eric@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Eric Lavitsky) (08/27/85)
Hi,
net.micro.amiga is finally here. As a proud owner of a Commodore Amiga,
I would like to open this newsgroup with an offer. I have now had a few
days to play with my machine and go through much of my documentation.
Please post questions (technical please, not 'where can I get one'), and
I will do my best to answer them on this group. I hope to be able to post
a few sources and code examples soon, but am unable to do so at this time.
I am very excited about this machine, though most people won't be able
to get their hands on one till the end of September, I hope to spread
some of that enthusiasm around. I will try to answer questions with a
minimum of overhead, but please forgive me if I lose myself now and
then and ramble about how great the machine is etc.
Here we go!...
Eric
--
ARPA: LAVITSKY@RUTGERS
UUCP: ...{harvard,seismo,ut-sally,sri-iu,ihnp4}!topaz!eric
SNAIL: 16 Oak St., Flr 2
New Brunswick, NJ 08903dje@petrus.UUCP (Danny J. Espinoza) (08/29/85)
> > Hi, > > net.micro.amiga is finally here. As a proud owner of a Commodore Amiga, > I would like to open this newsgroup with an offer. I have now had a few > days to play with my machine and go through much of my documentation. > Please post questions (technical please, not 'where can I get one'), and > I will do my best to answer them on this group. I hope to be able to post > a few sources and code examples soon, but am unable to do so at this time. > > I am very excited about this machine, though most people won't be able > to get their hands on one till the end of September, I hope to spread > some of that enthusiasm around. I will try to answer questions with a > minimum of overhead, but please forgive me if I lose myself now and > then and ramble about how great the machine is etc. > > Here we go!... > Eric > -- > > ARPA: LAVITSKY@RUTGERS > UUCP: ...{harvard,seismo,ut-sally,sri-iu,ihnp4}!topaz!eric > SNAIL: 16 Oak St., Flr 2 > New Brunswick, NJ 08903 Okay. Let's start asking questions! 1) How good are the sound capabilities of the Amiga? Is there any good software that uses it? Will there be software like MusicWorks and ConcertWare? 2) What's the resolution of the screen? How many colors can the Amiga display at the same time? Tell us all about the graphics. -- Danny Espinoza ...!bellcore!dje or dje@bellcore.ARPA
dmak@watarts.UUCP (Derwin Mak) (08/29/85)
In response to the offer that was made, here are some questions:
1. Could I easily interface a shugart compatible 5.25 inch diskette
drive (80 tracks double sided) to the amiga.
2. Will my MX80 printer work with the amiga and can I use it to print
graphics or do I have to go out and purchase a special printer as
with the Macintosh.
3. How fast is the amiga (with a single process running). I'm talking
about computation speed, disk access speed and graphics speed.
Comparisons to other micros (ie IBM PC or APPLE MAC) would be
helpful here.
4. And now a question requiring a highly subjective response:
How easy is it to write programs for the amiga that utilize the mouse
icons and windows and other related user interface stuff.
How easy is it to write programs which do not use fancy user interfaces?
How good are the software development tools (ie assembler, C compiler,
Pascal compiler) etc.
Thanks.cg@myriasb.UUCP (Chris Gray) (08/29/85)
..
You're gonna get flack about building this news group, but I'm on your
side - long live net.micro.amiga!!
Here's a couple of questions for you:
- how wide is the on-board data bus 8? 16? 32?
- how wide is the data bus that goes off board?
does it require any extra wait states?
- Does your machine have the DOS in ROM or RAM?
(I think most of us would prefer the RAM variant - maybe we can
pursuade Amiga/Commodore to forget about ROMing it.)
- I gather the coprocessors can do line drawing. About how many lines
per second can they draw? How much does bogging the coprocessors
down really slow down the 68K?
- How's the documentation you get? How much, how complete?
- What software do you get with it? (BASIC and/or Logo I don't care about)
There, that should keep you busy for a while!
Chris Gray {...,ihnp4}!alberta!myrias!cgknf@druxo.UUCP (FricklasK) (08/30/85)
->Okay. Let's start asking questions!
->1) How good are the sound capabilities of the Amiga? Is there any good
->software that uses it? Will there be software like MusicWorks and
->ConcertWare?
It blows AWAY anything so far available! You can digitize the output of your
stereo! And Electronic Arts is coming out with come great software for it!!
And commodore is coming out with a plug in digital keyboard for it!! And you
can use its memory as a sequencer!!! And I'm going really heavy on the exclams!!! !!!! !!!! !! !!!!! !!
(etc!)
Software for it will include:
Harmony (Commodore) composition software, optional keyboard.
Instant Music (Electronic Arts)
Deluxe Music Construction Set (Electronic Arts)
All available at release, with more due out in November.
2) What's the resolution of the screen? How many colors can the Amiga
display at the same time? Tell us all about the graphics.
Resolution:
640x200 16 colors, non-interlaced.
320x200 32 colors, non-interlaced.
640x400 16 colors, interlaced.
320x400 32 colorsm interlaced.
Composite, digital RGB, and analog RGB outputs. (need analog monitor to take
full advantage of the 4096 possible colors.)
"Hold and modify" mode to display all 4096 colors at once.
Eight hardware sprites, up to 16 pixels wide by any height, ap to 12 colors.
Graphics coprocessor ("copper").
Dedicated processor that moves around pieces of the screen ("Blitter").
Built in animation routines in ROM.
Custom peripheral/sound chip, creates complex waveform sound generation.
That's the basics. If you want to get technical, Lavitsky will have to
answer.
'`'`'
Ken
'`'`'
Friends of Amiga
Boulder's First Amiga User Group (or shouldI say fan club)
--
Danny Espinoza
...!bellcore!dje or dje@bellcore.ARPAss@wanginst.UUCP (Sid Shapiro) (08/30/85)
Thanks for the offer. A short question which you may not know the
answer to, just to keep things interesting.
I saw the presentation of the Amiga at the BCS the other day. There
was IBM emulator software. The demonstrator had 2 machines going.
One specifically to show off the emulator. He loaded the emulator,
then booted a PCDOS disk, then fired up lotus. But then he switched
to the other machine for the full blown amiga demos. Can you not run
the emulator in one window and normal amiga stuff in other windows?
Do you have to do a machine reset to get back to native amiga world?
And finally does the emulation handle graphics (ibm graphics, not
amiga)
One comment: I was blown away by the demo. This looks like a very
exciting machine - particularly when the price is mentioned. But I
wonder, will the price still be great when it finally hits the
stores?
Anyway, thanks for the group and the of information. Looking
forward to lots of good stuff here.
--
Sid Shapiro -- Wang Institute of Graduate Studies
[apollo, bbncca, ucadmus, decvax, linus, masscomp]!wanginst!ss
ss%wang-inst@Csnet-Relay.ARPA
(617)649-9731warack@aero.ARPA (Chris Warack) (08/30/85)
ro.UUCP |@ ___ | seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!ittatc!dcdwest! |_______| sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwrba!aero!warack || || \ Aerospace Corporation, M1-117, El Segundo, CA 90245 ^^^ ^^^ `---------(|=
homeier@aero.ARPA (Peter Homeier) (08/30/85)
I am very interested in the how the new Amiga machine compares with
the Apple Macintosh. Could you prepare a technical discussion showing
each machine's strengths and weaknesses relative to the other? Both
machines are of the same general type, yet have some obvious and
interesting differences (i.e., available software, color).
Peter Homeier
ARPANET: homeier@aerospace
--
Peter Homeier ______
Arpanet: homeier@aerospace / o \_/
UUCP: ..!ihnp4!trwrb!aero!homeier \__/___/ \midkiff@uiucdcsb.Uiuc.ARPA (08/31/85)
So why is all this stuff still appearing in net.micro?
Sam Midkiff
{ihnp4, pur-ee}!uiucdcs!midkifferic@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Eric Lavitsky) (09/02/85)
Hi,
I did manage to grab a pre-release of the PC emulator as well. Once
going in PC mode, that`s all you can use the Amiga for. No nice windows
or multi-tasking. You must totally reset the machine to recover to the
Amiga OS. I don't know if the emulator handles graphics for things like
Flight Simulator as I don't have a 5-1/4 inch drive.
Eric
--
ARPA: LAVITSKY@RUTGERS
UUCP: ...{harvard,seismo,ut-sally,sri-iu,ihnp4}!topaz!eric
SNAIL: 16 Oak St., Flr 2
New Brunswick, NJ 08903moose@ames.UUCP (Mary Kaiser) (09/03/85)
*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR DESPERATE PLEA FOR INFO ***
Some of here are very interested in using Amigas (Amigi?) as laboratory
computers. I know this is an obscure application that most of y'all
couldn't care less about, but would those who can answer the following
questions please bear with us (and who knows, some of these issues might
be relevant to your applications):
1) Will the Amiga have (either on the motherboard or as a peripheral) a
real-time *programmable* clock?
2) How good are the A/D, D/A capabilities of the Amiga, and how accessible
are they?
3) Can the audio output be programmed such that the Amiga could be used
for psychoacoustic studies? That is, do you have precise control
over wave shape, amplitude, and temporal onset for the two channels?
Thanks to all for any information. I will post any received info of
general interest.
U.S. Mail: Mary Kaiser net.mail: ames!moose@RIACS.ARPA
Mail Stop 239-3
NASA-Ames Research Center
Moffett Field, CA 94035
ATT(MCI,Sprint): (415) 694-6789hedrick@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Charles Hedrick) (09/04/85)
> Some of here are very interested in using Amigas (Amigi?) as laboratory
Amiga is Spanish ("friend", feminine). Plural is amigas.dmm@calmasd.UUCP (David M. MacMillan) (09/05/85)
>> Some of here are very interested in using Amigas (Amigi?) as laboratory > >Amiga is Spanish ("friend", feminine). Plural is amigas. Even if "amiga" were Latin, it would be first declension, thus its nominative plural would be "amigae" (other examples of first declension nouns used in English might include "larva" (nom. plur. "larvae"). Only second declension nouns such as "alumnus" form the nom. plural with "i" (alumni). However, since amiga is Spanish, and doubtless chosen by the manufacturer's marketing dept. to mean "friend", the Spanish plural must be taken to be correct. As it corresponds to the English plural, this shouldn't be so difficult. Don't you love it when people clutter up a perfectly useful technical newsgroup with arcane philological details. David M. MacMillan PAX VOBISCUM, AMIGA. (which, here, is in the Vocative case)
moose%ames.uucp@BRL.ARPA (Mary Kaiser) (09/07/85)
> > Some of here are very interested in using Amigas (Amigi?) as laboratory > > Amiga is Spanish ("friend", feminine). Plural is amigas. I know, but Amigi had such a nice ring to it...
hr@uicsl.UUCP (09/10/85)
<>
"...However, since amiga is Spanish, and doubtless chosen by the
manufacturer's marketing dept. to mean "friend"....
I read somewhere that the original name was "AMICA". When Amiga's parents
found that that word was already taken, they changed one of the letters.
I believe that they did not at first make the association with the
Spanish word.
harold ravlin
{ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!uicsl!hr