Conference hydra::amiga_v1

2515.0. "Amiga in Machine Design" by LEDS::ACCIARDI () Sat Apr 29 1989 05:08

    
    There was a very nice write-up on the A2000/2500 in the latest issue of
    Machine Design magazine, one of the top Mechanical Engineering
    publications.  The two-page spot touted the Amigae as providing
    engineers with 'High-Powered CAD at a Low Price'.
    
    The article described the under-$5000 Amiga as an 'impressive'
    alternative to much more expensive PC based systems with slower
    performance.  They claimed that many CAD drawing operations, such as
    zoom and pan, which are traditionally performed by software alone, went
    much faster thanks to the Amiga's custom chipset.  (If you've ever seen
    X-CAD on even a base A2000 you'd be astonished at how fast it refreshes
    the screen.  I've never seen such a fast redraw, even on my $40,000
    MegaTEK CAD terminal here at DEC.  It makes PC/AT based systems seem
    like a slug by comparison).
    
    The article went on to praise Commodore's implementation of UNIX (the
    screen shot looked like Dale Luck's X interface), which will allow
    engineers to take advantage of the large amount of simulation software
    available.  The also mentioned the impressive integration of AmigaDOS
    with the AT Bridgeboard system.
    
    There were a few inaccuracies; for example, they quoted the A2500 as
    being equipped with 1 MByte of RAM; in fact, 3 MB is the base
    configuration.
    
    All in all, it was refreshing to see Amy staring at me from the pages
    of a journal that's traditionally plastered with PC paraphenalia.
    
    Ed.
    

Speaking of Unix and (particularly) X, I wonder how much these babies will
cost?

John

    
    That's another point in the article that may have been misleading.  I'm
    pretty certail that the 'under $5K' price quoted for a 32 bit system
    couldn't possible include a UNIX license.
    
    Ed