#Jerry P. & Amiga
29 messages in this thread
I just thought that Amiga owners would like to know that their old nemesis
Jerry Pournelle has reconsidered his previous dislike of the Amiga. In the
latest Byte, in his "User's Column" he was downright complimentary at
times! He even went so far as to admit "The Amiga was the first personal
computer with a practical multitasking operating system". Overall the
article contained about as high of praise as Jerry will hand out to anyone
or anything. This is in the September 1992 Byte, page 113.
Clint <VRLI>
In reading that, I had to keep thinking that we owe a lot to Joanne Dow,
Leo Schwab and others for keeping JP on the right track with this one. It
sounded to me like it had a lot of help.
AND! Commodore had an ad on page 31.
Steve
Steve:
Yep. Hopefully Jerry will drop by WOA and see what the world is
actually doing with the Amiga.
Clint <VRLI>
The article was kinda alright I would say. He seems very confused about the
Amiga, he acted like 2.0 just came out very recently with this great new
machine 3000T ! he acted like it wouldnt work on his other amiga , Im sure
this isnt his first Ami. I thought Commodore would have atleast sent him a
3000 T 040….
No mention of the Amigas GREAT second party h/w s/w support, the Toaster,
or Real usable 3D rendering and animation packages that are currently used
by many profesionals.
He still acted like you should only have it as a second computer toy for
doing silly video stuff at home. Like IBM or Apple have no interest in Real
affordable multimedia. The amiga has from the start was designed for
compatibility with NTSC video, thats what everyone has in their homes..
I wish Bill Gates would buy CBM or atleast the amiga and double the money
he has. It could just be a toy in Everyones house……..
Later
– via Whap!
John:
Jerry had a 2000 earlier on, but the lack of the software that he
likes (wordprocessor and spreadsheet) resulted in a thumbs down. Actually,
I'm not sure just how much C= officially had to do with his getting a
3000. I know several 3rd parties were involved, but I don't have any info
on C= involvement. Actually, it's just as well he didn't mention the
Toaster. He has a 3000 which isn't altogether compatible with the Toaster.
grin>
Actually, I'm glad Bill Gates hasn't bought the Amiga. He'd put in a
486, take out the 040 and add Windows. Then you'd just have another
PC-Clone. I'm happy with the Amiga as it is. It's growing at a nice clip,
and it's still an easy market for new creative vendors to enter. It's alot
harder to enter the MS-DOS or Apple market.
Clint <VRLI>
Clint,
I was shocked when I read the article. (I expected the "new Amiga" to be
the A600!) Jerry's report was remarkable clear-sighted, coming from a man
whose track record has left many an Amiga owner with a big red dent on
their forehead. (Comes from slapping one's forehead with the palm of one's
hand)
I feel we should write Jerry and thank him for a frank, unbiased look at
our machine. He always gets nasty mail when he screws up; it's only fair
that we give him credit when credit is due. A brief piece of mail (the
guy's so busy) would have the best chance of being read.
Blaq!
Charles:
That's a good idea! I always like Heinlein's concept that if you tell
a man how great and wonderful he is, sooner or later he will begin
stooping to walk through 8 foot tall doorways. <grin> Who knows, maybe
Jerry will become a friend of the Amiga?
Clint <VRLI>
Charles,
I have to disagree vis-a-vis Jerry. Personally, I don't think he has
screwed up at all. To put it bluntly, this is _still_ a hackers machine. I
know, I have a resident victim to test all the neat new programs and
hardware on. She just happens to be a Ph.D., but when it comes to this
beast, even though she also happens to have been an electronic technician,
she might as well be a babe in the woods.
Has anyone here, as a complete novice, tried to install AmigaDOS 2.0 in
an Amiga 500? If so, did you fry the CIA chips? What about installing the
expansion ram without frying the memory chips with static? The same goes
for any of the other expansion items for the 500 or 2000. Sure, if like
most Amigans, you 'hack' Amiga, it's no problem installing the latest,
neatest, video de-interlacer, or DKB 2MB memory board. If your the typical
user, it can be a real problem, especially if your as machine illiterate as
Jerry pretends to be.
I still think the guy gets a bum rap, mostly from a hacker specific
community.
Brian Bartlett
Brian: What you said. I think JerryP came to realize that the reason
AAmigans seem so wild-eyed is because most of us ARE hackers, always
tinkering with our boxes, unlike the great majority of PC or Mac users.
Since he's one, too (despite his pretensions to the contrary), I think
perhaps a feeling of kinship developed as he researched his Amiga column.
I think the Amiga is the only machine out there in wide usage that really
fits Byte's old subtitle – 'the small systems journal'. Other systems
(MSDOS, Mac, etc.) are more like refrigerators (applicances). The Amiga
really is a fun machine for hobbyists and hackers much more than the…
others are. Plenty of appliance power, but much more fun for people who DO
want to open it up and play around. I think most of my friends who use
clones and Macs treat them like refrigerators. No thought of tinkering
or… opening them up. The Amiga owners I know are different – many of
them delight in scrambling the eggs inside that beige 'shell'.
Brian:
Having worked in the computer sales/service business for many years, I can
tell you that I've seen plenty of MS-DOS Clones and Macs damaged by novice
users trying to install hardware upgrades. This is a problem that all PCs
share, not just the Amiga. A SIMM can easily be fried no matter what kind
of computer you install it in. Novice users shouldn't be attempting to do
anything beyond simple card installations. I even have some reservations
about that.
As for 2.0 on A500s, I assume you mean the ROMs. Installing the software
on a HD is quite easy.
Wayne
Wayne,
if the ROM's aren't in, what is the point of installing 2.0 on the
drive?
Brian Bartlett
Brian:
There is no point in installing 2.0 on the hard drive if the Amiga's ROM is
still 1.3. That wasn't what I was trying to say. Once the ROM is
correctly installed, the rest is fairly easy.
Wayne
In the past I have amazed and embarrassed PClone owners with the ease with
which I can upgrade Amigas with new hardware. Mostly it is plug in, run SW
install, and go. THere are no switches to set or INT XXs to keep straight,
or IO pages to avoid conflicts with, or any of that <brown stuff>. Jerry
has been impressed as well. (On his A2000 I wanted to toss in some SW I
already had installed on my system. I installed my HardFrame along with his
2090A. I then swapped my 8-UP! for his 2058 so "Wizardess World" (my
startup-sequence work of art) would work and booted. He started to object
to the thought of the conflicts of two controllers etc etc and was
surprised that it worked so well together and so easily.)
His main "problem" with the Amiga is the lack of "business" software on it
and the fact that everything he does is on the PClones now and moving from
them is mostly out of the question. (ANd for gosh sakes we do NOT have a
good Jerryp compatible word cruncher available for the Amiga. He does NOT
loke er like distracting fancies on the screen distracting him. He does NOT
like the text jumping around and reformatting itself on the fly. It
distracts his train of thought. Ah well….)
{@_@}
Joanne:
Out of curiosity, has Jerry ever seen the 2286 or 2386 Bridgeboard? (and
has he ever heard of CIS?) 🙂 <running away>
// Michael
\X/ …on AutoPilot
Brian,
I agree with you that a novice can fry their Amiga while trying to
install a new ROM. But so can any PC owner when plugging in additional
memory, or even an expansion board. Most PCs are, by and large, still
hacker's machines. Ever tried to add fonts to Windows?
I also have little sympathy for people who buy a $399 computer and
expect to gracefully and painlessly expand it to the power and performance
of a $1599 model. Bite the bullet, sell off your 500 and buy a 2000 or
3000, for heaven's sake.
Jerry's column is usually an 8-page lamentation about trying to kludge
his PC to squeeze even more precious bytes from his machine's stone-age
memory scheme. And you say the Amiga needs hacking!
Blaq!
No, Jerry's column is a method of piling more and more software and
hardware in his office, so he has more things to give away to his family
and other camp followers, and the "charities" of his choice – all given as
bribes so the companies involved can use his plugs in their ads. Gee,
full-page color ads with his picture, holding a Pioneer CD-ROM, intermidst
the columns that talk about his favorite Pioneer six-disk CD changer? What
an amazing coincidence!
Jerry has a tiger by the tail with that column. He actually gets
overwhelmed by the <stuff> that flows through his place. You cannot believe
or even begin to comprehend the volume. I have been in there when literally
there was barely space for a human to walk between the piles of stuff. ANd
it was cleaned out the week before! I bet he could do a wonderful humor
piece about some of the things and situations that pass through his place.
(Sometimes he invites people over to play "Guess what this package does!"
The funny thing is he has no problem pulling out packages that do NOT tell
what the product does on its packaging – anywhere on its packaging.)
(That Pioneer six pack is nice. I seem to remember snapper (Canadian
Prototype Replicas) as allowing as how he rather liked his Pioneer. And he
has as fancy a collection of CD-ROM drives around as you're likely to
find.)
{@_-}
No, I can imagine. I can imagine that there's an insane volume, more than
your average computer dealership per week, I'm sure. As a part-time writer
and full-time thinker, I've had some of my deepest and most soul-searching
selfevaluations when it comes to professional computer writing. It's hard
enough for journalism-school types (of which I am NOT) to worry about
objectivity, subjectivity, etc. and it's the people in positions like
Pournelle's – in general, not necessarily in specific – that worry me the
most. Computer writing isn't journalism, it's an odd blend of product
promotion, self-promotion, of technical savvy held as a virtue, and
technical ignorance held as a virtue. Guy Kawasaki resigned his Mac column
when his editors questioned his appearance in ads. That made me wonder,
what kinds of breaches would different computer writers regard as serious
enough to resign their posts? How shameless can a shameless plug be,
before Pournelle would consider it a breach?
By the way, whenever Pournelle writes something good about the Amiga, I
mentally thank *you* – or attribute credit to people like you, because I
know there's been people behind the scenes who've helped massage his Amiga
into a state that's worth writing about, and convincing him that there's
something new worth writing about. I imagine you're often elbow to elbow
with the people fixing his other machines… 🙂
I have installed programs on my Amiga 500 at home, and the PC's at work.
The Amiga has been significantly easier in all cases.
And, when JP has problems, he, like most users, just gives a call to his
friend, Bob Goudabout (I don't think the spelling is correct, but I don't
have any place to check it now), and Bob pops over and fixes it.
Bill Roberts in Ellettsville In. via Whap!
all the more reason to have a good local Amiga dealer …
If one is not quite technically adept AND willing to use an anti-static
strap one should not muck around inside any Commodore (or any other
computer for that matter – 'cept frying PClones should get you a bonus
instead of a penalty…)
I have had no problems upgrading my machines here multiple times. You just
have to exercise reasonable precautions. (I upgraded Jerry's A3000 (not T)
to an 8 by 2 machine from 4 by 1 and it worked first time. I showed him
where the information regarding the upgrade exists in the A3000 books that
come with the machine. And he was duely impressed with the easy upgrade in
the hands of someone with experience – ie your neighborhood qualified Amiga
tech.)
On OTHER scores I might note that the Amiga is a hacker's machine. This is
for the more "traditional" hacker I might add, one who has a love affair
with her hardware. At least the documentation with 2.04 is getting a little
(er LOTS) better than it was with 1.0 through 1.3. And the GUI capabilities
have been improving and will get better yet in times to come. (Safe
prediction that. I know Commodore folks are working hard on new material of
all sorts as a matter of proper business course. Even Mehdi and Irving can
see not doing future development is a sure course to business failure.)
Just for gawd sakes sir do NOT recommend that a novice upgrade the OS roms
in an Amiga any more than they should upgrade the BIOS chips in a PClone.
(And on some machines this is a very beneficial upgrade trick for PClones.)
{@_@}
I love the Amiga because of its "hacker friendliness." But I hope
it also becomes a LOT more user friendly as well.
Joanne,
no, I do not use an anti-static strap, although I have one, I just keep
the Amiga grounded and touch the ground regularly. I feel safe in this,
since I have been mucking about inside computers for years. I used to do
this for a living for the Navy. Provided one is willing to follow the
"touch grounded metal" rule, yes, you can muck around inside your PC,
whatever flavor it is.
I do have to call into question your information concerning upgrading
the Amiga. While it is quite a bit more painless than the IBscuM PC
compatibles at work, it is no bed of roses. When I see broken software all
over the hard disk, it is not pretty. This applies whether one is
upgrading your A500 with an '030 accelerator or moving from an A2000 to an
A3000. I do _not_ blame CBM for this, it is simply a fact of life that
many programmers can't seem to read the introduction to the RKM's. Some
seem to not even know what they are.
This also applies to the upgrade to 2.04. Again, if you aren't safe
with a computer, you shouldn't do it. If you are, do it. Even when you
complete it, don't expect everything to run. If it does run, don't expect
it not to crash, which too much of my software has done recently. Even
"safe" applications, such as PenPal, do crash on 2.04.
I heartily agree that this is, perhaps, the penultimate "hackers"
machine (in the original sense of the meaning, not what the press has
glorified). Fortunately, I have been a traditional hacker all my life and
I have been hacking the Amiga since its introduction, so I love my beasts,
all four of them. The A500 is currently sitting in pieces on my desk
receiving surgery to add 2.04 and an IDE hard drive. Which is my basic
point, the Amiga _is_ a hacker's machine.
_But_!! one must be literate not only in the hardware, but in the
software. Lord knows the number of interaction problems I've had to track
down over the past 7 years. Even supposedly safe programs from CBM can
interact strangely with other supposedly safe programs. Until we either
[ MORE ]
[ continuation ]
get hardware memory protection or some type of software equivalent, it will
always be a guessing game as to what works with what. Isn't that what
Pournelle faces every time he tries something new?
Brian Bartlett
Here is an internet address for Byte's letters column for those interested:
letters@bytepb.byte.com
Edjs _ // thWhap!
Edward_Swatschek@mindlink.bc.ca \X/ – take that!
JerryP got that A3000T several months ago, before the '040 Commodore
announcement. Magazines have long lead times. >>>> Ron Legro / Milwaukee
via WHAP!
"Wherever you go, there you are!"
Ron:
I knew he got a 3000 awhile ago, as we were providing some of the
software that went along with it, but I didn't know it was a tower. All
the better. If you want to impress someone, send them the best! <grin>
Clint <VRLI>
OK, Clint – then send him a 040 board, 16 megs of mem, and a Firecracker
board and a big hard drive for that A3000 – that'll make it the 'best'.