#Amiga vs Mac & IBM
10 messages in this thread
Hello. I decided to join this forum even though I am a IBM user. You may
ask why. I am curious about Amiga.
What are the differences between Amiga and IBM? What are the strengths and
weaknesses between the two machines. I find that I meet many people who
have negative things to say about the Amiga.
It also seems to me that many people do not use the Amiga and I would like
to know why this is so (if it is so).
I will soon be upgrading my IBM system and I want to get a second computer
that performs on another platform. Its between Mac and Amiga. I should
also say that I am interested in using my second machine for music and
perhaps DTP.
I welcome any comments from the other forum members. Hopefully I can learn
a lot from you and receive a well rounded view of all computers.
If a macII is good enough on that side an Amiga with Mac emulator would be
by far the cheapest. DTP is still a real battle on the Amiga but I thing
PageStream is the best. The PageStream cross-platform import capability
can't be beat.
There is a bridge board that will run the Amiga as a MAC II? Did I
understand you correctly?
Fannelle,
In may respects…the Amiga and the IBM are completely different
computers. For example, the operating system on the Amiga is multi-tasking
right out of the box whereas MS-DOS has no such capability. There's no
640K limit on memory nor any size limitation on disk drives.
With that in mind, many programs are written differently on the
Amiga than under MS-DOS. You don't need an 'all-in-one' program on the
Amiga (such as a wordprocessor/spreadsheet/database) since on the Amiga,
you can have your favorite of each…and run all 3 at the same time (and
exchange data between them). you can have one program control or interact
with another program and so forth.
As to any complaints you may have heard about the Amiga, it's
difficult to address them unless we know what complaints or bad things you
heard.
Don
Interesting!!
As to the negative comments I've heard, some have been from salesmen who
call the machine a toy and have said there is no serious software for the
machine. They have been very critical of the bridgeboard that can be used
in Amiga's to run MS-DOS. They say that it is very, VERY slow. When I
have asked about the Amiga, some of those salesman have made comments to me
like "So, you are interested in a toy?"
I have gone to several large computer stores in the NYC area (Like J & R
Computer World) and have only seen game software. No business programs at
all. I have also heard from someone I know who purchased an Amiga that
they could not find any user groups that devoted their activities to
serious programming and machine operation. The groups were primarily
concerned with games! I also have Que's computer dictionary that described
the Amiga as "the computer of choice for playing computer games and
composing music. The machine has found little acceptance as a business
computer, however, because of the lack of business software for the
machine." I am a college student and I worked at Citibank over the summer.
I asked the head of the department why there were no Amiga's and he said
that the Amiga was not a sophiscated enough machine to meet the
department's needs. He called it (that awful word) a home computer.
In my own humble opinion, I think every computer should offer all kinds of
programs and those programs should be top notch.
I have another friend who owns an Amiga 500 that wants to get rid of it and
buy an IBM clone. Why? Because he can not find a variety of software for
his equipment, and he is frustrated because of that.
Also, in my experience, I have noticed that many online services do not
address the needs of Amiga users in the way they do IBM or Mac. Am I
correct in assuming that there is no CIM version for the Amiga? These
things disturb me. The machine may be exceptional, but the world does not
even notice it. There are not even that many publications devoted to the
Amiga.
I'm sure we'd like to think that CIS looked at the relative numbers of PC,
Mac and Amiga users, by measuring the traffic flow or revenue or whatever.
I'm sure there are people in the Amiga community who could do it, but I'm
sure it requires the cooperation and time of someone within CIS. After all,
a lot of effort went into Whap!… I'm sure its developers would love to
do a CIM, too. 🙂
John,
> requires the cooperation and time of someone within CIS
I think the nail has a serious headache now! 🙂
Malcolm
Bill,
I have tried to locate ANY kind of directory utility similar to SID,
DiskMaster, Dirmaster, etc… with a 2 drive display showing directories
with which you can do file manipulations and can't find any. Of course
there must be something commercial that has some of these standard Amiga
utility features, but I don't know of any.
*JohnB* CIS:76256,3436
Fannelle,
If your business is insurance, the salesman was right, there's a lack of
"serious software" for the Amiga. However, if your business is in video,
or music, there's plenty of "serious software"
I can understand your friend's frustration in finding the "right" software
for his A500. If he wants to create custom applications using macros in a
spreadsheet, he's out of luck. There's lots of good software for the
Amiga, including some good business packages. But some generic software
stores only concentrate on the games.
Why isn't there better business software? I don't know. The way I see it,
it's because of the myopic vision of sofware publishers like MicroSoft and
Lotus who only develop for a new platform when they receive subsidies (read
bribes) from the hardware company that built the machine.
— Jane H. (Writing, it's easier read than done.)
Fanelle,
I see you have lots of other answers, so I'll be brief and address
the specific points of the BridgeBoards.
Plainly put, they run at exactly the same speed as an IBM XT (for
the XT Bridge Board) and an IBM AT (for the AT Bridge board). Norton SI
reports the same performance numbers on the Bridge as it does on the IBM.
So yes, that is slow when compared to the newer 386 machines, or
the Turbo XT or AT clones. But they certainly are not "very, very slow".