1992 386DX Beating Amiga?

[redblade]

Amiga computing issue 58 March 1993
https://archive.org/details/amiga-co...e-058/page/n33
A1200 vs 386.

Shout out to the scanner and uploader

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by redblade

Amiga computing issue 58 March 1993
https://archive.org/details/amiga-co...e-058/page/n33
A1200 vs 386.

Shout out to the scanner and uploader

Thanks for that. If I had have read that back in the day, that MAY have swayed me, but possibly not. I was really chasing a 486 but couldn't raise the money so it was a 386DX with 4MB. Anything less and I woludn't have jumped.

Re the date AND the price of the 386, my memory is fuzzy on the details but also I know I'm not far off. Or maybe I am? Maybe it was £500? I was still only doing paper rounds at the time, but I was doing 3 of them and helping the business owner so £42 a week. Maybe it was more than I originally thought then. I really really can't remember how much the machine cost.

Maybe it was a year later? Maybe?

But the 386DX was second hand and was cheap, which is why i got it.

it was one of those dog ugly Amstrad PC2386 machines
Looked like this:


With proprietary mouse connector.

Came with no box but legit manuals, DOS (maybe 5?) And windows 3.0 on legit disks, and pirate copy Windows 3.1.

Private sale.

Just to add, this was when many 386 owners were quite rightly upgrading to 486's, which were in the shops hovering around the £1000 mark from memory (or £999) which was way out of budget for me. SX's hovering one side, and DX's tipping the other.

But ok, due to the fuzzyness of my details, feel free to play the game in another way.

Forget budget.

Using items from 1992/3

Could you
a) Build a 386DX beating A500 (not +)
What parts? Prices?
This is to determine if I could/should have stuck with an A500

b) Build a 386DX beating A1200
What parts? Prices?
This is to determine if I could/should have stuck with Amiga, but moved to 32 bit.

Big box Amiga's were way out of my price range.

aaaaand GO!

[NovaCoder]

I got my first PC around 1992, which was a clone 386 SX 33 with a massive 2 MB or RAM and a huge 40 MB HD

As an Atari ST owner I was looking for something new and the PC scene was starting to get going and was far more appealing to me than buying an Amiga 1200 or an old A500.

It felt like the Amiga was basically dead to me with the release of a A600 in 1992, I remember all of my friends thinking that Commodore had basically gone crazy when that was released LoL

My 386 SX 33 was just about powerful enough to run Syndicate at 640x480...happy days

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

I got my first PC around 1992, which was a clone 386 SX 33 with a massive 2 MB or RAM and a huge 40 MB HD

As an Atari ST owner I was looking for something new and the PC scene was starting to get going and was far more appealing to me than buying an Amiga 1200 or an old A500.

It felt like the Amiga was basically dead to me with the release of a A600 in 1992, I remember all of my friends thinking that Commodore had basically gone crazy when that was released LoL

My 386 SX 33 was just about powerful enough to run Syndicate at 640x480...happy days

Well funny you say that.

What I do recall was being a little pissed at the A500+ coming out, and then confused by the A600 with it's chopped off numeric key pad which was critical for some of the flight sims I enjoyed.

And also put off by the terrible things I saw on the CDTV, touted as "games" (FMV with timed choices)

I really didn't learn much about the A1200 at all! I dont recall ever seeing it advertised in any meaningful way. I probably listented too much to the 2 second review by Andy Crane on Bad influence TV show and the words "incompatible with 1 third of your existing games" would have been all I took in.

If I'd have been hit in the face by "32 BIT POWER!" and "BUILT IN HDD" (optional of course), I dare say I'd have been tempted.

I'm really keen to get one, and I will, and I'd love to do a direct comparison between it and the PC i ended up with just for the fun of it.

But equally, I'm keen to build an Amiga BETTER than that PC.

[idrougge]

Define better. Any Amiga is better than your PC just by virtue of having a proper operating system and a file system where you can give files names other than MXZRV32.DLL.

Your PC is better if you only use it as a boot loader (though you may need to build boot floppies) to run American games. The PC was the lead platform there, and American games generally took advantage of VGA graphics.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by 005AGIMA

Big box Amiga's were way out of my price range.

That was an other part of Commodores mismanagement:

As affordable the 500 and 1200 were, the 2000 and higher models were just way overpriced in comparison.

The original "checkmate" story illustrates that perfectly - it was possible to buy A500s in a regular shop, ripp them apparat, throw away the case, put them in a new custom made case, sell this "big box" for far less than a A2000 and still make profit ...

Commodore tried to basically rip off Amiga fans and enthusiasts with the big box Amigas ... but that fired back of course: people did not invest in upgradable Amigas, so they did not upgrade RAM or HD or CPU as much as it would have been necessary to keep up with PCs and sustain the Amiga platform...

[Zak]

I remember that you need a 386 to play the PC version of Lotus Esprit Challenge, Gods, Syndicate, Goal! and many more Amiga games that you can't run on a 286. So 386 and Amiga 500 are quite on a par.

[005AGIMA]

lol this thread is soooo not going where I expected lol.

I was more after:

For A500 of that era:
A520 HDD £xxx
Monitor £xxx
2MB Ram £xxx
[Insert accelerator here] £xxx

For the A1200 plan
A1200 with 2MB and HDD built in £xxx
[Insert accelerator here] £xxx

etc

but meh any conversation is fun :P

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by Zak

I remember that you need a 386 to play the PC version of Lotus Esprit Challenge, Gods, Syndicate, Goal! and many more Amiga games that you can't run on a 286. So 386 and Amiga 500 are quite on a par.

A flawed comparison.

Games like Lotus were optimised for the Amiga chipset. On the PC the CPU would have been doing the heavy lifting.

[swinkamor12]

I just look at some old ads. In november 1992 cheap 386SX without HD and monitor cost around 600 USD, the same money as a1200.
But in 1992 there was almost no software that used this hardware.

There was of course big difference between 1992 and 1993.

3D games in 1992 where still not mature, they lack textures on floor and ceil.
Ultima Underworld I has textures on floor and ceil but had a badly done 3D algorithm and wall distortions were very visible.
2D games in 1992 where ok.

In 1993 there was still no cheap color printers so even Win 3.1 has 24 bit and TT for average user it was not usable.

In 1992 Amiga 500 was still better than pc.
Win 3.1 and 3D early games was like writings on the wall.
Commodore need something much better in 1993 or will banckrupt.

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by swinkamor12

IWin 3.1 and 3D early games was like writings on the wall.
Commodore need something much better in 1993 or will banckrupt.

What drugs are you on? Windows 3.1 is a primitive, unusable piece of shit compared to AmigaOS 3.1.

[005AGIMA]

I'm simplifying the opening post lol

[idrougge]

You could buy an A1200, and possibly a small hard drive (or hack a 3,5 inch drive in there as was popular in those days). That machine would in some respects match your 386, in some respects be inferior (much less memory and probably fewer MIPS because of no fast RAM) and much superior in some respects.

[no9]

Originally Posted by Zak

I remember that you need a 386 to play the PC version of Lotus Esprit Challenge, Gods, Syndicate, Goal! and many more Amiga games that you can't run on a 286. So 386 and Amiga 500 are quite on a par.

Take into account that PC Syndicate played 640x480...

[bwldrbst]

Originally Posted by redblade

Amiga computing issue 58 March 1993
https://archive.org/details/amiga-co...e-058/page/n33
A1200 vs 386.

Shout out to the scanner and uploader

Hey, I've got a PC in that case on a shelf next to me. It has a 486SLC motherboard though (a 486 on a 386SX bus ugh) but alas the Varta has done it's job.

[Unkown]

Got my first PC sometime in the late 80's / early 90's Cyrix 233, some memory, 320gb hdd, 56k modem, etc ,etc.

When it was all setup in the front room near the fire place windiws was installed and my self and my girlfriend just looked at each other and said exactly at the same time what do we do now ? LoLz happy days.

And now look where we ended up, we said we would never be upgrading at much as we thought we would but it turned out that we upgraded more and more than we ever thought we would or ever intended we would not the house is full of computers, at one point in our PC history due to small hdd's back then we had 12 PC setup where i am currently sat typeing this out and now there are ONLY 3 PC's in the house worth more than a average house on the current market, not to mention all the consoles and hand held devices we currently have cant keep up with it all... :_)

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by swinkamor12

wing commander 2 was not impresive

It certainly blew anything out of the water I had seen on an Amiga500 by that time.

Originally Posted by swinkamor12

ultima 7 is like many other games on Amiga 500

Which one?

Originally Posted by swinkamor12

Ultima Underworld I was not good enough.

It was the first of a kind, and again, Amiga was left out.

Originally Posted by swinkamor12

Comanche was one and only in 1992.

It was like seeing the future, and again, nothing on Amiga.

Originally Posted by swinkamor12

You mistake 1992 with 1993.
In 1992 Amiga 500 was still good.

Maybe for you it was, but friends of mine got those shiny PC-AT machines back in 1991, and my A500 looked like ancient technology as soon as I have seen Wing Commander 2 and all these other games.

If you want you can post some screenshots of those Amiga 500 games that are more progressive than the games I listed, and we can compare.

I concur that the Amiga 500 got some nice action games late in its life span, but on the RPG, adventure and simulation genre front the PC curbstomped everything I have seen on the A500 back then, starting in 1991.

[swinkamor12]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Windows 3.1 is a primitive, unusable piece of shit compared to AmigaOS 3.1.

But has better graphics builtin. Has 24 bit color support.

[swinkamor12]

Ultima Underworld I has problem with 3D and looks weird with its wall distortions.
Ultima Underworld II released in 1993 was ok but it is still better Wolf.
3D revolution in games start with DOOM at the end of 1993. In 1992 2D games were ok.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Gorf

The original "checkmate" story illustrates that perfectly - it was possible to buy A500s in a regular shop, ripp them apparat, throw away the case, put them in a new custom made case, sell this "big box" for far less than a A2000 and still make profit ...

With no Zorro II bus slots, no accelerator or bridgeboard slots, no high wattage power supply, no 5.25" drive bay, etc.

Commodore tried to basically rip off Amiga fans and enthusiasts with the big box Amigas...

Commodore goes to special effort to make the A500 cheaper, then gets accused of 'ripping off Amiga fans' for selling professional machines at normal prices. What about other manufacturers like IBM, Compaq, Apple, Acorn? Were they also 'ripping off' their customers for not selling premium machines dirt cheap?

Some of my friends bought A2000s and didn't complain about the price because it was similar to name-brand PCs. Then they bought 3rd party cards for it that were often ridiculously expensive compared to the PC equivalents, but that was expected due to the much smaller market.

The majority of A500 owners were not expecting to upgrade them except for perhaps some trapdoor RAM and an external floppy drive, so an A2000 was a waste of money for them no matter what the price (assuming it wasn't sold at a loss). Once could argue that Commodore should have produced a mid-range machine without some of the stuff almost nobody wanted (bridgeboard slots, full desktop size case etc.) but high-end users often did want that stuff.

The biggest 'ripoff' was the A3000, yet it was still about the same price as an equivalent Compaq 386DX.