Amiga vs PC

[amigakid]

There is no comparison, the Amiga is far superior than a PC...in terms of an Amiga lover.  Hardware wise the PC is of course far superior in processing power, just think the RAM speeds alone of a PC is well over 10x's the speed of an 060 CPU.  Windows 7 is an excellent OS and the games on PC now are unparralelled.  Now for the real comparison the Amiga is in my opinion the ONLY computer I love and collect.  My Amiga's (2000, 500, 3000, 4000, 1000 and CD32) are the best.  I still game on them, still compute with them and still love to turn them on and do just about anything from graphics, music and internet on them (the ones that are able to).  The PC for me lets me game, work and go to school but never will a PC take the place of my Amiga's.  If you loved your A4000 so much get her running again and go back to enjoying computing and use your beefy PC for the other stuff:)  Cheers!!!

[klx300r]

My PC is for work, my amiga is for fun.

+1..well said:D

[Amiga_Nut]

Yeah when people say PC do they mean x86 hardware and all those shiny cards built for them today vs various Amiga badged hardware sold like AmigaONE/x1000 in identical time frames (ie XT EGA vs A1000. 386 VGA vs A1200  i7 DX11 PC vs x1000 etc etc)?

Or do you mean Windows vs Amiga OS (again Wb 1.2 vs Windows 1.x/2.x if keeping timeframes consistent) etc.

And then of course are we trying to compare 2010 computers with 1993 technology that was never updated when Commodore tanked in the mid 90s ie AGA machines only as far as custom chipsets go?

In either case the Amiga has been unloved for far too long to win anything today. A1000 vs any other computer = WIN. A4000 machines vs PC 386/486 of the time...not such a slam dunk at all hardware wise ie audio!. Today with stuff like £1500+ x1000 vs i7 £1500 set up...I don't fancy those odds much :lol:

Vista is actually acceptable for multitasking under heavy CPU/resource loading (and by inference so is Win7 as it is an identical kernal pretty much) on most machines above a certain age but there is no version of Windows that was as efficient as its rival Workbench/KS set up in the time of Commodore. But then KS/Wb 3.x had some major omissions (TCP/IP stack?)

So it depends what anyone wants it to mean then

[runequester]

there's more to pc's than windows my friends.

[amigadave]

>Warning...may cause significant flaming (I hope not)<

I think it kinda depends on exactly what you see amiga as. For me, Aros as a rewrite of os3.x, counts. And given the advances the Aros team has made, I don't think there is any reason Aros can't be a perfectly usable desktop os in just a few years time.

The biggest difference between Aros, Morphos, and OS4 is the same difference between a modern pc and a PPC amiga. Aros has access to gigabytes of ram, Gigahertz multicore cpus etc. etc. for CHEAP.

Aros needs full Web capability, more media capability, and more apps and games and it is good to go. And as it is based directly on os3.x I would say that Amiga is capable of being very fully modern.

Enlighten me if you will, does AROS have the capability to make use of more than one core/CPU and how much RAM can it access?  There is no doubt that AROS has all other Amiga OSes beat on price, since it is free and I am not opposed to switching to AROS someday when it is fully mature and has more apps and games to run.  It might give me a reason to keep my Quad Core 3.0GHz, w/dual 512mb video cards and all the other bells and whistles PC, but by that time my PC will be very outdated anyway.

Looks like I missed all the fun that was going on in this thread.  I usually just ignore any thread that tries to compare the Amiga with anything else.:roflmao:

[stefcep2]

I can't speak for every PC ever built (there's always soemone who seems to come up with something "unusual" in these threads), but I can honestly say that compared to the PC's I've used and seen used by other, the Amiga could do more (FAR more) with far less.

An A1200 running at 14 mhz and 8 mb fast ram could fit a TCP stack, a browser, an email client, newsreader, an FTP client, IM,  a paint package like Dpaint, a word processor and even do a 3D render in the background ) especially if you had an FPU, play music/mods, a file manager like Dopus on top of a GUI OS-with god knows how many little commodities running in the background and the thing was still responsive to the user.  I can't imagine any x86 platform doing that.

I'm not sure if  that advantage in the efficient use of hardware resources was there by design or as a consequence of little hardware development since Commodores demise, nor if that would have continued if AmigaOS survived today.  But what has been achieved by tiny teams of programmers with Morphos/AmigaOS/AROS suggests it might have (yes I know they run on limited hardware, but thats what custom chips were in a way).

So for me, Amiga was all about efficiency, elegance and making me feel that the system obeyed me, and for me that made up for the lack of the brute power of a PC.

[Arkhan]

I can't speak for every PC ever built (there's always soemone who seems to come up with something "unusual" in these threads), but I can honestly say that compared to the PC's I've used and seen used by other, the Amiga could do more (FAR more) with far less.

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.

An A1200 running at 14 mhz and 8 mb fast ram could fit a TCP stack, a browser, an email client, newsreader, an FTP client, IM,  a paint package like Dpaint, a word processor and even do a 3D render in the background ) especially if you had an FPU, play music/mods, a file manager like Dopus on top of a GUI OS-with god knows how many little commodities running in the background and the thing was still responsive to the user.  I can't imagine any x86 platform doing that.

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!  

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

I'm not sure if  that advantage in the efficient use of hardware resources was there by design or as a consequence of little hardware development since Commodores demise, nor if that would have continued if AmigaOS survived today.  But what has been achieved by tiny teams of programmers with Morphos/AmigaOS/AROS suggests it might have (yes I know they run on limited hardware, but thats what custom chips were in a way).

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

[ElPolloDiabl]

Screw Amiga, I'm wondering why I could surf the web in Windows 95 with only 8MB of RAM. When I upgraded to 16MB I could run Excel and have a dozen pages (i.e. the whole internet) open in netscape.
Windows is not a home OS. They design it for businesses and then let you 'borrow' it.

[save2600]

Screw Amiga

What? What's that you say Devil Chicken? You best skip town before the lynch mob catches up with 'ya.  :laughing:

BTW: you don't need 8mb of RAM, Windoze 95 or Netscape to "surf the web" on an Amiga  

[Arkhan]

BTW: you don't need 8mb of RAM, Windoze 95 or Netscape to "surf the web" on an Amiga  

No you just need one of the Amiga browsers, crossed fingers, and some patience as Google attempts to load.

Did you quote "surf the web" because rather than surf the web, you doggy paddle?


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.

any PC with a modem or NIC is though.

[save2600]

Did you quote "surf the web" because rather than surf the web, you doggy paddle?

No, no, no... I was trying to compare apples with apples timeframe wise. In the mid to late 90's, the few Amiga browsers we had handled the web just fine. Early 2000's even. It wasn't until support stopped, computing "evolved" and we started seeing new inefficient web languages that the Amiga started to choke on. Java, CSS, PHP, Flash and more, not to mention all the commercially unnecessary crap we deal with today ad and banner wise. The web is a world wide mess today compared to the late 90's, early 2000's.

[Arkhan]

No, no, no... I was trying to compare apples with apples timeframe wise. In the mid to late 90's, the few Amiga browsers we had handled the web just fine. Early 2000's even. It wasn't until support stopped, computing "evolved" and we started seeing new inefficient web languages that the Amiga started to choke on. Java, CSS, PHP and more.

oh.  Well, those old windows 95 boxes can handle all that nonsense just fine.  Must be magic.

I mean you can still browse the lolernet with a 486.  It'll be kinda herpyderpy, but it sure does work.

[runequester]

oh.  Well, those old windows 95 boxes can handle all that nonsense just fine.  Must be magic.

I mean you can still browse the lolernet with a 486.  It'll be kinda herpyderpy, but it sure does work.

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.

[Arkhan]

Win95 w/ IE works better than the Amiga in my experience.  *shrug*

[runequester]

Win95 w/ IE works better than the Amiga in my experience.  *shrug*

I imagine every persons experience will differ based on their observations

[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.