Things the Amiga could do better than a contemporary PC

[gimbal]

"Meme" I would call it a rumor.

[thellier]

Ftpmount was also incredible : simply adding this device and an old program like dpaint or dpaint can directly edit/load/save a picture on internet
Datatypes were such a great concept too

[lmimmfn]

Dropping new libraries into LIBS and software just working( like linux) . Other than system libraries having most if not all installation files in the install dir of the application unlike windows where new application or game installations scatter software systrm wide.

Having no system registry and it becoming a rotal mess over time which still plagues Windows OS to this day.

Having SnoopDos to troubleshoot which i still dont think has something similar on Windows.

[Vascillious]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

From 1990 Amiga was just on par, at best. Still better than PC at some 2D console type games, but in this regard was losing to the actual consoles. And when it comes to "computer" games it was slowly being left behind, just look at Sierra's adventures frm that period for example.

Then 1992 came, the likes of Wolfenstein, Commanche and Ultima Underworld were released and...well, and that was it.

Interesting to read this whole thread and notice it's the same way Amiga fans always run the "debate": Picking out the details of the differences in features (some fictional) between the Amiga and PC platforms, and doing these things:

1. *Not* realising you could run Exactly the same process on the PC or on any other platform too: A blow-by-blow feature comparison at all levels in which you select *Only* for the things the other platform did "better" than an Amiga.

2. Ignoring the fact that "better" isn't an objective measure. You can end the argument just by saying the Amiga did *everything* better. It's a purely personal measure. This doesn't get you anywhere though because anybody else can do exactly the same thing about anything they like.

3. Failing to run the comparison through a second far more pivotal feature of rating different features according to... what actually mattered to people buying computers. This is especially true of people buying desktop computers because so many of the Amiga fan-proclaimed "advantages" of the Amiga don't appear anywhere on the average customers purchasing list. Claiming "The amiga had <whatever> and the PC didn't!" isn't a slam dunk when you're telling an audience who are oblivious to it and to whom it's totally incongruous.

If you're going to do this you can have a fight between the any two things and have whichever of those things win that you want to.

The PC versus my dog.

1. My dog comes when it's called.
2. My dog greets me at the door when I come home.
3. My dog barks when strangers arrive.
4. My dog makes character assessments. I don't trust people my dog doesn't trust.

There you go. That's the whole list. Dog wins.

My PC versus a china cup.

1. The china cup holds hot drinks.
2. Come to think of it, it can even hold some foods like soup.
3. The cup is good for trapping spiders in and taking them out.
4. The cup is far cheaper! (The Amiga fan-favourite in disputes about other devices).

Argument over. The cup wins.

You can run the same process, comparing a chocolate log to the Amiga and have the chocolate log win.

1. You can eat a chocolate log.
2. A chocolate log can be used to rescue a diabetic losing consciousness from hypoglycaemia (a much more important thing than anything the Amiga can do).
3. A chocolate log can be used as a crucial fast-burning carbohydrate source for hill-climbers.
4. A whole family can sit around a Christmas table and eat a chocolate log for dessert.

Can the Amiga do any of these things? No.

Therefore dogs, cups and chocolate logs are all better than the Amiga.

Your argument, as usual, doesn't mean anything because, as usual, you're placing the comparison through a filter anybody can use to make anything they like come out on top.

[grond]

Vascillious, it may surprise you but we do know that the PC won over the Amiga.

[malko]

@Vascillious : The way you turn your argument, even if you don't convince me, has the avantage of making me smile
a door VS a wall : the wall wins as it holds the house.
No, sorry, the door wins as I can go though it, when open, to enter the house...

[robinsonb5]

I'm reminded of the comparison at the end of http://www.dansdata.com/kitten.htm

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Vascillious

Ignoring the fact that "better" isn't an objective measure. You can end the argument just by saying the Amiga did *everything* better. It's a purely personal measure.

The funny thing is that you're ignoring the fact that most of your posts are filled with personal measures and opinions, and yet you claim to be objective at the same time. This dissonance is symptomatic of forum posters with infallibility syndrome.

This is a thread with a simle premise: to list things which Amiga could do better than a contemporary PC. The title does not really imply a debate, but if you want to start one, you'd need to disagree with some concrete facts (like I did in the post which you amusingly then quoted). And your long-winded diatribe does not include a single fact, instead there is usual stuff about "Amiga fans" and some Captain Obvious-level wisdom.

[Galahad/FLT]

I've put the moron on ignore, a moderator needs to put him out of his misery.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Vascillious

Your argument, as usual, doesn't mean anything because, as usual, you're placing the comparison through a filter anybody can use to make anything they like come out on top.

Ok, so you are saying, one can not compare Amiga to PC because the Amiga always wins.
Got it!

[Vascillious]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

The funny thing is that you're ignoring the fact that most of your posts are filled with personal measures and opinions, and yet you claim to be objective at the same time. This dissonance is symptomatic of forum posters with infallibility syndrome.

This is a thread with a simle premise: to list things which Amiga could do better than a contemporary PC. The title does not really imply a debate, but if you want to start one, you'd need to disagree with some concrete facts (like I did in the post which you amusingly then quoted). And your long-winded diatribe does not include a single fact, instead there is usual stuff about "Amiga fans" and some Captain Obvious-level wisdom.

No. It does contain a fact. It's a rational series of statements leading to a conclusion:

"Your argument, as usual, doesn't mean anything because, as usual, you're placing the comparison through a filter anybody can use to make anything they like come out on top".

As I said, per the examples:

Amiga v fitted carpet?

Same process "What advantages does a carpet have over an Amiga?". Result: Carpet wins.

Just to reiterate: As I said in the post you want to discredit, if you place any two things through a filter whereby you take out only the advantages one thing has over the other then you will always emerge with whatever that one thing was as the winner.

Amiga v Manure?

Manure can be used to fertilise food crops, amiga can't.

Manure wins.

See what I mean?

That *is* a fact: Use that process and get anything to win you want.

You can use the same process on yourself: Just cluster together any group of attributes which apply to you and not somebody else. There you go. You won!

As I said, it's an empty victory because anybody else can use the same process to claim a similar hollow victory for anything they want.

It's also characteristic of how the pro-Amiga argument goes.

As I said, you can do it with anything and it will always produce a hollow victory for anything you've pre-selected as the winner: just pre-define your selection criteria around the unique definition of whatever it is you want to win.

A bag of manure v Amiga?

Well, as plant fertiliser, the manure wins.

Conclusion: Manure is better than an Amiga (provided you shrink-fit your selection criteria around the specific unique features of manure).

https://www.springbridge.co.uk/well-...BoCJ9IQAvD_BwE

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Vascillious

That *is* a fact: Use that process and get anything to win you want.

So how about you stop doing it?

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Gorf

So how about you stop doing it?

But he wants to win...

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by saimon69

But he wants to win...

He wants us to capitulate and agree with him, does he? THERE'S NOTHING TO CAPITULATE!

[Juz400]

I imagine its because we got one in the box and by the time we migrated to other machines they were common place.

A Mouse!

It was never a standard thing on PC`s that I encountered up until 1990-91
I was working in the warehouse of a Large Computer company (Mainframe stuff) in 1988
processing bad parts that came from customer sites. One day a carrier bag with a logitech 3 button mouse 9to25way D plug and a floppy disc. Was reported as not working and was to go into the scrap container, asked by Boss if I could take home, he said yes.
Turned out there was a bit of Chocolate under the left button!
The mouse was about £100 when I looked it up!
Not one of the 80 or so PC`s at an Itec training centre I attended had a mouse, even the Brand new 286Turbo boxes they had! Nothing had Windows, everything was DOS!
Before Windows was commonplace, you didnt need or use a mouse to operate a PC

[sandruzzo]

Amiga make all Magic! After 30 years he is still are as we do!

[Weaselrama]

It's been pointed out too many times that a x286 PC from 1985 to about 1990 could not in fact do what an Amiga did. The available sound cards did not anticipate CD Audio and could not play the samples the Amiga could. The Amiga was well-positioned for digital audio.

So - right there the PC is eliminated for nothing more than sound.

The PC at this time didn't do picture formats very well. It took a long time to decode a .gif. There just wasn't a lot of software out there to do what the Amiga did well with .gif, .iff, and .ham.

So - graphics and photos on the PC pre-1990/91 couldn't match the Amiga.

However - by 1990, PC games was starting to beat the pants off the Amiga. Point, PC.

It's the same old tired nonsense over and over ad nauseam. "The PC was always better than the Amiga even during the 80s. No, no it wasn't. The PC wasn't better than anything during the 80s.

We've already established that the Amiga was easily a multimedia machine given a true definition of multimedia at the time, not some lame opinion of what you thought the PC could do, which is fantasy. We don't have to meet your silly expectations. The definition of multimedia in 1985 was well-established in...1985 and nobody cares about a one-off fancy graphics card you couldn't have likely gotten your hands on and if you did, you wouldn't have known what to do with it. There was no software you could buy that supported it.

[Vascillious]

Originally Posted by Gorf

So how about you stop doing it?

Originally Posted by saimon69

But he wants to win...

Originally Posted by Foebane

He wants us to capitulate and agree with him, does he? THERE'S NOTHING TO CAPITULATE!

Why not, for nice change, instead of hurling impotent rocks at me, which change nothing, you instead actually have a go at informing the debate?

As far as what I've written in this thread so far goes, it's an epistemological basic fact so it doesn't make any difference at all if you accept it or not. A refusal to accept it only constitutes burying your head in the sand and doesn't make it go away.

It is pretty obvious what happens if you claim to be comparing two things, A and B, and you then make up your mind to run a tombola which is decided wholly upon what is true of A and not B. If any of you know any basic boolean algebra you will know there can be no other outcome: If your process is to select only from attributes true of A and not B, and then ask which of those items those chosen attributes are true of, then A will always be the final selection. It doesn't make any difference at all what A and B actually are.

You can compare spiders to cheese that way and have cheese win.

So it has nothing to with anything you've just listed between you. It's just the statement of a basic epistemological fact.

So having Weaselrama step in to continue to add more in that exact same process is continuing to mean exactly nothing. You can, as I said, run exactly anything though the same process for absolutely any contest between any one thing and any other, and always have the thing win that you wanted to win before you started. When your process is "pick things that are true about A and not B" then A will always win. It doesn't matter what A and B are.

[Weaselrama]

...aaaaaand with this (loved the graphic) comment, you have officially jumped the shark. This isn't your average bullshit. No, no, this is bullshit with raisins. You even poured cream on your bullshit and if we let you, you'd try to brulee it.

[eXeler0]

Out of the box useful RAM-disk you can install stuff on still isn't a common thing on PC, on Amiga I used it all the time.
Screen dragging with multiple resolution shown at once can't be done on even a €5000 PC 30 years later AFAIK? The usefulness can be discussed but it was neat and it had some actual uses.
Overall system predictability in terms of how long things would take were very consistent. It took me many years to get used that on PC the same thing will 9 out of 10 times take the same amount of time, but then the 10th time it would take much longer and you wouldn't know what the hell the system was doing in the background..

It took a 400MHz P2 with 256MB RAM, and a 3d accelerator PC running NT4 to make me leave the Amiga scene.. It then took some 15 years to make get nostalgic over the elegance of the era compared to the bloatware era we live in now where everything is solved by brute force, because brute force is cheaper than doing something elegant / optimized. But that's another topic ;-)