Difficult to say why I still stick with my aging A4000... no acellerators, just the 040.
I have used Macs as well since about 1987 when we got them into the school system here in BC, Canada. I have grown up with them as well, having started with the Classic and through the LC up to the LCIII, and now with a whole Lab of iMacs, as well as a G3 Administration machine, and a G3 Server. There are 22 machines in the Lab, three in the Library, and one in each of the 30 teacher's rooms. On top of this, there are 8 Windows machines all hooked up to the LAN.
I am the administrator for the whole system. I have to fight with them on a daily basis and often have to call in the Big Guns, the school districts, at least once a week. I have printing issues daily! I have machines that refuse to print to one printer, yet will to another.... and then change their mind the next day and print on the first and NOT on the second. I have scanner issues regularly. I am called from my classroom at least three times a day by frustrated teachers who cannot get their kids on to the computer either in the Lab or in the classroom. I get at least a half dozen lockups a day, and the server freezes everyone out, including the office, at least once a week, and has to be rebooted. The techs cannot figure it out, and we have had at least 3 or four monkeying around trying to "fix things" much too often.
I use PageStream almost daily personally for worksheets. I have it on my machine at school and my Amiga at home. I transfer files via the Net. Time and time again the iMac or the Admin mahcine will NOT be able to print something... no matter whether I start from scratch at school or transfer it from home. I cannot count the number of hours I have spent up there over the last few years on weekends sorting things out!
I get home, sit down to my Amiga 4000, and except for speed of rendering graphics, I am in heaven. I have not had a crash with PageStream on my Amiga in ages.... cannot remember the last time I did, really. I can print anything I make at home, or send from school, and my Amiga 4000 and Lexmark 4039-12R will print it out. Yes, the pace may be less rapid, but the dependability is not a trifling matter!!!
As well, the OS on the Amiga is more "logical" in the way it works as far as I am concerned. I have a great love for DOpus on my Amiga. I find the Mac and the Windows ways of dealing with manipulation of files a real PITA!!!! Possibly DOpus is the reason, but I can get more done in 10 minutes on the Amiga when I am moving files than I can get done in half an hour with either system I am responsible for maintaining.
Yes, I miss the speed. Yes, I miss Flash on my Amiga browser. Yes, I would like to be able to use quite a few programs on my Amiga that I use at school. However, in the end, I have less stress with my Amiga. DON'T let that make you think the Amiga has NOT ever given me problems... I have had Hard Disk crashes a couple of times the week before report cards have to be handed in... and THAT was not fun. I swore the Amiga was giving me a little reminder as to how much I rely on it... : ))))
Hope that helps.
Gil
Sardis, BC
