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The differences between the Amiga and Mac are a fascinating study in priorities. The Amiga was orientated around home use so its graphics hardware was designed

The differences between the Amiga and Mac are a fascinating study in priorities. The Amiga was orientated around home use so its graphics hardware was designed to be attached to a TV. That design goal affected the entire system, to the point that the system clock changes frequency depending on whether the machine is outputting PAL or NTSC. Technically the Amiga could display a rock solid hires picture but only on a special monitor that I personally never saw. The priority on the Mac was to have a high quality monitor for black and white graphics. They put a lot of effort into drawing libraries to make the most of in-built display. The result was that the Amiga was perfectly fine for playing games or light word processing but if you actually needed to stare at a word processor or spreadsheet for 8 hours a day you really wanted a Mac.

leptons 1y ago
Nope. The Amiga did just fine 8 hours a day, even 16 hours a day, coding and word processing and everything else. Interlace wasn't a huge issue, and the price difference between Macintosh and Amiga made it easy to justify. A simple "flicker fixer" could be added for far less than the difference in price between an Amiga and a Mac. The Mac cost $1000 more than an Amiga, which is a lot to pay to get a far less capable platform. A "flicker fixer" went for $100. Apple in the 90's was cirlcing the drain, nobody wanted an overpriced black-and-white computer except die-hard apple fans, and Apple only exists today because Microsoft bailed them out. Too bad Microsoft didn't invest in Amiga instead.
- orionblastar 1y ago
  Not to mention, with emulators like A-Maxx, the Amiga could run Mac software: https://amiga.resource.cx/exp/amax https://amiga.resource.cx/exp/amax There were even C64, Apple II, IBM PC-DOS, and Atari ST emulators for the Amiga.
  - krige 1y ago
    As the saying went, the best Mac you could get was an Amiga with Shapeshifter running.
onename 1y ago
I believe the Amiga was fine for more than just games and word processing. It was also used in movie and tv show productions [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga#Uses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga#Uses

leptons 1y ago

Nope. The Amiga did just fine 8 hours a day, even 16 hours a day, coding and word processing and everything else. Interlace wasn't a huge issue, and the price difference between Macintosh and Amiga made it easy to justify. A simple "flicker fixer" could be added for far less than the difference in price between an Amiga and a Mac. The Mac cost $1000 more than an Amiga, which is a lot to pay to get a far less capable platform. A "flicker fixer" went for $100. Apple in the 90's was cirlcing the drain, nobody wanted an overpriced black-and-white computer except die-hard apple fans, and Apple only exists today because Microsoft bailed them out. Too bad Microsoft didn't invest in Amiga instead.

orionblastar 1y ago
Not to mention, with emulators like A-Maxx, the Amiga could run Mac software: https://amiga.resource.cx/exp/amax https://amiga.resource.cx/exp/amax There were even C64, Apple II, IBM PC-DOS, and Atari ST emulators for the Amiga.
- krige 1y ago
  As the saying went, the best Mac you could get was an Amiga with Shapeshifter running.

onename 1y ago

I believe the Amiga was fine for more than just games and word processing. It was also used in movie and tv show productions [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga#Uses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga#Uses