Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mailrus!purdue!decwrl!sun!pepper!cmcmanis
From: cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: 1 million...
Summary: Don't read this
Message-ID: <79622@sun.uucp>
Date: 1 Dec 88 03:39:04 GMT
References: <358@sdcc14.ucsd.edu> <11767@cup.portal.com>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 108

These kinds of discussions are useless. The reason they are useless
is that some people believe that "most computers sold" == "best computer".
This can be proven to be false by the simple fact that the single best 
selling computer in the world is a Commodore 64, and the single biggest
selling family of computers is the IBM PC (XT,AT). No one I know thinks
these are the best computers in the world. Everyone has an opinion and
everyone disagrees on what "best" means and yet still they argue long 
into the night.

The rest of this posting is an effort on my part to demonstrate why 
these things are pointless. I try to show that the Amiga 500 and 
the 1040 ST are essentially the same design with different compromises.
When all is said and done they are the same computer. You as a reader
look at the two machines, look at the way the designers compromised,
and pick the one that *you* like better. Also be aware that your
choice is only the better choice from your perspective, others will
disagree and they are also correct from *their* perspective.

Take the following comments from Peter as an example :
In article <11767@cup.portal.com> (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes:
>                                   ...I'd say Atari will have no
> problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already
> done so! ...

Given the "magicalness" of a million machines (see the PS/2, Apple Mac
announcements when they broke a million) it is clear that Atari (or
Commodore for that matter) will be shouting to everyone that can read
(especially developers) to let them in on the good news. Witness
Commodore's hyper sensitivity as they get closer to that number.

>  Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales
> were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine
> while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much
> greater utility.

This is an especially wonderful example of why debating machine merits 
is a waste of time. Here is a guy who obviously is very proud of his
computer ownership attempting to slander the "competition" with absolutely
no facts at all. If he understood the Amiga computer line he would realize
that the Amiga 500 *is* the Atari 1040 ST competition. Line up the features
side by side and even a third grader could tell you they were the same 
machine, to wit :
			1040 ST		Amiga 500
			----------	----------	
Processor		68000		68000
"Main" Memory		1 Meg		1 Meg 
Screen Resolution	320 X 200 	350 X 200
  various #'s of	640 X 200	700 X 200
  colors.		640 X 480	700 X 440
Disk Drive		720K		880K
Serial Port		Yes		Yes
Parallel Port		Yes		Yes
MIDI Port		Yes		No
DMA Port		Yes		No
Expansion Bus		No		Yes
Hard Disk Available	Yes		Yes
Memory Expansion Avail	Yes		Yes
Max Memory		4 MB		9 Mb
Blitter			No*		Yes
Audio			Yes		Yes
-----
* Blitter optional according to some things I have seen

And the astute readers will note that a.) Prices are different, b.)
Implementations are different, and c.) Neither machine is the "better"
machine to everyone. In terms of hardware capabilities they offer 
the same functions. 

The question you ask are "What are the decisions the designers made?"
Take MIDI for example. The Amiga does not have a MIDI port, the designers
did not decide to include one. It is easy to turn the Amiga serial port into
a MIDI port but it will cost you the user extra cash. *You* decide which
decision is better for *you*. Same thing with a hard disk. Atari builds
in a DMA port that makes connecting a SCSI device easier, Commodore provides
and expansion bus that you can connect a hard disk controller to. Here
the Atari designer may have said "Well, either we offer a hard disk 
interface or an expansion interface, which will it be? Gee most of 
our users will just want a hard disk so lets offer that." Whereas the
Amiga designer might have said "Lets offer an expansion port so that
other things beside a hard disk can be easily connected here." The 
Atari decision makes for cheaper hard disks, the Commodore decision
makes for greater flexibility. Which do *you* prefer? *You* decide and
that makes that machine best for you. When one evaluates both machines
you will notice that the Commodore decisions tended to flexibility even
when it raised the cost, whereas Atari's leaned toward keeping the 
price down at the cost of flexibility. None of these decisions make 
one computer "better" than the other, they just make the computers
different.

Of course none of this means anything to someone who's ego is tied up
in the computer they own. That type of person will get just as hyper
about whether or not a BMW is better than a Mercedes or a Ford is better
than a Mercury. The important point to remember is that when you read
an article from someone who really likes their computer and thinks anyone
who doesn't like their computer obviously has a learning disability, you
have to understand that they are *correct*. This is how they think from
*their* perspective. There is no need to point out how their perspective
disagrees strongly with *your* perspective. That is because both of your
perspectives will disagree with everyone elses perspective. The end result
is a couple of thousand articles describing the authors perspective and
views. If you could condense them into a single survey message you might
et the Signal to Noise ratio up above .5 but I doubt it.

Well thats *my* perspective,

--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis   BIX: cmcmanis  ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.