Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!alberta!ubc-cs!uw-beaver!cornell!mailrus!ncar!oddjob!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu!leein From: leein@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Amiga Wishlist Message-ID: <42600042@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu> Date: 21 Aug 88 03:25:00 GMT Lines: 45 Nf-ID: #N:uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu:42600042:000:2241 Nf-From: uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu!leein Aug 20 22:25:00 1988 On Aug 19, 1988, Ed Berger at eberger@godot.psc.edu wrote: /* ---------- "Amiga Wishlist" ---------- */ >OK folks, here is my ideas for improving the AMIGA. > >First, I think there could be a much larger market for the machines >if they were geared towards, the "Scientific" user. >1) How about a greek key with all the greek letters printed on the > keyboard ala C= graphics on the 64. A good interface program to TEX > could be made, or other scientific text processing, without having to > learn all kinds of control sequences/grabbing the mouse everyother letter. >2) Subscript, and Superscript keys, also to be used just like shift keys. >3) I want this as a new 'standard' keyboard, so that most software will track. > > ..... > >Looking forward to your comments: >Ed Berger You missed the single-most important shortcoming of Amiga. That's the damm screen flickering problem in its high resolution mode! 200 x 700 is simply not enough for today's PC. Commodore invented some kind of a blit chip which gave us 4096 colors while others give only 256 colors at most. However, Commodore has been trapped by that self-made pitfall, and they could not improve that blit chip because of, seemingly, the backward software compatibility problem---I am not so sure about the exact reason. If that is not the case, they are not so serious about Amiga. You mentioned the Greek key. Maybe I am the predecessor who insisted on its necessity. I even wrote a letter to IEEE P1003 POSIX Committee so that they could include the Greek key as an extended ASCII set using most of 128 combinations of unused 8-bit combinations. But their reply was negative. They are mostly computer scientists, not just scientists nor engineers. They see the Greek characters not as the scientist and engineers' mothertongue, but as one of foreign alphabets. And their vision is somewhat futuristic. They consider Postcript language as the new ASCII. They are illusionist. They do not realize how many percentage of computer users depend on character- based terminals. I was simply frustrated after the futile effort. Hugh SONG, U. of Ill Direct your mail to: song@uispg.csl.uiuc.edu