| Software compatibility isn't a given. I was in the position you are in
about two years ago, when the Macintosh II first came out. I wanted to
do music on my new home computer, so I tried Deluxe Music Construction
Set on a color Macintosh II. It didn't work, and the dealer had no
information on when it might be fixed. While I waited for it, the
Amiga 2000 came out, with Deluxe Music Construction Set, and I bought
it instead.
So, check the software you are interested in before buying a Macintosh
II/whatever.
John Sauter
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The A2500 is absolutely real. In fact, it's almost impossible to get
an A2620 board (this board upgrades an A2000 to an A2500) since the
A2500s are selling pretty briskly. If you thought the vanilla Amiga
felt fast, you must try one of these. This machine feels like a
Ferrari.
I don't believe you mentioned where you were located, but there are a
few Amiga dealers in the Worcester/Boston area. The ones I know of
(there may be more) are...
The Software Shop in Worcester, MA
(508) 756-6452
(Good prices, mediocre to terrible support)
The Memory Location in Wellesley, MA
(617) 237-6848
(Higher prices, but fantastic support and service)
OmniTek, Tewksbury, MA
The Bit Bucket, Sudbury & Newton MA
These prices are representative of the dealer I usually do business
with. He is actually a fairly large mail-order operation with a walk-in
showroom. He has Amiga 500/2000/2500 models in stock and on display.
Don't expect a lot of hand holding or support from this guy, but his
prices on software are very good; hardware prices are only fair. If
you went through an issue of AmigaWorld magazine, you'd certainly be
able to put together a cheaper package if you bought each component
from the cheapest vendor. Anyway...
Amiga 2500
3 MB RAM
40 MB 28 ms HD
2090A Auto-Boot SCSI/DMA controller
14.28 MHz 68020/68881/MMU
7.14 MHz 68000
(1) 880K microfloppy
keyboard & mouse $3649.00
MicroWay De-interlacer card $495.00
(provides MacII quality display. You
certainly don't NEED this, but it's
a real beauty)
MultiSync Monitor $500.00
(mail order prices range from
$450 to $700, depending on model.
I've seen Princeton UltraSyncs as
low as $500)
TOTAL $4644.00
This total can vary by as much as +/- $300 or more, depending again on
where you shop. You could save some money by buying the standard Amiga
1084S monitor for $300-$350. This is a pretty average RGB monitor, but
it has a decent stero amplifier and speakers built in. Remember, you
don't NEED the de-interlacer card, but the current 640 x 400 mode is
interlaced, so an ordinary monitor will flicker to varying degrees,
depending on the combinations of screen colors used. Trust only your
own eyes, since some people find the flicker bearable, others can't
tolerate it. Also remember that most software defaults to 640 x 200
(non-interlaced) mode, with the option of running in 640 x 400 mode.
Also know that Commodore has been developing an Enhanced Chip Set for
the Amiga that will offer a new non-interlaced 640 x 400 4 color mode.
This new mode will use a 31.5 KHz horizontal scan rate (same as
VGA/MacII, & FlickerFixer) and will require a multisync monitor.
However, until this upgrade becomes Genuinely Available, treat it as
heresay.
OK, on to your other questions ...
All Amiga models currently have the same display specifications...
320 x 200 x 2/4/8/16/32/64 colors from pallette of 4096
320 x 400 x 2/4/8/16/32/64 " " " " "
320 x 200 x 4096 colors on screen at once (HAM mode)
320 x 400 x 4096 " " " " " "
640 x 200 x 2/4/8/16 colors from pallette of 4096
640 x 400 x 2/4/8/16 " " " " "
Enhanced Chip Set - All of the above, plus 640 x 400 x 4 colors
NON_INTERLACED from a pallette of 64. Vapor as of this date, although
some developers do have these new chips.
In addition, the Amiga display hardware supports Overscan in all modes.
Overscan, simply put, is essential for video work, where you'd like to
eliminate the border around the working display area. Overscan
resolutions are as large as 704 x 480 in Hi-Res.
In a nutshell, the Amiga display can be any combination of two states:
High or Low resolution (640 or 320 horizontal pixels) and interlace or
non-interlace (400 or 200 lines) with the current exception of 640 x
400 non-interlaced. If low resolution is specified, up to 6 bit-planes
are possible (64 colors). High resolution currently restricts you to 4
bitplanes (16 colors). Note that going to interlace in any display
mode merely doubles the video memory requirements, not the actual video
bandwidth, since the hardware is taking twice as long to display the
same image.
HAM mode is a clever way of getting 6 bit planes to display as many
colors as a 12 bit plane display. For an explanation of HAM mode, see
the current (March 89) issue of AmigaWorld.
If you have an eye towards the future, Commodore has announced a
professional video card for the A2000/A2500 models. This card uses the
Brooktree chipset and the TI 34*** high-speed graphics chip to provide
a 16.7 million color pallette and 8 (maybe 24?) bit planes. Again,
this is only vapor until the board actually ships.
Software incompatibility - I haven't heard of any, except a few games
that were ports from other machines. The Amiga developer guidelines
are very clear in providing upwards growth to '020 and '030 Motorola
processors. The use of 32-bit relative addressing ensures that
programs will always try to load themselves into 32 bit memory, if
present. At any rate, it should be less troublesome than some of the
Mac II incompatibilities I read about in the Mac notesfile. As a last
resort, you can boot the A2500 as a vanilla A2000 by simply depressing
both mouse buttons after doing a warm reboot. A menu is presented
allowing selection of 68000 AmigaDOS, 68020 AmigaDOS, or 68020 UNIX. If
you select 68000 mode, you will have a box stock A2000 running at 7.14
MHz.
Hope this helps. Remember the most important thing is to make sure
that the software YOU want is available before you buy. The type of
software available for the Mac is very slick and professional, geared
for the technical manager and marketing types. Amiga stuff is more
video and graphics oriented (with a VERY strong entertainment
offering). There ARE excellent spreadsheets, databases, desktop
publishers, word proccessors, etc, but nothing that would put the Mac
out of business.
Ed.
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