🚀 go-pugleaf

There comes a time in every UseNet poster's life when, though he knows better,
he just can't resist the temptation to post the response and risk starting
up a discussion that really shouldn't be started up for the n-th time, rather
than simply mailing it....

This is one of those times.

In <1043@uhccux.UUCP>, cm450s02@uhccux.UUCP (jeff t. segawa) said:  

>>Go to an Amiga dealer sometime and look at how much software is out there ---
>>certainly more than for a dead machine. 

>I think you've just brought up the biggest problem I've encountered with 
>the Amiga: SOFTWARE! Off and on, I've been following developments in 
>the Amiga world, looking for an excuse to buy a second computer. Trouble
>is, when I go to the software store, I generally see lots of IBM and Apple II
>software, a fairly decent selection of Mac software, and if I see Amiga software
>at all, it's usually in the cutout bins, and is almost always games, or maybe
>some business software I've never heard of, and the business programs I've seen
>don't seem to offer any advantages in terms of power, features or ease of use
>over my existing Mac software, and more often than not, the Amiga software 
>appears to fall far short of it's Mac counterpart. 

Jeff, where do you live, and what stores do you frequent?  Mac-enthusiast
that I am, I too have followed the Amiga market; indeed, I've worked in a
store that sold both Apple and Amiga (and Atari & PC) hardware & software,
and it can no longer truthfully be said that the Amiga doesn't have a large
base of software written for it.  Nor can it be said that it doesn't have
quite a few very high quality non-game packages for it.  Word Perfect in
the word processing category; Delux Paint II, & two others (who's names
escape me for the moment) in the painting category (all three better than
most everything currently available for the macintosh, LaserPaint included);
Sculpt 3D, a ray-tracing program (no such category for the mac that's on
dealer shelves); animation software that beats the pants off of *anything*
currently available for the macintosh; music software that, simply because
of the Amiga hardware, is better than what's available for the mac in the
sound output category (though Studio Session's giving it real competition);
etc. etc. etc.

But Jeff, your comments do bring out a *very* important point, and illustrate
the very problem with the Amiga:  it's not mainstream.  It could very well
be that the dealers in your area don't carry any of the good Amiga software.
It could very well be that they have no concept of an Amiga's uses beyond
playing games.

In fact, most of the Amiga dealers that I've had occasion to have dealings
with don't perceive as anything more than an extremely powerful toy.

Additionally, Commodore hasn't gone overboard in engendering a sense of
loyalty from it's programmers or engineers; hasn't evangelized their product
as Apple has, hasn't gone overboard in getting it's developers pre-release
machines and software specifications (until *very recently*) as Apple has;
hasn't done any decent advertising as Apple has, etc. etc.

The user-interface isn't as uniform as the macintosh user-interface is, which
is a large part of the Mac's appeal to a large segment of it's user-base;
there were a lot of compatibility problems when Commodore went from 1.0
to 1.1 to 1.2 of it's OS, (they are NOT completely upwardly compatible for
developers who followed the rules [when those rules were specified]); etc. etc.

Networking, which is becoming more and more important to businesses, is not
nearly as easy an option on an Amiga as it is on the macintosh; furthermore,
the spreadsheet and accounting software available for the Amiga is (in my
opinion) severely lacking--this will really hurt business sales.  The screen
that Commodore markets for the machine is poor, and doesn't really show off
the machines graphic capabalities.  

Third-party hardware products are almost uniformly poor in quality (with
the exception of some of the memory expansion products), aren't all compatible
with eachother, especially as the expansion board spec. changes several times
ove the last two years (somewhere between 3 & 6 times, if I recall), are
fairly expensive (when it comes to hard-drives), are not marketed well
through dealers, etc. etc.


In the last few months, with the advent of the A2000 & A500, the Amiga is
finally starting to come into it's own.  More and more of the machines are
selling, advertising is increasing in quantity and quality.  More dealers
are starting to learn just what the machine can do.  More 'business-quality'
software is coming out.  Fonts are finally starting to get supported in
software.  Third-party hardware products are slowly increasing in quality,
decreasing in price, and going through dealerhships more.  Commodore will
be coming out with a new monitor (if it hasn't already hit the streets) that
should finally allow users to see what the machine is capable of.  It looks
like the operating system and expansion spec. have finally frozen.  Development
tools are getting better and better.  

At the same time, after firing most of it's best engineers, Commodore has
put itself in the position of not being able to really lead the market in
innovations anymore.  Programs like HyperCard probably won't come out of
Commodore first.  Innovations probably won't be the rule around commodore
anymore; especially software innovations.  Most all of that will have to
come from third-party sources, and unless these sources get together via
users-groups or what-have-you to standardize, what innovations that do arise
may very well not be compatible with eachother.  One of the things that has
characterized the Macintosh is the high degree to which 3rd party products
are compatible with eachother.  Unfortunately that isn't nearly as prevelantly
the case with Amiga software (where most of the games  re-start your machine
when you exit them, and word processors *still* by and large are unable to
handle graphics or fonts, or have even the slightest concept of font families).
Perhaps it will never be.


So, what machine should everyone go out and buy?  Why that's simple:  a MacII...

Peter "the final word??? [dare I hope?]" Korn
-- 
 Peter "Arrgh" Korn    korn@apple.com   !hplabs!amdahl!apple!korn    "Hi mom!"