Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    I'll bet a week's pay that 9 out of 10 Apple salesmen think that
    the Mac really multitasks.
    
    I'll bet two week's pay that 10 out of 10 Apple salesmen thing that
    the ][GS has many more graphics modes than the Amiga.
    
    I'll throw up the next time an Apple saleman tells me that the ][GS
    will run over 25,000 programs.  (The figure goes up by about 5K
    titles/week).
    
    I'll bet anything that the rumored high-end Apple 68020 workstation
    will be hailed as a remarkable feat of technology, but I'll also
    bet that it will look a lot like a CSA Turbo Amiga.  Maybe not quite
    as good...
    
    Just some miscellaneous grumbling...I'm having a sucky day...
    
    
    

    I and a buddy of mine ran into an airhead salesman at Instant Software
    in Acton.  Bill asked about the availability of the Genlock for
    the Amiga, and the guy told him, no, they didn't have one for the
    Amiga, but they *did* have one for the ST.  I mumbled "that doesn't
    compute", Bill said "no, it's a piece of *hardware*", and the guy
    insisted he could get a Genlock for the Atari.
    
    Their Amiga, like so many others, is almost always powered down,
    so we always boot it up and leave something interesting running.
    
    len.
    

    FYI  ... the term genlock is generic, just like disk drive. Its
    quite probable that Atari has a similar device in the works for
    the ST.

    I see it all the time .I have had people that were really shocked
    to find out the Amiga has speech capabilities etc. The last time
    I was in Computer Mart in nashua I showed the amiga to some people
    and they ended up buying it .This also happened in their store in
    Manchester .So far I have SOLD three Amigas that I know of for sure
    and I only walk in when I have a bunch of disk maint. to do. It
    would seem that the reason Amigas are powered down is so that they
    will not interfere with the Apple sales .So far in Nashua I have
    encountered
    1: amiga not powered up.
    2: sound cable unpluged(][gs was blaring away)
    3: sound cable in but moniter volume turned down
    4: external drive unplugged
    5: sitting at kickstart screen no disks in sight.(take my own down
    	and always leave glass.img or something running.
    6. salepersons always pull you over to the Apple.
    	All this burns me but I do what I can to offset the situation.
    I always take in any Pd software I can get my Hands on,and while
    I won't interfere with people in the store I am always willing to
    "chat" about the Amiga if I notice someone standing behind me,and
    often complain about support to clerks(thats all tyey are) when
    no one is around .My favorite is to ask for a software package
    that they don't have but is available someware else .It seems
    we are facing a conspiracy here and need to unite to fight it.
    Of course the fact that The Amiga has survived all this only goes
    to show how great it really is. With the rush of new software,and
    other products coming out I feel our day is coming!
    (feel better now)
    
    bill 

    All this talk about defective sales people reminds me of a cute story.
    
    In 1979, I was going to buy my first brand new car!  I had been
    reading all the car rags for years, and knew the zero-to-sixty times
    and top speeds of about a thousand different models.  Anyway, after
    much drooling, I decided to go and pick out a 1979 Mercury Capri
    with a 5.0 liter V-8 and 4-speed.
    
    So, I strolled down into the local Ford/Mercury dealership and grabbed
    the first salesman I could find.  I told him that I wanted a V-8
    Capri RS with a TRX suspension package.
    
    He said "What's a TRX suspension package?", and I told him that it
    made the car handle really well.  he said that there was no such
    package, but that the Capri handled great anyway.  I told him to
    go away and find me a salesman who knew what Capris were.
    
    Another fellow came along to help me and told me that what I really
    wanted was a Mustang GT, which he claimed was a much better car.  (Actually,
    the only differnt part on the two cars was the nameplate).
    
    Finally, I demanded that I be given the options book, and I ordered
    the damn thing myself anyway.
    
    Anyhow, I bet these guys would certainly qualify as Computerland
    salesmen.
    
    PS:  The Capri fell apart after 11 months, and I bought a VW Scirocco.
    

    
    	Why not become an expert salesman yourself ??  I know it is
    conflict of interest being a DEC employee, but I have been offered
    a piece of the action for each sale I can bring into a store.
    	Last week a gave an AMIGA demo in a store to an interested
    customer. The store's AMIGA expert was not in and the store manager
    knew I was an AMIGA owner ( they sold it to me ). They handed me
    a box of disks ( Dpaint, Scribble, PD stuff, ect. ) and I gave a
    quick demo. They made the sale and I got a free box of blank floppies,
    which is what I came in to buy.
    
    

    Funny you should mention that, Steve...I was offered a job at General
    Computer as the resident Amiga champion, but I told the guy that
    I'd help sell Amigas out of my general enthusiasm, but that they
    could not afford to pay me one-quarter of what I was making as
    a highly-paid engineer workin for DEC. :^)

    re: .1
    
    >I'll bet two week's pay that 10 out of 10 Apple salesmen think
    >that the ][GS has many more graphics modes than the Amiga
    
    The ][GS has more graphics modes than the Amiga, if you want to
    count the 8-bit graphics modes.  I wouldn't.  All new software
    should be written for the 320x200 or 640x200 resolution.
    
    -dave

    I think there are three 8-bit modes on the ][GS, and 2 16-bit modes.
    
    The Amiga has....
    
    	320 x 200, non-interlaced
    	320 x 200, interlaced
    	640 x 200, non-interlaced
    	640 x 200, interlaced
    	640 x 400, interlaced
    	Hold & Modify in any of the above
    
    Maybe it's not fair to count interlaced versions of the lo-res modes,
    but I think they qualify as seperate cases...
    
    What I meant was that most salesmen are so ignorant that they do
    not know that the Amiga even has a 640 x 400 color mode at all.
    
    And they wouldn't know what the word 'interlace' means.
    
    What really frosted my pineapple was the article I read in EE Times
    that described the ][GS as having 'near workstation quality' graphics.
    What rubbish!
    

    I thought 400 line vertical resolution was synonymous with interlace.
    
    Have I missed something?
    
    len.
    

    There is a way to get even lo-res screens (320 x 200, & 640 x 200)
    to go into interlace mode thru software.  I use a PD program called
    'SETLACE' in my startup-sequence.  I do not know exactly what SETLACE
    does, but it makes the dark scan lines in between the 200 verticle
    lines disappear completely.  I think it merely sends the 200 verticle
    lines twice in the time taken to send them once in non-interlaced
    mode, using the hardware for sending 400 verticle lines in hi-res
    mode.  The Icon and text verticle height IS NOT halved, as it is
    in true 640 x 400 mode.
    
    Whatever it does, the results are extremely beautiful on a Sony
    monitor, and produces text as crystal clear as any I've ever seen.
    
    Not to pick nits, but Sheldon Leemon once claimed that there were
    17 distinctly different graphics modes on the Amiga.
    
    I really don't care how many graphics modes there are on any computer,
    what is important is how USEFUL they are.  All of the 8-bit modes
    on the Apple ][GS are pretty awful, and the 16-bit graphics modes
    are minor-league stuff, considering that the Amiga has been around
    for over a year now, and pisses all over the ][GS in terms of graphics
    capabilities.
    
    What really struck me as funny was that the salesmen at the
    Computerland where I bought my Amiga (which they later dropped)
    claimed that the ][GS had graphics capabilities that had never before
    been achieved by mortal man, and that the designers should win some
    sort of Nobel Prize for hardware design.  And they are all wet.
    

    Aha, thank you for the explanation.  I have setlace and was puzzled
    by the fact that it didn't make everything half height, but did
    make everything look "smoother".  Now I sort of understand.  I'll
    go back and read the docs more closely to see if I can find a clear
    explanation of the difference between interlace and 400 line
    resolution.
    len.
    

    "near workstation quality" must be a new sales phrase for anything
    that can do 640x200 resolution.
    
    My favorite sales phrase "almost 100% IBMPC compatible".
    
    re: graphics resolutions
    I tend to only count screen resolution based on pixels displayed.
    

Re .13:

>I tend to only count screen resolution based on pixels displayed.

Although I agree that screen resolution is the number of pixels displayed,
I count graphic modes not only by the screen resolution but also by
the number of different colors that can be simultaneously displayed.
Thus, I consider HAM versus normal mode on the Amiga to double the
number of graphics modes.  Likewise, I consider 640x200 with 2 bitplanes
to be a different graphics mode from 640x200 with 4 bitplanes.

    Well, if you want to count the graphics modes like some of the eight
    bit machines did, it's got a bunch.
    
    The Atari 8 bits stuff used to have a bunch of graphics modes (where
    "bunch" is somewhere in the vicinity of 14-16 or so), some of which
    were text and most of which were straight graphics.  These were
    quite distinct modes in that most of them represented different
    values that you fed to the Antic chip in the display list.  But,
    there wasn't really that much variation in the resolution (especially
    given that the ultra low res (80 pixels wide) was nearly useless),
    or the way the mode worked.
    
    The count of "modes" actually came from the permutations of graphics
    density and number of colors.  So, you had low res 4 colors, low
    res 2 colors, low res 1 color, medium res 4 colors, medium res 2
    colors, etc.
    
    If we want to count Amiga graphics modes using this technique, we
    get a whole bunch of graphics modes, because it's a large subset
    of the permutations of hi res vs low res, 1-5 (or 4) bit planes,
    {dual playfield, ham or normal}, interlace on/off, etc.
    
    Gets to be a real big number real fast, and I suspect, larger than
    the ][ GS, even if they counted the 8 bit modes using the same
    techniques.
    
    The real question seems to be how you count your modes.  I'd think
    calling low res 1 plane and low res 2 plane different modes ain't
    fair, but like I just said, some of the 8 bit machines did call
    them different modes.

    
    		Let's not get TOO technical about this, all I know and
    	care about is what I saw. i saw the "ultimate graphics mode"
    	of the ][GS, and I YAWNED! We've got a better hunk of plastic,
    	no two ways about it. And with Sidecar, We are in BUSINESS!
    
    						G. Sankar

Re .11 & .12:

This is probably the wrong place for this question, but what is the 
disadvantage of SetLace - why isn't it the default for 200 line displays?
Does it result in stealing useful cycles from the cpu?  If so, is this 
significant?

	Paul

    Sheeesh .. why should it be the default? You must have a very
    expensive long persistence monitor (or bad eyes) to want to be
    using interlaced mode all the time. 

    I personally do not like using interlace.  Even with adjusting my
    Sony monitor to minimize the flicker, I find it distracting.  I
    only use it when I have to transfer images to video.  (In Hi-Res
    I have no choice)
    
    Yes, on a high persistance monitor, it looks great.  I just don't
    care for it on my Sony, regardless of how it is adjusted.
    
    Randy
    

    Interestingly enough, Amiga guru Matt Dillon has reported that running
    in interlaced mode causes absolutely no extra cpu activity or slowdown
    whatsoever.
    
    I guess it is just a matter of taste.  I can't stand to see the
    dark horizontal lines on my Sony monitor.  I have picked some pleasant
    workbench colors (sorta Mac-like, with red highlights) that eliminate
    flicker completely.  Course, I also use my Amiga in a nice dark
    room with no screen glare or direct light on the monitor.
    
    By the way, I use a $40,000 MegaTEK CAD terminal all day long at
    work, and we have to use a very expensive Polaroid glare screen
    or the flicker is unbearable.  The monitor has a 780 line interlaced
    display mode.
    
    

    If you have dark horizontal lines then you have not adjusted your
    vertical hold correctly. You need to adjust the vertical hold so
    that the lines disappear. Then you'll notice the flicker with light
    colors. Flicker on a standard monitor indicates that it is correctly
    adjusted (oddly enough). The flicker would not be there with a LP
    monitor. The dark horizontal lines that appear when the vertical
    hold is not fine tuned would still appear on an LP monitor.

    On my Sony, running in non-interlaced mode, no amount of verticle
    dithering will eliminate the horizontal lines.  Only by running
    in interlaced mode can I make them go away.
    
    I have the KV1311CR, what model do you have Paul?
    

    I have the same model.  Even with all the adjusting, I can still
    see a little of the dark lines.  When running something like workbench
    or VT100 in Hi-Res, I find the flickering of the characters annoying.
    I have tried using muted colors, turning down the brightness, etc.
    
    The flicker is still there, although reduced, but not enough to
    make it pleasant.
    
    Randy
    

It is not the case that all people see flicker the same way.  
Some people's eyes are "faster" than others, i.e., have less 
persistence, and some slower, i.e., longer persistence.  (I get 
this info from the video engineering people.)  You will find 
also that flicker is more readily seen in the peripheral vision, 
and thus *appears* worse on large screens.  And so forth.  

A large percentage of people find 60Hz interlaced screens 
disturbing.  I, for instance, cannot adjust my Sony KV1311CR so
that the flicker doesn't make me seasick.  If you can, you're 
lucky; but that doesn't mean that your friends won't be seasick. 

rick

    i finally got around to trying Workbench 1.2's interlace mode.
    
    After much flicker and testing, i found green letters on a grey-blue
    background are very readable and had no visible flicker most of
    the time.  I love having a 640x400 workbench - the top half of the
    screen is for icons, the bottom half for a CLI.
    
    I read in a book on the Apple ][GS that they had rejected the idea
    doing 640x400 resolution because it needed a special monitor or interlace.
    I think Amiga made the right choice - you don't need a special monitor
    to use it (avoids the ST mono vs color problem), and if some future
    monitor can display it without flicker - then just think of the
    16 color 640x400 software that will take advantage of it.
    
    -dave
    

    CBM was showing a new Amiga monitor at CES, to be called the 2080, that
    is a low-cost, high-persistance phospor version, which should make
    the 640 x 400 mode a reality.  Now, the Amiga will be a valid low-cost
    workstation.