[net.micro.cbm] Amiga Launch!

LAVITSKY@RUTGERS.ARPA (07/24/85)

From: Eric <LAVITSKY@RUTGERS.ARPA>


"Our power of imagination makes us infinite..."
	- Commodore/Amiga 1985

Never in my entire life have I been left so totally awestruck and
speechless as I was tonight at the launch of the Commodore Amiga PC.
This article will not be an attempt to describe the machines
capabilities, those must be seen (and heard) to be fully
appreciated. I will try to convey the image Commodore tried to
present along with what I feel to be a very strong commitment to
continued quality support and innovation.

The evening at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater started off
rather slowly (it took a while to let the guests enter.). There
wasn't much technical talk over cocktails, but I did get a chance to
meet with some of the top Commodore/Amiga people (very exciting). At
6:30 they opened the theater doors and people quietly shuffled in
not quite knowing what to expect. On the stage were musicians
playing an unfamiliar piece, one that would later be reproduced
perfectly at the close of the demonstration by the Amiga. The lights
dimmed and a pleasant laser light show filled the screen followed by
the slogan about imagination. We were introduced to Commodores
Chairman and President and finally to the star of the show, the
Amiga. 

The presentation was done using three machines, each displayed in
high quality on large projection screens above the stage. The chief
engineer responsible for the Amiga (darn, I can't remember his name)
was the host for the demo.  We were first introduced to the
operating system and it's different levels.
-------

eric@topaz.ARPA (Eric Lavitsky) (07/25/85)

"Our power of imagination makes us infinite..."
	- Commodore/Amiga 1985

Never in my entire life have I been left so totally awestruck and
speechless as I was tonight at the launch of the Commodore Amiga PC.
This article will not be an attempt to describe the machines
capabilities, those must be seen (and heard) to be fully
appreciated. I will try to convey the image Commodore tried to
present along with what I feel to be a very strong commitment to
continued quality support and innovation.

The evening at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater started off
rather slowly (it took a while to let the guests enter.). There
wasn't much technical talk over cocktails, but I did get a chance to
meet with some of the top Commodore/Amiga people (very exciting). At
6:30 they opened the theater doors and people quietly shuffled in
not quite knowing what to expect. On the stage were musicians
playing an unfamiliar piece, one that would later be reproduced
perfectly at the close of the demonstration by the Amiga. The lights
dimmed and a pleasant laser light show filled the screen followed by
the slogan about imagination. We were introduced to Commodores
Chairman and President and finally to the star of the show, the
Amiga. 

The presentation was done using three machines, each displayed in
high quality on large projection screens above the stage. The chief
engineer responsible for the Amiga (darn, I can't remember his name)
was the host for the demo.  We were first introduced to the
operating system and it's different levels. Some mention was made of
planned products and throughout the presentation we were given
glimpses of the machine's amazing graphics capabilities.  The stereo
sound was superb - one instrument programmed into the machine sounds
exactly like an electric guitar chord. One of the people sitting at
an Amiga played the chords from 'Smoke On The Water', and it sounded
like the real thing! 

Earlier there had been rumours about IBM compatibility via an add on
hardware board. Popular Computing even mentioned a 'Trump Card' to
allow people to run IBM software. Well , Commodore surprised
everyone last night (including some of there own people) by doing
something even much more innovative. One of the machines had two
5-1/4 inch disk drives hooked up to it. After running a program off
a special disk in the internal 3-1/2 inch floppy, they pulled out an
off the shelf copy of Lotus 123, inserted it in the drive, booted it
and did some calculations with it to the astonishment of the
audience. Commodore has made a 68000 machine emulate the 8088/8086
of an IBM PC totally in software!!! They claim it will run any major
software package like Lotus, Wordstar, Dbase III etc. (I don't know
if it will run Flight Simulator).

Microsoft Basic comes with the machine. It is Microsoft's best
effort to date (according to Microsoft), merges all of the best
features from previous versions (PC, MAC etc.) and takes full
advantage of the Amiga's multitasking capability. They demoed
multiple windows preforming seperate tasks using a program written
in Basic. Lattice C will be shipped with development machines and
will be available at shipping time. Also available at shipping time
will be TLC Logo from The LISP Company, Cambridge LISP from
Metacomco (the people who wrote AmigaDOS/Intuition), BASIC from
Metacomco, MCC Pascal from Metacomco and Turbo Pascal will be
released in 1st quarter '86. Some other companies are planning  LISP
compilers and other languages.

To show off some of the graphics, Commodore had Andy Warhol paint an
image of Rock Star/Model Debby Harry which they captured using a
frame grabber (she was there too!). To show off the sound they had
Roger Powell, formerly with Utopia and two other artists. They put
on a 'concert' aided by two Amigas hooked up with MIDI interfaces.
There is some revolutionary thing about using MIDI with the Amiga
though. The Amiga is powerfull enough to sense the speed and tones
of sounds in realtime and Cherry Lane's Harmony program, which uses
AI techniques, acompanied them at just the right speed and volume.

After the show, we got a chance to see what certain developers had
or have in the making. There were a lot of digitizers around (the
Amiga could do stuff as well as the $18000 systems I saw at Videotex
'85). Trip Hawkins of Electronic Arts was there displaying
pre-releases of games that his company is doing for the Amiga.
Tecmar was displaying a 20 meg hard disk drive (3.5 in.) and
streaming tape back up and a 1 megabyte add on with a clock/calendar
with battery back up. The possibility of porting their (Tecmar's) PC
Ethernet card over to the Amiga was mentioned, but no definite plans
as yet. No vendors were commiting to a network which may hurt the
Amiga since many office and research groups will want to network the
machine. Perhaps some university will develop a card since the
machine has such a well documented and open architecture. Free
copies of the August issue of Byte were available with a product
review (technical review to follow) of the Amiga. There were also
copies of AmigaWorld (a la MacWorld), Personal Computing, a small
report from Creative Computing and various brochures from Commodore
and other vendors along with a press kit.

Ok, so I did say a little about the machine itself, now on to my
impressions of Commodore and what this machine really means to the
industry.  Commodore went all out for this launch and it went over
perhaps better than they had hoped. The presentation was filled with
'oohs and aahs' and enthusiastic applause for the Amiga. Commodore
stressed it's commitment to computer specialty stores and technical
support for the machine. They are actively courting third party
developers and computer chains to carry the machine. They are
stressing a totally open architecture from the machine itself to
their support and management. It has been easy for me to contact the
software and sales management heads at Commodore/Amiga and get
positive feedback to/from them. The machine stands technically far
above anything currently on the market and given the price it will
be very difficult for anyone to match it's price/preformance ratio.
The Amiga is a new step forward in *personal* computing. Never has
the door to so much computing power and productivity been opened to
the home user, artist, musician, hobbyist or independent
professional. It has the potential to revitalize a sagging industry
and give it new purpose and direction. What remains to be seen is
how the public will accept the machine and how Commodore's marketing
strategy works. 

Forgive me if this report is slightly disorganized or incoherent.
It's late at night and my Commodore 64 really makes me feel weak and
insecure now that I've seen the Amiga... I will try and answer any
specific questions about specs, availability etc. later in the week
when I have recovered. I should have all my thoughts organized by
then. 

Eric

-- 

ARPA:	LAVITSKY@RUTGERS
UUCP:	...{harvard,seismo,ut-sally,sri-iu,ihnp4}!topaz!eric
SNAIL:	CPO 2765, CN 700
	New Brunswick, NJ  08903

dr_d@sftig.UUCP (D.Donahue) (07/25/85)

> From: Eric <LAVITSKY@RUTGERS.ARPA>
> 
> 
> "Our power of imagination makes us infinite..."
> 	- Commodore/Amiga 1985

Eric,

Your "flash" on lifstyles of the rich and famous was "real insiring". Now that
all of us here on the net realize that you are a "big gun" could you please 
spare us the irrelevancies next time.  All of us out here "realize that the
Amiga is the best thing to come along since Jesus Christ" :) We know it slices
dices, does our electro-magnetic theory homework, engages us in gripping meta-
physical conversation, composes, conducts and performs Brahms, Bethoven & 
Tchaikovsky all at the same time on 256 track machines. Aside from the given;
how much is it going to cost and when will it be available?

					Thanks,

					Doug Donahue
					AT&T Information Systems
					..!ihnp4!attunix!dr_d

eric@topaz.ARPA (Eric Lavitsky) (07/29/85)

Ahem!

	So I was a little high in the clouds... I guess you'll have
to wait and see for yourself. The Amiga will be on dealer shelves 
Sept 15th. Here's what'll be available:

	256K Amiga wmouse and 880K integral 3-1/2" drive	$1295
	256K Upgrade to 512K					  200
	Analog RGB monitor (all 4096 colors, stero speakers)	  495
	External 3-1/2 drive					 ~275
	External 5-1/4 drive (IBM PC-DOS format - 360K)		 ~275

There will be about 20 packages available when the machine is released, 
from games to spreadsheets to a wide variety of languages (C,LISP,LOGO,
Pascal,BASIC,Asembler etc.) - compare that to how many the Mac or PC 
had when they were introduced. A vey workable system (512K and monitor 
w/external floppy) will really run around $2200. If you don't want to 
take full advantage of the Amiga's graphics you can use a TV or composite
NTSC monitor.

Eric
-- 

ARPA:	LAVITSKY@RUTGERS
UUCP:	...{harvard,seismo,ut-sally,sri-iu,ihnp4}!topaz!eric
SNAIL:	16 Oak St., Flr 2
	New Brunswick, NJ  08903

jobusch@isucs1.UUCP (07/31/85)

Where can I get one ! (or when...)

Dave Jobusch
at Iowa State Univeristy
   isucs1!jobusch  jobusch@iowa-state 

   "...but will it run UNIX..."