#Mac vs Amiga ?
62 messages in this thread
My son has an Amiga 1000 which is a bit the worse for
wear (hard disk broken for third time, missing a key, etc. ). He has a
year and a half of college to go and is getting a degree in Computer
Science. He will be taking "C" next term an is very interested in
animation and interactive video.
He would like to upgrade to an Amiga 3000 (Student price $3100, 25Mhz, 50MB
drive, hi-res monitor) – or a slightly cheaper Amiga 2000. However, he is
willing to consider a Mac. The problem is he thinks the minimum machine
would be a Mac IIcx with an Apple color monitor. I am wondering if a used
SE-30 with a color card/monitor would do. I use a Mac at work and just
bought a IIci to use at home.. so I am prejudiced.
Would anyone care to comment? I brought this up once before – now I need
to go through it in the context of actually buying something.
I posted a similar message in the Macsys forum.
Harry
Harry –
Obviously, those of us active in this forum are _usually_ biased in favor
of the Amiga (smile), but I would tend toward agreeing with your son's
evaluation. Each machine has its strengths, and the areas that you
indicated were your sons interests are the strengths of the Amiga. I have
used Macs at work (Mac II, SE30), and have no intention of downplaying
their strengths (though I feel the prices are _still_ too high for the
capabilities), but have not seen an SE30 with solor card/monitor, so can't
comment on that.
If it isn't already, C is becoming the major language used on the Amiga,
and the Amiga was designed with video in mind (the Video Toaster by NewTek
is an Amiga specific product, for example (though expensive for casual use
by a college student, street price $1500). For CS students, the Unix
operating system has become quite important. Amiga Unix (currently in beta
test and has actually been shipped to some schools), is expected to be
formally announced/released next month, and is an implementation of System
V Release IV (SVR4), which is one of two systems competing to become _the_
standard Unix (IMHO, they have the advantage in the competition having hit
the market in strength first, and being backed by AT&T and Sun). Apple's
A/UX 2.0 does not comply either with SVR4 or with OSF/1 (the other
competing system).
Hope this is of some help.
Jeff Schweiger
Actually students (as well as developers) can buy the pre-release
A3000UX today. $4,000 with 5MB ram and 100MB HD. $5,000 with 9MB ram and
200MB HD. Both come with A1950 and Ethernet board and probably something
else I'm not thinking of.
— Ethan
P.S. No UofL board yet I'm afraid.
Ethan, does the UX ALSO come with AmigaDos?
Ron
Yes, you get Unix and AmigaDOS 2.1.
— Ethan
Makes sense. You get Unix but you still get AmigaDos.
Ron
and AmigaVision… too bad I bought a 3000 before I found out about the 5K
200mb 9m deal… There is no questin that this machine is the
price/performance leader over any possible mac config. even used.
and how could I forget.. X-Windows is also thrown in!
FYI – 'C' has always been the predominant language on the Amiga.
Well, you may be slightly prejudiced but you also chose a slightly
prejudiced crowd!
First, wait until after January 1 and see if the educatioal price lists
have changed. They are rumored to go down.
If he wants to save some money, he can go for the 16MHz A3000 with
monitor for $2,600. It is slower and cheaper, but I can't imagine what
would seem SLOW about the 16MHz, unless you are doing ray-tracing. You can
still add an 040 card in the future. It is definitely worth considering.
As to the SE/30, it is almost unexpandable. If you get a color setup,
that is going to be one WIERD system with the built in monitor and an
external one with nothing to sit on. The IIsi has a huge backlog. The IIlc
hasn't been released yet and will also have a huge backlog. The IIci is
definitely overkill and I didn't think the IIcx was still being made,
although there are probably leftovers still available.
If he is interested in animation and interactive video the Amiga becomes
twice as valuable, having both built in and standard. There is also an
excellent C compiler available from SAS. It includes source level debugger.
Basically the Amiga has a number of advantages, as well as EXCELLENT
support on Usenet which he will most likely have access to through his
college.
— Ethan
P.S. 5 semesters and hasn't taken C?
This is Harry's Son here, the Com Sci student being referred too. I go to a
small college in southern Ohio (Antioch College) not very well known for
its Computer Science department, but it has one, and has teachers that I
enjoy working with.
I own a 1000, 2.5 megs, Imagewriter II printer and about 500 disks of
assorted stuff. I like the Amiga, I love the color. I would love to get a
2500 or a 3000 and sell this old Amiga (though I am beginning to doubt I
will be able to give it a new home, it may end up as a glorified nintendo
system..anyone want to make an offer?) I am going to be learning C and
doing work in graphics (in C) in the next few months. As far as I know my
school is not UNIXed yet, though I know its been spoken of. SO the 3000UX
is not required, though it would be neat. HOW MUCH WAS THE 3000UX WITH
STUDENT DISCOUNT? That is the pre-release right? Does that include a Free
Upgrade?
.. Now, why am I, a current Amiga person, looking at Macs? My College has
been Macintoshed. THe library has lazer printers and a good deal of
students have Macs in their rooms. If I had a Mac there I would be able to
laser print, transfer stuff to other macs, etc. I Know about AMAX II, but I
believe that emulates a Mac +, so I wouldnt be able to emulate color, thus
I would still have to buy an Amiga C compiler, whereas if I had a Mac I
could use the schools. I am only really considering the IICX or CI as an
alternative to an Amiga system, and the prices for the Apples are much
higher thamn Commodores so I am again leaning towards AMIGA.
.. I have heard rumors of A3000 compatibility problems with software? Is
this true? What software, and what degree of problems? What would you
recommend, a A3000 25mhz, 50 Meg HD, 1950 monitor for $3039, or the
A2500,50 Meg HD, 4 meg 32 bit ram, 1 Meg 16, 1084S Monitor for $2999
(STUDENT DISCOUNT FOR BOTH). I have been kind of out of the Amiga news
circles for about 6months and really don't know much about the 3000 and the
2500.thC
. I am currently tilted towards getting the A3000 package and upgrading
a few pieces of software (Excellence 2 etc) and buying the SAS C compiler.
THis is however, stretching $$$ matters with Dad (his account) and I may
end up not getting anything, or getting the MAC SE/30 or whatever and
bringing my old 1000 and the MAC out to Ohio. ok I would appreciate hearing
opinions on what y'al{l think would be good. Are there other C Compilers
out on the market? Books you'd reccommend? Thanks. Matthew Baya (Harry's
Son)
Hey Matt,
Be sure to read message #9978.
I think you are lobbying to have these guys lobby me into getting you a
Cray that emulates an Amiga and has Amiga slots. Good luck.
What's the matter? Didn't you like the Vic 20?
Harry (aka Dad)
Thanks for the encouragement. The vic 20 was nice, so was the adam, and
the //e, and that Plus you gave me, and the AT, and the Terminal, and now
the A1000…. and next…..
to be continued…. <GRIN> -Matt
Matt,
Next – I hope you don't mean NeXt? Up a little late were you?
Lots of decisions today.
Harry
Well Harry, since no one has yet addressed your other questions, I'll try.
For Books on C, I'd have to recommend C Primer Plus (Howard W. Sams &
company) by Waite, Prata and Martin. I'd also recommend the New C Primer
Plus (Howard Sams again) from the Waite Group.
For Compilers there are a couple of PD/Shareware issues out there, but for
your purposes, I'd recommend that you stay with a commercial release, of
which I know of 2: Manx and SAS.
One other thing to consider in all of this is the possibility of donating
your 1000 to a school, and take advantage of a small tax break (if that's a
consideration). It might indirectly help defray your costs of upgrading.
regards,
greg
Hellono-one has addressed the laser printer/word-processor prob yet so I
thought you should knowthere are several file conversion utilities
(Mac-to-Dos comes to mind) which will transfer your WP (or graphics, or
spreadseets et al) files to Mac format. Also CrossDoss and Dos-to-Dos for
IBM format. There are other, more vertical possibilities (BridgeBoard,
A-Max-II). There are also PD/Shareware file converters!
Mark Eaton
Matthew:
If $$$ is a problem, you can always buy a new keyboard for your 1000 (if I
remember correctly your father said yours was going bad) and a board called
the Rejuvenator that will bring your A1000 back in line with the most
current Amigas.
-Mike Schiller
In sunny Fort Lauderdale
Matt,
On the 3000, AMAX II uses the MMU and isn't stuck at the Mac Plus level (so
I'm told).
If it were me, I'd go with the Amiga (having all those disks) and probably
AMAX for whatever measure of compatibility that would afford. And animation
and interactive video are Ami's shining lights.
Also, the Amiga likes C. The Mac likes… Pascal.
Malcolm
The 3000UXs are $4,000 and $5,000 depending on configuration. It is
pre-release and has free upgrade. But I don't think you need Unix, as one
CS major to another. 8)
There is an addon you can buy which lets you read/write Mac disks. The
best way to go between Amiga/Mac for printing is with postscript and such a
disk drive. By the way, just because AMax doesn't support color, if your
reason for wanting a Mac is compatibility with other people's systems and
for printing, you don't need color for that! You can use AMax for that
stuff. BTW, I bought AMax and don't need it anywhere near as much as I
thought. I used it mainly for Tetris. 😎
The A3000 doesn't have a 68000, so many games have problems (they were
written badly). This is slowly changing. If you have a strong interest in
games you might want to keep your 1000 as a backup machine for those games
that don't like faster processors.
The other compatibility problems come from 2.0. Almost every program
(commercial) has been updated by now to work correctly. Basically it is an
almost non-issue and will soon not be an issue.
Getting E!2 and SAS/C seem to be good ideas. You might want to look into
some of the public domain ray-tracers if you want graphics-programming
ideas. The PD community is very active, you can get a lot of good stuff
from there.
— Ethan
I believe you get a year's worth of upgrades with the 3000UX. Also, many
of the macs and laser printers at your school should be on a n there are
Novell, appletalk and ethernet for the Amiga, as well as the good old
modem/null modem for sending postscript output from Amiga progs to the
Laserwriter.
Hello Harry's-son,
I would opt for the A3000/16 system if I were in your position.. Still a
very fast machine and would more than offset the cost of the C compiler
(heck, even buying the 25MHz model would do that). As for sharing files,
printers, etc, you can put the Amiga in there on the AppleTalk net, I
believe with one of Commodore's boards or the CMI Multiport board thats
been around for a while now.
Ah, Yellow Springs! Glen Helen! I remember riding there with my parents
as a kid on Sunday afternoons in the Fifties. We could drive through the
campus on the way to Glen Helen and see the beatniks sitting on the
balconies in their underwear. Despite the Macintoshing of the college, it
is in the tradition of Antioch for you to be a nonconformist and stick
with your Amiga. Horace Mann would have wanted it that way.
Mike
Harry,
Considering that the Amiga 3000 will run one of the better (if not THE
best) Unix implmentation on a micro, and that Unix and C complement each
other no end, the Amiga is a much better choice. In fact, there is evidence
that the Amiga 3000 will be ursurping the Mac in the college setting due to
the superior Unix implementation; Virginia Tech has already made the switch
from Apple to Amiga, and if the comparison made in the December issue of
Byte is any indication, then the NeXT may also see the same movement toward
the Amiga. Even without Unix, the Amiga is fully multitasking, relatively
Unix-like in it's Shell/console interface; These are important advantages
when dealing with C compilers, and the Mac lacks both.
Video isn't a clear-cut comparison.. In order for a Mac to surpass the
Amiga in video, it would have to be with 24-bit graphics, an extremely
expensive proposition. Even then, 24-bit video on the Amiga is becoming
increasingly popular (the VideoToaster, for example) in the high-end, and
several intermediate adaptors, such as HAM-E, provide 18-bit color (out of
a 24-bit palette) AND realtime animation as well as high software
compatability. The all Amigas come standard with 12-bit NTSC-compatible
color video; The average board in an SE (if any) is 8-bit video and totally
non-conforming to NTSC video.
As for animation, you are then dealing with something which, to an Amiga
user, is a joke on the Mac. Often, when Mac animation is practiced, it's a
limited parody of the same application on the Amiga, usually substituting
what would be real computer animation on the Amiga, for a section of a
re-recorded laserdisk which is played on a seperate monitor than the
computer's. In contrast, the Amiga easily accomplishes realtime animation
and the video is also easily combined with tape and videodisk into a
coherent display. Even when alot of money is thrown at it, realtime
animation isn't, ummm, a reality on the Mac.
The Amiga comes with a Multitasking GUI operating system as
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standard (from the beginning and has been stable for some time) and
AmigaVision GUI-based programming (via an icon language) that can exploit
the Amiga's unique video and multitasking, as well as communicate and
cooperate with other software in realtime (via multitasking and
standardized inter-program communication) as well as programs that your son
writes himself in C. The Mac comes with HyperCard, which cannot animate
because it runs on a Mac. The Mac interface is cuter and more predicatble
from application-to-application, but your son should already be accustomed
to the Amiga and will see a greatly-enhanced user interface under AmigaDOS
2.0 in the Amiga 3000.
I would seriously doubt if you got an informed response from the Mac
forum with regard to the Amiga. Sadly, my experience tells me that although
Amiga users typically are knowlegable of MS-DOS and Apple machines, MS-DOS
and Apple users tend not to know jack about the Amiga and when the
opinionated proceed to discuss it, it often comes out as some kind of
computer-paranoid babble that doesn't bear much resemblance to reality. I'm
sure Mac users encounter the same thing from MS-DOS users on occasion.
I hope this makes your descision easier, and perhaps will give you an
insight to what your son saw in the Amiga in the first place.
Harry, if your son will watch the Usenet messages, he can find good used
2000s and 2500s at very good prices, sometimes with almost everything one
might ask already on them, and with some pretty good software included. If
he is majoring in Computer Science, I would think he might need the A3000UX
rather than just the 3000. Most colleges are teaching the Unix system to
their students these days, and the 3000UX is getting mighty good reviews.
Of course, the educational offers on all of the Amigas are very good – but
most of those students who are trying to sell their machines are very much
aware of the educational pricing, and are putting their machines at prices
below that.
If he really wants a new machine, I should think he would be happy with
either the 2000 or the 3000, but for his major, I'd think the 3000UX would
be the best.
Betty
Betty,
Thanks for the suggestions and comments.
I infer that the A3000UX will be have some unique hardware features and
that the A3000 will not run the full Unix implementation as well as the
3000UX.
I have not had the best of experiences being on the cutting edge of
Micro-technology. In general I prefer getting a machine that has been out
for a 6 months or more.
Does anyone have any idea what the student price for the A3000UX will be?
Harry
Harry,
Your inference is wrong. The A3000UX is nothing more than an A3000
with UNIX software bundled.
Don
Isn't the unix actually "bundled" in the extra ROMs which fill the now
empty slots in my 3000.. sort of hardware different.
Arnie,
Nope…first of all, even if UNIX were on a ROM, that doesn't make
a hardware differnce since you simply would plug the ROM in. However, UNIX
is not on a ROM. UNIX is an OS where the kernel has to be modifiable which
makes ROMing difficult, if not impossible.
I forget the exact reason given for the extra ROM sockets, but I
don't believe it has anything to do with UNIX at all.
Don
UNIX OS itself can be in ROM. It's just it's data structures that have to
be modifiable, and those are in RAM.
Steve
Steve,
It's my understanding that doing things like adding a new device
driver requires modification of the text segment…I certainly could be
wrong about that though…I've never written a UNIX device driver.
Tuneables…yes, they just modify the data section…so no problem
there.
Don
Well, I have been wrong in the past… could we suppose that UNIX may have
both ROMs and disk based components??
Don,
Maybe the extra rom is simply their for a boot toggle option between
Unix and AmigaDOS, the other rom would be KS 2.0 when it's finalised, I
guess.
FL
Frank,
If memory serves me correctly, there is no 'extra' ROM socket, the
system was designed to use one of two types of ROMs and the two types had
different pinouts…thus 2 places you can put a ROM. They are mutually
exclusive…thus you can't use both at once.
Again…that's from memory of an earlier message posted from the
board's designer…so I could be wrong.
Don
Harry, Unix can be added to the A3000, but it would be cheaper to get the
UX machine to start with, and you get so much more! I'll let Ethan tell
you all about it. He is a student, and is very excited about this thing –
even knows all the prices. He'll tell you, I'm sure.
The A3000UX has been in use at Virginia Tech all this school year, in
computer science classes and by the students studying there. Each student
was required to get one (in that department). I suspect they have located
just about every bug that was around by this time, and the Commodore people
have really been working hard to make this one right.
Betty
Harry:
No, as far as I can tell (which admittedly might not be that far) the only
difference between an A3000 bought now with AmigaDOS and the A3000UX is
that the UX comes with more memory (easily added by the end user later) and
possibly a larger HD (also easily changed or added to later), and the fact
that when you buy the UX Unix is already installed on the machine as
opposed to installing it yourself later. There's no reason A2000's that
have an accelorator installed in them with an MMU won't be able to run C='s
version of Unix as well.
-Mike Schiller
In sunny Fort Lauderdale
Mike,
Not only is there no reason why an A2500 w/ MMU can't run UNIX.
They specifically can run UNIX. Until recently, that's the platform were
it was developed.
Don
Harry:
Would the fact that Virgina Tech REQUIRES it's Computer Science majors
to purchase an Amiga 3000UX (unix) mean anything to you or your son? The
Amiga 3000 is a very serious machine, and the 3000UX their Unix version of
the 3000 is available to students fairly cheaply (although more than the
standard 3000), and comes with a 200meg drive, 5Megs of memory, and I
believe a 24bit graphics card, and sells for about $5000.00 (although I'm
not sure of the exact price).
I'd imagine that the folks on the Mac fora will feel that the Mac is the
way to go, and that everyone here will feel (like I do) that the Amiga is
the way to go, so if you truly want an unbiased opinion you might want to
try some forum (and off hand I really don't know which one this is) that is
sort of a general computer forum, not a machine specific one, to get a
better view. I know that for me I have a problem when I've used a machine
for a while and then switch, because every computer does things a little
differently, while I love the Amiga, I've also used the Mac and even IBM's
and they ALL have features that I like, and ones that I don't, and there I
times I'm using one that I wish I had the feature(s) of the other. Another
thing to think about is that if you go the route of the the Amiga 3000 (or
even if you keep the 1000) you could always go with a software/hardware
unit made by Readysoft that is a Mac emulator that makes the Amiga think
it's a Mac+.
There's another route that can be taken, and that's of
expanding/upgrading the A1000. There's a company that makes a board for the
1000 that sort of upgrades it to the state of the art, allows 2 meg of chip
ram (1000 is usually .5 meg), and allows you to use the latest (and
greatest) version of Workbench that's going to be released real soon now.
-Mike Schiller
In sunny Fort Lauderdale
Since we got to talking about the Amiga 3000UX, can someone comment on how
that is implemented into the software or hardware? Is the Amiga 3000UX a
totally different computer from the A3000? That is, does the software that
runs on the A3000 2.0 have a chance of running onthe AMiga 3000UX?
With my accelerated A2000, I can hold down the mouse buttons at powerup and
get my choice of 68000, 68020, and UNIX. Of course teh UNIX part of it
isn't in the A2000, but I wondered if there was something similar in the
A3000UX that allowed a choice between UNIX and 68030 workbench.
I am afraid that all these questions are off the top of my head and that
they may sound rather stupid to someone knowledgable about the A3000,
nevertheless nothing ventured… nothing gained.
Jerry,
UNIX is a completely different operating system. There is no
hardware difference between the A3000 and the A3000UX.
But, NO, AmigaDOS software can not run under UNIX. The operating
systems are not compatible. However, you can boot the machine into UNIX or
into AmigaDOS you just can't do both at the same time.
Don
Don,
So you can decide to boot up into UNIX or AmigaDOS. Is this based upon
a floppy in df0: that determines it, or is it a key-press option that tells
the kickstart (or whatever the A3000 calls it) where to look for it's OS on
a harddisk?
Anyone have any idea if the accelerator cards that were put out by
commodore for the A2000 will be upgradable to include the UNIX option?
Thanks, Jer
I would assume that it would be based on the hard drvie not a floppie for
system bootup.
Tim
Jerry,
Not having seen an A3000UX yet, I can't tell you how the user
decides which OS to boot into. My *GUESS* is that it'll be a parameter
you'll be able to save on the HD as a default, and then be able to override
it on a cold boot by holding down both mouse buttons…as is done now to
decide between 1.3 and 2.0 on the 3000.
No upgrade will be needed on the accelerator cards suppled by
Commodore; however, the software will, of course, be needed. Last I heard,
no official decision has been made as to whether UNIX will be made
available as a separate package or not.
Don
Don,
About a month ago on USENET, Harry Diamond told someone that he could buy
UNIX for his 2500 immediately after the UNIFORUM conference in Jan. Maybe
not official, but close. 😉
Greg
Greg White / MicroSearch 72230,1617
We listen to our customers..carefully
Greg,
Harry Diamond is in charge of the educational market; however, one
would presume that if the make UNIX available as a stand-alone package in
the educational market, it'll also be made available in the retail market.
So Harry's report is good news!
Don
Just a minor correction to you and Greg: HOWARD Diamond.
— Ethan
Mike,
Thanks for the comments. VPI's move is very interesting. I have a friend
on the faculty there and will ask him what he knows about it.
Harry
I consider that Mac a very minimal machine. I've been an Amiga user for
over 5 years and wouldn't use any other machine as my personal machine.
Ron
Harry,
If he's an Amiga user and like the machine a lot, he probably will be
dissatisfied with a Mac. Animation and interactive video is more the realm
of the Amiga than the Mac as well. I'm not a Mac expert, but, I doubt that
the SE-30 could give the animation/video performance that would be
required. He's probably correct in his assessment that a Mac IIcx would be
the minimum Mac platform that would suit his needs.
David
David,
Thanks for the help with this difficult decision. I am torn between my
professional/personal committment to Mac's, my desire to have my son work
with a machine that he is most likely to be deeply involved with, and my
desire to be able to work with him on projects and share software.
Harry
Harry, you could always buy an Amiga emulator. %^)
— Ethan
Ethan,
How significant is the problem described below:
I had stated that, based on the messages I got in this forum I inferred
that the Amiga was a "better machine for any thing that smacks of color
animation, video frame grabbing and output etc."
I recieved this reply:
Frame grabbing – or anything that involves still color graphics, for that
matter – is generally stronger on the Mac. That's because of a consistent
and well-supported 24-bit (16 million color) graphic environment. Even if
you stay 8-bit, I prefer that to the myriad of graphic "standards" on the
Amiga, each with its own limitations. Although there are exceptions, most
still graphics on the Amiga are not as impressive as plain 8-bit on the
Mac, and the mix of standards adds confusion and incompatibility – i.e. you
can cut and paste between 8-bit images on the Mac with relative ease (some
palette considerations), but it is not as trivial to cut and paste between
Amiga images that are in incompatible graphic modes. Further, the Mac lets
you work with multiple such images on the screen at once (each in its own
window), whereas on the Amiga, each picture is likely to be a full "screen"
that can not be completely and independantly sized and moved. On the Mac,
when you're ready to [continued in the reply]
{I will send you the rest of this when I get it, if it looks interesting}
Harry
There is 1 Reply.
"Although there are exceptions, most still graphics on the Amiga are not as
impressive as plain 8-bit on the Mac, and the mix of standards adds
confusion and incompatibility…"
Incorrect. The Amiga's color is 12-bit and it has it's strengths as well
as 8-bit on the Mac. However, they are just not comparable.. The Mac
requires an adaptor anyway, and a product such as a HAM-E adaptor ($300)
will provide 18-bit (24-bit palette) while retaining a high degree of
compatability.
The confusion you speak of doesn't exist in reality.. Cut and paste
between video modes is acomplished by using a quick re-map function in most
paint/animate software. Similar operations would be necessary between two
8-bit images with different palettes, not to mention transitions between 8
and 24-bit.
I can show you several graphics utilities that use windows (although on
the Amiga, multiple screens are nearly as versatile as windows).
In any case, realtime animation is not possible on the Mac and even
converting mere 8-bit images to NTSC is far more costly given that Mac
displays operate at non-standard rates.
:::The Amiga's color is 12-bit and it has it's strengths as well as 8-bit
on the Mac. However, they are just not comparable.. The Mac requires an
adaptor anyway
Two problems there.
One is that the Mac IIsi and IIci do not require an adapter (interface
card) for 8-bit video, only for 24-bit. But yes, the IIcx and IIfx _do_
require an interface card, for _any_ video, which has to be figured into
the purchase price. (BTW, 24-bit is only about $150 more than 8-bit on
these systems.)
Two is that the Amiga is not 12-bit in the sense that Apple uses the terms
8-bit and 24-bit. In Apple's 8-bit video, any pixel can be any of 256
colors out of a 16.7 million color palette (usually on a 640 x 480
resolution on a 13" monitor). The native Amiga has only a 4096 color
palette, and in most common graphic applications, it is limited to
relatively few simultaneous colors on the screen (16? 32? 64?). Yes, I know
about HAM and other approaches at getting all 4096 color on the screen. But
they involve their own complications and compromises, and seem to be better
suited to scanned images than to "deluxe paint style" computer graphics,
since you don't have the freedom to make _each_ pixel _any_ color.
Also in Apple's favor: When you upgrade to 24-bit, you can continue to run
all the 8-bit graphics programs on the same screen at the same time as the
24-bit programs, and cut and paste between them. All 24-bit programs work
with all 24-bit cards, there's no concern about different implementations.
All the 24-bit programs can open 8-bit images. I have not seen this kind of
ease and consistency in Amiga conversations, where it seems like the 24-bit
solutions from various vendors seem to require software specific to their
hardware. Finally, the current selection of 24-bit software on the Mac
(again, independant of whose video board you
[continued in the reply]
[continued]
use) have some pretty impressive capabilities. Have you seen Pixel Paint
Professional, Studio 32, ColorStudio, or PhotoShop? (OTOH, there are many
more ray tracing programs for Amiga than Mac.)
:::Cut and paste between video modes is acomplished by using a quick re-map
function…Similar operations would be necessary between two 8-bit images
with different palettes, not to mention transitions between 8 and 24-bit.
It's easier to come up with 256 colors that will work well for 2 completely
different pictures than to come up with 16 or 32 for that job, which is why
I think it is less of an issue to combine two 8-bit images than two Amiga
images. Further, when combining elements of different Amiga graphics, you
also have to take into account that there may be a resolution difference
between the two (320 x 200? 640 x 400? etc.), something that is not a
factor on Mac. (As an aside, how easy is it to cut and paste between two
HAM images? I don't know, I'm just curious.)
The transition from 8-bit to 24-bit is completely different – there is no
color re-mapping required, since all the color are always available, so the
original palette can be maintained (every possible 8-bit palette is a
subset of the one 24-bit palette).
:::realtime animation is not possible on the Mac and even converting mere
8-bit images to NTSC is far more costly given that Mac displays operate at
non-standard rates
Here I agree that the Amiga is better, but the Mac is not as bad as you
make it appear. Real-time animation is certainly possible on a Mac
(II-anything). And you can get out to NTSC with a $399 (list) piece from
Generation Systems, and a supposedly excellent piece from RasterOps for
$695 (list), or even by pointing a video camera at the screen (that
requires a $30 utility to get the scan rate in sync). But yes, the Amiga is
stronger here.
[continued in the reply]
The option for 8-bit video was being considered for a MAC SE.
As for pixel addressability, that is subjective to one's technical
perspective. The so-called 'complications' of HAM are no greater, when you
consider the sometimes drastic dithering that is required to get a wide
color range in an 8-bit display. If you want to see consistency with video
upgrades, look into a HAM-E board.. Not full 24-bit (18-bit) but that is
almost moot when you consider the resolutions required to display more than
18 bits of color simultaneously.
::The option for 8-bit video was being considered for a MAC SE.
Unfortunately (for Mac owners), you can't put a color video card into an
SE, although the SE can be upgraded to an SE/30 (for about $1700), and once
upgraded, it can take 8 and 24 bit color cards.
:::but that is almost moot when you consider the resolutions required to
display more than 18 bits of color simultaneously.
Can you elaborate? I don't understand what you're trying to say. Resolution
and bit-depth are two different issues. The common Apple 640 x 480
resolution is equally capable of monochrome, 8-bit, or 24-bit color.
===Scott
Scott,
My point was that although HAM-E delivers 18-bit color addressability
(out of a 24-bit palette) from a certain technical standpoint, there aren't
enough pixels to display all 16M (24 bits) colors simultaneously.. Rather,
there are barely enough on a 640×400 (or 768×480 overscan) picture to
display 256K (18 bits) colors simultaneously. Unless the spacial resolution
is higher than that, color resolution grater than 18 bits is not a great
asset.
Chris, this is not precisly correct.
Those extra bits per pixel come in handy when you need to change from one
color to another which is very near to it in color space.
That is why the HAM-E renderer can use the 24 bit color registers in with
the 18 bit data to ensure that areas which need 24 bit precision get it…
the EDD option on the renderer actually performs further optimization such
that in many cases, image fidelity is every bit as good as a full 24 bit
image.
My point is, though, that you DO need those extra bits of color.
I suggest a little experiement. I have uploaded a 24 bit color image to DL1
in Amiga Arts. I suggest you DL this, and then render it two ways. Render
it using HAM-E mode, but with EDD off. Save this. Then render it using
HAM-E mode with EDD on. Save that too.
Observe the difference in the two images. The one without the EDD option
shows visible bands (contouring), indicating that the color resolution is
not sufficient to handle the smoothness of the image. The image with EDD
on, however, should show almost a perfectly smooth ball, which changes from
top to bottom thru the RGB range in a manner that reminds me of "Wet
Paint".
That, right in front of your peepers, is the difference between 18 bits and
24 bits.
Now you know two things: First that 24 bit resolution is useful, and
second, that the HAM-E can provide it to you. :^)
Ben
Amateur Radio Callsign is A A 7 A S
I personally would not recommend trying to upgrade the 1000 THAT far. It
may be good for a backup machine per sa, but it seems to be getting pretty
tired from what you describe and also the upgrade is a bit of a kludge and
may not be as reliable or robust as you need.