schabacker@frambo.dec.com (CB, through Tim & DEC) (06/27/88)
[Gee, can YOU say L.I.N.E.-E.A.T.E.R ???]
Since the discussion about how the Amiga should look like in the near
and distant future seems to be very vivid again this time (look
guys/gals, even the .bizarre arch enemies Richard and Kent spoke up
to this matter :->), I think it's time for me to waste some
net.bandwith with my two Pfennig's worth:
As mentioned before, the Amiga only has a chance in the big buisiness
market, if it keeps on outperforming the competition, either performance
or price wise. The MOC TOO and SOS/2 thingies are catching up fast.
The A3000 should feature a set of graphic chips which
a) speed things up, and
b) give a higher resolution, especially colorwise.
The video (NTSC/PAL) compatibility should be maintained, but
non-interlace modes and provisions for the upcoming high-res TV
standard should be included. This will hopefully establish it as the
#1 desktop video machine.
An on-board SCSI/ESDI 32-bit DMA interface would be nice.
The same would be true for high density (2 MB unformated) 3-1/2 disk
drives, so one can read those 1.6 MB PS/2 disks (if one has to :-))
and get about 1760 KB disk space in native Amiga (FFS) format.
The case design should go back to the roots, and try to be a compromise
between visual appearence/user friendliness and production costs.
Unlike the current B2000 design, yuck. It should also provide as much
space internally as possible for expansion cards, disk drives, etc.
Perhaps a "tower" approach would be suitable.
Since the CPU of choice would probably be a 68030, some efforts should
be made to provide some form of protected memory. No VM, just
protection from mad tasks. I know, this is a 1.4 (1.5?) proposal and has
already been beaten to death, but I really WANT this, ok?
But if this couldn't be implemented without the gaining of some
(much?) weight to the native Amiga tasks/processes, I'd rather live
with the occassional guru. If I want to substitute a sleeping pill, I
watch George Bush making a speech (via American_Forces_Network), or
use UN*X. :-) ;-) ;-D
(hey republicans & UN*X users, lighten up)
Another nice feature would be a second serial port and/or a native
medium speed LAN interface (including the software!).
And when marketing this baby, don't force the costumer to take a large
bundle of things he doesn't need or can't afford right now. I.e don't
have a 80MB hard disk as "minimal configuration" build into it, ok?
Yours idealistic,
<CB>
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