Mike Raiford wrote:

> I'll agree, Windows 3.x sucked. :)

I was always astounded that "66 MHz" PCs would crawl along unbearably 
slowly while my little "14 MHz" Amiga 1200 ran rings around them. It 
wasn't until I started doing seriously compute-bounded work that I 
actually *believed* that the numbers weren't lying. The Amiga just 
seemed dramatically faster in every respect.

(On the other hand... You know how Linux is supposed to be "fast"? I 
tried running Debian on my Amiga 1200. Waiting for Gnome to start up 
is... well let me put it this way. It makes a 486 SX look like greased 
lightning. From typing "startx" to having a usable desktop takes about 
20 *minutes*!! Not kidding!!)

>> (Bearing in mind, my first ray-traced scene - a mesh torus with a 
>> procedural wood texture and one light source - took well over 2 
>> *hours* to render at 320x200 pixels. What can I say? No FPU...)
> 
> POV-Ray was why I sought to by a math-coprocessor. Remarkable speed up 
> of that app. ;)

Oh hell yeah. I can remember adding a 20 MHz FPU to my Amiga and 
watching Fractuallity suddenly get an order of magnitude faster. ;-) 
"Wow, it's so fast!" I cried.

Watching it yesterday, with FPU and all, there didn't seem to be much 
"fast" about it!

>> In fact, it seems that only high-end, professional audio and video 
>> tools actually cost money any more. (I'm thinking... Cubase, Cakewalk, 
>> Photoshop, Renderman, and so forth.)
> 
> If you've ever really used Photoshop, some things that are trivial to do 
> in that program all the sudden become very difficult in other programs.

I'm sure. (E.g., colour seperations...)

> Remember that video you posted on the making of that webcomic. That was 
> PS.

I own Photoshop Elements now. It's not very impressive.

> I've taken old faded pictures (some with missing pieces, where the 
> emulsion was scratched or torn away) and brought them back to their 
> original color, replaced the missing pieces, and got rid of the texture. 

I have no idea how that's even theoretically possible.

> There are advantages to the expensive packages ;)

I won't deny that. ;-)

>> Today, anybody with sufficient technical bent can easily sit down with 
>> a computer and cut CDs of their music, or burn DVDs of their graphics 
>> and animations. It's not even expensive any more.
> 
> Heck. You can do this for free, too ;)

Not really. You still have to buy the PC. :-P

>> We are truly living in the future, my friends...
> 
> Where's my flying car? XD

Yeah, I'm still wondering about that...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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