Xenophobia (was Re:jobs in Linux / IT)

[Paul Sutton]

Over here it was I think mainly between commodore and sinclair.

Paul

>| > > I remember the old days when Commodore and Atari and Apple fans fought
>| > > over which was the best 8 bit system, when various fans fought over
>| > > which 68K home computer was "best," and such...  Back in those days,
>| > > we were bright but nonetheless pretty stupid kids.  "We're the best;
>| > > the other computers SUCK!!!"
>| >
>| > Oh the 68k question is easy: Commodore had the best hardware, Apple the
>| > best marketing, and atari got nothing.
>| 
>| Not sure if I remember correctly or not, but I think at that time
>| Atari was fairly strong on video technology...
>
>Semi-proof of silliness: the Atari 16-bit line was designed by the
>Commodore 8-bit folks and vice versa.  Yet the loyalty of the fans
>seemed to be to the brand, not the engineering team.
>
>The Atari had a few winning aspects.  In the interest of bias, I won't
>mention the losses.
>
>Atari vs Amiga:
>
>- Atari ST was perhaps half the price of the Amiga (at least for the
>  first few models)
>
>- The Atari ST had a wonderful (for its day) mono monitor.  Amiga
>  didn't.
>
>- built-in midi endeared the machine to musicians
>
>- the file system was compatible with MS DOS.  This was also limiting,
>  but it was often a plus.
>
>
>Atari ST vs Mac
>
>- ST was perhaps a third the cost
>
>- ST was faster.  (Faster clock and less contention with video.)
>
>- ST had more memory.  520 ST (512K RAM) came before "Fat Mac" or Mac
>  Plus.  By the time the Mac Plus came out, the 1040 ST (1024K) was
>  available.
>
>- ST had a larger mono monitor (more area AND more pixels).  You
>  could also use a colour monitor (Mac didn't have colour until the
>  Mac II (a whole different price range)).
>
>- ST mouse had two buttons.
>
>- ST had built-in midi
>
>- ST had cheaper hard drives.
>
>- ST worked reasonably without hard drives.
>
>I chose the Atari ST (I waited until the 1040).  It turned out that my
>main use for it was as a terminal to my UNIX box.  For that, the mono
>monitor and the price were the factors that made it the right choice.
>I wrote very few ST programs although I expected to write more.  UNIX
>was just better suited to programming.
>
>If I'd had an Amiga, *maybe* I would have found it
>useful/interesting/pleasant enough that I would not have just used it
>as a terminal.
>
>Now if a hard-core Amigan wants to convert me, I've collected a 2000
>that I've never powered on...
>--
>The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
>TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
>How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml
>
>  
>


-- 
http://www.zleap.net
http://www.openoffice.org
http://www.linux.org

--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml