Six years after its iaunch. the Amiga continues to lead the way in opening new markets for home users. As the oniy machine offering affordebie top spécification graph ies software such as Scutpt-4D and Reai 3D. it has been responsible for an expiosionin the sort of high quality rendered graphics, which o few years ago wouldn't have been out of piace tn a Hoiiywood sci-fi production. Stevie Kennedy soups up his humble horsepower with a careering cardfui of mighty MIPS This year wii! see a rapid growth in fhe 24-bit graphics market, both in hardware and software, adding a new dimension to Amiga visuots. The advent of graphics boards such os the Hcriequin. covered in February's i;sue of AMIGA Computing, an j image Processing software like ASDG's Art Department Ptofessionoi — which we'H iook at ne t month — seem set to push Amiga graphics to new standards of excellence. However. this high-end usage has a downside. Power computing is the key phrase for most new Amiga apptteations. and in areas as diverse as astronomy and medi-cai science the basic Amiga is struggling to meet the demands piocèd Oh it. its 7.14MHz 68000 CPU can no longer keep up with the requirements of more complex modem software packages and number-crunching tasks. and is a failing which has ied many u: ers to seek faster processor chips. One way of doing this)s to seii your existing machine ond buy an Amiga 3000, but tt is an expensive solution and catts for a complete change of equipment. if you are comfortaMe with your trusty 500 or 2000 and have everything set out to your ükirtg atter the mega-hosste invoived in bmieing up your System, swttchtug ta a new machine might not be as appeat-ing as you first thought. The other way out for those who already own an Amiga is to gc for an occeierator board. and the iast couple of years have seen enajgh of these developed to offer a tea-sonabte choice.