Things the Amiga could do better than a contemporary PC

[Weaselrama]

Originally Posted by Vascillious

Do as you will. I'm here open to having my belief challenged that the PC was never outclassed, in a list of ways which actually mattered to buyers, as a professional platform by the Amiga. You can block me all you want. That just won't cut any ice towards evidence the Amiga wasn't just what I think it is: A cheap flashy toy for teenage bedrooms in blue-collar houses.

You can think anything you want. That doesn't mean you can demonstrate it. Why on Earth should we do your research for you? The specs and comparisons of the X286 vs the 68000 are at your fingertips. Here's what I discovered:

The x286 had memory protection and the ability to multitask in hardware. The 68000 had neither of these features. Both chips were a stone's throw away from one another in terms of speed AND YET - The 68000 was the older chip yet featured 32-bit addressing. The x286 was a completely 16-bit chip.

There was only one OS that featured preemptive multitasking on the PC and that was Xenix by "Micro-Soft," a UNIX-like OS that nobody used and was command-line only, no GUI (sorry, no multimedia for you.)

The Amiga featured software-implemented preemptive multitasking in a GUI which supported and exceeded the definition of multimedia as defined in 1985. The PC HAD NOTHING LIKE IT and wouldn't until after 1990.

How many times are you going to reset the goal post? You lost the multimedia definition so now it's, "The PC was faster than the Amiga and you're not allowed to mention any of its machines from 1985 - 1992 except the 68000." Well, I'm ok with that. We can compare the x286 to the 68000 all day long and the older chip, the 68000, will always fare very well. This is not to say that Intel wasn't very forward-thinking and its improvements led directly to the x386 and x486 families.

Dude, you can't prove that the x286 was even *marginally* faster than the 68000. Why? Because while the Amiga was implemented as a hybrid 32bit/16bit (some 16-bit busses on the custom chips), it executed instructions faster than the x286. The Amiga had a custom chipset no PC would have had or could have had.

I'm sorry bud, but prior to 1990, the Amiga smoked the PC in every way that mattered. Why you can't live with the fact that after 1990/91, the PC began to pull away and then left the Amiga in the dust is beyond me. What a ridiculous display of obtuse pettifoggery!

[skan]

Again, stop feeding this pathetic troll, please.

[grond]

Originally Posted by Vascillious

You're right, but it IS mine. The RAM wasn't and isn't something you can plug into the DRAM slots. That may not matter to you, but it does to me. RAM which the CPU talks to over the Zorro bus is going to be slow.

Well, just like your 24bit graphics card is going to be super slow over an ISA bus. So we just rule that out.

It's also been written in emulator guides that even if you did fill your Amiga to the theoretical maximum of 1.75GB you should not expect it to work because the OS is not specified for that much RAM.

What? That's the first time I hear that. I don't know of any reason why the OS should have difficulties of managing 2GB of address space. I have an Amiga with 512MB of RAM, why should I not be able to address more than that?

Anyway, we are still waiting for your pre-1990 PC specs. And we have given many supposed hardware and software advantages of the Amiga which you still have to address in detail.

[Vascillious]

Originally Posted by grond

Well, just like your 24bit graphics card is going to be super slow over an ISA bus. So we just rule that out.

Wrong. I'm happy to accept it. I'm merely pointing out that it would be slow. I'm not discounting it from existence. It would be nice if you'd refrain from the habit of mischaracterising what I've written. It would save a lot of time having to correct you for being dishonest.


Also, it isn't like for like: Graphics chips mounted on cards is usual to this very day. In fact, that very practice of GPUs on daughtercards began the component style still maintained which we're used to in PCs on today. Graphics chips today are STILL mounted on cards and guess what? We all use them. Seems to have worked out ok.


It is however NOT the norm for RAM expansion. RAM expansion cards were and are typically plugged into DRAM sockets on the motherboard close to the CPU where they communicate along a fast, specially designated, RAM bus.


So, I'm not discounting it. What I am doing is pointing out that when you look at the product availability timeline there is currently no evidence I've seen which says the A3000 in its day was expandable, with hardware then available, beyond the 16MB claimed. Not with any method we've yet seen. Back then, not even with RAM on daughter cards. So, as far as RAM expansion goes then, high-end PCs, designed to be used as LAN servers, could be expanded up to 256MB, with RAM mounted into mobo DRAM slots, at the same time the Amiga could be expanded to 16MB (I'm happy to be corrected, provided you provide a document confirming your claim).

By the time the 256MB BigRAM boards were available, it was 2012, by 2012 PCs were in another league.

So, if we put product availability on a timeline according to when you could get it, then there is no time when you couldn't buy a PC with greater RAM expansion potential than the Amiga. Not with hardware actually available in its day. At least, none that I know of. There was still also a long time before 24bit graphics cards, of any kind, appeared on Amigas. So for your "slow" accusation, I counter with "non-existent". So your choice is (allegedly) slow 24bit graphics versus none at all.

Originally Posted by grond

What? That's the first time I hear that. I don't know of any reason why the OS should have difficulties of managing 2GB of address space. I have an Amiga with 512MB of RAM, why should I not be able to address more than that?

I take it you haven't bothered to look? That's a really effective way of not finding evidence for something: Look away. I'm here to look. I may not have seen something yet so I'm here willing to be shown things I wasn't previously aware of.

The source I am using is the same one as before: The Amiga Forever site which appears to have a competent explanation of RAM considerations, taking in both real hardware and special cases permissible under emulators. let's stick to what it says about the real hardware (unless you're ready to admit the most powerful Amigas currently run under PC emulation faster than the original hardware?).

"The maximum amount of Fast RAM is 8 MB on all systems except the Amiga 3000 and Amiga 4000, where it is 64 MB. This is a special case that is possible only with an emulated environment, as the physical motherboards could only be expanded by inserting memory chips up to 16 MB."

Briefly: 16MB was the most onboard RAM you could have on the original hardware of any Amiga.

"The total hardware memory space defined by the Amiga Zorro III expansion bus specification is 1792 MB. This is shared by RAM expansions, RTG video memory, and other peripherals. If for example an RTG display card has 128 MB of video memory, that has to be subtracted from the maximum address space."

Briefly: 1.75GB was the most RAM you could theoretically have on daughter cards attached to the original hardware of any Amiga.

This brings you up to a total of 1808MB of RAM, including RAM on RTG graphics cards, RAM on Zorro III daughter cards and RAM on the motherboard, all maxxed out.

It then goes on to say:

"The Amiga Autoconfig mechanism supports Zorro III RAM expansion boards with memory totals being an exact power of 2, between 64 KB and 1 GB. Originally, when physical RAM expansions featured at most 128 MB, the address space available to Zorro III expansion boards was documented as being 1024 MB (1 GB, from 0x40000000 to 0x7FFFFFFF). In an emulated environment, the entire Zorro III address space (1792 MB) can be configured. However, not all operating systems and applications can make use of this entire space"

Thereby implying 1GB (+16MB on the mobo, presumably) is the maximum realistic figure through real hardware. The remaining portion of the theoretical maximum RAM is available only through emulation.

"If you see Zorro devices "disappear" after increasing the RAM to more than 512 MB, it probably means that the operating system does not support Zorro expansion boards above the first GB of address space"

Essentially then, anything beyond the first 512MB of expansion RAM falls outside the documented first 1GB of system memory allocation, so software/hardware trying to connect through it may fail.

https://www.amigaforever.com/kb/13-111

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by skan

Again, stop feeding this pathetic troll, please.

What this guy said

[grond]

Originally Posted by Vascillious

Wrong. I'm happy to accept it. I'm merely pointing out that it would be slow.

Which doesn't matter. And actually Zorro3 throughput wasn't slow in 1990. A typical CPU of the time could hardly saturate it.

It would be nice if you'd refrain from the habit of mischaracterising what I've written. It would save a lot of time having to correct you for being dishonest.

Wow, you are really full of yourself. The topic of this discussion is things that the Amiga could do better than any contemporary PC. We already found out that colour depth and resolution weren't among them. We have identified many other aspects you could address but you don't. One was that a 1990 A3000 can be expanded to GBs of RAM. It wasn't said that it _could_ be expanded in 1990, it was pointed out that the hardware concepts were so superior to the PC that the same computer can today take so much RAM as nobody in 1990 thought practical. You misunderstood that intentionally as meaning that it actually was possible in 1990 to buy so much RAM which, of course, it wasn't.

It is however NOT the norm for RAM expansion. RAM expansion cards were and are typically plugged into DRAM sockets

This is NOT true. There were RAM expansions for the Amiga back when Amigas were still sold in shops that plugged into expansion slots. Whatever you declare as "the norm" doesn't matter. There were e.g. SCSI controllers for the Amiga that had a few MB of RAM in addition. This was no big deal in the 1980s because RAM clock speeds were so low that it didn't matter much if the RAM was located far away from the CPU. It is only the crippled PC architecture that didn't allow RAM to be connected via an ISA bus. What you consider the "norm" is just opinion.

the A3000 in its day was expandable, with hardware then available, beyond the 16MB claimed.

As mentioned before there were SCSI controllers that added up to 8MB of RAM which were (and still are) available in addition to the 16 MB of fastmem. There were also accelerator cards with local RAM slots. I'd be very much surprised if they had been limited to just 16MB. My Blizzard 1230 (an accelerator for a 1992 Amiga) can take 256 MB in a single RAM slot.

So, as far as RAM expansion goes then, high-end PCs, designed to be used as LAN servers, could be expanded up to 256MB

And what OS would they use to address those 256MB?

So your choice is (allegedly) slow 24bit graphics versus none at all.

I only did that because you countered the fact that an original A3000 can be expanded to have RAM into the GB range with an opinion that it would be slow.

(unless you're ready to admit the most powerful Amigas currently run under PC emulation faster than the original hardware?).

The funny thing is that an Amiga can run at GHz speed and the software still works while the PCs of the time needed a "turbo button" to throttle the CPU.

"The maximum amount of Fast RAM is 8 MB on all systems except the Amiga 3000 and Amiga 4000

This is nonsense. You can easily expand e.g. an A1200 to have more than 8MB of fast RAM.

This is a special case that is possible only with an emulated environment, as the physical motherboards could only be expanded by inserting memory chips up to 16 MB."

Briefly: 16MB was the most onboard RAM you could have on the original hardware of any Amiga.

Four modules of 16 MB in four slots. And since when does "original hardware" matter? You could buy CPU cards just like you could buy PC 24 bit graphics cards.

It then goes on to say:

"The Amiga Autoconfig mechanism supports Zorro III RAM expansion boards with memory totals being an exact power of 2, between 64 KB and 1 GB. Originally, when physical RAM expansions featured at most 128 MB, the address space available to Zorro III expansion boards was documented as being 1024 MB (1 GB, from 0x40000000 to 0x7FFFFFFF). In an emulated environment, the entire Zorro III address space (1792 MB) can be configured. However, not all operating systems and applications can make use of this entire space"

Thereby implying 1GB (+16MB on the mobo, presumably) is the maximum realistic figure through real hardware. The remaining portion of the theoretical maximum RAM is available only through emulation.

That isn't what is written there. It says that each Zorro3-RAM card can have up to 1 GB of RAM. Two 1GB RAM cards can't work though even though there are Zorro slots available but not enough address space. But you could have a 1 GB RAM card and a 512 MB RAM card.

"If you see Zorro devices "disappear" after increasing the RAM to more than 512 MB, it probably means that the operating system does not support Zorro expansion boards above the first GB of address space"

Up to 1 GB of managed RAM is a tad better than DOS. Furthermore your quote implies that there were OS versions that did support the full Zorro3 address space.

[Weaselrama]

I don't think this guy understands that he's not dealing with hobbyists who are just bug-eyed about the Amiga, incapable of understanding its strengths and weaknesses or that as hobbyists, most of us have a pretty broad understanding of the microcomputer age from the 70s onward. Many of us tinkered with PCs back then, as well as Macs, Atari STs, etc.

I think it really honks him off that even to this day, the Amiga is one of the best supported Retro Computers ever built. It is 2020 and a 68040 (or 060 accelerator) can manage many things modern OSs can manage, supported all these years by coders willing to team up and publish OS upgrades, whether it was for profit or not, it doesn't matter. Those upgrades were amazing.

Maybe it honks him off that even after the Amiga's day ended by '92, surpassed by PCs, they continued to be used past the turn of the century thanks to the Video Toaster and Scala Multimedia and other titles. They were even used at JPL.

In any event, his obvious hatred for the Amiga crosses the line into the ludicrous. Its painfully obvious his only knowledge comes from half-digested reading instead of hands-on experience. I have years of hands-on experience with the PCs of that era troubleshooting them at work then finally getting my first 386 SX before moving to a x486 machine in 1995. It wasn't for no reason I still turned on my Amiga from time to time.

The Amiga was the coolest computer I ever owned and I suppose that generates the nostalgia. But there was no PC that existed in 1990 or before that could match what the Amigas at the computer store I hung out at, the computer club I was a member of, or the Amiga I had at home could do. I kept the Amiga around mostly for the music experience. I suppose when mp3s became available in the mid-90s that my interest in making and listening to music on a PC became a focus of mine. That, and graphics. I had Audio CDs as well and started to convert them - I would convert them again later for better quality on better machines.

There's a reason why trackers like Fasttracker II were released. Mods were and are, still very popular among hobbyists.

This hobby is supposed to be fun and this guy's chief interest is trying to ruin the fun. We really need to ask ourselves WHY he would engage in that pursuit. I think we all know the answer. One would think there would be Retro PC hobbyist boards he could haunt.

Oh yeah, one more thing: The Workbench is still the coolest GUI probably ever created. Nothing on Linux or the PC or the Mac can compare which is why we love tinkering with it so.

[babsimov]

Good morning all,

I'm only an occasional reader of this site, but I think "Vascillious" is actually "Zarchos" which was banned from this site for spitting on Amiga in a primary fashion.
https://eab.abime.net/member.php?u=60606
I think he came back with another troll nickname, like he did on another French site I participate in. I put a link on a youtube video that brought me to this topic (see comments), I think that might enlighten you.

[ Show youtube player ]

[Weaselrama]

Yes. In the comments on this video, read the sub-comments under "Le 464 Vert." He is promoting himself here as "Vascillious." This should be grounds for banning. He really doesn't belong here because he's never added anything intelligent to the conversation. He has a very low opinion not just of the Amiga, but its fans.

Where do these guys come from? Their purpose is pretty clear: To disrupt our community with largely uninformed comments hoping to make a stir instead of going and trying to have a life. Did he really think he'd win converts to his opinion? It just doesn't work that way...

[Paul_s]

Originally Posted by Vascillious

What's that got to do with it? Enjoy it all you want. I'm not condemning the enjoyment of it, I'm condemning Lying about it, and lying about the competition.

Technicalities aside, the Amiga was far greater than the sum of its parts.

[Weaselrama]

Originally Posted by Paul_s

Technicalities aside, the Amiga was far greater than the sum of its parts.

Yes, he's condemning "lying" about the Amiga and its competition by...bald-face lying about the Amiga and its pre-1990 competition.

[Pixelfill]

Originally Posted by Weaselrama

Yes. In the comments on this video, read the sub-comments under "Le 464 Vert." He is promoting himself here as "Vascillious." This should be grounds for banning. He really doesn't belong here because he's never added anything intelligent to the conversation. He has a very low opinion not just of the Amiga, but its fans.

Where do these guys come from? Their purpose is pretty clear: To disrupt our community with largely uninformed comments hoping to make a stir instead of going and trying to have a life. Did he really think he'd win converts to his opinion? It just doesn't work that way...

I don't *think* Zarchos actually say's he's here as Vascillious, but says there is a guy on Eab called Vascillious. but my French is rusty so may have mis-translated that.

[Weaselrama]

Originally Posted by Pixelfill

I don't *think* Zarchos actually say's he's here as Vascillious, but says there is a guy on Eab called Vascillious. but my French is rusty so may have mis-translated that.

Too much of a coincidence. I can't believe there could be TWO immature, obtuse, pettyfogging purveyors of alternative PC history stinking up both EAB and Youtube with hugger-mugger about the Amiga. That's one hell of an agenda upon which to waste one's life.

[Pixelfill]

Originally Posted by Weaselrama

Too much of a coincidence. I can't believe there could be TWO immature, obtuse, pettyfogging purveyors of alternative PC history stinking up both EAB and Youtube with hugger-mugger about the Amiga. That's one hell of an agenda upon which to waste one's life.

I think I would have to concur, but probably not strong enough evidence to hang him for it.

[Paul_s]

Originally Posted by Weaselrama

Yes, he's condemning "lying" about the Amiga and its competition by...bald-face lying about the Amiga and its pre-1990 competition.

What I'd do to go back to 1992.

Friday evening, playing Lotus 2 with a few friends, eating crap and drinking full sugar coke.

[Weaselrama]

Originally Posted by Paul_s

What I'd do to go back to 1992.

Friday evening, playing Lotus 2 with a few friends, eating crap and drinking full sugar coke.

Trying out the latest cover disks and listening to awesome Mods via Octamed 4.0. At the time, I didn't come across incompatibilities with Protracker Mods that I remember. Octamed was, from a visual aesthetic, a work of art on its own. Too bad that changed with 5.0 and Sound Studio.

My Amiga was floppy-driven so I was always working on a new Workbench for specific purposes in mind. I was mad for any demo I could get my hands on and had the stereo-out plugs connected to my sound system. Yup, life was good. And drinking full-sugared Dew or Pepsi.

[Rotareneg]

Originally Posted by Weaselrama

Too much of a coincidence. I can't believe there could be TWO immature, obtuse, pettyfogging purveyors of alternative PC history stinking up both EAB and Youtube with hugger-mugger about the Amiga. That's one hell of an agenda upon which to waste one's life.

Zarchos is obsessed with the Archimedes, not PCs. I've seen similarly obsessed Amiga fans posting the same kind of crap, it's just typical fanboyism.

Vasc is more like some Ford or Chevy troll going onto a Civic forum and just trying to piss people off for the lols.

[Weaselrama]

Originally Posted by Rotareneg

Zarchos is obsessed with the Archimedes, not PCs. I've seen similarly obsessed Amiga fans posting the same kind of crap, it's just typical fanboyism.

Vasc is more like some Ford or Chevy troll going onto a Civic forum and just trying to piss people off for the lols.

I'm sure you're right. Yeah, I saw his comment (in French) about the Acorn. Neat machine I've read but I'm not really familiar with it.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Paul_s

What I'd do to go back to 1992.

I'm immediately reminded of this:

[ Show youtube player ]

[babsimov]

Originally Posted by Rotareneg

Zarchos is obsessed with the Archimedes, not PCs. I've seen similarly obsessed Amiga fans posting the same kind of crap, it's just typical fanboyism.

Vasc is more like some Ford or Chevy troll going onto a Civic forum and just trying to piss people off for the lols.

Yes, Zarchos is an Archimedes fan, but he also has an obsession with spitting on the Amiga whenever he can and by any means possible. He came to Gamopat (a French forum) with different nicknames, including one (ChristopheS) posing as an Atari ST and Falcon fan to better spit on the Amiga. Although he comes here as a PC fan, it wouldn't surprise me at all. He has a writing style that I think I am starting to know too well.

EDIT : On the youtube video, just before coming to your subject, I told him that I had recognized his style in "Vascillious". I explained to him that I was going to explain on EAB what I thought. Strangely, the comment does not seem to be visible anymore. I had written in French and in English.