CPC: Underpowered for 1984?

[ZorrO]

I wonder what configuration you have, and what exactly makes it better?
Note that I'm not asking what you would prefer do on Amiga, but what for is it better at? If compared to 32bit PC.

[cwpab]

I just found two interesting articles about Amstrad (one of them also about Acorn):

- This one from Anstream is weird because it tells the story of Amstrad without mentioning any negative stuff. It could have been written for a potential official Amstrad website if the company was still alive. Especially shocking is when they bring up the GX4000 simply as an example of "more innovation from Amstrad" without mentioning what happened to it: https://www.antstream.com/post/the-legacy-of-the-amstrad


- Much more serious, this one compares Amstrad with Acorn and tells the good and the bad. It's very long and it also contains some initial bullshit about "America only wanted Nintendos" and "machines with noe creation, just consumerism", saying that good programmers were only available in Britain, but ther est of the article is great: https://www.filfre.net/2016/06/acorn-and-amstrad/

[Gryzor]

I just found two interesting articles about Amstrad (one of them also about Acorn):

- This one from Anstream is weird because it tells the story of Amstrad without mentioning any negative stuff. It could have been written for a potential official Amstrad website if the company was still alive. Especially shocking is when they bring up the GX4000 simply as an example of "more innovation from Amstrad" without mentioning what happened to it: https://www.antstream.com/post/the-legacy-of-the-amstrad


- Much more serious, this one compares Amstrad with Acorn and tells the good and the bad. It's very long and it also contains some initial bullshit about "America only wanted Nintendos" and "machines with noe creation, just consumerism", saying that good programmers were only available in Britain, but ther est of the article is great: https://www.filfre.net/2016/06/acorn-and-amstrad/

Ooh the Digital Antiquarian is a fantastic site, well worth supporting the guy on his Patreon ($1/article) even though his articles are published for free!

[zhulien]

I wonder what configuration you have, and what exactly makes it better?
Note that I'm not asking what you would prefer do on Amiga, but what for is it better at? If compared to 32bit PC.

Even before I turn it on, asthetically it is better.  I collected home computers which ideally are not big boxes.  Ideally they have the computer inbulit into the keyboard.

[andycadley]

I wonder what configuration you have, and what exactly makes it better?
Note that I'm not asking what you would prefer do on Amiga, but what for is it better at? If compared to 32bit PC.

Even before I turn it on, asthetically it is better.  I collected home computers which ideally are not big boxes.  Ideally they have the computer inbulit into the keyboard.

I think that's a pretty narrow definition of "better", especially given that "everything built into the keyboard" is pretty much the defacto form factor of modern PCs (albeit typically referred to as a laptop).

[zhulien]

I wonder what configuration you have, and what exactly makes it better?
Note that I'm not asking what you would prefer do on Amiga, but what for is it better at? If compared to 32bit PC.

Even before I turn it on, asthetically it is better.  I collected home computers which ideally are not big boxes.  Ideally they have the computer inbulit into the keyboard.

I think that's a pretty narrow definition of "better", especially given that "everything built into the keyboard" is pretty much the defacto form factor of modern PCs (albeit typically referred to as a laptop).

Yes, I could tear the screen off if I didn't want it - but MS Windows nor OSX isn't fun for me.  I already have a Schneider EuroPC and 2 Cybernet PCs (which are like CPC formfactor).  Still not as fun, but at least better asthetically than most new PCs and Macs in my eyes.

[ZorrO]

First of all, a computer is not a woman, it does not have to be pretty. Secondly, appearance is a matter of taste, even if 80% prefer one option, it is not a reason for the rest to change their preferences.
From an objective point of view, it is easy to compare things that can be measured because you have more of something, or something is done faster, or a given task can be performed more conveniently, with fewer clicks, or in one program instead of two.
And here I see that Zhulien does not have any arguments of this type in favor of Amiga.

At the beginning in '92-93, Amiga 1200 had better graphics and sound and longer file names than a similarly priced PC, and it was more difficult to connect joysticks to PC. Poor office programs, could be replaced with a Mac emulator, but it was neither fast nor convenient. But in the following years, prices, computing power and available games and applications were getting worse for Amiga and better and better for PC. Until Windows XP appeared, Amiga crashed less often than PC, but this was last advantage, a very small one at a time when Amiga was much slower in everything. And it had worse support for scanners, printers, recorders and Internet. It handled PDF, MP3, AVI and 3D games with great difficulty. Only blind fanboys wouldn't admit it. If you had a PSX next to Amiga, you didn't have to worry about games for some time.
In practice, more money you had, or more you needed Works or Office, the sooner you switched to a PC. End of story.

A1200: Underpowered for 1992? - NO.
In '93 - maybe No, because you can buy more RAM and faster turbo.
In '95 - I'm afraid Yes. Not because hardware still cheaper than equal good PC, but because software, less quantity and less quality than this for PC.
Mac emulator for Office and PSX for games and no money for change computer could keep you with Amiga next few years, but... you know. Windows was better and better, and prices of PC going down so fast.

[lmimmfn]

First of all, a computer is not a woman, it does not have to be pretty. Secondly, appearance is a matter of taste, even if 80% prefer one option, it is not a reason for the rest to change their preferences.
From an objective point of view, it is easy to compare things that can be measured because you have more of something, or something is done faster, or a given task can be performed more conveniently, with fewer clicks, or in one program instead of two.
And here I see that Zhulien does not have any arguments of this type in favor of Amiga.

At the beginning in '92-93, Amiga 1200 had better graphics and sound and longer file names than a similarly priced PC, and it was more difficult to connect joysticks to PC. Poor office programs, could be replaced with a Mac emulator, but it was neither fast nor convenient. But in the following years, prices, computing power and available games and applications were getting worse for Amiga and better and better for PC. Until Windows XP appeared, Amiga crashed less often than PC, but this was last advantage, a very small one at a time when Amiga was much slower in everything. And it had worse support for scanners, printers, recorders and Internet. It handled PDF, MP3, AVI and 3D games with great difficulty. Only blind fanboys wouldn't admit it. If you had a PSX next to Amiga, you didn't have to worry about games for some time.
In practice, more money you had, or more you needed Works or Office, the sooner you switched to a PC. End of story.

A1200: Underpowered for 1992? - NO.
In '93 - maybe No, because you can buy more RAM and faster turbo.
In '95 - I'm afraid Yes. Not because hardware still cheaper than equal good PC, but because software, less quantity and less quality than this for PC.
Mac emulator for Office and PSX for games and no money for change computer could keep you with Amiga next few years, but... you know. Windows was better and better, and prices of PC going down so fast.

Im not really sure that that is a fair comparison:

1. There was a paradigm shift from 2D to 3D, all 2D platforms suffered with this shift including the Megadrive and the SNES although limited success solutions were applied to those consoles like expensive SVP in the Megadrive cartridge for Virtua Racing, expensive SFX chip for Starfox for the SNES.
This shift to 3D wasnt affordable until the PSX hit the market in December 94 in Japan and late 95 in the US and Europe.
The A1200 had no dedicated hardware for 3D and due to having only a planar display lower power CPUs like 68000, 68020 lacked power to perform chunky to planar conversion, from 68030 onwards this is significantly reduced and the operation has minimal impact to framerates on a 68060.

2. For processing of MP3's and video a Pentium/68060 or Power PC CPU is required to not significantly impact performance of the OS, i.e. where the whole CPU isnt working 100% just to process the audio or video.
Even in 1995 video processing was still terrible on a Pentium PC with Quicktime and the likes, this wasnt resolved until Intel added MMX support(Simple Instruction Multiple Datastream) to x86 in 1996. PDF was an absolutely terrible CPU hog back in the late 90's, it still is but CPUs can brute force through the processing required.

3. Office Apps etc. The Amiga was never really targeted at the office, that was always PC ground, Apple managed to get M$ Office applications on the MAC but they became outdated compared to the PC versions which were updated far more frequently. It wasnt until the 1997 deal with M$ when Apple were in serious trouble, brought Steve Jobs back, needed cash and support from M$ to keep them afloat and M$ agreeing to release all new Office applications on Apple at the same time as the PC release where Apple had to bundle Internet Explorer with the MACs, i was working in Apple at this time and i remember the boo's when Bill Gates was onscreen at Macworld in August 97. I had no issues with word processing on my A1200, i bought a printer from the UK, just a standard printer, hooked it up, absolutely no issue, used it to print bill heading, for uni work etc.

4. Mainstream(excluding NT which wasnt for home users) Windows OS was awful until Windows 95 was released and that wasnt great, Mac OS didnt support pre-emptive multitasking until Mac OS X in 2001

5. The Motorolla 680x0 was a dead end with the 68060 being the last CPU for that range, Apple struggled when it moved to Power PC, having emulation etc. The PowerPC 603 wasnt great and wasnt really until the PowerPC 604 that performance was acceptable and the first Macs with that CPU werent released until 1997. The Mac Port of doom requires a 68040 as a minimum. An A1200 with 68040 can run Doom fine, in fact i ran it on my lowly 68030@50MHz A1200 in 1997 when the first Amiga port was released.

6. Commodore died in April 1994 so there were no "official" updates to any Amiga computers after that in terms of architecture(im excluding those PowerPC variants which were never really official) so the A1200 was stuck in 1992 with the only upgradability being via the expansion slots it was released with. You could expand and A1200 with a 68060, or a Power PC cpu and BlizzardVision(for native chunky modes), however all the Power PC hardware was limited as Commodore no longer existed, there were no OS update to officially support PPC natively until Amiga OS 4 was released in 2004(and never really official and still caught in legal wrangles).

In summary the A1200 was not built with the huge shift from 2D to fully texture mapped 3D worlds that occured around the time of the PSX's release in the west in 95. 

[zhulien]

The concept of better is 100% opinion.  I can't say Amiga is better than PC (in general) as everyone can have their own opinion... but I can say to me it is better than a PC.  I hate the misuse of the term PC also, to me they are all PCs... but then some people don't get that.  Computers I had roughly in order I got them... 464, sc3000h, c64, 664, a500, 286, vz200, ql, bbc b, Mac, msx, cd32, a1200, a4000, 486.... 6128plus, etc...

For me the best ones are the ones I enjoyed and still enjoy using, namely cpcs and amigas. I can say out of ever computer I have had... cpc first, amiga second, c64 third... and PC and Mac are near the end.  I work with PCs and Macs every say, programming them.  There is a little fun on them, but I still place the fun factor at the end.

Like cars, I have a couple... my Honda Civic Type R fn2 is not my most expensive but it is definitely my most fun... 

For me best = the most fun, otherwise what is the point of living... to have less fun?  

If it was best for a specific purpose, my answer would differ depending on the purpose. 

[zhulien]

Note... I prefer 2d games not 3d games, in particular 2d shoot em ups.  My favorite game is dodonpachi. No 3d game for me has given me as much fun as that. In fact Galaga is even better than every 3d game I have ever played.

[andycadley]

Commodore were terrible at product planning, they just seemed to throw hardware out there and assume someone will buy it. When they should have been transitioning everyone towards the Amiga, they decided to release the C128 - a "business" computer far less capable and inherently flawed in its dual CPU design. And that's before you even look at the madness of other incompatible machines like the Plus/4.

And that madness continued with the Amiga line. The A600 was the result of far too many cooks, half trying to produce a lower cost "Amiga 300" and the other half trying to bolt new features onto the A500. The resultant product was ludicrously expensive and mired in stupidity, like being incompatible with the A500 CD drive expansion released at almost the same time.

And then Commodore apparently decided the best thing to do was ape Amstrad's 664 decision by releasing the A1200 almost straight away, at the same price but with significant hardware improvements. A600 owners, many of whom were already miffed they'd traded in their A500 for a less capable machine, we're fuming.

Not that the A1200 was a great upgrade, it was clear they were rushing out hardware to try and regain lost R&D costs. The CPU was crippled by RAM access speeds, key bits of the chipset (like the blitter) were still left running at the same speed and weren't really up to pushing enough data for all the new bitplanes supported. It's a half baked mess and the Amiga really deserved to go out with a better end, but c'est la vie.

[cwpab]

Note... I prefer 2d games not 3d games, in particular 2d shoot em ups.  My favorite game is dodonpachi. No 3d game for me has given me as much fun as that. In fact Galaga is even better than every 3d game I have ever played.

2D shooters have always been confusing for me: love the pixel art, hate the stressing difficulty.

It's funny how often gamers think they have a lot in common with other gamers when they actually have very different tastes. I'm one of the gamers that never plays RPG or strategy games, for example. But other gamers only play RPGs. And we're often debating in forums defending the PSX or the Amstrad in the same debating team as other guys who like totally different games.

Can you imagine a movie convention or debate where people ignore others tastes (10 people who only watch horror, 10 people who only watch sci-fi and 10 people who only watch drama) and mostly center the topic about which was the best format, VHS or Beta? That's what video game culture often feels like.

I wonder if having Space Hawks and Harrier Attack as my 2 first 2D shooters for the CPC had any influence of my perception about this genre. I believe my 3rd and last 2D shooter game was Xenon 2 for MS-DOS, where I always died.