trudel@topaz.ARPA (Jonathan D.) (07/25/85)
I had the pleasure of attending the official press release of the new
Commodore Amiga. Commodore has put a lot of effort into this machine, and
the effort has paid off.
Physically, the Amiga is a standard box shape. In its standard configuration,
the Amiga comes with 256k of memory, internally expandable to 512k, a
built-in 3 1/2" disk drive, a two-button mouse, and a detachable keyboard.
There are several expansion ports, including an RS-232 interface, a
configurable parallel printer interface, two system expansion ports, two
controller (psuedo-game) ports, and a pair of audio outputs(for stereo output).
Finally, the Amiga allows the use of several of the standard video outputs,
including digital and analog RGB, and NTSC television and composite video
outputs as well.
So, what about the machine as a whole? The Amiga has great graphics, great
sound, and a good operating system. There are several graphics resolution
modes- 320 X 200 with 32 colors, 320 X 400 with 32 colors, 640 X 200 with 16
colors, and 640 X 400 with 16 colors. There are 4096 available colors, all
various shades of the primary colors. I can't really do justice to the
pictures I saw, because as you know a picture is worth 1000 words (or so
they say). The sounds I heard were very good, and many were near-exact
reproductions of musical instruments- tuba, xylophone, and guitar to
name-drop a few. They showed that the Amiga could do digital sampling of
sound (they reproduced an eagle), and I'm sure that special equipment is
needed for that. As for the operating system, called Intuition, it appears
to be a hybrid of MS-DOS and the Macintosh Finder. What this means is that
you have a choice of the two, plus some middle ground, according to your
preferences.
As for marketing, Commodore seems to have changed their strategy substantially.
The Amiga is supposed to be more of a serious computer than anything they
have previously marketed. It is geared towards the business market, with a
leaning on the personal/home use. It shall be interesting to see if
Commodore can change people's minds here. One of the 'specialty' store
chains, whose name escapes me, is going to start selling the Amiga alongside
their IBM PC clones.
Ah yes, I had to bring it up somewhere. The Amiga will have the ability to
run IBM PC software. At the release, It was announced that there is an
expansion set that will plug into the Amiga, which includes 1 or 2 disk
drives, and the package includes the software necessary to run the programs.
I was quite skeptical about actual comaptability, especially because of the
processor incompatability (Amiga uses a 68000, the IBM an 8088), but lo and
behold, it ran Lotus 1-2-3. A caveat here is that I only saw it run in
monochrome mode, so it may only be a monochrome adaptation. Nonetheless, I
think this was a wise move on Commodore's part, to allow the businessman who
wishes to change over to the Amiga a chance to run his already-bought
programs without much difficulty.
The price of the Amiga will be $1295 for the standard configuration. The
512k upgrade for the Amiga will cost in the vicinity of $200. It is not
known what the IBM compatability package will cost, but the rumors state it
should be about $500, which puts the Amiga in the running as an inexpensive
IBM compatable as well. Right now, only time will tell if the Amiga can
meet the demands of the public.
ps-As far as other expansions and software support go, I have yet to digest
the majority of the material recieved. I will post more as soon as I have
read more. Tecmar has announced a hard disk, and there will be various
programming languages released soon too.
--
Jonathan D. Trudel
arpa:trudel@ru-blue.arpa
uucp:{seismo,allegra,ihnp4}!topaz!trudel
"You can't fight in here, this is the WAR ROOM!"