =35% >> you can bye a real workstationwith a monochrome monitor with resolution of >> more than 800x800 pluss the cpu which is 68030 with math processer plus >> Ether-Net connecter build in, a real operating system Unix 4.3 pluss >> next release of the Op. Sys will be 4.1 (Open Look) which is X11 While that's nice that you can get those discounts, I doubt that there are very many others that will be able to do the same. >Humm, 4.1? Well you better add another 4m of memory to the 3/80 >But it's only b/w ? The Amiga supports color without any extra hardware. >Can the 3/80 support color, even with an extra board? The 3/50 is out Black and white is standard, color is available. But it is an extra cost option (of course). The monitor resolution I believe is 1150x900. You can of course get a higher resolution color monitor if you so desire and can afford it. >of the question. Now when I get this 3/80 I just have to plug it in >and it comes up? Woops, I need a fileserver some where, or atleast >a 150mbyte scsi disk. Yeah, that's unix for ya. 150 would be bare minimum. I had one for a while but I got so sick of the messages (file system full) that I went and begged for a bigger disk. And your right about the 3/50 being slow. A 3/60 + 8meg ram is minimum equipment for a SunOS 4.x machine. I won't comment further on the fact that a SCSI disk from Sun of >150meg, will set you back more than the cost of an A2000. > Not needed for the Amiga. At most a local 20meg >disk is just fine, but you can run on a single floppy system with a >single boot up floppy containing server and a few X11 files to get going. This is truely amazing. You didn't mention the amount of ram needed to get a workable system going but I'll bet it's only 1meg. This would mean that A500 machines would be perfect as low cost X terminals. This definately gives the Amiga a price edge over the 3/80. At the same time you have to realize that we are not comparing the same kind of fruit here. The 3/80 is a 25mhz 68030 & 68881 powered machine. It is significantly faster that the Amiga in all areas (with the qualification that I haven't seen the way it handles it's color graphics). Personally, I'd love to have one at work. I think that what this all boils down to is a matter of determining what the application is. If you are looking for just a low cost "terminal", and you don't need the raw horsepower of the 3/80, then I think you would be wise to take a look at the X package that Dale is doing. Of course in a perfect world, you could buy both. Sheesh, what am I saying! Let me take that back, Buy the Sun -- it's better... really! >> Mark Lyakhovsky >> System Manager of local network of Sun's >-- >Dale Luck GfxBase/Boing, Inc. >{uunet!cbmvax|pyramid}!amiga!boing!dale The above statements are my own opinion, not those of my employer. I hope that my boss doesn't read this... -- Steve -Raz- Berry Disclaimer: I didn't do nutin! UUCP: sun!kilowatt!raz ARPA: raz%kilowatt.EBay@sun.com KILOWATT: sun!kilowatt!archive-server archive-server%kilowatt.EBay@sun.com
jimm@amiga.UUCP (Jim Mackraz) (06/28/89)
In article <164@modcomp.UUCP> srp@modcomp.UUCP (Steve Pietrowicz) writes:
)in article <19763@cup.portal.com>, stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) says:
)> My comments where only based on 'amiga being a good and inexpensive X
)> terminal'.(in GFX.).
)> If you are not looking for UNIX,Speed,good graphics{, performance in general
)> X on the amiga is perfect, but again I have to say it again ;it will not
)> aply for other reason.Al my messages where based on that... I didn't say
)> that X souldnt never be seen runing on an AMIGA but that people how want
)> performance in general for a good price with X shouldnt think of the amiga.
)> Hope that make my thought clear to you:-){
)
)It's always fun to see things like the above when people don't know what
)the hell they're talking about. 1/2 :-)
Yeah, as Sexton might say: "typical for a Portal weenie."
The Amiga has a hardware cursor. My very limited exposure to X would
seems to indicate that this can make a big difference. It also has
a handy little blitter.
My Amiga has an 25Mhz 030. Wanna race for pinks, Whitey?
There *is* an obvious vulnerability of Amiga X in the marketplace: its
"large screen" implementation is kind of ... special. And although
it will make an *extremely* cost-effective color system, it does not as
yet have a clear path to the very high end.
But then again, neither does Steve.
jimm
--
Jim Mackraz, I and I Computing "He's hidden now, but you can see
{cbmvax,well,oliveb}!amiga!jimm The bubbles where he breathes."
- Shriekback
Opinions are my own. Comments are not to be taken as Commodore official policy.doug@xdos.UUCP (Doug Merritt) (06/28/89)
In <164@modcomp.UUCP> srp@modcomp.UUCP (Steve Pietrowicz) flames Schaem: >you're going to say things like this, get some facts (LIKE GO AND SEE IT) >before you post articles. (Better yet, don't post at all). #FLAME ON You sound like a five year old kid throwing a temper tantrum. The fact that his articles are hard to read is no reason to tell him that "this playground ain't big enough for the both of us". If you had any degree of human feeling you'd talk to him about the problem via email instead of trying to get rid of him. As for the validity of his opinions, they were *not* generally anti-Amiga, and in any case no worse than the usual dreck around here. (And as I'll point out below, actually right on target.) It's big mouthed immature idiots like you that give the rest of us computer nerds a bad name (as if we needed any help in that department, eh?) :-) #FLAME OFF >in article <19763@cup.portal.com>, stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) says: >> I didn't say >> that X souldnt never be seen runing on an AMIGA but that people how want >> performance in general for a good price with X shouldnt think of the amiga. ^^^^^^^ He's actually right, you know. I just went to the Xhibition (X Windows show), and Dale Luck's X on the Amiga looks very nice, and for some people will be just what they need, especially if they really need to minimize net traffic, or if they can also make use of the Amiga as a very low end workstation (the latter is unfortunately a very small market). It's certainly not the cheapest X display, though, and depending on what people need, not always the best price/performance, either. The dedicated X Displays like NCR Towerview, NCD, and Visual 640 are far cheaper than an Amiga plus RAM plus ethernet plus Boing mouse plus X windows, and some of them (e.g. NCD ) give much better screen resolution on a nice paper white display with great fonts. The NCD is $2000, FYI, and is not the cheapest of the bunch (just the best looking IMHO). And for most people where net traffic isn't as important as price, the Amiga is simply out of the question. Now, I love the Amiga, and I'm working hard at find out in which scenarios I can recommend Amiga plus Dale's X to customers as a solution, and I think I've found some. That doesn't mean it's the appropriate choice for everyone. Blindly pushing the Amiga even in situations where it would disappoint people isn't doing anyone any favors. >> Hope that make my thought clear to you:-){ Sounds pretty polite to me, seems like we could take pointers from Schaem on the *tone* of postings. >It's always fun to see things like the above when people don't know what >the hell they're talking about. 1/2 :-) > >From what you've been saying here in all your postings, it's obvious that >you've never seen X running on an Amiga, and it's even doubtful that you've >even used an Amiga for a significant amount of time. This Pietrowicz fellow, though, seems like *he* needs to do more homework, both on X, market economics, and hopefully on etiquette. I have this book for teaching social graces to kids called "Stand Up, Shake Hands, Say How Do You Do" I could loan you... Doug -- Doug Merritt {pyramid,apple}!xdos!doug Member, Crusaders for a Better Tomorrow Professional Wildeyed Visionary
god@cup.portal.com (Jay Miner) (06/29/89)
In article <4006@amiga.UUCP> jimm@cloyd.UUCP (Jim Mackraz) writes: > >Yeah, as Sexton might say: "typical for a Portal weenie." Now *THATS* not very nice.
stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) (06/29/89)
REPLY TO STEPHAN R. Pietrowics!!!! and all the other that think like him! I apologize for th other people-> please skip... First are you calling Working full time on Amiga not SIGNIFICANT? Can you write 500 line of code in 680x0 in a night (that my best:-) or write 680x0 modules for you C programes, have you ported anything from unix? have you wrote you own libraries?, Have you gave anything to the amiga users?! I build my own Floppy 3.5 'interface'.I think that I wrote the best Ushow , the first IRIS to AMIGA file viewer, The first multyscreen workbench (1.5 year ago) etc... Well I'm only on usenet for a couple of week and if you havent seem anything yet is because I working hard on those programes so amiga user will have them suposlly bug free! I also took time to wrote documentation, and had some very nice offer from user so like people like you wont find my speeling ofending! And If you have 15,000$ you can by the machine I describe (a Personal Iris from Silicon Graphics, I dind't wanted to say it since I worked for them not long ago and some people here new that!), And I only said very little about the power of that machine!. I know both the Personal Iris and Amiga very well, And I was able to make comapraison power/price! Maybe you know better than me?!!:-) I also was the first to use a ESDI drive (170meg) now I have 2 of those and a 380meg SCSI CDC, that was 2 years ago (I could have made it work without the help of Thad Florian and Art Walker). But if you have your amiga since early 86 and programed 12 hours a day well must know more about the amiga programing or hardware but here it's not how know more but how can make a comparaison. I will post my stuff, but If I can I will give the new version to Rob Peck so it can post them here for all of you, wonder if you deserve it but anyway.. ALSO SEND ANY KIND OF FLAME IN MAIL, DO YOU FELL YOU POSTING IS WORTH READING
stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) (06/29/89)
Jim, are you there?! Are you telling me that I dont know what I'm talking about:-) Did you knew that I was talking about the Personal Iris, and do you know what computer it is? If not let me give you an hint... It's a real time graphics workstaion with special 3D custom chip and a 33mhz R2000 (a RISC CPU from MIPS in case you didn't knew that already). Well I better know what I'm talking about since I work for SGI and work from the software and hardware side of the machine, I can say the same for the amiga but using it around 8 hours every day should tell you something... By the way, Still want to race:-) :-). Well sir, Do you want Unix? nice GFX? Speed? etc (etc will make some people jump to the ceiling and I have enought of people posting falmes in public) Amiga dont match with the above.... But if you want X11 and have an amiga and dont need the above well forget what I'm saying! And I based my price on the PUBLIC CURRENT PRICES! I still remenber people like you '*?all?*' saying I was in the could when I anounced the Personal. That was a year ago! (already!:-(...) SGI shiped the same date I told:-) And I say it again they will strik back... And PLEASE ALL OF YOU SEND ME MAIL ,DONT POST HERE... to make things clear now that people 'forced' me to say what I was talking about--THE SUBJECT IS ****AMIGA A GOOD GFX TERMINAL****. And myself if I needed X11 I would get it for my 2000. I'm not putting down in anyway the amiga, just make people aware of what other things are on the market... I have a project that might make SGI user get an amiga... So how his the bad guy in the story:-)
paolucci@snll-arpagw.UUCP (Sam Paolucci) (06/29/89)
In article <19503@cup.portal.com> stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) writes:
->
-> 9meg of 32bit ram, I didn't know they had 32bit memory expansion for the
->A2620! Well I learn everyday...
->The amiga is DEAD slow without a a2620 and 32bit ram, the GFX are nothing
->to be proud of.And id you want to get something corect it will cost you!
-> And the amiga is right now limited to 704x484 (OVERSCAN!) and in 16 colors
->in of course interlaced!
-> All I'm saying is if people want a Graphics computer with X11 the amiga
->wont be the best idea.
-> To what Workstation are you comparing the amiga for price/power?
->You should also now that soon 8,000$ workstation will be out, and will cut
->the amiga of in the profesional area.
-> What I want to say is, for the price of a corect amiga people can spend
->a little more and get 10 time better.
Usually I don't follow up on postings where people say a bunch of garbage
without having any knowledge of what the hell they are talking about.
Have you seen X running on the Amiga? If not you should ask people who
have before making such idiotic remarks. I have been running X on a
standard Amiga 2000 for quite a while and I can tell you that it is
plenty fast on the straight 68000 (monochrome).
Also I have found the 704x484 to be no real hindrance. Of course the
more pixels the better it is. But this has nothing to do with X, this
is true in general. Furthermore, have you priced the large monitors
needed for 1K resolution lately.
We have a lot of different workstations here at the lab, and I can tell
you that the Amiga gives you by far the best price/performance ratio as
an X-Window server. And I am definitely happy with it. I think that
Dale has done a tremendous job in porting X to the Amiga. And this is
not a straight port. There is quite a lot of optimization on the Amiga.
Disclaimer: I have no vested interest in GfxBase.
--
-+= SAM =+-
"the best things in life are free"
ARPA: paolucci@snll-arpagw.llnl.govjimm@amiga.UUCP (Jim Mackraz) (06/30/89)
In article <20183@cup.portal.com> god@cup.portal.com (Jay Miner) writes: )In article <4006@amiga.UUCP> jimm@cloyd.UUCP (Jim Mackraz) writes: )> )>Yeah, as Sexton might say: "typical for a Portal weenie." ) )Now *THATS* not very nice. Yeah, that darn Sexton. It's sort of a running joke. Guy might not be a weenie, but there is a difference between a weenie and ---> god@cup.portal.com So I better listen up: I apologize for calling the guy a weenie in public. jimm -- Jim Mackraz, I and I Computing "He's hidden now, but you can see {cbmvax,well,oliveb}!amiga!jimm The bubbles where he breathes." - Shriekback Opinions are my own. Comments are not to be taken as Commodore official policy.
nichiren@glyph.UUCP (Andy Heffernan) (06/30/89)
Does this thread still need to be cross-posted? -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Andy Heffernan uunet!glyph!nichiren [1222 - 1282] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Holly Hunter? You mean the 'Love Goddess of the Universe'?"
Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com (06/30/89)
Doug, you will have to forgive Steve, he is a Sysop on Compu$erve. :) :)
And Steve, If you had actually READ the messages, you would have noticed that
the gent in question has worked alot with Amigas. In fact he has written
several programs! If I may ask, when is the last time YOU wrote an
Amiga program?
- Doug -
Doug_B_Erdely@Portal.Cup.Comsrp@modcomp.UUCP (Steve Pietrowicz) (07/01/89)
in article <19994@cup.portal.com>, stephan@cup.portal.com (Stephen Derek Schaem) says: >[flame flame flame] And you generally try and impress everyone. The point of my posting was to say that if you haven't seen or used the Amiga X-Window implementation, you shouldn't be trying to compare it to anything else. From the information you gave in your previous postings it didn't seem like you'd even used the Amiga before. As you pointed out, you do use them. > Have you gave anything to the amiga users?! [Sorry for this next part folks...I generally don't try and post "hey look what I did" stuff to the net, but...] Check your back issues of Amazing Computing for a lot of articles I've written. I've been a sysop on PeopleLink (from which I resigned last year), and I'm currently a sysop on CompuServe. I've helped a LARGE number of users in both places. > amiga user will have them suposlly bug free! I also took time to wrote > documentation, and had some very nice offer from user so like people like you > wont find my speeling ofending! I never *once* said anything about your spelling. Just your lack of information about X-Window on the Amiga. Enough said about this. Geesh. -- Stephen R. Pietrowicz UUCP: ...!uunet!modcomp!srp CIS: 73047,2313
abbadon@nuchat.UUCP (David Neal) (07/01/89)
In article <33864@kilowatt.uucp> raz@sun.UUCP (Steve -Raz- Berry) writes: >In article <818@boing.UUCP> dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) writes: >>In article <176@gcrc.aecom.YU.EDU> mark@gcrc.aecom.YU.EDU (mark lyakhovsky) writes: >>> >>> To all of this i can simply the price of the new Sun 3/80 is list $5400 >>> With some major discounts from NSF -(National Science Foundation) =35% >>> you can bye a real workstationwith a monochrome monitor with resolution of >>> more than 800x800 pluss the cpu which is 68030 with math processer plus >>> Ether-Net connecter build in, a real operating system Unix 4.3 pluss >>> next release of the Op. Sys will be 4.1 (Open Look) which is X11 > Yeah, right, pal. Let's take a quick look, shall we? Sun 3/80M 8Mbyte Desktp Workstation. 19-inch Monochrome Monitor. 2x104-Mbyte SCSI Internal Disk $11,995 104-MByte SCSI Desktop Disk Pack. $2,200 150-MByte SCSU 1/4 inch tape Desktop Backup Pack. $1,600 3/80 Usa Country Kit. (Keyboard/Mouse/Pad/Local power cords) $600 Sun System Software Right to Use License 4-user maximum $600 SunOS Standard Software and manuals for Sun-3 68030 based systems. 1/4 inch cartrige $600 Full System Software Documentation for Sun-3. $450 ------- $18,045 These are numbers quoted from a fax from the local Sun office. My prices, no NSF discounts Why so much local disk space you ask? Ok, let's go see.. sun1% pwd /home/staff/dn sun1% sun1% du -s X11 (BSD du gives usages in K) 116606 X11 sun1% Gosh, 113 megabytes JUST for X11, oh wait.. no we still have to install it! Ok, copy all the crap into your /usr hierarchy. Fonts, executables, man pages, libraries and you have used half again as much in disk space. What? You didn't anticipate that much in your /usr partition? Gee, glad you got that extra tape drive so you can backup and reformat all your disks... Oh, COLOR? My oh my, that's extra too.... heh heh heh. Ok, lets say we kill X's source and go diskless, that puts us around $12000 monochrome, right? Give me a fucking break. Where's my amiga? David Neal abbadon@nuchat
srp@modcomp.UUCP (Steve Pietrowicz) (07/04/89)
in article <20014@cup.portal.com>, Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com says: > > Doug, you will have to forgive Steve, he is a Sysop on Compu$erve. :) :) > Doug, we've already forgiven you for being on portal. ;-) > And Steve, If you had actually READ the messages, you would have noticed that > the gent in question has worked alot with Amigas. In fact he has written > several programs! If I may ask, when is the last time YOU wrote an > Amiga program? And if *you* had been following the thread and watched everything he said, he never made mention that he did any Amiga work up to the point which I posted. In fact, from what he was saying it didn't look like he'd done anything on the Amiga, but as they say, that's already been established. The last significant Amiga program I wrote was ACO, a graphics/sound conferencing program that was in use on PeopleLink for over a year. (It's use fizzled out around last summer, so I pulled it). It was pretty popular during it's time. They talked about it in several of the Amiga mags. All I was trying to do was point out that someone shouldn't comment on X without having seen it first, and certainly not without having used it. -- Stephen R. Pietrowicz UUCP: ...!uunet!modcomp!srp CIS: 73047,2313 Modcomp -- Home of the *REAL* real-time UNIX
Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com (07/05/89)
>in article Steve P. (I don't want to butcher your last name :)) >>in article <20014@cup.portal.com>, Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com says: >> >> Doug, you will have to forgive Steve, he is a Sysop on Compu$erve. :) :) >> >Doug, we've already forgiven you for being on portal. ;-) I see, and have you forgiven Thad Floran(SP?) AND Jay Miner? 1/2 :) >> And Steve, If you had actually READ the messages, you would have noticed that >> the gent in question has worked alot with Amigas. In fact he has written >> several programs! If I may ask, when is the last time YOU wrote an >> Amiga program? >And if *you* had been following the thread and watched everything he said, >he never made mention that he did any Amiga work up to the point which >I posted. In fact, from what he was saying it didn't look like he'd done >anything on the Amiga, but as they say, that's already been established. Yes, *I* followed the complete thread. I knew that Stephan had a number of Amiga programs under his belt, even before he posted the message on Usenet. However, He posted his message about Amiga PD he had written on the SAME day as your COMPLETELY un-needed attack on him on Usenet. What I am saying is you lugged out the flame throwers when they were not needed. >All I was trying to do was point out that someone shouldn't comment on X >without having seen it first, and certainly not without having used it. >-- >Stephen R. Pietrowicz UUCP: ...!uunet!modcomp!srp CIS: 73047,2313 >Modcomp -- Home of the *REAL* real-time UNIX And all I was trying to point out was that people sometime have a habit on the net of getting 'huffy', when they would not do the same thing in person. BTW: I have seen X and Dale has done a hell of a good job!! Usenet brings out the good and bad in people. I hope you can understand where I was coming from Steve, I just got a bit 'huffy' when I saw people jump all over Stephan. - Doug - Doug_B_Erdely@Portal.Cup.Com