Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    Hi,
    
    I am a relatively new owner of an Amiga 500. I bought mine just
    before Christmas (a Christmas present as such).
    
    I was attracted to the machine because of it's relative power and
    its very good graphic capabilities, which in fact out do the Rainbow
    except in screen resolution, and even then there is not a lot of
    difference. It also has good sound capabilities.
    
    I wanted a machine with a goodly amount of grunt (and with possible
    upgrade using 68010 and 68020s), reasonable standard features etc.
    Plenty of memory standard, though I plan to purchase another 1/2
    meg as soon as my budget permits, and another disk drive.
        
    I also wanted a machine that I could use to teach my daughter things
    with (she's almost 3) and I figured that Amiga Basic was a good
    tool to start with as it supports reasonable graphics modes, sound
    and most importantly the speech synthesis. I see the standard speech
    facility to be very important as it allows verbal instructions and
    feedback to be provided to children who have not yet learnt to read.
    
    I have also found since I got the machine there is a wealth of public
    domain and shareware software around.
    
    Though, one of the problems I have is determining which of the
    'serious' applications are worth getting. Here in Australia Amiga
    software is not cheap, especially the Word processors and other
    'serious' applications.
    
    All in all, I'm very happy with the machine, and after scanning
    through some technical books at some stores, I can see that there
    is much more potential available from the system once you can get
    a compiler (or assembler if you're really keen) and some decent
    technical software documentation.
    
    For games and things you can really have lots of fun (if you're
    into computer games etc).
    
    From a Happy Amiga owner,
    
    	Mike
    	(Downunder in Australia)    

    I wouldn't worry too much about the Amiga being orphaned.  CBM has
    made it clear that their entire future depends on the Amiga.
    
    Gail Wellington of CBM claims that the installed base is now over
    500,000.  Half or more of those are probably A500s.  
    
    The joke back in '86 used to be 'The installed base of Amigas, rounded
    to the nearest million, is zero.'

    I recently went the A-500 route, after many years (literally) and
    TONS (ask my wife!) of research.  That includes time I spent in
    the PC business.  I went round and round on the Mac, MS-DOS and
    Amiga.  I must say that the only thing that kept me from doing the
    Amiga sooner was the same fear you expressed, the Orphan-PC syndrome.
    
    What makes for a good computer is good support, and a big part of
    that is the user community.  Go pick up a copy of Amazing Computing
    or Amiga World.  Look at the amount of software that's available,
    especially in light of what you really believe you will do with
    the machine.  Browse through this Notes file and the AMIGA_USENET
    Notes file.  Look at the caliber of people you've got writing for
    this machine.
    
    I would highly recommend that if you're really on the fence, you
    go visit someone who's got an Amiga and ask themm to show you what
    it can do.  This is a machine of tremendous potential, both from
    a hardware and O/S standpoint.  MS-DOS machines absolutely pale
    by comparison.  You'd have to buy three times as much hardware to
    get them to do what a standard Amiga will do.  And talk about orphan
    machines?  The MS-DOS user community will be on its own (albeit
    its pretty sizable) when OS/2 becomes the business standard.  OS/2
    isn't even true multitasking!  You'd have to buy all new software
    to get multitasking for a PC clone, at astronomical prices.
    
    With an Amiga you're getting the best kept secret in the personal
    computer business, with functionality to rival a VAXstation (did
    I hear a groan from our engineering circles?).  With a PC clone
    you're getting 5 year old technology, and expensive to boot.
    
    ...Tim :^)   

Re: .3

>    OS/2 isn't even true multitasking!

OS/2 is true multitasking, at least when running in OS/2 native mode
instead of MS/DOS emulation mode.  Microsoft Windows for clones
and Multifinder for the Macintosh are "fake*" multitasking.



----------
*Fake multitasking is non-preemptive task switching, usually involving
all sorts of kludges.  In some cases, like Multifinder, there are some
really silly limits (like only being able to run two pseudo-tasks at
once!).

    I think Tim meant that OS divided by 2 (Yep, IBM patented the /2
    part) will only run one MS/Dos application at a time.
    
    Anyone know if OS divided by 2 supports multiple virtual screens
    ala Amiga or merely multiple applications running simultaneously
    in different windows on the same screen?
    
    Ed.

    "When I was in the PC business" (sounds rather sophomoric, doesn't
    it?) at the time OS/2 was announced, one of our technical people
    went to the original IBM introductory meetings for tech support
    people.  At that time, it was clear from the documentation that
    OS/2 wouldn't support true multitasking.  That may have changed.
    Unless I'm way off base, the "compatibility-box" mode will only
    support a subset of MS-DOS applications (the "clean" ones), and
    then, only one application at a time.  All other applications would
    have to be developed specifically for OS/2 to run concurrently,
    and even then, you'd have to qualify which ones were true multitasking,
    and which were context-switching (like Multiinder).  The exception
    to all this is the 80386 machines running Windows, which support
    multiple 8086 "machines" in hardware.  And then there's DesqView...
    
    The end of all this windy writing is that, for the average home
    user, I think its reasonable to say that PC-clone-based multitasking
    is nice to dream about, but won't be reality unless you spring for
    a Tandy 4000, or some other '386 based clone.
    
    ...Tim 8^)
    
    

    A few other points...
    
    OS/2 is not free, or even cheap..  I think the basic version will
    retail for $800, and the Presentation Manager will (Extended Edition)
    will go for around $1600.
    
    Re:  Tandy Clones...
    
    Tandy no doubt has some great value Cones available.  One thing
    to consider though is the display quality.  The default RGB color
    monitor on the Tandy Clones produces what is the absolute worst
    text display I've ever seen.  It's so bad that it's almost illegible
    at normal viewing distance.  I don't know if it's the cheap monitor
    or poor display hardware, but the result is horrible.
    
    The Amiga has frequently been criticized (justifyably so) for mediocre
    text quality on the standard monitor, but it's orders of magnitude
    better than the Tandy machines.  Use of a Sony CPD 1290 monitor
    makes a world of difference.
    
    Ed.
    

Re: Last Few:

I read the OS/2 article in Byte.  It is fairly clear that OS/2 does support
true multitasking for OS/2 applications.  Of course, the number of OS/2
applications that exist today can be counted on one hand by a dimwit
who waits too long between lighting the fuse of a firecracker and throwing
it.

OS/2 even has a few advantages above the Amiga's multitasking (fairness
in scheduling low priority tasks, memory protection, and resource tracking).
It also lack many of the nice features of the Amiga (the "virtual workstation"
screen idea, message passing, etc.).  I firmly believe that Microsoft
will manage to screw pieces of the OS up.

OS/2 is a respectable microcomputer operating system.  Few, besides the
Amiga can make that claim.

I don't recommend that everyone go out and sell their Amiga and get a
OS/2 compatible.  Besides, when the '286 bridge card comes out, people
can run OS/2 in a window of their Amiga.

Re: .7

>   The default RGB color monitor on the Tandy Clones produces what
>   the absolute worst text display I've ever seen.  It's so bad that
>   it's almost illegible at normal viewing distance.  I don't know if
>   it's the cheap monitor or poor display hardware, but the result is
>   horrible.

I remember a few months ago one of the CATS people acting as an apologist
for the 1080 monitor said that at least it is better than the Tandy monitors.
They have the worst dot pitch in the industry.

    re:.6
    
    It has changed, they found a kludge way to get out of protected
    mode on the 80286.  So they can do protected mode multitasking,
    but not as cleanly as on an 80386.  And only for programs written
    for OS/2, the compatiblity box is for only one MS-DOS program.
    But consider, what if that one MS-DOS program is MS-WINDOWS...
    
    The pc has been able to multitask for a long time, the missing
    piece has been support for it from IBM and Microsoft.
    
    Commodore did it right.  The only way to ensure 3rd party support
    for a multitasking environment is to ship the base system with the
    multitasking built into the OS, NOT as an extra cost optional feature.
    
    -dave
    

    I've had my 500 for about 2 months now and am real happy with it.
    However, .0 asked about educational software and I'm not happy with
    educational software for the Amiga. Our user base is expanding rapidly
    and programs are coming out faster now except for educational software.
    Companies like Unicorn and First Byte have some new titles but none
    of the major educational software writers seem to be entering the
    Amiga market. Almost none of the titles common on the 64/128, Apple,
    and IBM are available on the Amiga.
    
    I have Discovery Math, Discovery Spell, Math Wizard, Talking Coloring
    Book, and Read-a-rama. I am not completely satisfied with any of
    them.
    	Discovery Math is about the best and doesn't have any real
    problems.
    	Discovery Spell is identical in design but the problem
    is the pronunciation of the words is sometimes very poor. It's hard
    for my kids to spell the words if they can't understand them.
    	Talking Coloring Book has no real problems but is very limited.
    My 4 year old got tired of it in about a week. I guess it would
    be better for 2-3 year olds, but who wants them pounding on their
    Amiga.
    	Read-a-rama had some problems too but I can't remember what
    they were. The disk went bad after 2 days and I've been waiting
    a month for a replacement from Able. All these titles except for
    Coloring Book were heavily protected. Read-a-rama couldn't even
    be copied with Marauder. This is crazy for kids software. I'll
    never buy another product that isn't on Marauder's list.
    	Math Wizard has nice pictures and would be OK if it's random
    generator wasn't so bad. Sometimes 5 or 6 out of 10 problems will
    be identical. Also the user interface could be better. After every
    set of 10 problems the child has to go back to the beginning and
    through 4 or 5 screens of menus to continue. There should be a way
    to pick one thing and continue doing it.
    
    With the 500 I think there is a real market for educational software.
    I hope some developers realize that soon.
    
    /tom
   

    Thanks for all your comments you got me convinced.  I had my wife
    play with delux music so she likes it to.  Now if Uncle Sam will
    hurry up with my tax rebate.  I have a lot of correspondence out
    for educational type software.  I'll see what I get.  Now comes
    the hard part waiting...
    
    Thanks again for all your responses
    
    Alan