🚀 go-pugleaf

iknowyouok@yahoo.com wrote:

> I just "susbsribed" to this grop becosue i was interesed to see what
> Amiga's were used for.  and didn't seem to be any activity.
>
> I see u used a computer runing windows 95 to send this :).
>
> so can u use a Amiga on the net?
>

You can, but don't expect it to have all the features of Nutscape or Internet
Exploiter (sorry Netscape and Internet Explorer).
The good thing is, you can have a PIII turbo-nutter bastard PC, and Amiga,
both will run the same speed on the internet, due to the limitations of the
net.

>
> can u still buy them new. ??
>

There are some still floating about, but only from specialist stores. The Mac
and PC are much easier to find. There are promises for a "new" Amiga, but the
Amiga name keeps changing hands, and in terms of computing power, the Amiga
is about 8 years behind.
To give you an example my A1200 has a 030 processor running at 28Mhz. I'm
using a PC with a Pentium MMX running at 233MHz to do most other things.
If you have got the money you can go to town with a "Tower Amiga", powered by
a Power PC chip, have graphic, and sound cards fitted, in fact the only true
Amiga bit will be the operating system. (OS 3.5 came out towards the end of
last year). With the money spent on such a system you could build a
high-powered PC.
The thing that holds the Amiga users together is the Workbench operating
system. It does the job, and uses a faction of the memory that Windows does.
I have around 10 Meg of memory fitted in my A1200. I have 3 Meg in the A2000.
Both are perfectly usable. Try that on a system running Windows!

>
> u say u use it for midi sequencing, is there audio sinthis beter than
> the sound cards u get for a IBM compatible ? or is it the software.
>
> what are they use full for??

MIDI sequencing is different to soundcards and the such. The sequencer is
acting like a audio recorder, but its only recording the note data, not the
sound. As a result when you play back the data you have full control over
what instrument plays it.
I have several MIDI synth modules (mostly made by Roland), a dedicated
sampler (again Roland), a drum module, and two keyboard synths. The sequencer
controls all of them.

I know that there are some sound cards around for the Amiga, but most of the
time people use the sample play back technology built-in to all Amiga's.
Again by today's standards 4 channels of 8 bit sound is some what crude.
However when the Amiga was first released in the early 1980's it was unheard
of. It made my save all my pennies to get one.
It's easy to add MIDI to Amiga's, you just get a simple MIDI interface that
plugs into the serial port, and because they are simple, they are relatively
cheap. MIDI hardware isn't so cheap. I think even the most basic General MIDI
modules a round �150 to �200.
I put a �20 sound card in the PC. It has the Yamaha XG chip on it, and for
�20, was a bargain. It would cost around �20 for a MIDI interface for the
Amiga. Sickening isn't it?