#Open Letter to CEI
20 messages in this thread
Purchase Magic Workbench — and the MUI interface stuff! It is time to
have a good looking Workbench standard!
ApAssist–only when it becomes Screenmode independant. I find it unusable
on my multisync since I do _not_ use mode promotion on my A4000.
All Amigas should have 6 MB of RAM standard. 2 MB chip. 4 MB fast.
The current Amiga can read/write IBM and Mac high density disks. CrossMac
and CrossDOS provide this capability. It should be a standard part of the
OS.
-mark=
Otto Pilot Engaged..
MUI on an A1200 makes Windoze look fast.
Jeff Walker.
Marc, On the Cross/x stuff, they should put then entire cross/x capability in
there – format removable media to PC and Mac, a streaming tape save to the most
popular Mac format – at least as a fall back to not bundling with mulitplatform
emulation.
wmc – via Autopilot!
-> ApAssist–only when it becomes Screenmode independant.
Agreed. I'm sure Black Belt Systems could fix this if it were
dependant of ApAssist being added to an upgraded Workbench.
-> All Amigas should have 6 MB of RAM standard. 2 MB chip. 4 MB fast.
I think that might be overkill on a low end machine. 1 MB fast RAM
would speed up a 2 MB chip RAM machine nicely.
-> The current Amiga can read/write IBM and Mac high density disks.
CrossMac and CrossDOS provide this capability. It should be a standard
part of the OS.
I'm looking for the Amiga to seamlessly be able to read, write, and
format an IBM or Mac data disk. No startup of additional programs,
special drives, etc. Have you seen the Mac ads where the guy walks into a
computer store and says he needs a "PC" that will read his disk? The
retailer just plugs the disk into a Mac. It looks impressive in the
commercial.
zhL
is some sort of Directory Utility to make the machine even easier to use.
Something like DiskMaster would be perfect!
I'd like to see a lower priced AGA machine. I don't use my Amiga for ).work
so it's hard to justify a $2300-plus price tag, yet I'd like
flexability of plug-in cards i.e. an AGA version of the A2000 with a
built-in controller and hard drive. Something with super expandibility.
-> I'm looking for the Amiga to seamlessly be able to read, write, and
format an IBM or Mac data disk. No startup of additional programs,
special drives, etc. Have you seen the Mac ads where the guy walks into a
computer store and says he needs a "PC" that will read his disk? The
retailer just plugs the disk into a Mac. It looks impressive in the
commercial.<-
"It looks impressive in the commercial" is the key statement here. Have
you seen the separate Apple file exchange program you use to do this? Not
a bad program but still very much a separate program. The way CrossDos
handles this on the Amiga is much more transparent.
-Richard
Perhaps the Mac needs a special program to read and write IBM disks but
I don't see how it would be that difficult for a drive to figure out what
kind of disk it has been fed and use it accordingly.
The drive figures out if a disk is present and sends the info back to the
OS. At least the disks are the same for the various platforms; it's the
filesystems that vary. Stick a PC formatted disk in a Mac and it wants to
know if you want to initialize it or eject it unless you're in the Apple
file exchange program. Stick that same disk in an Amiga where CrossDos has
transparently mounted the file system at startup and you can immediately
copy files to and from it and load anything from the disk that your Amiga
can use. Sounds pretty much like what you're asking for.
-Richard
Perhaps the CrossDOS's are better than I thought. I hadn't thought of
putting them in the startup-sequence/user-startup. Maybe I don't like the
extra "PC" icon that pops up with 2.1's CrossDOS.
Leslie,
Got to agree with you on the extra icon. I can't really put my finger on
it but something about it mildly irritates me. I generally mount PC0 by
clicking on it's icon WB3.x or from a script only When I know I'm going to
be needing it.
-Richard
Richard, try MultiFileSystem, available somewhere up here <g>. It gives
you only one icon, and uses DF0/1 as the device name no matter what the FS
is – if it senses the disk is MS-DOS it will use CrossDOS, etc. When you
go to format, a requester asks you which FS you want. I've been using it
on my 3000 with 3.1 for over a month with no problem.
DJ
On AP from Queens, the thrill and excitement of the Big Apple
Where a little paranoia keeps you healthy and sane …
DJ: Does MFS have much overhead? Any known contention with Toasters?
Thanks.
Trent/ReAnimators
>> I'd like flexability of plug-in cards i.e. an AGA version of the A2000 with
a built-in controller and hard drive. Something with super expandibility. <<
I'd like to see that too. You need complete high end systems for pro use, of
course. But there are those interested non professionals too that would like to
gradually improve their system according to their needs and their purse. It was
one strong argument for the A2000 until the AGA chip set materialized.
Joachim Sondermann
on Amiga AutoPilot from Cologne, Germany
I totally agree that gradual expansion is desirable. When I bought this
machine I wanted an Amiga 3000 but I didn't have that much money. So I
bought an A500 Plus, then later a GVP A530 Turbo, then 4MBytes 32bit RAM,
then a 68882 co-processor. So I ended up with a high performance system
without having to pay for it all in one go.
Over here in England we tend to assume that Americans have a lot more
money to spend than we do. If this is true they are more likely to buy
A4000s. I wonder how many people over here are like me and want the
computing power but can't afford it all at once.
Peter Wade
Autopiloting from London, England
You had one here. I bought the a600 for its affordability. This was when it
was selling for $299. Two months later you could get it for $149. But, I
enjoy the ease of use of the Amiga, and the general "feel" of it. So I'm not
embittered. One of the benefits of the current situation is that it has forced
me to wait to upgrade. I now have enough money stashed away to get myself a
reasonably powerful system (an A400 BTW) -sorry, make that 4000- But if it
wasn't for that I would still be in the same boat.
re: low-end-to-high-end expandability
How about having a bare-bones low-profile system with a processor slot,
video (card) slot (not the kind for a Toaster), one expansion slot, and a
wide bus connector on the side for hooking into a larger expansion case at
a later date? (Kind of like the notebook "docking station" concept,
except for a desktop unit).
– Jim, on AP!
That sounds great to me. The only drawback of my expansion path is that
there are a lot of expansions I cannot use, like 24bit graphics cards and
Emplant. If the larger expansion case had a full Zorro bus it would allow
me to expand my system just as much as the 'serious' models.
Peter Wade
Autopiloting from London, England
Peter,
People here and people there are not all that different–in wishes OR in
wealth. Some of us can afford more than others, in both countries. Some of us
put computers ahead of other possessions–in both countries. But over here,
the Video Toaster and SCALA and a few other things of that sort have made a
tremendous demand for high-end Amigas in TV and movie studios, amusement parks,
and other places that need that kind of video abilities. The Toaster, in
particular, would not work with PAL systems, thus preventing that particular
demand in the UK. Maybe that was one of the major differences.
Actually, I think there are more high-end machines in the UK than most people
over here think there are.
—Betty
An AGA A2000 would be ideal for me. I can't afford to go for a fully
blown A4000, yet an A1200 doesn't offer the expandibility I like.
If you're compiling a list, please, please, all systems to have system
clocks!
regards, Lu on AutoPilot downunder
-> If you're compiling a list, please, please, all systems to have system
clocks!
Excellent! I didn't even think of that! I realize Commodore was
trying to save money but not to put a clock in the A1200 was inexcusable!