SUBMITTED BY 19F
After reading Silas' comments in issue
31, I have decided to comment myself.
As Silas, I have a 286 (12Mhz) and do
not know much about Archimedes machines
at all. One thing I would say though;
according to Silas an A3010 only costs
about as much as a 286 with 1Mbyte RAM,
monitor, mouse, software bundle of DOS
and Windows, and 40Mbyte hard drive
does (About £250-£300) (A complete
Archimedes system is more around £590,
at which price it is about the same as
a 386 system, which would be faster
and maybe come with more memory as
standard anyway)
Operating Systems Having the OS on ROM like on a BBC is
a good thing in a way as, the machine
will obviously start up almost imediat-
ely, as everything needed is already in
memory really, this just needs to be
initialised, and valuable RAM space is
not used up.There are two main setbacks
to this theory though - some of the
operating system will have to be loaded
into main memory anyway, thus using
some of it up, and the other is one
which Acorn can take big advantage of -
ROMs can be charged more for, as they
are hardware, not software, and so
to upgrade the operating system will
probably cost more for an Archimedes.
Also, as it is a chip that needs to be
replaced, the old one within the
computer needs to be removed first, and
to make sure that you don't invalidate
your garuantee, the best thing to do if
you are not sure exactly what you are
doing, is to get a trained proffesional
to do this process for you, which costs
another few pounds, on top of the
upgraded OS.
Now this may seem fine to you, but with
a PC, the upgraded versions of the OS
cost less, as they are on disks, and
are easily installed by following user
friendly, on screen prompts. With the
more easily installed operating system
upgrades, the companies which produce
them are happier to produce new
versions, knowing that people will be
happy to buy them. The Archimedes
operating system has hardly been
upgraded that much has it, whereas
MS-DOS is now on version 6.2.
Silas also complained about Windows
multi tasking being unreliable. True,
the computer did sometimes just hang
for no reason, but then again, more up
to date Windows operating systems are
being produced regurlarly, which soon
iron out any bugs in the system, until
so far with the latest version, I have
had no problems what so ever with the
computer hanging up on me. Another
great thing about Windows is that it is
almost completely user friendly. The
one main setback with it, as Silas
mentioned is that it again takes up
valuable memory, although this problem
is also starting to be removed with the
advent of huge memory capabilities.
Many new machines are now being
produced with up to at least 32 Mbyte
expansion capabilities as standard (and
I remember reading a couple of months
ago that stand alone machines are now
being produced with at least 128 Mbyte
RAM, and as Windows only takes up
about 40 Kbytes of this, there isn't
that much of a problem really!)
Speed Silas mentioned that the A3010 boots
faster, but surely it is the speed with
which programs run which is more the
issue, and not knowing the speed of an
Archimedes, I wouldn't know about this,
although what I do know is that hard
disks at least seem to halve the time a
program takes to load compared to
floppy disks.
Sound
There is nothing wrong whatsoever with
the PC's internal speaker. It is
possible to play many voices at once,
and even play sampled sound. If you
want to mess around with the sound
though, it is advisable to buy a sound
card (which aren't that expensive these
days) the quality and amount of music
and speech which can be used and heard
is greatly improved, with many software
packages being available which use the
sound card, including almost all
commercial, and quite a few shareware
games.
Graphics Silas said that you have to pay more
for new graphics cards, but every
single advert I have seen recently
comes with SVGA as standard, and my 286
came with VGA as standard with anything
below that (EGA/CGA) even being
forgotten when the 286's were being
produced. (DGS was rightly informed,
about PC's having millions of colours,
which have been made by mixing the 256
standard colours.)
Mouse I don't know when Silas got his 286
without a mouse; almost all PC's have a
mouse as standard (except laptops of
course), and the only reason to use the
middle button on a mouse is for some
CAD packages which utilise it. Most
applications only make use of two
buttons whether you have three or not.
TV Modulator There isn't much point in this, as you
can pick up better resolution monitors
for a cheaper price than TV's these
days. They are available for anyone
that wants them though.
Software There is no software which comes within
a PC. All is either on hard or floppy
disks. It seems that new machines have
DOS, Windows, and sometimes something
else already installed at the factory
on the hard disk within the computer.
There does seem to be more software
being produced for the PC than the
Archimedes, definately from the games
point of view. Top quality games seem
to come out much more regularly on PC
than on Archimedes formats, and so does
good quality prize winning business
software aswell. Shareware companies
are especially putting out more and
more top quality software with the game
"Doom" recently getting higher ratings
than almost all TOP quality
commercial software on any system.
Networks
Yes, expansion cards are needed, but if
you want a PC network, then buy a load
of RM Nimbus PC's. They are ideal for
networking, with 1 Mbyte Base memory,
(I am informed (is this true?)) instead
of the 640K IBM PC standard.
Compatibility The Archimedes may have a PC emulator
and be compatible with BBC's, but then
again, in a recent Solinet issue, the
way to copy BBC programs to the PC was
shown, and also, the PC has its own
better versions of nearly all
Archimedes software, and so why bother!
Hard drive The main reason for needing this is
that software runs much faster, and is
all easily accessible being in one
place (instead of on floppy disks all
over the place).
Viruses The Archimedes may have less viruses,
but they can all be just as deadly if
they are programmed correctly, and so
this is hardly a major factor in
choosing between a PC and an Archimedes
The best thing to do is just keep your
beloved, faithful old BBC which has
kept you going for the last few or many
years, and will still keep you going
for hopefully many years to come.
Forget the competition of those big
computers out there with 66Mhz speed
and 128 Mbyte RAM, and carry on with
something we all understand and use
without too much difficulty really....
PRESS BREAK