Conference hydra::amiga_v1

Re: .0

>In the UK X-CAD is being used by the CAA in training pilots.  X-CAD also
>won a dealer a $200,000 order, in direct competition with Prime Computers,
>in an engineering plant where all other departments were using CADDS 4X and
>Sun workstations.

Am I understanding this guy correctly:  Some  dealer sold $200,000 of Amiga
systems as engineering workstations?

Is the Amiga really beginning to hit the big time?

    
    >						 training pilots.  X-CAD also
    >won a dealer a $200,000 order, in direct competition with
    
    I can imagine this happening in the UK, but never the US.  Here's
    why...
    
    Guys in my engineering group seem to be going on a buying frenzy for
    286 clones.  Every other person you bump into on the hallway either has
    bought or is buying an AT.
    
    I ask these guys why they're buying an MS-DOS system... here's a
    typical conversation.
    
    "Eddy, I'm buying a Gladys L. Ferguson 12 MHz AT"
    
    "Why?  Have you looked at any other systems, like Macintosh or Amiga?"
    
    "I LOOKED at the Macintosh.  It's too expensive"
    
    "What about the Amiga?"
    
    "Whats an Omega?"
    
    "It's a very nice Macintosh-like machine, but generally much lower
    priced.  It has a windowed user interface, excellent color graphics,
    digital stereo sound, and a multitasking operating system.  There's
    also a wide variety of software for every interest.  There's enough
    software so that you'll never be wanting for anything."
    
    "Can it run AutoCAD?"
    
    "No, not unless you spend a lot of money to get it to run AutoCAD."
    
    "I can run AutoCAD on this AT machine"
    
    "Ah, you're going to spend $3000 for AutoCAD v10?"
    
    "Course not, silly, Mumblestein is going to give me a copy."
    
    "OK.  Don't expect AutoCAD to run very quickly on an AT.  It may take
    several minutes just to update the screen."
    
    "I'm in no hurry."
    
    "Also, an AT class machine will not be able to multitask.  You should
    have bought a 386 class machine, which is basically a bug fix to the
    286 class machines.  Furthermore, MS-DOS is an abomination, and when it
    dies mankind will have made a great leap forward."
    
    "The 386 machines are too expensive!  Besides, the guy I'm buying this
    from told me that it will run OS/2!"
    
    "Uh huh."
                                                                  
    And on and on... people are buying for price alone, with this
    superstitious notion that they are getting a full blown CAD
    workstation.  Attempts at re-education are met with patronizing grins.
                                                  
    Unless and until this mindset changes, things don't look good for Amiga
    in engineering.  Macintosh either, for that matter.
    
    Ed.

    I feel that the reason many buy AT's is because a vast majority
    of the population is computer Illiterate. When people say is it
    I*M compatible they most often mean will in run Dbase,123,Autocad,etc.
    	Maybe this software will be of the quality,and nature that is
    required to put it in this catagory. These are the type of Application
    programs that we need for the amiga community. I realize that the
    only fault the Amiga has is the depth of it's application software
    in given areas. However I also realize this could(will) change in
    the wink of an eye,while those trapped in a system that has inherent
    weakness'es like failure to multitask,no color at it's base level,
    4 meg needed to get off the ground,No access to CLI etc will have
    to live with there mistake. Of course if your foolish enough to
    buy an MsDos system you may never realize this. Hopefully X cad
    will help fill this void. I saw a Xcad manual from the old version,
    and it was useless. Many people will judge a book by it's
    cover(software by documentation) so I hope this has really been
    improved. The area where I hope we can never compete with the clones
    is "mumblstien gave me a copy". Sometimes I see these people buying
    AT clones,and it scares me to think THEY are the ones doing our
    development,and engineering. On the other had I saw a guy go into
    a dealers an by a 2000 with his own cash,when he had access to a
    full blown 320 workstation thru work! There is still hope.

    
    What's really funny is that I have shown engineers in our group my
    A2000 running X-CAD, and their jaws dropped at the phenomenal
    zoom/pan/redraw speed.
    
    Listen:  X-CAD can outperform ANY PC based platform on zoom/pan/redraw
    and transformations, which are precisely the operations that CAD
    weenies DO 99.9% of the time.  Even when I was using a base 68000 CPU,
    X-CAD ran so fast that people couldn't believe it.
    
    X-CAD runs much faster than UniGraphics on a uVax II or C-Vax. 
    However, being a 2-D program is a big handicap now that AutoCAD has
    evolved into a full 3D engine.  In addition, like Bill mentioned, the
    manual and user interface are pretty bad.  Add in the difficulty in
    performing basic geometry editing and the end result tends towards the
    unsatisfying.
    
    I will probably gamble another $200 (when funds permit) and upgrade to
    X-CAD Professional.
    
    Ed.
    
    

I stopped in a local conputer store this past weekend. They build and sell
their own PC clones (286 and 386). They also sell the new SUN Sparkstation (SP?)
The SUN looks real neat. It's smaller than the PMAX (DECstation 3100) and about 
the same performance (RISC at ~12 MIPS). I don;'t think it had any internal
storage though.

Anyway, someone was looking into a 386 clone. The salesman was trying to
get the mouse working with Windows 386. I watched for a bit until a salesman
asked if he could help me with anything.

"No, thanks. I'm just looking" (I just purchased two 286 clones for a "client"
of mine for his business and wanted to see what prices this place had.

I continued. "Besides, I have an Amiga". Silence and stares. Then the
guy looking at clones asked me "How do you like it". Here we go, I thought!

"Well, It's a great machine", I started. 

"The only problem with Amiga is there is no software for it", a salesman 
blurted.

"Sure there is" I said. "There's well over 1000 packages. Probably close to 2000"
"and bigger companies are getting into Amiga software now. Wordperfect Corp.
CAD and lots others", I said, wishing Ed Acciardi were there to fill in! And
there's so much GOOD PD that you get everything you'll ever need.

"So far the Amiga has been heavily geared towards desktop video, DTP and
graphics. It compares with machines costing tens of thousands."

I went on for awhile talking about the chipset, Multitasking. All the Amiga
stuff. I then realized I was making enemies in the store and wanted desparatly
to hack on the sparkstation for awhile. Better shut up I thought!

"The probelm is, when you buy a computer, your buying a company as well", a
salesman said. "Commodore sucks".

"Well, I have to agree. Commodore DID suck. But Harry Copperman is changing
that..." I went on about the new commercials and the mail order stuff and 
reaching the 1 million machine mark etc. Silence again. I'm winning, I thought.
"And I can send electronic mail to the Amiga developers directly. They're
always very helpfull and usually reply in a day or so". "Who can I send mail
to at IBM?"

"look", I said, "I'm not trying to piss everyone off here", my weakness showing
through. "But I have to defend the machine, no one really knows about it's
capabilities - But that's changing as well". 

"Your not pissing me off, we get all kinds in here". 
"I see" I said, realizing I'd gone a bit too far.

Oh well. I got the point across and believe I actually won.

John

re: .3
>    improved. The area where I hope we can never compete with the clones
>    is "mumblstien gave me a copy". Sometimes I see these people buying

Another popular method is to bring home the software used at work, that
saves money and gives you the same environment at home.  Also probably
just as illegal.

How can the Amiga compete against that?  It can't directly unless you toss
in a free Bridgeboard.  The trick is to make them not want those "old and
crufty" ibmpc applications.

>    development,and engineering. On the other had I saw a guy go into
>    a dealers an by a 2000 with his own cash,when he had access to a
>    full blown 320 workstation thru work! There is still hope.

I can understand why somebody would do that.  I have a Compaq 386 in my office.
Nice machine, but I wanted a real computer for home use :-)  

By real computer I mean one optimized for a home environment, not just  
business.  It should have reasonable audio, multitasking, lots of 
color, great games, Mindwalker, Artic Fox, MarbleMadness ...  and also do 
the traditional computer things.  I figured if it could do the first part, 
the second part would be a easy for it.  The hard part has been trying to
create a similar environment on it - hunting down a reasonable terminal
emulator, EDT style editor, C compiler, etc.

-Dave