CompuServe Messages

Troy, You're probably just like me. I'ld rather have had one machine on my desk, but I've got two. My old A2000 is a dinosaur and the cost of keeping it current is outlandish. When I bought my Amiga, the difference between the Amiga interface and the MS-DOS interface was like night and day. But the IBM world has caught up and is surpassing the Amiga as we speak. Sure, there are advantages to the Amiga, but those advantages don't outweigh the disadvantages at this time. If CEI can sell *me* on an Amiga over a hot new Pentium 100+MHZ machine when I'm looking to buy sometime next year, then they've got a shot at competing. Otherwise forget it. What I'll be looking for is a fast (whatever is the state-of-the-art for PC's) machine with 32 MB ram, 2 GB HD, 28,800 internal modem, CD-ROM, runs MS-DOS in an Amiga window (with full windows capability), and Unix similarly. The machine should allow file Xfers from all platforms. For the base system, there should be bundled software as follows: Word Processor, Database, Spreadsheet, Telecommunications (TCP/IP – full blown w/WWW), fax software, desktop publishing. The system should also have several dozen games included in the base package. The cost should be no greater than $3,500. There should be several bundles available: 1) Developers package: C++ compiler, libraries, AREXX, GUI interface (like VisualBasic), Basic, COBOL/CICS, 4GL (Sybase/Oracle clones), Pascal, Fortran. Also, very important in this package is the ability to handle multimedia as database data. Users must be able to store graphics, videos, music as data items. There must be appropriate conversion routines to accept all standard MAC and DOS format graphics and sound. Cost cannot be greater than $500. 2) Education package: Encyclopedia, Dictionary, Thesaurus, learning games for the 2-8 age set, paint program, music program. Cost should not be greater than $200.