Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!ira.uka.de!fauern!faui43.informatik.uni-erlangen.de!bdraschk
From: bdraschk@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Bernd Raschke)
Subject: Re: The Amiga's Future
Message-ID: <1991Jun5.082131.14690@informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
Organization: CSD., University of Erlangen, Germany
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> <1991Jun4.105736.15468@news.iastate.edu>
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1991 08:21:31 GMT
Lines: 86

taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) writes:

>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!!!!
And here he isabsolutely RIGHT!
Here in Europe, all Amigas run natively in PAL mode with a display rate
of 50Hz, 25Hz interlaced. Can you imagine Kick 2.0 on am overscanned inter-
laced display, light background and dark letters? It will destroy your
monitor, your glasses, your eyes, your brain.
Since i bought my Nec 3D, i've been using my 1084 simply a (good) TV-set.
The Nec has a very sharp display, so that i could see the black lines better :(
One and a half months ago i bought a flicker-fixer and couldn't live without
it anymore. And still i have only 724*568 at 50Hz!!!!!!
At the university i'm used to at least 1000*800 in 60Hz and better. I could
_easily_ forget the NTSC-PAL compatibility, if i had such a display at home.
And a word to the Toaster:
yes, it provides 24bit in bla*bla, but still Video and still NTSC, what means,
when the first Toaster is sold in Europe, it will be about 1993 :-(

Here in Germany, not many people are willing to buy an A3000 (at an enourmous
price), just to have 640*480 in 60Hz or 640*512 in 50Hz. If you could read
sub.sys.amiga, you'd see, that many students consider buying something like
a nExt (although it's even more expensive than the A3000).

>   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.  
 Again true. The chip itself might be 98% new, but the output is still nearly
the same.
>>
>>  [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.
 Again true. All these wounderful cards are not likely to be supported by any
Kickstart, may it be 2.0, 2.1 or ... Although Visiona is coming
(X-Pert provides an own windowing system with lots of kickstart lookalike
libraries (but more flexible)), we'll have to wait for the final solution.

Ciao,
	bernd

PS: Don't you bash _That_ much on Marc. This is c.s.a.advocacy, it needs an
    advocatus diaboli (sp?)! Although I don't like his "C= R&D spendings"-posts
    either :-)
---
Bernd 'The Real Arthur!' Raschke           |Only //
bdraschk@faui09.informatik.uni-erlangen.de | \\ // Amiga
hartmannstr. 129 8520 erlangen 09131 38244 |  \X/ makes it possible
               "You're only human, supposed to make mistakes..."
