By The Fox/Pussy

Advantages and disadvantages of IBM contra AMIGA

In this article there will be some advantages and disadvantages of IBM's and Amiga's given. It is not the meaning to give them all, because then we would the whole diskmag probably, but it is the meaning that we give some to make a differenc e between those two computers, and then to decide wether IBM or Amiga is to be quoted as the best...

Advantages of IBM

- Utilities : Utilities on IBM are mostly easier to understand and therefor user-friendlier. It isn't because IBM-utilities are resonnably simple that Amiga-utilities are as hard as hell to understand, but still there is a difference. Also IBM is the abbreviation for Industrial Business Machine and that makes it simplier to believe that there are more sorts of utilties and that they are better in a certain way. For example: word-processing is still easier on IBM because almost every time, the IBM word-processor uses draft-print and not gfx-print. The negative side of this is of course that there is little or no chance that you can use more then one font. But on the other hand it's still simpler, specially for printing... Amiga uses gfx-print many times and of course there are more possibilities but then the shit starts dripping when you have to print...

- Commands : On IBM, the shit starts when the computer is switched on or when a reset is given. An IBM has to check the memory first, and then it has to load all commands before you can start loading a file. Some see that as a great disadvantage, some as an advantage because you can use all commands even when they are not on the disk itself. On Amiga, it is seen as a great job, that you have to put the commands which are necessary on the disk itself everytime. But if we want to make a difference here, we should also look to the way software is loaded on IBM and on Amiga. On IBM, trackdisks don't exist, and software is loaded at the prompt. On Amiga, everything mostly starts whith a startup-sequence, and whith a menu. Like that, you don't really need commands like dir, list, and so on, but you always need some commands which you have to put on the disk itself...

(continues in next article)

This article originally appeared in the Amiga diskmagazine "Freedom Crack #5" by Vega in 1991.

Some content may refer to activities that are illegal in some countries. BitFellas does not support such activity.
Addresses and other contact information were only valid when this magazine was originally published, in march of 1991.