Amiga vs PC

[recidivist]

Yes, admiring,even treasuring well-made old technology is one thing;expecting it to outperform newer technology with more features is silly.
Another miltaristic comparison might be:
Amiga =crossbow built by England's finest craftsman
Today's generic PC=Thompson .45 submachine gun.

IF Motorola/IBM/Apple/Commodore had continued to push development of PPC chip and the platform it was originally meant we could buy a box and then run whatever OS we cared to,Amiga to Windows.

But they didn't;and no one can design a multi-million transistor LSI IC in the garage.That's why the old science fiction stories of "American inventor Joe builds spaceship in backyard are so ridiculous.Some tasks require a large team with vast resources.

[amigaksi]

Wheres the far-less solution to using 10+ VSTs in fruityloops and making a 32 channel tune with line in and midi input added in as well?  I don't think there is one.  If there is, it probably isn't a great one and would induce suicidal thoughts.
...

I don't get as much time these days for these threads, but your inconsistency is that you compare latest and greatest hardware add-ons with standard Amiga setup.  

About an hour later (post #39) you wrote:  "Yeah you can get a decent browsing experience if you set it up right and have the right hardware...it sure aint out-of-box internets ready."

You can also buy audio cards for the Amiga or even some sort of PCI interface.  None of my PC machines have 32 channels audio (which you keep mentioning).  Perhaps, it's being emulated in software but you can also do the same then on the Amiga.  Perhaps, the API is misleading in claiming its supporting all those functions which may or may not be present in your hardware.  When I write to a color register Move.w #$F00,$DFF180, it takes a lot more work on the PC and a lot more cycles because the hardware standard is gradually disappearing and it's more drivers and software calls and thus more inefficient and slower.  Of course, you have the faster processor and video cards but you see how his point of getting more done with less is valid.

[amigaksi]

Hi,

The Amiga can't hold a candle to todays modern PC. The modern PC has faster and more memory

I wish it didn't.  That just makes things so inconsistent.  Every machine can have a different speed memory and you need to program for the worst case of the slowest one.

hard drives that are 10 times faster for reading and writing data

Hard drives are obsolete and wish they were never invented.  Ataris had cartridges originally (some banked) and these flash devices seem to be taking things back full circle to back to memory types of drives rather than mechanical moving ones.  Hard drives are like a glitch in computer progress-- slow, prone to crash, inconsistent in read/writes, etc.  Better to use flash drives.

graphic cards that put the Amiga's AGA chips to shame

And hardly anyone programs its registers to get the maximum out of it.  Such a waste.

sound that is just about like the band played it and processing power beyond belief, but also the PC has no soul, it doesn't have people that stand behind it, cherish it and love turning it on, it doesn't have games that rock your soul like the Mackey's Megaball, Scorched Tanks and Soliton.

For games, sound is fine on the Amiga.  But there are issues with the PC games-- controllers are too complex and analog, gameplay is more like watching a movie-- not as addicting as pixel-exact collisions and where every pixel has significance, the games just look good but there are many DVD movies that look better.  If I didn't need to argue with people like you and wanted to play games, I wouldn't be using a PC.

[KThunder]

I wish it didn't.  That just makes things so inconsistent.  Every machine can have a different speed memory and you need to program for the worst case of the slowest one.


Hard drives are obsolete and wish they were never invented.  Ataris had cartridges originally (some banked) and these flash devices seem to be taking things back full circle to back to memory types of drives rather than mechanical moving ones.  Hard drives are like a glitch in computer progress-- slow, prone to crash, inconsistent in read/writes, etc.  Better to use flash drives.


And hardly anyone programs its registers to get the maximum out of it.  Such a waste.


For games, sound is fine on the Amiga.  But there are issues with the PC games-- controllers are too complex and analog, gameplay is more like watching a movie-- not as addicting as pixel-exact collisions and where every pixel has significance, the games just look good but there are many DVD movies that look better.  If I didn't need to argue with people like you and wanted to play games, I wouldn't be using a PC.

modern computers are very consistant, mine is 64bit cpu, dx10, etc. You have to think differently when HAL and drivers are concerned , you are stuck back in 1994 if you think systems arent consistant.

Hard drive are still here and better than anything else including flash by orders of magnitude when size speed and reliability are concerned.

Drivers do hit the registers otherwise no graphics card would ever work, do you know what HAL is (Hardware Abstraction Layer) you seem to really be stuck in 1994. We are talking about "modern computers" here.


@others
there is no reason Aros cannot support dual core quad core etc. and become a more user-freindly version of what linux is today.

[amigaksi]

modern computers are very consistant, mine is 64bit cpu, dx10, etc. You have to think differently when HAL and drivers are concerned , you are stuck back in 1994 if you think systems arent consistant.
...

You never experienced 1994 or little of it so you made a statement whose exact opposite is true.  In 1994, you can consistently write to I/O ports for VGA, serial/parallel ports, even estimate cycle counts, etc.  Do you even know what the word consistent means in the context stated by me above?  Calm down and think before you write.

Hard drive are still here and better than anything else including flash by orders of magnitude when size speed and reliability are concerned.

More bullcrap.  Flash technologies is faster and more reliable.  I have destroyed several hard drives before there MTBF just because they were in the cold weather in my car or because of hitting bumps on the road.  Hard drives are less reliable and I was speaking of cartridge type comparisons which is not restricted to just flash-- you can have SRAM, EEPROM, EPROM, etc. They are all more reliable than hard drives.  

Drivers do hit the registers otherwise no graphics card would ever work, do you know what HAL is (Hardware Abstraction Layer) you seem to really be stuck in 1994. We are talking about "modern computers" here.

Yeah, but one graphics card hits one register while another one hits another-- inconsistent and non-standard.  You have NO IDEA what you are talking about.  First understand and then reply.

[amigadave]

@others
there is no reason Aros cannot support dual core quad core etc. and become a more user-freindly version of what linux is today.

No reason it cannot support multiple cpu's, or cores IN THE FUTURE, but what does it support today?

There is no reason AmigaOS4.x/MorphOS2.x can't do the same, given a couple hundred full time developers working 24/7 for a few years with an unlimited budget.  Of course it would hardly be the same OS by the time SMP, or something different that supports multiple cpu's/cores in some weird way.

[Karlos]

Yeah, but one graphics card hits one register while another one hits another-- inconsistent and non-standard.  You have NO IDEA what you are talking about.  First understand and then reply.

Well, you are a fine one to talk

You're still thinking of graphics cards as they were a decade ago. They have totally and utterly changed. I guarantee you wouldn't know where to begin trying to bang modern GPU hardware if you are still thinking in terms of direct register access, at least if you want to use any modern features.

Drivers exist for a  good reason. My graphics card, for example, has literally thousands of GP registers (as well as "constant" memory) that are shared between 240 stream processors on demand by a hardware many-thread scheduling engine. Even when writing code for the GPU using CUDA, the object code that NVCC produces is not specific to that GPU. Instead, it's a bytecode that is JIT translated at runtime for the hardware.

And, FYI, the VESA compatible registers haven't really changed much, which is why it's almost always possible to use a modern card without any specific drivers. As long as "use" means open a basic frame buffer. If you want to bang those registers, you'll probably get away with it just fine.

[Franko]

Having read through every post here, it seems to me we should not be debating or arguing over silly little things like gfx card speeds/ flash drives are better than HDs and so on.

We should instead just be saying why we use our Amiga / PC / Mac or whatever machine your using, for what we as individuals use them for and how we are happy with the machines we use...

For example I use my Amiga for all my computing needs except for one, I use my iMac for the internet only and it's more than adequate in that task for me.

My Amiga however, I use for all other computing needs I have ie: GFX/Photo Editing, Programming, audio editing, creating MP3s and music CDs / burning Video DVDs, letters, printing and a whole lot more beside.

This set up for me is just about perfect, only when I finally set up one of my Amigas to go online, will I then be able to decide whether my Amiga is suitable for this one final task or if I shall have to continue using the Mac for being online.

So come one folks be a bit more positive about why you use the machine you do, and share with us all, the benefits of using your particular set up.

[stefcep2]

Wheres the far-less solution to using 10+ VSTs in fruityloops and making a 32 channel tune with line in and midi input added in as well?  I don't think there is one.  If there is, it probably isn't a great one and would induce suicidal thoughts.


Funny story! Don't we all do that on an x86 platform every day? I know I do:
TCP stack: Yep.  
Browser to reply to this kind of stupidity: Yep!
e-mail: lol duh?
FTP: sho' am good
IM: 3 of them at once! + IRC
paint: Lol Photoshop CS3 to make 4chan.org funnies
among other stuff too, and then I usually even play a game at the same time! 3D rendering!  Networked gaming even!  

In 8 meg with 2 meg video ram..I doubt it!!!

Maybe the PC's you are using are pieces of shit or you don't know how to keep them running properly.

The essence of the post was that you can do more with less on Amiga.  I know a fair bit about making my PC run properly, But even with smaller footprint of Win 3.1, I doubt I'll get all the software I mentioned or equivalents to run in 8 meg and 2 meg video in x86.

I think the efficiency is due to the nature/era of the platform.  When you introduce unique chips, they tend to function better.

I think you're wrong about the era being the reason, because PC's and Macs of the same era needed more hardware resources and did less, but you're right to say it was the "nature" of the Amiga platform.

[persia]

It depends on what the purpose of this discussion is.  If the purpose is to feel good about the Amiga then we can talk about what makes us happy, but if the purpose is to try to find more users then we need to coat things in realism.  A handful of Linux ports are not going to convince anyone to buy an AmigaOS/AROS/Morphos machine.  The question needs to change from why do we use an Amiga to why would anyone with a molecule of sanity use an Amiga.  Two very different questions.....

[Franko]

The question needs to change from why do we use an Amiga to why would anyone with a molecule of sanity use an Amiga.  Two very different questions.....

My one molecule of sanity is more than happy with what can be done using an Amiga...

[stefcep2]

modern computers are very consistant, mine is 64bit cpu, dx10, etc. You have to think differently when HAL and drivers are concerned , you are stuck back in 1994 if you think systems arent consistant.

Hard drive are still here and better than anything else including flash by orders of magnitude when size speed and reliability are concerned.

Drivers do hit the registers otherwise no graphics card would ever work, do you know what HAL is (Hardware Abstraction Layer) you seem to really be stuck in 1994. We are talking about "modern computers" here.

I think you over-estimate the success in the real world of the HAL's.  People still have problems getting particular video/audio/wireless/bluetooth etc and motherboard combinations to work properly or at all.  In Windows and Linux.  And no its not due to shit HW/bleeding edge HW, with immature drivers either.  

IMO the best test of just how well HAL's work or don't work is trying to set up a gaming and media centre PC.  It can be real simple, or it can be every bit as difficult as getting hardware to work together as it was in the Win 3.1.  For example, I have NEVER been able to get my TV tuner to show the TV guide through Mediacentre without crashing it-thats with Vista Home premium and now Win 7 Ultimate.  Yet it works in Ubuntu, and the same USB tuner works on a different motherboard.  And this is pretty generic hardware I'm talking, not some bleeding edge thing with immature drivers.  Log onto the various media centre forums and you'll see countless posts with similar problems.

The usual come back to this is that MS and Linux community can't test every hardware combo out there.  Well that's the whole point of the HAL: you shouldn't need to, it should just work. And I no longer buy the MS claim that the HW vendor didn't follow the rules or the drivers was bad, in all such cases-maybe the rules/concepts themselves aren't right?

That brings me to the other philosophical advantage of Amiga: custom, uniform hardware.  Oh yes, I know that over time custom hardware may get out-performed.  Yet if we look at the PS3 and Xbox-5 or so years old-has that really happened in a way that matters to the user?  PC gaming and PC media centres?  The relative sales would suggest people care less and less for this.  1080p games and bluray from a PS3 on a 55 inch plasma looks stunning.  And more is being achieved on the same hardware every year.  Because the software programmers have no choice but to write ever more clever, efficient, code, coz they won't get another gig of ram to be sloppy with, or another couple of cores to pay with. Conceptually very amiga-like..  And its closer to plug and play than any x86 platform ever was.

[scuzzb494]

And browsing the web with win 95 and whatever browser was out in 95 will pretty much suck as bad as doing it on an amiga will today, because its mid 90's technology.


These sorts of conversations are amusing because its like saying the T34 was a shit tank, because the T90 is so much better.

You do realise it was less about the OS and more about the supported browser. I ran Netscape on the Win95 machine and it worked fine. I still use IE6 on this XP machine cus anything later plays havoc with my local intranet. For the Amiga use of the internet needed more power and graphics card power, thats got nothing to do with the OS. All browsers I used with Win95 and Win98 worked magic on the Internet. They were, are superior to anything I used on the Amiga, but then that was to do with computer power and not the browser. I have a G4 Mac with Safari and thats great also. Hell I even have the Dreamcast on the internet. The Amiga was just a real struggle for me in terms of getting the hardware. Its even worse today for classic machines. And what killed Win95 and Win98 on the internet for me was the removal of support and then Norton and AVG dumped the virus checker. Windows is lethal without firewall and virus checker. My Win98 machine outperforms this XP machine on local htm in terms of speed but I struggle getting modern graphic cards to work with it. Both my Win98 and Win95 machines still work just fine and all open my local intranet pages at the same speed. And don`t forget the mid 90s probably meant dial up. There is really no comparison today.

The browsers of the mid 90's still work fine with the hardware on the internet. You just can`t use them cus of support for security.

[tone007]

COMPUTERS ARE GOOD!

ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE IS A LIAR!

*pbbbbtbptp*

[DavidF215]

@Original Post

You can purchase newer hardware and run the new AmigaOS4.1. It's available from AmigaKit.com, which services the UK, and other vendors.

There is also Amiga Forever which allows you to emulate AmigaOS3.1 on a PC; it works well. My virtual A1200 works much faster than my physical A1200, and functions the same for what little I do on it--code mostly.

I wouldn't call it the dark side. Times change, so we often have to switch; otherwise, we'd all still be using rotary phones or morse code for telegraphs.

[Arkhan]

I don't get as much time these days for these threads, but your inconsistency is that you compare latest and greatest hardware add-ons with standard Amiga setup.  

About an hour later (post #39) you wrote:  "Yeah you can get a decent browsing experience if you set it up right and have the right hardware...it sure aint out-of-box internets ready."

You can also buy audio cards for the Amiga or even some sort of PCI interface.  None of my PC machines have 32 channels audio (which you keep mentioning).  Perhaps, it's being emulated in software but you can also do the same then on the Amiga.  .

in regards to the original post, if the Amiga is so great it should be able to stand toe to toe with anything modern computing throws at it, and it should just be so easy and simple to get it to that competitive state.

It doesn't have the music setup I am looking for, so that means it can't.  

I don't care about the behind the scenes stuff because its all relative.  I care about ease-of-use.  my fruityloops setup is more expansive and easy to use than an Amiga sound setup.

its called changing times.  thats all.  More power to people still using octamed, etc.... but I have found better solutions.  *shrug*

In 8 meg with 2 meg video ram..I doubt it!!!

Lol, doing all of that on an Amiga w/ 8meg and 2meg is about as fun as jamming your shaft in a bugzapper.