richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (11/03/87)
In article <1043@uhccux.UUCP> cm450s02@uhccux.UUCP (jeff t. segawa) writes: >at all, it's usually in the cutout bins, and is almost always games, or maybe >some business software I've never heard of, and the business programs I've seen >don't seem to offer any advantages in terms of power, features or ease of use >over my existing Mac software, and more often than not, the Amiga software >appears to fall far short of it's Mac counterpart. Amiga games, on the other >hand, can be very impressive. I've played Marble Madness and Mindwalker on >the Amiga and was very impressed. Great graphics and sound! Loved DPaint II, >also. Trouble is, I can't see spending $500+ to play games! The Amiga needs >some useful type of software that is unique, not a bunch of so-so programs >that look like they were ported over from other systems (and not very well). "useful type of software that is unique" Hmm. You mean like those animation packages that use the amiga specific hardware ? For ease of use, right now, as it stands, I would have to say the mac is the easiest way to get good black and white illustrations down on paper; I just spent a couple of days fighting with Dpaint, IFF -> PS convertors and hacking in some postscript code just to get some illustrations for a manual finished. But, that could change and somebody could write a decent macwhatever clone for the Amiga. Where it really shines, is playing with video both in post production, but also generation and synthesis of images. In simpler terms, you wanna write a small book ? Use a mac. You wanna play Andy Warhol ? Use an amiga. Sure either computer can do either, but each does its own 'type' of work with more relative ease. Disclaimer: No computer wars, please. You should own one of each :-) -- Richard J. Sexton INTERNET: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM UUCP: {hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, ihnp4, nosc}!crash!gryphon!richard "It's too dark to put the keys in my ignition..."
richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (11/06/87)
Oh no, not another pissing contest! No, not really. In article <6595@apple.UUCP> korn@apple.UUCP (Peter "Arrgh" Korn) writes: >There comes a time in every UseNet poster's life when, though he knows better, >he just can't resist the temptation to post the response and risk starting >up a discussion that really shouldn't be started up for the n-th time, rather >than simply mailing it.... > >This is one of those times. > I expected the worst... >In <1043@uhccux.UUCP>, cm450s02@uhccux.UUCP (jeff t. segawa) said: > >>>Go to an Amiga dealer sometime and look at how much software is out there --- >>>certainly more than for a dead machine. > >>I think you've just brought up the biggest problem I've encountered with >>the Amiga: SOFTWARE! Off and on, I've been following developments in >>the Amiga world, looking for an excuse to buy a second computer. Trouble >>is, when I go to the software store, I generally see lots of IBM and Apple II >>software, a fairly decent selection of Mac software, and if I see Amiga software >>at all, it's usually in the cutout bins, and is almost always games, or maybe >>some business software I've never heard of, and the business programs I've seen >>don't seem to offer any advantages in terms of power, features or ease of use >>over my existing Mac software, and more often than not, the Amiga software >>appears to fall far short of it's Mac counterpart. > >Jeff, where do you live, and what stores do you frequent? Mac-enthusiast >that I am, I too have followed the Amiga market; indeed, I've worked in a >store that sold both Apple and Amiga (and Atari & PC) hardware & software, >and it can no longer truthfully be said that the Amiga doesn't have a large >base of software written for it. Nor can it be said that it doesn't have >quite a few very high quality non-game packages for it. Word Perfect in >the word processing category; Delux Paint II, & two others (who's names >escape me for the moment) in the painting category (all three better than >most everything currently available for the macintosh, LaserPaint included); [... all in all, very nice stuff, Esp. coming from an Apple employee :-) ] >Third-party hardware products are almost uniformly poor in quality (with >the exception of some of the memory expansion products), aren't all compatible >with eachother, especially as the expansion board spec. changes several times >ove the last two years (somewhere between 3 & 6 times, if I recall), are >fairly expensive (when it comes to hard-drives), are not marketed well >through dealers, etc. etc. [.. then a few wellplaced barbs about things like 3rd party peripherals, bus spec changes etc.. nothing we can deny :-(] >At the same time, after firing most of it's best engineers, Ah yes, THAT. Well, these things happen in the industry. I don't know exactly what happened, so I won't comment. Do you know what happened ? What I do know is there are still some "original" Amiga people still around, and even ones that left seem to be going around in background mode, with their Boy Scout badges on, doing good deeds like helping the [in]famous Amiga Live! to finally see the light of day. >Commodore has >put itself in the position of not being able to really lead the market in >innovations anymore. Programs like HyperCard probably won't come out of >Commodore first. So ? Hyper-whatever is an application. The role of a computer company is to 1) build the machine 2) Put some OS software on it if there is time, and 3) Applications - applications !?! Hah. I for one appreciate (Amiga's ? CA's) decision to go the route they did with their operating system. It's pretty slick. Let the third party vendors sweat the application's. Thats THEIR job. In other words, given the choice of a slick O/S and no applications OR CP/M68K and AmigaPAINT and AmigaDRAW, I'd pick the former every time. Besides, the way I heard it (correct my if I'm wrong - by email) was that the fella who invented this hyper-whatever brought the product to Apple and said "here - give this away with your name on it, or I'LL give it away". So what did Apple innovate here ? >Innovations probably won't be the rule around commodore >anymore; especially software innovations. Most all of that will have to >come from third-party sources, and unless these sources get together via >users-groups or what-have-you to standardize, what innovations that do arise >may very well not be compatible with eachother. One of the things that has >characterized the Macintosh is the high degree to which 3rd party products >are compatible with eachother. Unfortunately that isn't nearly as prevelantly >the case with Amiga software (where most of the games re-start your machine >when you exit them, and word processors *still* by and large are unable to >handle graphics or fonts, or have even the slightest concept of font families). Ok, Peter, your were on a roll, but: 1) Third party standards. Its called IFF. It allows different applications to exchange bit-mapped images, animations, and sound. Almost without exception, all amiga applications grok this. We amiga folk sure wish you apple folk would support this so we could share more stuff. 2) Re-booting after games. This is a heinous practice usually resulting from games companies resorting to moderatly wretched copy protection schemes that have very little to do with Amiga, AmigaDOS, Commodore, Apple Eric Mading or navel lint. 3) Word processors. There are font-able WP's out there. There might even be one with graphics. I dont know, I don't follow that stuff. I don't understand your commant about font families. Perhaps you could explain. >So, what machine should everyone go out and buy? Why that's simple: a MacII. Most of the, no, strike that, all of the Amiga people I know have no great love for Commodore, Apple or the new Atari. They bought their machines for the graphics, mostly with a goal for animations. While the Mac ][ is a damn nice consumer product, it is just another *yawn, ho-hum* as far as fancy graphics hardware goes. If it offered any clear advantage over my Amiga, I would have dashed right out and bought one. I was kind of surprised to hear how little is does have in the graphics hardware support department. So, what machine should everyone go out and buy ? One that suits their needs/wants/desires. Note that I certainly don't want to start another pissing contest disguised as a computer war; I just like to argue :-) > Peter "Arrgh" Korn Richard [whats all that screaming about] Sexton -- Richard J. Sexton INTERNET: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM UUCP: {hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, ihnp4, nosc}!crash!gryphon!richard "It's too dark to put the keys in my ignition..."