Subject: Re: HQ-8 New Amigas
From: Joe Angell <[email-masked]>
To: Vance Schowalter <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 17:51:37 -0400 (EDT)

> To quote Johnny Storm... Flame On! *8^D
> 
> I think you missed out on a few points, namely features, when comparing a 
> Pentium to an A4000T.

Don't get me wrong -- I LOVE my Amiga.  I have no intention of EVER 
getting rid of my Amiga.  I have a Flyer, a VT4000, about 6-gigs of total 
drive space, and lots of other junk strapped to my Amiga.  I'm getting a 
Blizard 2060 once I can afford one, and a second A2000 to put my current 
040 into.

The main point is that if you were new to the computer market, and you 
wanted to buy a computer, chances are you'd be suckered into getting a 
Pentium or paying even more for a PowerMac.  An Amiga at $2700 is pushing 
it...
 
> Firstly, the A4000T comes with a CyberStorm 68060 card and a 1 gig SCSI.

I don't know about that -- ESCOM said that they are making 040 Amigas 
first, with 060s coming in Nov.  if the 060 model is $2700, then it might 
be worth it.

> Next, how many Pentiums can you name with 2, let alone 1, video slots. 
> Obviously, video slots equate to having NTSC/PAL without expensive 
> add-ons. Pentiums don't have them. Nor do they have a muli-tasking OS 
> that will run with half a meg of ram.

Well, they CLAIM win95 will Mulittask in a mere 16-megs (yeah, right... 
so THAT's why it comes with SoftRAM, which by prinicple CANNOT work on a 
multitasking machine (EMail me and I'll explain why)).  WinNT is the best 
thing I've seen, but it's a Win3.1 interface and need 16 megs for just 
itself.  Sad, isn't it?

BTW, my friend and I had a BAD experience using a VGA-TO-NTSC card... 
worked, but ONLY on 640x480 screens, ONLY in 256 colors, and ONLY under 
WinNT, which there were no drivers for (but there were for Win and Dos)  
Very odd...
 
> Phase 5 is working on a CyberStorm multi-68060 (up to 4 chips) card for 
> use with the Amiga, making it far faster than any dinky Pentium. This, 
> and the availability of the RISC-based Amiga Clone (Draco) will do nicely 
> until AT releases their RISC-A5000T's.

I'll be one of the 1st to get RISD Amiga.  Wonder if phase 5 will make 
the mulit-060 card for an A2000....?
 
> If you know the lay-out of the A4000T, you'll acknowledge that it isn't a 
> PC Clone, nor is it a Mac.

And I have no complaints...
 
> Neither the Mac nor the Clones can run an Amiga emulator, because they 
> don't have any, nor do they have the beans to make one even if they 
> wanted to. The Amiga, on the other hand, can run Mac software up to 2.5 
> times faster than on a Mac that uses the same processor.

This is trues (maybe not QUIET 2.5 times faster, but DEFINATLY faster).  
I'm trying to get ShapeShifter up and running now :)

> The Amiga is 
> also able to run PC software with 586 emulation.

There has been some debate about this (with the EMPLANT).  Seems it isn't 
doing a very good job at that... but I;ll leave that to those who know.
 
> The Amiga can playback fullscreen animations in realtime, without 
> additional hardware like FMV cards.

Which makes it great for LightWave demo reels! (a very lame justification 
to having this on theis list)
 
> The list can easily go on (like, Amiga was multi-media ready before any 
> other personal computer) but I'll leave it here that you are comparing 
> apples to oranges. The Amiga is a terrific computer, still able to do 
> many things (and efficiently) that the rest of the PC market is only 
> beginning to tap into. It is a VERY worthy investment.

I wholy agree.  But without advertising (which will pick up in early '96) 
and newer tech, many people will still overlook the Amiga for a PC.  The 
best example I have of how good my A2000 is is "what other 8-year-old 
computer do YOU know of that people still use in high-end markets on a 
regualr basic?"

'Nuff said...

-- Joe

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