_LinchpiN_ wrote:
... The problem i see is that the A1, as amazing as it looks, dosent have the "numbers" needed to pull the newbies in. I know as well as you know that PPC is superior to Pentium, PC processors, but do the people know this? Take this for example.
1. 2400 mhz PC, with this,that,scanner,monitor = £899!
2. AmigaONE 800mhz, tower. £699. (or whatever)
Whenever I see a message like this I begin to wonder. A PPC may be superior in technology, but if the competition has many, many more MHz's to make up for the deficiency, who cares? Certainly
not the budding home user who wants to use his computer to write a few letters, access the Internet for email, play the occasional game, and organise his hobby projects.
I consider myself somewhat knowledgable on computers. I know how an Amiga works, I know how a PC works (though not as completely as the Amiga), I can hack into programs with a disassembler on both the i386 and m68k platforms, I am reasonably fluent with C. My interests are in language and compiler design, (automated) game core mechanics, network programming, and 3D libraries. I don't care one iota what CPU my programs run on---the underlying aspects of said interests are not dependent on it. As long as it compiles C and executes them reasonably fast, I'm happy.
I guess what I'm trying to say is: the days where it mattered what CPU you used are long gone. Efficiency of the compiler and scope of application libraries are far more important. And if you can do it on a PPC (with AmigaOS 4), you can do it equally well and most likely better on a run-of-the-mill Intel Pentium 4. The only thing an A1 as going for it is that it is a new platform, so people can agree on a common set of simple, extendable but above all consistent interfaces, both to the user as well as the programmer. This is much more attractive than something which serves as a battleground for various zealots. (Linux with its hopelessly divided KDE/Gnome UIs comes to mind.)
That should be the goal of the A1 (and AmigaOS 4), not whether it runs on a PPC or not.
My $0.02.
