State of computer graphics when Amiga was born...

[fxgogo]

@ Vascillious, how about we move the conversation on a little bit. As a number of others have mentioned, in the computer ecosystem, the hardware often is not as important as the software that uses the hardware.

Can you show us the software that exploited the hardware you are pointing to?

From my experience and expertise around 3D software, the PC had one 3D package of note, 3D Studio, and it was a powerful piece of software.

Off the top of my head the Amiga had Sculpt 4D, Imagine, Caligari (later called TrueSpace), Real 3D, Aladdin 4D Lightwave, Cinema 4D. Those last two are major players in the 3D world today. They were all equal to 3D Studio, most of them, way ahead.

The point here is, the ecosystem for design, animation, music, coding and others aspects of the industry was absolutely huge. Nothing else compared. A bit like the desktop publishing ecosystem on the Mac had no comparison.

Lastly, when Babylon 5 came out, it was lauded in the professional industry. The Amiga was heavily used in the broadcast industry for front line functions. It was seen and used as a professional machine. The PC simply did not have the ecosystem around it to be able to do the same thing.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by roondar

Zarchos is a big Acorn Archimedes fan with no real love for the PC. His channel on YouTube is dedicated to Acorn Archimedes programming etc. Some of the stuff he's done is actually quite impressive.

I got the feeling in e-mails I've exchanged with him a while back that he's not so much "anti-Amiga" as that he's unhappy that the Archimedes isn't generally recognized as having been competitive in graphics/sound/etc (in particular by Amiga fans, according to him).

This very much sums up how the BBC Micro was perceived by users, especially gamers, in the 1980s. Almost every school had a BBC Micro or several for educational purposes back then, as part of the BBC's Computer Literacy project, and the software base was mostly educational, with the games library being minor by comparison. The Archimedes simply replaced the BBC Micro in the 1990s.

Zarch was THE killer app for games on the Archimedes, but I don't really recall anything else of note on that platform. It and the BBC Micro just didn't penetrate the mainstream like the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and later the Atari ST, Amiga and later PC did. Even the PC replaced the Archimedes in schools sooner than later, I guess.

[Weaselrama]

Originally Posted by fxgogo

@ Vascillious, how about we move the conversation on a little bit. As a number of others have mentioned, in the computer ecosystem, the hardware often is not as important as the software that uses the hardware.

Can you show us the software that exploited the hardware you are pointing to?

From my experience and expertise around 3D software, the PC had one 3D package of note, 3D Studio, and it was a powerful piece of software.

Off the top of my head the Amiga had Sculpt 4D, Imagine, Caligari (later called TrueSpace), Real 3D, Aladdin 4D Lightwave, Cinema 4D. Those last two are major players in the 3D world today. They were all equal to 3D Studio, most of them, way ahead.

The point here is, the ecosystem for design, animation, music, coding and others aspects of the industry was absolutely huge. Nothing else compared. A bit like the desktop publishing ecosystem on the Mac had no comparison.

Lastly, when Babylon 5 came out, it was lauded in the professional industry. The Amiga was heavily used in the broadcast industry for front line functions. It was seen and used as a professional machine. The PC simply did not have the ecosystem around it to be able to do the same thing.

Great points. I'd throw Scala in there as well. But he doesn't care about any of that. He has a one-track mind. To spit on the Amiga and never offer anything more than his shitty, niche, CPU-driven video card for which he can't name a single piece of software running on his imaginary x286 machine that must have been better, faster, and more capable of multimedia because it was a PC.

Actually, he doesn't care about any of that. He's just here to see if suckers like me take the bait and I have too many times. I'd rather post on the other thread about what the Amiga could and can do and very well without giving a hoot about some other computer. Why should any of us care what a PC or Acorn or Atari could do before 1992? If we wanted to run those computers, we would have. We chose the Amiga because we knew it was something very special.

Neither the Acorn nor the x286 PC survived past 1990. It is late 2020 and the Amiga still thrives, has a vibrant community, coders who still support it and we even have a new OS, 3.2, coming. He knows he can't touch any of that. I have no idea what his motivation is any longer or even if he has one, other than feeling like he has impunity on EAB to say anything he likes and get away with it.

[trixster]

Originally Posted by Weaselrama

Neither the Acorn nor the x286 PC survived past 1990.

This is nonsense, certainly in the case of the UK. The Acorn Archimedes range had a strong presence in the uk in the early 90s especially in the education sector, and Acorn produced the RiscPC up until 1998. The Arc was never a big player in the games scene (despite the very many ports of Atari and Amiga games to the platform being just as good) but it was an important and valid home computer arguably as long at the Amiga was.

[trixster]

For the record, I’m certain that Zarchos and Vascillious are not the same person.

[Weaselrama]

Originally Posted by trixster

This is nonsense, certainly in the case of the UK. The Acorn Archimedes range had a strong presence in the uk in the early 90s especially in the education sector, and Acorn produced the RiscPC up until 1998. The Arc was never a big player in the games scene (despite the very many ports of Atari and Amiga games to the platform being just as good) but it was an important and valid home computer arguably as long at the Amiga was.

Fair enough, I stand corrected. Does it have the same Retro community the Amiga enjoys? I don't know so I'm asking.

[trixster]

8 and 32bit acorn machines have a remarkably active community, with loads of new projects and hardware expansions - have a look at stardot forum if you’re interested

https://stardot.org.uk/forums/

[Weaselrama]

Originally Posted by trixster

8 and 32bit acorn machines have a remarkably active community, with loads of new projects and hardware expansions - have a look at stardot forum if you’re interested

https://stardot.org.uk/forums/

Thanks, I will.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Weaselrama

Thanks, I will.

And with the Raspberry Pi the Archimedes community has now a decent and extremely affordable modern platform to run their RiscOS on:

https://www.riscosopen.org/content/d...s/raspberry-pi

[babsimov]

To all, I have no further doubts from reading this from Vascillious, he is indeed Zarchos.
https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=104213&page=7

"Ad hominem (Latin for 'to the person') is a term that refers to several types of arguments, most of which are fallacious.

“ad hominem” is a typical argument on his part, not to mention “insults”.
I put a link to a subject on the French site Gamopat. You can see that Archieforever, one of the nicknames used by Zarchos on this site. As you see he also use the "ad hominem" argument. Don't waste your time with him, he's a huge troll.

https://www.gamopat-forum.com/t10898...rchimedes-3010

[AmigaBoy69]

Originally Posted by babsimov

To all, I have no further doubts from reading this from Vascillious, he is indeed Zarchos.
https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=104213&page=7

"Ad hominem (Latin for 'to the person') is a term that refers to several types of arguments, most of which are fallacious.

“ad hominem” is a typical argument on his part, not to mention “insults”.
I put a link to a subject on the French site Gamopat. You can see that Archieforever, one of the nicknames used by Zarchos on this site. As you see he also use the "ad hominem" argument. Don't waste your time with him, he's a huge troll.

https://www.gamopat-forum.com/t10898...rchimedes-3010

You did a fantastic job of research !

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by babsimov

To all, I have no further doubts from reading this from Vascillious, he is indeed Zarchos.
https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=104213&page=7

"Ad hominem (Latin for 'to the person') is a term that refers to several types of arguments, most of which are fallacious.

“ad hominem” is a typical argument on his part, not to mention “insults”.
I put a link to a subject on the French site Gamopat. You can see that Archieforever, one of the nicknames used by Zarchos on this site. As you see he also use the "ad hominem" argument. Don't waste your time with him, he's a huge troll.

https://www.gamopat-forum.com/t10898...rchimedes-3010

Zarchos is indeed a troll, however, Vascillious is a different person entirely.

You only have to look back on Zarchos' posts that are still here to see the difference in English.

Either Zarchos got REALLY good with his English, or, Vascillious is someone else.

A Mod can simply do an IP check on both of them and will conclude one is in France and the other is currently going mental in his own head.

[BippyM]

I have messaged Vascillious. I will give him a chance to explain why he is a member he, seeing as he is sooo anti-amiga..

Let's move on and discuss the topic at hand

[robinsonb5]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Zarch was THE killer app for games on the Archimedes, but I don't really recall anything else of note on that platform.

I have fond memories of playing E-Type at school - playing a driving game with a mouse was actually pretty cool! I even tried putting my C64's 1531 mouse in joystick mode to play Outrun! (Not very successful!)


!Impression was quite impressive as a DTP package, too.

[fxgogo]

I remember the hype, advertising and articles on the Archimedes and on paper it was a lot more powerful than the Amiga. Unfortunately, we never got to see that machine shine like it should of.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by fxgogo

I remember the hype, advertising and articles on the Archimedes and on paper it was a lot more powerful than the Amiga. Unfortunately, we never got to see that machine shine like it should of.

Just like the Atari Falcon, I guess.

[chb]

The Acorn wasn't really a designated game machine, so the more interesting things were coming out rather in the application/tools/development/education sector. But e.g. Star Fighter 3000 was extremely impressive for an 8 Mhz Machine from 1987:
[ Show youtube player ]

[fxgogo]

Originally Posted by chb

The Acorn wasn't really a designated game machine, so the more interesting things were coming out rather in the application/tools/development/education sector...

Do you remember a 3D application for the Archimedes? The screenshots are in my head, and I remember being amazed at it, but can’t remember the name. Same with a paint package.

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Zarchos is indeed a troll, however, Vascillious is a different person entirely.

You only have to look back on Zarchos' posts that are still here to see the difference in English.

Either Zarchos got REALLY good with his English, or, Vascillious is someone else.

A Mod can simply do an IP check on both of them and will conclude one is in France and the other is currently going mental in his own head.

Ohhh I dunno about that Galahad, at the same time I started messaging in this thread I was also in an ongoing discussion over at AmigaFrance and Mr. Zarchos appeared from nowhere and just happened to reference back my discussion to this thread - calling me out on some of my posts.

https://www.amigafrance.com/forums/t...6/#post-100187

You can read it yourself, but his parting comment to me was before it was deleted and the thread locked was "my games are crap and I'm a shit coder" - unfortunately I couldn't reply so I sent him a PM with the following:



or should I say ... Cheers Vascillious

[Galahad/FLT]

Still not convinced, and i've no love for Zarchos, a "man" in his 40's, who has the debate ability of a scorned 13 year old, and absolutely has no clue what the Amiga is capable of, and even less what a 512K Archimedes is capable of (oh dear, no precalcing graphics for you!).

And his English is never that good, but if it is him, he'll be stupid enough to admit it someplace, he can't help himself.