Amiga vs PC

[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.

[DavidF215]

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?  ....

Awesome point. Let me tell a quick story. One of my friend's brother works at Microsoft as some type of support Engineer. Very smart guy--even assembled his own audio amp with vacuum tubes because he thought they performed better than the digital equivalent. Anyways, he works with large MS business clients and his department has a blank check to purchase identical equipment to mimic a client's software or hardware problem.  I went to his house once and noticed that he had several iMac computers--one for the kid's room, one in the kitchen and a PowerMac in his office. I asked him why the Macs if he worked at MS. He said because the hardware and software are designed to work together and it works well. He mentioned how there are so many different possible configurations for [Intel] PCs that it is often difficult to pinpoint problems. The OS and selected hardware are optimised. So I also think that customization has credibility and advantages.

With regard to the benefits of customization, I agree with those who say that a "true" Amiga contains the original chipsets. It was all designed to work together, and it worked well. Modernize the chipset with the faster chips of today, and the efficiently designed Amiga system architecture continues.

@Arkhan and stefcep2
Interesting comparison talk between Amiga and x86 in that timeframe. I actually bought my A1200 around 1994 because the x86 couldn't keep up with what I wanted. The A1200 booted within a few seconds, it swapped between running applications quickly and the GUI was quicker in response. Those were my main decision making factors. The other factors included graphics and sound. I was able to play a song on the A1200 and switch between it and other applications (maybe 4 apps running) such as Final Writer with no wait time.

I HATE waiting for a computer to boot. The C64 spoiled me for life (along with the old Intellivision System)--turn the power on and the sucker was ready within two seconds. And the Amiga followed it as my A1200 booted within 5 seconds (I timed it once) compared to that of W95/W98 which took at least 30 seconds. I couldn't stand Win31, W95, or W98! To make any stupid little change required a reboot, and the shutdown and startup took forever! I almost quit tech support because it was so frustrating to troubleshoot and work with. I switched to W2K as quick as I could because it required much fewer reboots; it still took forever to boot, though. For me the only good thing about Microsoft is that they've provided me a job, but there are other jobs or paths I could have (should have) taken instead. When I bought my A1200 in 1994 and started learning it, I was so glad to be done with the MS crap that I thought I'd never go back. Then C= went bankrupt and Amiga International followed suite, and the computer world, IMO, has sucked ever since until recently when Intel/AMD chips are finally fast enough to decently run Windows and Linux; just waiting for the SSDs to drop in price for quicker boot times.

My $0.02 ~ 0.03 euro.  Sorry for the long soap box post.

[DavidF215]

Well, first let me say sorry for making a post that obviously caused so much fuss, second while we went off topic in places the question I was originally asking was what would it take if the money was endless to make a super amiga? I was thinking that a motherboard with pci express or agp express would be a start, this would give the graphics a leap start, second a new processor, not an intel or an amd but something new, the amiga was good because it didnt depend on one huge processor to do all the work but instead shared the work load through various chips. add to that solid state hdds to keep size and sound and costs down and a nice new OS with inbuild touch screen technology support and its the foundation of a new amiga? no?

I have noticed that rabbit chasing occurs frequently around here. As amigasi mentioned, the Natami project desires to simply upgrade the Amiga chipset hardware and keep going.

PCI express would probably be the better starting point as AGP is old school now. ARM is a possible contender, and there is a rumor that AmigaOS4 will be ported to it.

Amiga needs more software now than anything else.

Need some popcorn reading about the API vs. direct access discussion. Would an API that maintains an optimized, hardware banging code base adequately satisfy?

[DavidF215]

He requires X capabilities to be able to do his job. These capabilities are offered in product A more or less out of the box, but product B doesn't offer these capabilities either at all or without a huge amount of hard work on his part.

Product A therefore gets the sale.

Or Product B gets the sale because Manager Z read an article, written by a journalist instead of a technician, in a magazine and decided Product B would be better because everybody else uses it.

[DavidF215]

Sheesh, what is it with some of you people.... never learned basic manners or courteousies? Also to those who seem to be driven to point out amigas shortcomings,... you do realise that most people are aware of these "problems" don't you?  Some people simply dont care and enjoy what the Amiga gives them.... I read over and over again posts by people who seem to think theyre enlightening people,... too arrogant to realise that theyre not the only ones who know what it is they point out.
I understand that this thread is a comparitive thing, so in some ways is probably the place for comparisons, but the tone and attitude some people here take based on things they "know" is quite childish and rude... ever heard of the concept of discussing things without resorting to stupidity ?  I wont name people, but I suspect those who are responsible already know it, so it's not necessary.

Indeed.