Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
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From: taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett)
Subject: Re: The Amiga's Future
Message-ID: <1991Jun4.105736.15468@news.iastate.edu>
Sender: news@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System)
Reply-To: taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA.
References: <6678@vela.acs.oakland.edu> <1991Jun03.053144.3208@ariel.unm.edu> <1991Jun4.003619.3661@news.iastate.edu>,<1991Jun4.025024.823@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1991 10:57:36 GMT
Lines: 168

In article <1991Jun4.025024.823@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>, rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes:
>In article <1991Jun4.003619.3661@news.iastate.edu> taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu writes:
>
>  
>  [Where does he get these statistics?]
>
>>   Time for a reality check.  For 95% of the people in the Amiga community,
>>the Toaster is totally useless.  The Toaster is not going to save the
>>Amiga, because it is a product intended for a very limited purpose.  Few
>>Amiga owners have any need whatsoever for a special-effects box, and the
>>flickering display makes the Toaster unsuitable for other applications.
>
>  Marc, are you epileptic? The reason I ask is because everytime you
>make an arguement against the Amiga you always bring up the flicker.
>NON-Flicker displays are expensive, NTSC incompatible, and only
>useful for TEXT processing. In short, if a machine doesn't have an
                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>interlaced display mode, it sucks.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

   Excuse me while I laugh my head of...

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

   OK, that's better.  Anyway, if you really, truly believe that flicker-
free displays suck, then you'd better tell that to the millions of people
who have purchased MAC and IBM systems with non-interlaced displays.  
All of these people are totally stupid to be so converned about their
eyesight that they are willing to pay extra for a display that doesn't
flicker.  Hell, having to change ones glasses or contact prescription
every few weeks has never hurt anybody.  

   Commodore had better get rid of that totally useless thing on the
motherboard of the A3000.  It is totally stupid to waste valuable 
motherboard space with something as stupid as a device that eliminates
the flicker.  Commodore had better recall all existing A3000 systems
at once and get rid of those chips, because nobody wants them and it
was totally stupid to put them there in the first place.

   BTW, the Japanese are in big trouble.  All of those companies that
are working on flicker-free HDTV technology are totally stupid.  People
*WANT* flicker, so there isn't a chance in hell that HDTV will succeed.

>Removing flicker from the Toaster
>would be idiotic. For drawing/rendering for broadcast video, flicker
>is acceptable. It's besides the point anyway, since the A3000/ECS provide
>non-flickering SHARP displays.

   Every time someone mentions broadcasting, as if all computers are used
for broadcasting and none are used for anything else, I wish I could reach
through the CRT of my monitor and wrench that person's brains out of their
ears.  Even with the Amiga, which is ideally suited for broadcast uses,
only a tiny fraction of the installed base of Amigas are used for
broadcasting.  By far the majority of all Amigas sold are being used 
for the same uses that all other MACs and IBMs are being used for:
games, word processing, desktop publishing, etc..   All of these 
applications benefit so greatly from a sharp display that the flicering,
interlaced display of the Amiga killed the Amiga as a general-purpose
computer for a long time.  Eventually Commodore was forced to implement
a kludge to eliminate the flicker from their newest Amiga.  Without 
the Display Enhancer, nobody doubts that the A3000 would not have had
a chance against the systems from Apple and IBM with very sharp flicker-
free displays.

>
>>   The ECS isn't going to do much for the Amiga, either, because it was
>>obsolete before it even went into production.  The ECS is also 98% 
>>identical to the very oldest Amiga chipset.  
>
>  How do you know this? Have you compared the schematics? Just because
>it only has slightly improved display modes doesn't mean that it's
>virtually identical. It may have taken considerable design effort and
>optimizations to fit those extra features on the already packed chips.
>I get the feeling you think the engineers merely threw in some new
>modes over a lunch break and had it ready in a few days. I admit, I'm
>not an expert on the chip design process, but I'll bet that the
>ECS is NOT 98% identical to the old chip set. The denise has had many
>new programmble features added.

   With the ECS, Commodore basically took some of the registers that
were hard-wired in the old chipset and made them programmable.  From 
here, the new modes were achieved by using the new programmable 
registers.  Overall, however, not all that many changes were made.

   If you doubt my word, use common sense.  Most of the features of the
old chipset are unchanged in the ECS.  Commodore made a few registers
programmable, and as a result was able to add some resolution modes
and other capabilities, but overall everything is the some.  Hell,
Commodore did not even touch the Paula chip at all, which remains 
exactly the same today as it was six years ago.  I can even take two
of the custom chips from my old A1000 (Commodore's oldest machine) sitting
here, put them into an A3000 (Commodore's newest and most advanced machine),
and many people would not be able to tell the difference when using 
the A3000.
   
>
>  [tangential stuff deleted]
>  A few months you were complaining about no video cards being availible
>for the Amiga, now the situation has changed (Toaster, HAM-E, DCTV,
>Colorburst, DMI's Card, Firecracker/24, A2410, A2024(well sorta),
>VideoMaster/32(not out yet),Video Blender(not out yet),Harlequin, etc.
>BTW, DMI and Firecracker both have higher resolution than Apple's 8/24
>card. They require very expensive monitors(DMI) for the high resolution
>modes (megapixel 24bit color).)

   I don't remember ever complaining about the lack of video cards for
the Amiga in the past two years.  For the past three years, I've 
actually been complaining about there being too many available that
were incompatible with each other and even with the Amiga's OS.  There
are no standards for the Amiga third-party video hardware market in
sight, and any program that is written for one video card absolutely
will not work with any of the other video cards.  I believe the thread
I started was called "Amiga Video Mess", and the problem shows no
signs of alleviating as more incompatible video cards are produced.

>
>  After all this, you are now back to picking on the custom chip set and
>flicker again? Remember, it took the Mac 6 _years_ to finally overcome
>the PC market, the Amiga is not going become a success overnight however
>it is gaining ground. Technical specs don't define success either, since
>the Amiga has had better specs than both the Mac and the IBM when the
>Amiga was released. Advertising and software availibility are the key.
>Marc, do you actually own an Amiga? Everytime someone posts an
>"Amiga's future/success in business/new display availible" you 
>respond with a "Doom and Gloom" post. If you're this down on the Amiga, why
>don't you just buy a Mac and be over with it? 
> Myself, I won't settle for anything less than an Amiga or a Unix box.
>
>[Why did I bring up the Mac? Well Marc would have brung it up anyway,
>and I happen to despise the Mac environment (too confining) and it's 
>condescending interface. ]

   If you don't like the MAC's "condescending interface", you had better
not ever take a look at a CDTV.  The interface of the CDTV is so rigid
and simplistic as to make the MAC look like a UNIX system.  The fact is,
the average American person is a complete moron, and you have to make
computers simple or they will not sell.  Commodore borrowed quite a
lot from the MAC with Workbench 2.0, and people are continually calling
on Commodore to borrow more from Apple and make the Workbench even more
MAC-like.  Judging from the sales of the MAC compared to the sales of
the Amiga, Commodore is right to be borrowing as much as possible
from the MAC.

>
>>>
>>>
>>>                                        NCW
>>  -------------------------------------------------------------
>> / Marc Barrett  -MB- | BITNET:   XGR39@ISUVAX.BITNET        /   
>>/  ISU COM S Student  | Internet: XGR39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU   /      
>>------------------------------------------------------------    
>>\  ISU : The Home of the Goon                             /
>> \       Who wants to Blow Up the Moon                   /
>>  -------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>--
>/ INET:rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu     *   // The opinions expressed here do not      \
>| INET:r_cromwe@upr2.clu.net  | \X/  in any way reflect the views of my self.|
>\ UUCP:uunet!tnc!m0023        *                                              /
>
  -------------------------------------------------------------
 / Marc Barrett  -MB- | BITNET:   XGR39@ISUVAX.BITNET        /   
/  ISU COM S Student  | Internet: XGR39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU   /      
------------------------------------------------------------    
\  ISU : The Home of the Goon                             /
 \       Who wants to Blow Up the Moon                   /
  -------------------------------------------------------
