| CPU speed: 68000, 7.16 MHz is standard. The A2500, which is
equivalent to an A2000 plus an A2620 accelerator card, has a 68020
running at 14.32 MHz, plus 32-bit RAM. Graphics performance of
all Amigas is excellent due to custom graphics coprocessor chips.
Video resolution: 320x200, 640x200 and 640x400 pixels at 60 Hz refresh
rate (tied to American NTSC television standards). In Europe, screen
resolution is slightly higher due to PAL television compatibility and
50 Hz refresh. Resolution can be increased with "overscan" hacks,
which put active pixels in place of the standard screen borders.
Future Amigas will include higher resolution modes similar to IBM
VGA specs. There's also a product in testing at Commodore which
gives you something like a 1000x800 pixel screen in black and white,
at very low refresh rates.
Number of colors: 2, 4, 8, 16 or 32 from a palette of 4096. Also,
"HAM" mode allows you to use all 4096 colors on screen. HAM mode
and (I think) 32 color mode don't work in the highest resolution
mode.
Operating system: Amiga OS, multitasking, runs on both 68000 and
68020-based models. A cut above such wimpy products as Macintosh
Multifinder and MS-Windows.
Wes
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As -.1 said, the processor (standard) runs at around 7 megahertz, but the
custom graphics and sound chips make the machine MUCH more powerful. Graphics
and sound processing which in other computers would have to be done by the CPU
chip is offloaded to the custom chips in the Amiga. The first 1/2 meg of
memory (or first full meg of memory when new chip set is released) is called
Chip Ram. This memory is shared between the 68000 and the custom chip set,
with the memory running twice as fast and giving half of it's time to the 68000
and half to the custom chips. (At least thats the way it's explained to me.)
Anyway, the end product of this technology is that no 68000 cycles are used for
graphics or sound, so the performance of the amiga for graphics and sound
applications is uncharacteristically high. (An earlier note about X-windows
for the Amiga claims that due to the custom chip set, the Amiga's performance
is comparable to the Sun 3 workstation.)
So if you're doing comparison shopping, I guess you have to consider what kind
of computing you're going to be doing. As has been said many times before, for
graphics the amiga is the best buy for your money.
John
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