amiga questions

[David Shipman]

> Actually, the Amiga's single biggest problem WAS the video. Sure it was
> NTSC (Never The Same Color) compatible--great if you're doing broadcast
> video, but what's the bandwidth?. Every program I ever saw dropped into
the
> non-interlaced mode to prevent eyestrain when it was doing things like
word
> processors and spreadsheets, which cuts the vertical resolution to
nothing
> (so much for WYSIWYG). Because the video had no really high-res
> non-interlaced mode, developers didn't take it seriously. Then there was

I think the real problem is not the lack of a high-res NI mode, but the
fact that you have clearly not seen an Amiga since the mid 80s.
In 1992, the AGA chipset was released enabling high res NI modes, SVGA
output with appropriate drivers etc.
Since the late 80s and possibly before, companies have been releasing
graphics cards providing modes well beyond the standard Amiga displays.
Furthermore, the ability to plug the machines directly into the TV sold
more A500s than any other feature IMHO.

"every program I ever saw"?

I'm sorry, but if you saw a 386 running DOS, with amazing 3d games like
Wolfenstein, without ever being aware of the current developments,
and then said "PCs are crap" based on this, you'd be every bit as wrong
as you are about the Amiga.

> the 12 bit palette, which severely limited doing photorealistic graphic
> work. Again, the software industry just skipped it in favor of the Mac,
> which was a lot more expensive but had 8 and 24 bit color at higher
> resolutions, a 24 bit palette, etc.

How can you possibly say the software industry skipped it for the Mac?
I presume you've never heard of Lightwave.

> I knew it from the first moment I saw the specs. I bought the first issue
> of one of the Amiga magazines and couldn't believe what I was reading.
Fast
> blitters and whatnot--so what? They were fundamentally crippling the
> platform while thinking they were doing something really clever...

At the time they were doing something extremely clever... I agree that
in recent years, this has been more of a limitation than an advantage, but
the fact that people can still use Amigas for virtually every task that
other platforms perform indicates that they had a lot more forethought
than you give credit for.

> The rest is history. Obviously the Amiga still has plenty of fans, for
good
> reasons. But it was doomed. It could never get a permanent foothold in
the
> PC marketplace, not in the US, anyway. In many respects the Atari ST was
a
> better candidate--the video was much more "business friendly"--but it
faced
> the same uphill battle. In the end the Mac became THE graphic platform
> (unless you could afford a workstation)--along the way defining what such
a
> computer should be--because it had the critical mass of features, despite
> being overpriced and the constant derision of people who are now slaves
to
> Microsoft. They eventually fixed the pricing, just in time. It's a good
> thing Jobs is back.

The Amiga was doomed, but this has nothing to do with the machine, bad
management from Commodore is the main (and probably ONLY) reason the Amiga
did not continue on its path of success... its no surprise that a permanent
foothold in the PC marketplace was never achieved when the advertising
budget was spent on private jets for certain C= executives.

-- 
David Shipman
Email : david at vision.net.nz
WWW   : http://www.vision.net.nz/david/