erict@flatline.UUCP (eric townsend) (01/11/88)
[This is a repost, as the article apparently never left my site.
if it did, and you recieved it, please drop me a line if you
have a chance. There might be a problem within the local community.]
I'm interested in the Amiga, and I always have been. I recently
acquired a 3b1/67meg/EIA-RAM expansion/DOS-73 board, and am very
happy with it except for it's horrible graphics and lack of internal
sound (other than feeeeeeeeeeee).
What I want is full-blown graphics/sound with multi-tasking, k&r c,
and lotsa development goodies. I have the latter under control,
3b1's w/ full devlopment set are nice.
My question:
Should I
1. Trade my system for a full blown A2000 w/ hard drive (I could
live w/o the dos bridge very easily, as I don't use my DOS-73 board now)
and a lot of other goodies, or:
2. Get an Amiga 500 w/ Tektronics or some other emulation (writing my
own graphics driver isn't out of the question, as I have the VDI
drivers set) and use it as a front end box for the 3b1, or
3. Sell everything now before my machine's value drops drastically
and hope that a good 680{2,3}0 box will come out this quarter with
everything I ever wanted in a computer :-)?
Please post answers to the net, I think this information could be
of use to anybody with a graphics weak UNIX system who is interested
in expanding to a nice graphics box (cheaply). I'd also like to hear
from Peter da Silva and all other Amiga hacks that have some UNIX
experience as to how hard/easy using an Amiga as front end to a
UNIX box would be.
--
J. Eric Townsend ->uunet!nuchat!flatline!erict smail:511Parker#2,Hstn,Tx,77007
Just another journalist with too much computing power.| 'Hey, watch me ollie
'Girls play with toys. Real women skate.' --Powell Peralta ad.| this <whump>'wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) (01/14/88)
The Amy would make a pretty keen front end to the old 3b1. It would be sort of neat to have the amiga running Layers. The basics are already there on the Amiga with the windows, multiastking, being based on a 68K chip and all. All you have to do is write the screen multiplexing manager for the Amiga. A while back, AT&T reportedly bought up a bunch of amigas to experiment with using amigas for a cheap multiplex terminal. Later the rumor switched to atari, which is more unlikely as I'd think. Since this is a rumor, I reserve the right to opinionate a bit. Supposedly Unix-Windows has been ported to the Amiga but I haven't seen it yet. I agree the 3b1's graphic rendition speed is rather slow, but that's what you get when you don't have a real good blitter. --Bill
vanam@pttesac.UUCP (Marnix van Ammers) (01/14/88)
In article <289@flatline.UUCP> erict@flatline.UUCP (eric townsend) writes: >I'm interested in the Amiga, and I always have been. I recently >acquired a 3b1/67meg/EIA-RAM expansion/DOS-73 board, and am very >happy with it except for it's horrible graphics and lack of internal >sound (other than feeeeeeeeeeee). > >My question: >Should I [list of options deleted] I've got an A1000 and a 3B1. I really like having them both. Since you don't particularly want the A2000 bridge card, there's no point in getting an A2000. You'd lose that 3B1 with it's powerful developmental tools. What I suggest you do is look for a used Amiga 1000. There should be lots of A1000s out there because of the Commodore trade in deal (an A1000 +$1000 for an A2000). You can probably get an A1000 at a very good price. Marnix ---- -- Marnix (ain't unix!) A. van\ Ammers Work: (415) 545-8334 Home: (707) 644-9781 CEO: MAVANAMMERS:UNIX WORK UUCP: {ihnp4|ptsfa}!pttesac!vanam CIS: 70027,70 HOME UUCP: pttesac!Marnix!vanam
farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren) (01/14/88)
In article <289@flatline.UUCP> erict@flatline.UUCP (eric townsend) writes: > >What I want is full-blown graphics/sound with multi-tasking, k&r c, >and lotsa development goodies. I have the latter under control, >3b1's w/ full devlopment set are nice. Whether or not you could do what you want depends very highly on what, exactly, you want, something you don't state very clearly in your message. If you only wanted a graphics terminal for your Unix system, I see no reason an Amiga 500 with a good Tek emulator couldn't work (although there isn't much support on the 3b1 for graphics). If you wanted a Unix box with Amiga level graphics and sound, then you are pretty well out of luck. While this might be possible using a 3b1 and an Amiga running concurrently, it would require massive changes (or, at least, massive software) to both machines. Somehow, I doubt that you want to rewrite both the Unix kernel and Amiga's Exec. One possibility might be the A2000 with the 68020 board and System V, but this is still in the category of vaporware. If you were willing to compromise a little bit on your development environment, the Amiga alone might suffice. While it isn't Unix, the OS on the Amiga is pretty good in its own right. Or, you could use all of the facilities on the 3b1 for development up to the actual compiling and linking, then shove the source files over to the Amiga via the serial ports, and compile and link there. Or, maybe, if somebody gets real ambitious, they could write a linker/loader that would take the COFF files produced by the 3b1 compiler and link them into a real live Amiga executable. -- Michael J. Farren | "INVESTIGATE your point of view, don't just {ucbvax, uunet, hoptoad}! | dogmatize it! Reflect on it and re-evaluate unisoft!gethen!farren | it. You may want to change your mind someday." gethen!farren@lll-winken.llnl.gov ----- Tom Reingold, from alt.flame
peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (01/15/88)
> Please post answers to the net, I think this information could be > of use to anybody with a graphics weak UNIX system who is interested > in expanding to a nice graphics box (cheaply). I'd also like to hear > from Peter da Silva and all other Amiga hacks that have some UNIX > experience as to how hard/easy using an Amiga as front end to a > UNIX box would be. Plan A: (1) Get a copy of UW, say from a Fred Fish disk. (2) Write a UW host-side implementation for the 3b1. You can probably hook the BSD version into whatever pseudo-terminal devices the 3b1 uses for its own windows. Plan B: (1) Get a copy of UW, etc... (2) Install the PTY driver that's been floating around the net lately (I even think I've seen a version already 3b2-ized), and hook the BSD UW host in... Plan C: (1) You know... (2) Blow off full tty support with stty, ioctl, etc... and set up UW to run through pipes. -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.
fetrow@uw-entropy.UUCP (01/17/88)
If you're satisfied with tek401X type graphics or even writing your own
graphics system between 3B1 and terminal the Amiga is pretty good.
If you're planning on running a full-blown layers system on the Amiga
I really don't think so. By full-blown layers I mean stuff like the tty5620
can do: rotating 3-d points in a graphics window without much help from
the host system, etc. The hardware could do it but layers is no joke.
Hmmm. The Amiga would make a rather nice cheap layers terminal (although
the resolution is a bit rough). Might be a lot of work but it could be
worth it.
--
-Dave Fetrow-
{ihnp4,tektronix}!uw-beaver!entropy!fetrow :UUCP
fetrow@entropy.ms.washington.edu :INTERNET
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