Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

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ACK TO (WORKBENCH) 96
In Ben Vost's article Workbench 967' he takes a very
detailed look at what the Amiga of the future should
provide. As a loyal user, I found this to be a fascinating
article, creating a virtual chain of what the next Amiga
should be, link by link. But I did notice some links left
unaddressed, most of them involving the future of the
hardware.
To start off, I thought the idea of putting Kickstart onto
a flash ROM was an excellent one. Modular VGA-type
graphics boards also made sense_ Just about every idea
was well thought Out and should be seen in future
Amigas. Specifically, providing sound for all users was a
great idea, but one that needs pushing further.
The Amiga cannot move into the future having su
graphics - but continuing to allow 8-bit sound to be a weak
link. perb The modular idea for graphics cards should also
apply to sound cards.
Another hardware issue is the lack of standardisation.
The Al 200's all-in-one design makes it restrictive to
certain types of expansion, such as.graphics or sound
cards. Keeping the physical design the same for all
Amigas will save third-party developers having to produce
several versions of the same product to be compatible
with the different designs.
Also standard on future Amigas must be storage
devices. High density floppy drives, large hard drives and
CD-ROMs are all a must. It is almost impossible to buy a
new computer (an IBM clone, at least) without a
CD-ROM drive and a massive hard drive. This would free
software developers to create their products without
concerning themselves with fitting all the information on
low density floppies. In turn, this would reduce the
disk-swapping involved in things like installation or
loading.
Being a student at the University of Cincinnati (a major
engineering university), I witness the immense use of the
Internet and the World Wide Web_ Not only are they
entertaining, they are also very effective forms of communication.
For example, my calculus professor posts our
class syllabus on his home page (I bet that's riveting -
ed.). With my Amiga as it is now, it is a rather complex
process of program installations to be able to access this
information. In the future, Telnetting and Web browsing
functions should be integrated into the Workbench and,
in addition, each Amiga sold should have an internal
14.4k modem firming up the communications links of the
chain.
The PowerPC processor will he just one of the many
strong links in the chain of the Amiga, but in order to
maintain an edge over the upcoming Intel P6, the PPC
must be integrated into all the new Amigas to provide a
consistent base of blazing speed.
These changes in the aspects of the Amiga are i
mportant ones that I feel are crucial to the survival of the
Amiga. When compared with another computer the
Amiga must stand out to the average Joe and make him
see that they are getting more computer for their money.
If the Amiga is to be successful, it must provide a
strong base for both veteran and novice users, and with
these ideas, I see it doing just that.
Jeff Rampe, Brecksville, Ohio USA
It's funny how many different things people want from
their Amigas, and I wonder what exactly we will see
from the next generation of Arnim. Anyway, over to
Ben for his comment on your letter._
Putting all the Amigas in boxes with Zorro slots, what
a great idea and one that AT seem to be taking up. The
new Al 200+ that everyone has been talking about will
be just that a box with a separate keyboard with two
'Iwo slots in it, opening up the world of RIG graphics
cards to everyone. As for the sound side of things, the
Amiga still isn't doing too badly. The sound from an
AMIGA COMPUTING
M A Y 1996
A
Keep
those lette
coming! If you
can't be
bothered to find
a bit of paper and a stamp,
why not e-mail us? Simply
point your mailer to:
ESP@acomp.demon.caukl
There's a ESO pound prize for the
best letter printed as an incentive
Amiga still ranks quite highly considering the technol•
ogy it is based upon is many, many years old.
But, sure, it would be nice to see an improvement
there too and making the whole thing modular on a
plug-in replacement basis is undoubtedly the best wa?"
forward.
The only thing I'm worried about is all these extra
things people want to put in the base machine. Hoar
much are you all willing to pay for an Amiga? Adding
CD-ROM drives, modems, networking and 'massive'
hard drives all costs additional cash. I believe every
Amiga in the world should have a hard drive, at
standard but I would rather see the Amiga continue as
a cheap, but good quality, hobbyist's machine, rather
than ramping the cost up to or beyond PC or Mac
levels.
UDGET WORR
I'm a bit worried about all this upgrading business.
years ago I got an A500 for Christmas which cost ne
E500. It was state-of-the-art then, with thousands
good games. Being only nine-years old I couldn't afford
many games, and the only real expansion I bought was
a 5I2k upgrade for E34 which let me play some of
newer games. Great. Only E550 for a great comput
which played all the games.
Today, E400 buys you a five-year old computer which
requires extra hardware to play some of the new
games. Okay, so not many games need an accelerator
yet, but if people start upgrading for games, programmers
will start programming for these machines, perhaps
needing 3 or 4 megs, etc. The whole Amiga mar
ket will lose its appeal as a home computer - imagine
buying an Amiga which was out of date when you
bought it! Pushing the price up by over E200 on top of
A.