Perceptions and Realities
Seeing the ads for high powered PC's with gigabyte disks and
more memory than possessed by a herd of wild elephants, it is
reasonable to ask whether older computers lying about the house can
serve any function other than conversation pieces on a coffee table.
I'm here to tell you that, with appropriate, often shareware
software, your older computer can do more than you might imagine.
The Amiga is a case in point.
Commodore and the Amiga
As many of you know, Commodore International, one of the
pioneering computer companies, introduced the Amiga 1000 in the
1980's as a follow-up to its very popular 8 bit machine, the
Commodore 64. The Amiga, with its multitasking operating system, 32
bit bus, and 4096 (interpolated) colors was a revolutionary computer.
Changes over the years were, however, incremental, with most of the
innovation being from third party developers, such as NewTek's
VideoToaster system.
Without adequate marketing and with many of its strengths
appearing on other computer platforms, the Amiga never gained market
share in the United States, although it was, and still is, popular in
Europe. More than one year ago, Commodore declared bankruptcy and
after a lengthy process, its assets were purchased by ESCOM, a German
computer company.
As I write this, ESCOM's Amiga Technologies, is in the process
of being sold to VIScorp, an American company, whose main interest is
in using the Amiga custom sound and graphics chip set to create TV
set top boxes for Internet access and more. Through it all, Amiga
computers continue to be manufactured and sold amid intense
discussion as to what the next generation of Amiga's should be.
Physicians and the Amiga
There are no surveys I know of detailing the number of
physicians using the Amiga, although judging from the e-mail and
guest book responses to
my own web page
there are many physicians, residents, medical students, physicians
assistants, and para-medical personnel all over the world still
using this platform. Many of them know that the Amiga can do well
on the Internet. Here's how.
The Hardware You Need
Any Amiga computer will do, although ones with Motorola 68030
and 68040 accelerators, are to be preferred over the base models. An
Amiga 1200 or 4000 will give you 256 colors for starters while for
older models, such as the Amiga 2000 and 3000, you can purchase a
graphics card if millions of colors are more your speed. I find 256
colors to be quite enough for my World Wide Web applications.
You'll definitely need a modem. All Amigas come with a serial
port and most modems intended for PC clones should do o.k. I use a
US Robotics Sportster 28.8 Fax/Modem with my Amiga 1200 at home and a
Supra 28.8 Fax/Modem with an Amiga 2000 (with graphics board) at
work.
The basic Amiga never came with a hard drive, but you'll
certainly want one of these. The A1200 unit, which I use for most of
my surfing at home, has a 120 megabyte IDE internal hard drive.
Memory need not be a major issue, although the more the better,
as they say. My A1200 unit has 10 megs of RAM but was quite happy
with 6 megs and probably can get along with still less. Remember
that the Amiga uses two different kinds of RAM, one for sound and
graphics, called "chip RAM" and another for everything else, called
"fast RAM."
And that's about all you need except for some telephone wire to
connect to your modem and a serial cable to connect your modem to the
Amiga. And don't forget the monitor. You'll certainly want that!
The Software You Need
The Amiga operating system should be 3.0 and above to take
advantage of datatypes which allow viewing of images on the World
Wide Web. Indeed, OS 3.0 is such an improvement over the 2.x series,
that you will definitely want to install (or have installed) the
newer ROMS and software for all your other, non-Internet applications
as well.
You'll need a SLIP or PPP account from an Internet Service
Provider (ISP), so that when your modem dials the ISP phone number,
you can connect to the Internet. This you would need to do no matter
what computer you use.
Naturally, your modem isn't going to dial the Internet on its
own. For this, you either need a telecommunications package (I use
the rather ancient ATalk III) or a "dialer" program, which you can
get from a public domain software supplier. Again, nothing unique
required for the Amiga here.
Before you can run your World Wide Web browser, you will need to
start a TCP/IP application on the Amiga. Although many Amiga users
have difficulty configuring AmiTCP/IP, it is actually quite easy once
you know information such as your host name, domain, IP address, DNS,
and the like. Your Internet Service Provider should be quite willing
to provide you with this information, undoubtedly having been asked
for it innumerable times. Once configured, you need only double
click the AmiTCP/IP icon to get it going.
Now it's time to start your browser -- the program that allows
you to surf the web! Amiga users actually have an embarrassment of
riches in their choice of browsers. They can use the Amiga version
of Mosaic, called AMosaic, which is now rather long in the tooth.
Or, there are newer offerings such as AWeb, IBrowse, and Voyager
which are constantly being updated. Aweb is my current favorite.
The World is your Oyster
It will not be long before you discover one of the largest
archives of public domain and shareware software in the world,
Aminet. There are literally thousands of Amiga programs you can
download. For example, you can choose to browse
recently uploaded programs
or you may wish to
search for a program
by keyword.
Whichever you choose, you will soon discover many Internet
applications including file transfer programs (e.g., AmiFTP, AmFTP,
daFTP), chat programs (GrapeVine, AmIRC, etc.), e-mail readers
(e.g., Metatool, AirMail, VooDoo), off-line newsreaders (e.g., Thor),
and much more. There is even a version of CUSeeMee for the Amiga
called -- you guessed it -- ACuSeeMe.
Don't worry. The are many other Amiga sites for you to visit.
The
Amiga Web Directory
keeps a rather extensive, up-to-date list and is an interesting place to
visit in its own right.
Should you decided to create your own web page, you can use any
Amiga text editor, including the ones included with the system
software, to write your own HTML documents, just as I did.
Internet Helper Applications
Former Amiga users will be pleased to learn that many new
productivity programs have been released in the past few years.
These include word processing programs such as Final Writer and
WordWorth, database programs such as Twist and DataStore, and
spreadsheet packages such as Final Calc and ProCalc. New organizers,
file managers, image processing and paint programs have also
appeared.
Although the number of new programs introduced for the Amiga is
much less than for the Mac or the PC, many of these packages,
especially the graphics related ones, will prove useful for those
contemplating construction of a web page. You can consult a
magazine such as Amazing Computing for Amiga hardware and software
options.
Medical Applications
Visitors to my web site
can review some of the applications I have created by linking to the
Amiga Projects sections. There you will see listed a Renal Nuclear
Medicine Teaching File System that was on display at the National
Library of Medicine in Bethesda, MD, a Nuclear Medicine Patient
Education Program that won an award at a National Meeting of the
Society of Nuclear Medicine, a key word searchable image database of
bone radiographs, called Basically Bone, as well as neural network
and algorithmic approaches to the diagnosis of Chest Disease.
The downside, of course, is that applications created on the
Amiga are limited to that platform. Nonetheless, once an application
is created and modeled on one system, it can, with only minimal
difficulty, be ported to others, because the graphics, sound and
animation files can all be converted from one format to another and
text is, after all, just text.
Conclusion
The astute reader will realize that the requirements for
Internet surfing using the Amiga are rather similar -- if not
absolutely identical to -- those for other computer systems. And, as
mentioned above, applications and their output can easily be ported
from one system to the next. Thus, although there is much that makes
each computer platform different, there is even more that makes them
similar.
In many ways, the Internet has leveled the playing field. The
World Wide Web is the truly cross-platform application. The needs of
the computer both in terms of hardware and software are actually
quite modest and will become even more modest if applications migrate
from the desktop (or portable) to Internet servers as many predict.
Knowing which computer was used may become as relevant as
knowing which pen was used to write a letter. You do remember how to
use a pen to write a letter, don't you?
August/September, 1996