CompuServe Messages

When comparing an Amiga (especially an A3000 or A4000) to a PC please remember the following: 1) The Amiga Zorro III bus is a full 32-bit bus, like EISA or MCA. It blows away ISA bus machines in anything that depends on bus rates (such as drive data transfer, etc.) 2) The Amiga has custom co-processors for handling such items like sound, graphics, etc. It is comparable to local-bus accelerated video on the PC — actually faster unless you get a TIGA board for the PC. A 25-MHz 68040 is comparable to a 33-MHz 80486 DX2 when doing rendering, math, etc. Comparing an Amiga 4000 to a PC would require that you have the following on a PC (33-MHz or 50-MHz 80486 DX2; EISA or MCA motherboard with 24-bit, accelerated local-bus SVGA/XGA video; dual-floppy [Amiga can handle 4 floppies]; IDE hard drive controller (SCSI with A3000/A4000T/A2000); Soundblaster Pro; joystick; mouse; parallel port; DOS; Windows 3.1) Amiga multitasking is inherent (built in since 1985) and can be done with as little as 1 Mb RAM (actually 512k, but you'd be hard pressed for RAM on *every* app). It has a flat memory model (just under 2 Gb RAM limit; 18 Mb on the motherboard) and no reasonable drive partition limits (2 Gb per partition). You have to try *NOT* to multitask. Build in IPC (inter process communication) and IPC programming language (ARexx, souped up version of Rexx on OS/2); limited DDE (universal clipboard support, limited HotLinks). Third party Virtual Memory is available. Any questions? Oh, yes. Very powerful (the best on a PC) video and 3D software (Toaster, Lightwave, etc.)