taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu (01/03/91)
I would seriously like someone to tell me why, over the past few years,
Commodore's research and development has become very, very lax. To prove
my point I would like to present six cases in which Commodore hardware R&D
has fallen well behind the rest of the industry -- in some cases two or
three generations behind.
CASE 1: THE CMOS CHIPSET AND THE ATARI LYNX
Some of the original Amiga founders were able to scale the Amiga chipset
down somewhat and produce a CMOS version of it that preserves the 4096 colors
and 4-voice stereo sound of the Amiga. Commodore, with a much larger
budget for R&D, has been unable to do anything with the Amiga chipset except
make some very minor improvements. Commodore has been trying for many years
to produce a CMOS version of the Amiga chipset that finally includes some
significant improvements, but completion of this chipset is probably still
many years away.
CASE 2: COMMODORE'S PC-CLONE R&D:
Commodore is perpetually a full generation behind the rest of the world
in developing PC-xompatible systems. Commodore did not have any IBM PC
compatible systems at all until PC/AT-compatible systems were readily
available. Commodore also did market their first PC/AT-compatible systems
until 386-based systems were widely available. Finally, Commodore did
not get their first 386-based systems on the market until 486-based systems
were becoming available from a large number of companies.
CASE 3: THE A2410 "U-LOWELL" VIDEO BOARD:
It is very plain how much confidence Commodore's management has it
their engineers. When the Commodore manglement people finally realized
that their flagship computer system had fallen several generations behind
the rest of the world in video display technology, they did not have their
engineers develop a new video board for the Amiga. Instead, they decided
to purchase one from outside the company. Even with this, the graphics
capabilities of the A2410 are no better than those of video boards that
have been available for MAC and PC-compatible systems for several years,
and the A2410 isn't even available yet.
CASE 4: COMMODORE'S CD-ROM TECHNOLOGY:
Commodore, to this day, does not have any CD-ROM products available for
any of their systems. Commodore is developing the consumer-oriented CDTV,
but the CDTV is not available yet, whereas CD-ROMs have been available
for MAC and PC-compatible systems (in some cases as standard hardware) for
several years.
CASE 5: HIGH-DENSITY FLOPPY DRIVES:
High-density 1.44MB 3.5" floppy drives have been available for PC/AT
and 80386-based systems for several years. They have even been available
for MAC systems for mor than two years, and are now standard hardware
on all MAC systems. These drives have been available for so long that
they are already being considered out-of-date, and several companies
(including IBM and NeXT) are moving beyond these drives to 2.88MB drives.
2.88MB drives are readily available for MAC and PC-compatible systems from
several third-party companies. Now that 2.88MB drives are becoming
increasingly common, the Amiga is only now just starting to have 1.44MB
drives become available for it, and they are not compatible with IBM 1.44MB
drives and are not even from Commodore.
CASE 6: LAPTOP COMPUTER SYSTEMS:
Now that monochrome laptop computers are as common as briefcases,
and many companies are starting to produce color laptop computer systems,
Commodore has only very recently produced their first monochrome laptop
computer, and it is a PC-clone. Commodore has absolutely no laptop Amigas
of any kind, and the few third-party "portable" Amigas that are available
are so bulky as to make desktop computer systems look like hand-helds by
comparison. In addition to this, all of these "portable" Amigas are
monochrome -- an insult to the 4096-color Amiga.
If a small company like Epix -- with an R&D budget much smaller than
Commodore's -- can produce what is essentially a handheld Amiga, complete
with the Amiga's 4096 colors and four-voice stereo sound, then Commodore
should be able to produce a color Amiga laptop that preserves these
capabilities of the Amiga and more. There are color laptop 80386 machines,
Apple is developing a color laptop Macintosh, and there are even some color
laptop SPARCstations, but there are absolutely no color laptop Amigas.
In conclusion, I feel that Commodore has fallen so for behind in their
R&D that they will probably never catch up. Commodore has never been
a company that produces innovative new technologies, and very likely never
will be. Commodore is a 'catch-up' company that is forever trying to
catch up with the rest of the industry, to avoid going out of business
altogether, and will likely always be this way.
AMIGA -- YESTERDAY'S TECHNOLOGY, FOREVER!!!
-MB-U3364521@ucsvc.ucs.unimelb.edu.au (Lou Cavallo) (01/03/91)
G'day, taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu writes: > [...] > -MB- Marc's questions makes me wonder ... if Kent Dolan (or someone else who knows about the new comp.sys.amiga.* news group hierarchy) reads this, I would like to ask you for an estimate of when the advocacy (or whatever appropriate group should hold these discussions) subgroup should be created by. Marc, will you post to that group if it is created? yours truly, Lou Cavallo.
manes@vger.nsu.edu (01/03/91)
In article <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu>, taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu writes: > I would seriously like someone to tell me why, over the past few years, > Commodore's research and development has become very, very lax. To prove > my point I would like to present six cases in which Commodore hardware R&D > has fallen well behind the rest of the industry -- in some cases two or > three generations behind. DAVE HAYNIE PRESS THE KILL BUTTON NOW! MB HAS POSTED MORE OPINIONS BASED ON HIS UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORLD... A WARPED WORLD. I truly suspect that you are trying to start a flame war of some sort. However, since you have decided to open the topic. I will give my two cents worth. > > > CASE 1: THE CMOS CHIPSET AND THE ATARI LYNX > Some of the original Amiga founders were able to scale the Amiga chipset > down somewhat and produce a CMOS version of it that preserves the 4096 colors I do not believe that the original Amiga engineers scaled down the chipset in the Amiga, but rather designed a new set for the Lynx that had *some* of the features of the Amiga chipset. I suspect you will not find a blitter or several nice things that the Amiga chipset has. You can scale a chipset rather easily if you remove features. Would you like Commodore to do that? > and 4-voice stereo sound of the Amiga. Commodore, with a much larger > budget for R&D, has been unable to do anything with the Amiga chipset except > make some very minor improvements. Commodore has been trying for many years Are you an engineer? Do you hope to be one day? How do you know what it takes to _improve_ the chipset? A budget is not the only requirement. Time is the major requirement. > to produce a CMOS version of the Amiga chipset that finally includes some > significant improvements, but completion of this chipset is probably still > many years away. Trying implies that they failed at some point. I recall no annoucement (even under non-disclosure) of a CMOS custom chip set. > > CASE 2: COMMODORE'S PC-CLONE R&D: > Commodore is perpetually a full generation behind the rest of the world > in developing PC-xompatible systems. Commodore did not have any IBM PC > compatible systems at all until PC/AT-compatible systems were readily > available. Commodore also did market their first PC/AT-compatible systems Not true! Commodore has been producing PC compatibles for many years. They simply were not marketed in the United States, and in my opinion for good reason. > until 386-based systems were widely available. Finally, Commodore did > not get their first 386-based systems on the market until 486-based systems > were becoming available from a large number of companies. So? I don't think that the 486 computer system makes a heck of a lot of sense at this point in time. There is not that significant a difference between the the current 486 machine and a high speed 386. Further, Commodore has _never_ said that they were the inovators of the PC marketplace. Come to think of it, what innovation have you really seen in the PC market anyway? > > CASE 3: THE A2410 "U-LOWELL" VIDEO BOARD: > It is very plain how much confidence Commodore's management has it > their engineers. When the Commodore manglement people finally realized When Commodore aquired the U-Lowell board it was back in the time when the priorities were to get the system booting from hard disk and continue to solve major software/hardware problems with the machines that were being produced at that time. Further, the Amiga 3000 shows that the Commodore engineers are and have been very busy! > that their flagship computer system had fallen several generations behind > the rest of the world in video display technology, they did not have their > engineers develop a new video board for the Amiga. Instead, they decided > to purchase one from outside the company. Even with this, the graphics > capabilities of the A2410 are no better than those of video boards that > have been available for MAC and PC-compatible systems for several years, > and the A2410 isn't even available yet. Well, it should be available very shortly. I suppose it does not matter to you that with the exception of the very high end macintosh systems no major microcomputer manufaturer produces a 24 bit graphics display out of the box as "standard" equipment. All video enhacements have been done by third parties and further have very few software packages that support these "specialized" high-end graphics boards. In my opinion, I belive the concentration on getting "marketable" machines out the door is _more_ important than filling a niche that _most_ wont need nor pay the price for. > > CASE 4: COMMODORE'S CD-ROM TECHNOLOGY: > Commodore, to this day, does not have any CD-ROM products available for > any of their systems. Commodore is developing the consumer-oriented CDTV, > but the CDTV is not available yet, whereas CD-ROMs have been available > for MAC and PC-compatible systems (in some cases as standard hardware) for > several years. I don't believe this one. CD-ROMs though they exist from other manufactures do not come standard from IBM nor Apple. They are available as "options", and there is one out right now for the Amiga from Xetec. Personally they don't make a lot of sense to me since hard disk technology has improved dramatically in the last couple of years. I will defer to the other CD-ROM experts in these opinions however. > > CASE 5: HIGH-DENSITY FLOPPY DRIVES: > High-density 1.44MB 3.5" floppy drives have been available for PC/AT > and 80386-based systems for several years. They have even been available > for MAC systems for mor than two years, and are now standard hardware > on all MAC systems. These drives have been available for so long that > they are already being considered out-of-date, and several companies > (including IBM and NeXT) are moving beyond these drives to 2.88MB drives. > 2.88MB drives are readily available for MAC and PC-compatible systems from > several third-party companies. Now that 2.88MB drives are becoming > increasingly common, the Amiga is only now just starting to have 1.44MB > drives become available for it, and they are not compatible with IBM 1.44MB > drives and are not even from Commodore. I guess it doesn't count that a third party has a high density drive available today for the Amiga. > > CASE 6: LAPTOP COMPUTER SYSTEMS: > Now that monochrome laptop computers are as common as briefcases, > and many companies are starting to produce color laptop computer systems, > Commodore has only very recently produced their first monochrome laptop > computer, and it is a PC-clone. Commodore has absolutely no laptop Amigas > of any kind, and the few third-party "portable" Amigas that are available > are so bulky as to make desktop computer systems look like hand-helds by > comparison. In addition to this, all of these "portable" Amigas are > monochrome -- an insult to the 4096-color Amiga. Ah, so if Commodore decides that there is no market for a laptop Amiga at this time this is a sign of "weakness" in the technological advantages of the Amiga? Get real. Currently, in my opinion, the cost of a laptop Amiga coupled with its lack of market would make this a "big bust" for Commodore. I would like to see this development in about two years. > If a small company like Epix -- with an R&D budget much smaller than That's Epyx... > Commodore's -- can produce what is essentially a handheld Amiga, complete > with the Amiga's 4096 colors and four-voice stereo sound, then Commodore > should be able to produce a color Amiga laptop that preserves these > capabilities of the Amiga and more. There are color laptop 80386 machines, > Apple is developing a color laptop Macintosh, and there are even some color > laptop SPARCstations, but there are absolutely no color laptop Amigas. You got to read all the words ... Epyx is not in business anymore. Don't you keep up? I guess there R&D budget got them eh? > > > In conclusion, I feel that Commodore has fallen so for behind in their > R&D that they will probably never catch up. Commodore has never been > a company that produces innovative new technologies, and very likely never > will be. Commodore is a 'catch-up' company that is forever trying to > catch up with the rest of the industry, to avoid going out of business > altogether, and will likely always be this way. > > AMIGA -- YESTERDAY'S TECHNOLOGY, FOREVER!!! In conclusion, Commodore is _still_ in business today and is likely to be there years from now, where Epyx is not. > > > -MB- -mark= +--------+ ================================================== | \/ | Mark D. Manes "Mr. AmigaVision" | /\ \/ | manes@vger.nsu.edu | / | (804) 683-2532 "Make up your own mind! - AMIGA" +--------+ ==================================================
dailey@frith.uucp (Chris Dailey) (01/04/91)
In article <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu> taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu writes: > > I would seriously like someone to tell me why, over the past few years, >Commodore's research and development has become very, very lax. To prove >my point I would like to present six cases in which Commodore hardware R&D >has fallen well behind the rest of the industry -- in some cases two or >three generations behind. Uh-oh, I guess it's that time of year again. Time to hit the 'K' key. ;=| > AMIGA -- YESTERDAY'S TECHNOLOGY, FOREVER!!! > -MB- -- Chris Dailey dailey@(frith.egr|cpsin.cps).msu.edu BRD += DDR; DDR = NULL; num_countries --;
jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz (John Bickers) (01/04/91)
Quoted from <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu> by taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu: > CASE 1: THE CMOS CHIPSET AND THE ATARI LYNX CBM has to remain backward compatible now. Will a correctly written program on the 1000 also work as is on a Lynx? > CASE 2: COMMODORE'S PC-CLONE R&D: > until 386-based systems were widely available. Finally, Commodore did > not get their first 386-based systems on the market until 486-based systems And lo, CBM has a reputation (here, anyway) for producing reliable PClones. > CASE 3: THE A2410 "U-LOWELL" VIDEO BOARD: > have been available for MAC and PC-compatible systems for several years, > and the A2410 isn't even available yet. Are the best Mac and PClone graphics boards made by Apple and IBM? > CASE 4: COMMODORE'S CD-ROM TECHNOLOGY: > Commodore, to this day, does not have any CD-ROM products available for You can hook up various CD-ROMs, WORMs, and optical disks, to an Amiga. That is how things should work. > CASE 5: HIGH-DENSITY FLOPPY DRIVES: Why? > -MB- -- *** John Bickers, TAP, NZAmigaUG. jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz *** *** "Snake through the chaos with a smooth noodle map" - Devo ***
rjc@wookumz.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) (01/04/91)
I am fully convinced that MB is an AI experiment gone wild. It continually brings up the same old threads every other week as if it were automated., Perhaps it's learning algorithm is flawed and it cannot digest the threads from the past. :-) Seriously Marc, why do you keep bringing up the same thing? 2 weeks ago it was 'Commodore's fate rests upon the success/failure of the A2410 and the pricing of it.' now its 'Commodore is behind forever. Its hopeless.. blah' If you feel its that hopeless why don't you grab a life preserver (IBM) and jump off the boat. We don't need you rocking it constantly.
Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com (01/04/91)
Mark, Since CBM is doomed... sell your Amiga, buy a <Insert favorite CPU here> and GO AWAY AND LEAVE US ALONE! - Doug - Doug_B_Erdely@Cup.Portal.Com
md41@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Marcus Dolengo) (01/04/91)
I thought it was a little bit funny at some of the nit picking marc barret did in the post. so what if commodore has yet to make a high density drive for the amiga, whoopeee. HD drives are just another ploy to make disk makers rich since they charge so much for the HD disks compared to normal DSDD disks... and he forgot that there is one being made. If it would have been such an important product, why didnt a company like GVP or Supra make it? or is their R&D lagging like C='s? Why he mentioned commodore's pc clones is beyond me, all I can say is that C= didnt start making clones until maybe 4 years ago, if my memory serves me right. And the laptop industry only recently started booming, with all sales being messy dos machines <dont think the Mac laptop has sold well but it also happens to weigh a ton> time to hit K The Best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8m/sec/sec <apologies to larry philips :) > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- o o | Go Anyone vs. the Bills // << md41@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu >> | Buffalo's Most Wanted :-) \X/ /> <\ | X Omega P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How long does it take an IBM service rep to change a light bulb? Depends on how many bad ones he brings with him.
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (01/04/91)
In article <1991Jan4.042822.9185@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> md41@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Marcus Dolengo) writes: >Why he mentioned commodore's pc clones is beyond me, all I can say is that C= >didnt start making clones until maybe 4 years ago, if my memory serves me >right. And the laptop industry only recently started booming, with all sales >being messy dos machines <dont think the Mac laptop has sold well but it also >happens to weigh a ton> > Actually Commodore DOES make a laptop. They are shipping a 286 laptop which most likely cannot be bought outside of Europe. However, considering it wouldn't SELL outside of Europe that is hardly a negative. The only point Marc made worth remembering is the high density drive issue. I would like double storage on my floppies! Cut the number of discs for my hard drive backup in half. Cut the number of disks I get with software in half (unless it was only one 8). Game people could even put twice as much graphics/sounds on one disk. It has a lot of advantage. Unfortunately it is a technological nightmare for CBM because it apparently requires a reworking of the chip set unless you do an expensive disk drive or a half speed disk drive. The Applied Engineering drive is the latter. -- Ethan "Don't forget the importance of the family. It begins with the family. We're not going to redefine the family. Everybody knows the definition of the family. ... A child. ... A mother. ... A father. There are other arrangements of the family, but that is a family and family values." -- Dan Quayle, of course. Our beloved Vice President. It's just too easy!
icsu7039@ming.cs.montana.edu (Spannring) (01/04/91)
In article <1991Jan3.224807.1791@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> rjc@wookumz.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: > > I am fully convinced that MB is an AI experiment gone wild. It continually I will have you know that MB version 3.9 is my most successful experiment in AI (artificial ignorance) to date. >Perhaps it's learning algorithm is flawed and it cannot digest the Its learning algorithm incorporates many of the lastest advances in zero layer neural networks and depth-last searching. -- ==================================================================== Six of one, 110 (base 2) of | Craig Spannring another. | icsu7039@caesar.cs.montana.edu ----------------------------------+--------------------------------
jmeissen@oregon.oacis.org ( Staff OACIS) (01/04/91)
Marc Barret, this time you've gone too far. In article <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu> taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu writes: > I would seriously like someone to tell me why, over the past few years, >Commodore's research and development has become very, very lax. To prove >my point I would like to present six cases in which Commodore hardware R&D >has fallen well behind the rest of the industry -- in some cases two or >three generations behind. > > CASE 1: THE CMOS CHIPSET AND THE ATARI LYNX > Some of the original Amiga founders were able to scale the Amiga chipset >down somewhat and produce a CMOS version of it that preserves the 4096 colors >and 4-voice stereo sound of the Amiga. Commodore, with a much larger >budget for R&D, has been unable to do anything with the Amiga chipset except >make some very minor improvements. Commodore has been trying for many years >to produce a CMOS version of the Amiga chipset that finally includes some >significant improvements, but completion of this chipset is probably still >many years away. I was one of the members of the Lynx development team. I am personally insulted by your stupid idiotic remarks. The Lynx does NOT have anything resembling a scaled-down Amiga chipset. It has a custom chip designed to handle sprites, can display 16 colors, NOT 4096 like the Amiga, and has 1/4 the screen resolution of the Amiga in LOW resolution. It DOESN'T support DMA, it DOESN'T support multiple resolutions, it only runs at 4mhz, not 7.whatever. It does one thing, and only one thing, really well, and that is sprite rendering. There is absolutely NO similarity between the Amiga technology and the Lynx. > If a small company like Epix -- with an R&D budget much smaller than >Commodore's -- can produce what is essentially a handheld Amiga, complete >with the Amiga's 4096 colors and four-voice stereo sound, then Commodore >should be able to produce a color Amiga laptop that preserves these >capabilities of the Amiga and more. You spout figures as if they were fact, when in truth you don't have the slightest idea what in the hell you're talking about. I won't even touch on the other idiotic issues you purported to raise. I feel very strongly that you owe myself, the rest of the Lynx development team, the people at Commodore, and the net in general, an apology. And next time, don't talk with your mouth full. Pull your foot out first!
ifarqhar@sunc.mqcc.mq.oz.au (Ian Farquhar) (01/04/91)
Well, MB is again up and running with his childishly stupid posts, but let me make one strong point about the mass of disinformation he has yet again posted. The Lynx hardware bears practically no relation to the hardware in the Amiga. The Lynx system software bears practically no relation to the system software in the Amiga. The fact that the Amiga is the devsys for the Lynx, and that the Lynx hardware was designed by a couple of ex-Amiga reps is largely irrelevant. The comparison between the Lynx and the Amiga is one of the most stupid arguments I have ever seen presented. Then again, it did come from MB. -- Ian Farquhar Phone : 61 2 805-9400 Office of Computing Services Fax : 61 2 805-7433 Macquarie University NSW 2109 Also : 61 2 805-7420 Australia EMail : ifarqhar@suna.mqcc.mq.oz.au
rehrauer@apollo.HP.COM (Steve Rehrauer) (01/05/91)
In article <1991Jan3.224807.1791@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> rjc@wookumz.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: > I am fully convinced that MB is an AI experiment gone wild. It continually >brings up the same old threads every other week as if it were automated., >Perhaps it's learning algorithm is flawed and it cannot digest the >threads from the past. :-) Myself, I think it's a load-leveler for the phone company; the acronym gives it away (MB = "Ma Bell"; old habits die hard, I guess). Anyone ever take the time to see if there's any correlation between the frequency of -MB- posts and AT&T stock performance? ;-) -- "The goons are riding motorcycles, but WE'VE | (Steve) rehrauer@apollo.hp.com got a whole big metal car! This will be like | The Apollo Systems Division of stepping on ants..." -- Freelance Police | Hewlett-Packard
daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (01/05/91)
In article <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu> taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu writes: OK, no major counter-productive flames here, boys and girls. Just a few clarifications. "Better to keep the mouth closed and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt" > CASE 1: THE CMOS CHIPSET AND THE ATARI LYNX > Some of the original Amiga founders were able to scale the Amiga chipset >down somewhat and produce a CMOS version of it that preserves the 4096 colors >and 4-voice stereo sound of the Amiga. The Handy, or "Atari Lynx" as it is unfortunately known today, is hardly a scaled down Amiga. It does have a very nice graphics display and a killer sprite engine. And a 6502 in it that's running a bit faster than the 4502 on the A2232 serial card. Makes for a killer little game box, and I'd consider no other if I wanted a killer little game box. But it has nothing more in common with the Amiga than the fact that Dave and RJ created it, and that it also has 4096 colors. So an Amiga makes a nice development environment for it. > CASE 2: COMMODORE'S PC-CLONE R&D: > Commodore is perpetually a full generation behind the rest of the world >in developing PC-xompatible systems. Commodore introduces its PC Clones in Europe first, some never make it here. Originally, none of them were sold here, and even now, they're mainly sold as home machine, not business machines. Which is really where an MS-DOS machine belongs. And Commodore doesn't try to be on the top of the heap with Compaq, IBM, and the like. PC Clones are a second tier effort at C=. > CASE 3: THE A2410 "U-LOWELL" VIDEO BOARD: This board came to C= as a proposal from the University of Lowell Center for Productivity Enhancement. C= has funded previous Amiga-related projects there (actually, both funding and a great deal of technical help have gone into this one). Since this board looks like a good match for Amiga UNIX, it has been moving to product-hood. But it's hardly been a high priority thing, since it does no one much good until UNIX is completed. This board is intended to provide be a decent UNIX workstation type display, and in fact is very similar to the displays on our color Apollo systems here at C=. It is not intended to be for 24 bit video work, which of course would give you a NTSC/PAL compatible interlaced display. Anything at CAD resolutions that's also 24 bits deep is on the fringe at this point, up in Silicon Graphics terratory where few if any PC class machines are welcome. The ULowell design could have been accelerated at any point if it became important. It's about done now. So is UNIX. Imagine that. But such a creature, even if it was Amiga chip compatible (of course, it doesn't even come close), is far too expensive to make a standard part of every Amiga. > CASE 5: HIGH-DENSITY FLOPPY DRIVES: >These drives have been available for so long that >they are already being considered out-of-date, and several companies >(including IBM and NeXT) are moving beyond these drives to 2.88MB drives. The only one with 2.88 MB drives is NeXT. IBM hasn't announced that they're moving to 2.88 MB drives, and in fact, the industry rumor mill has it that IBM is looking a very different technology to go beyond 1.44 MB. -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy "Don't worry, 'bout a thing. 'Cause every little thing, gonna be alright" -Bob Marley
kkrueger@zeus.unomaha.edu (01/05/91)
It's just like one of those Friday XIII movies: Once you think -MB- is done with his inane posts, he's back! I can actually feel right about flaming him because he told me that he posted a pointed message and offered to have me grab a copy of it out of his account and respond. I warned him in advance that I probably wouldn't be nice. (Yes, I personally know him, but please don't flame for that no matter how much I deserve it.) > CASE 1: THE CMOS CHIPSET AND THE ATARI LYNX > Some of the original Amiga founders were able to scale the Amiga chipset > down somewhat and produce a CMOS version of it that preserves the 4096 colors > and 4-voice stereo sound of the Amiga. First of all, come on Marc, you know better than to compare a handheld Atari to an Amiga! It doesn't matter if it has 4096 colors and four voices and came from an Amiga's chipset because you are talking about Apples and oranges. I see the point you are trying to make, but you are really reaching. > CASE 2: COMMODORE'S PC-CLONE R&D: > Commodore is perpetually a full generation behind the rest of the world > in developing PC-xompatible [sic] systems. Second, who cares if C= doesn't have the latest clone technology?! The only reason any Amiga owner cares about the well-being of C= is because our future hardware/software support depends on it. I wish the company would phase out the clone line entirely. > In conclusion, I feel that Commodore has fallen so for [sic] behind in > their R&D that they will probably never catch up. Commodore has never been > a company that produces innovative new technologies, and very likely never > will be. Commodore is a 'catch-up' company that is forever trying to > catch up with the rest of the industry, to avoid going out of business > altogether, and will likely always be this way. Third, I can see logic went out the window when you wrote that conclusion. This wasn't a gap in reasoning; it was a canyon! I just don't see how clones, handheld Ataris, and laptops have much to do with "forever." Forever is a long time. > AMIGA -- YESTERDAY'S TECHNOLOGY, FOREVER!!! Fourth, you always end your messages with some tag that announces to the net, "I'm a nut! Flame me for my radical opinions!!" Ask and you shall receive. I have come to the conclusion that, by your writing style, you really don't care if you can persuade anyone; you're just out for a fight. Nonetheless, distilled down, with all of the charged language and leaps of logic removed, you have a point. I am a graduate business major, so I think I can add some insight on the business side of this R&D matter. I checked the last listing of R&D expenditures for 1989 in BusinessWeek (June 15, 1990), and C= is, indeed, behind the industry average for American computer companies in terms of R&D expenditures as a percentage of sales. The industry average is 9.0 while IBM is at 8.3, and Apple is at 8.0. Since C= is not an American company, I had to compute its 1989 ratio from the the 1990 annual report. This works out to a mere 2.1! (Note that IBM and Apple are below industry average because they are big companies, and big companies tend to spend less as a percentage than do small ones.) However, when I computed the 1990 ratio, I found that this ratio had increased to 3.1. Partly this was due to the fact that 1990 sales were sharply down from 1989, thus the denominator was lowered. However, R&D did increase from a miniscule $19,300,000 to a paltry $27,700,000. This does not provide the overall picture, though. There are far fewer companies doing research on Amiga products than there are doing research on clones. Also, much clone research will benefit all computers. These and other intervening factors muddy the picture, but the message is essentially the same: a company that does not invest in improving its technology will die. I do not mean this as a leap of logic, though. It is clear from many studies that there is a good correlation between R&D expenditures and future profitability. The Japanese, for example, spend about 15% of their sales on R&D. According to a graduate accounting professor I had, the Japanese firms will dominate their American counterparts if our R&D expenditures do not sharply increase. I believe the American average is somewhere around 7%. While this is another issue entirely, I bring it up because the largely successful Japanese do believe that high levels of R&D will bring future success and so should C=. Assuming the role of an objective financial analyst, I looked at C='s annual report. The company is in a secure debt position, but there is absolutely no way I would invest in shares in C= for the long term. In fact, I would expect sales to generally decline from year to year. I do hold a bit of optimism, though. In the past year, the company seems to be starting to get its act together and seems to have more of a strategic plan. Coming back to what I originally said about not caring about C='s business unless it affects the end user, I do believe this does just that. You, as the user, should really hope that R&D does increase to somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000,000 per year if you don't plan to abandon ship down the line. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kurt Krueger | BITNET: KKRUEGER@UNOMA1 | //\ MBA student | Internet: KKRUEGER@ZEUS.UNOMAHA.EDU | \X/--\ M I G A ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TYPE >barrett: flames -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
kkrueger@zeus.unomaha.edu (01/05/91)
In article <3231@dali>, icsu7039@ming.cs.montana.edu (Spannring) writes: > In article <1991Jan3.224807.1791@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> rjc@wookumz.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: >> >> I am fully convinced that MB is an AI experiment gone wild. It continually > > I will have you know that MB version 3.9 is my most successful experiment > in AI (artificial ignorance) to date. > > >>Perhaps it's learning algorithm is flawed and it cannot digest the > > Its learning algorithm incorporates many of the lastest advances in > zero layer neural networks and depth-last searching. I hate to disappoint you both, but -MB- is *not* an AI experiment. He is in fact quite real and lives about three miles from my house when he is home from college. If only I could figure out how to put a kill file on my tele- phone. I am shocked that there has been such a response to his post. I thought everyone had him in the kill file. You must be newcomers. Actually, I have found that it is not so much what he says, but how he says it. I will, on occasion, agree with him, but by the time I get done reading the message, I want flame him like everyone else. I think the kill file is the best solu- tion to the matter.
Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com (01/05/91)
Just to interject this little tidbit... Got a press release from CBM today at work, they are selling a 286 laptop now... also an INK JET printer! :> - Doug - Doug_B_Erdely@Cup.Portal.Com
kzyx@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (01/05/91)
Subject: Re: Commodore Research and Development. > It's just like one of those Friday XIII movies: Once you think -MB- is >done with his inane posts, he's back! I can actually feel right about flaming >him because he told me that he posted a pointed message and offered to have me >grab a copy of it out of his account and respond. I warned him in advance >that I probably wouldn't be nice. (Yes, I personally know him, but please ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Could you define this better? -MB- has become some sort of Folkloric person in this newsgroup. Who is this guy anyways??? >don't flame for that no matter how much I deserve it.) ... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kurt Krueger | BITNET: KKRUEGER@UNOMA1 | // MBA student | Internet: KKRUEGER@ZEUS.UNOMAHA.EDU | X/-- M I G A >------------------------------------------------------------------------------
nsw@cbnewsm.att.com (Neil Weinstock) (01/05/91)
In article <17114@cbmvax.commodore.com>, daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes: > In article <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu> taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu writes: [ ... ] > > CASE 5: HIGH-DENSITY FLOPPY DRIVES: > >These drives have been available for so long that > >they are already being considered out-of-date, and several companies > >(including IBM and NeXT) are moving beyond these drives to 2.88MB drives. > > The only one with 2.88 MB drives is NeXT. IBM hasn't announced that they're > moving to 2.88 MB drives, and in fact, the industry rumor mill has it that > IBM is looking a very different technology to go beyond 1.44 MB. I heard they were looking at going with the 20 MByte Insite Flopticals. I have *not* heard whether that would mean SCSI or not. Are the flopticals available these days, or what? They really sound to me like a great thing, particularly now that they can read and write "normal" floppies too. Anybody using these things with Amigas? - Neil --==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-- Neil Weinstock @ AT&T Bell Labs // What was sliced bread att!edsel!nsw or nsw@edsel.att.com \X/ the greatest thing since?
skank@iastate.edu (Skank George L) (01/05/91)
In article <1009@macuni.mqcc.mq.oz> ifarqhar@sunc.mqcc.mq.oz.au (Ian Farquhar) writes: >Well, MB is again up and running with his childishly stupid posts, but >let me make one strong point about the mass of disinformation he has yet >again posted. Blah, Blah, etc., etc... >The comparison between the Lynx and the Amiga is one of the most stupid >arguments I have ever seen presented. Then again, it did come from MB. I've met Marc, I've talked to him, and I continue to be stunned by the fact that in all of Amigadom he goes to my university. The fact that such an Amiga celebrety should go to MY university just continues to amaze me. People on the net know him just like they know Dave Heaney (sp), and I'VE DISCUSSED AMIGA ISSUES WITH HIM! I feel so special. :) He's actually a fairly pleasent fellow (when he's not flaming). (Just teasing Marc! :) -- --George -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sjcst2@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Scott J. Corley) (01/05/91)
In article <17114@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes: > > CASE 3: THE A2410 "U-LOWELL" VIDEO BOARD: > >This board is ..... >intended to provide be a decent UNIX workstation type display, and in fact >is very similar to the displays on our color Apollo systems here at C=. It >is not intended to be for 24 bit video work, which of course would give you >a NTSC/PAL compatible interlaced display. Anything at CAD resolutions that's >also 24 bits deep is on the fringe at this point, up in Silicon Graphics >terratory where few if any PC class machines are welcome. > >-- >Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" > {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy > "Don't worry, 'bout a thing. 'Cause every little thing, > gonna be alright" -Bob Marley Dave , does this mean that we wont see SVGA resolution graphics on the next generation of the Amiga chipset because it has to stay compatible with the 15.75kHz scan rate of NTSC and getting SVGA resolution requires a higher scan rate? I hope this isnt true. Even if Commodore or some 3rd party company comes out with a FlickerFixer for a high resolution NTSC compatible mode , it still isnt as good as having a high scan rate built in. I have a A3000 and I hate it when you move things on the screen and you get a double image because of the built in FlickerFixer. Its really annoying when reading text. Scott Corley
bruce@zuhause.MN.ORG (Bruce Albrecht) (01/06/91)
>In article <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu> taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu writes: > > I would seriously like someone to tell me why, over the past few years, >Commodore's research and development has become very, very lax. To prove >my point I would like to present six cases in which Commodore hardware R&D >has fallen well behind the rest of the industry -- in some cases two or >three generations behind. [Examples deleted ] > > In conclusion, I feel that Commodore has fallen so for behind in their >R&D that they will probably never catch up. Commodore has never been >a company that produces innovative new technologies, and very likely never >will be. Commodore is a 'catch-up' company that is forever trying to >catch up with the rest of the industry, to avoid going out of business >altogether, and will likely always be this way. > > AMIGA -- YESTERDAY'S TECHNOLOGY, FOREVER!!! > > > -MB- Ah yes, the monthly flame from Marc Barrett. As usual, you are preaching on deaf ears, Marc. It serves no purpose to do so. Commodore management doesn't pay much attention to Usenet (although Copperman did tell me that he does get read some postings given to him by his staff). Amiga owners doen't care to hear that their machine is no good. Prospective Amiga owners get turned off because they hear more anti-Amiga bad-mouthing. I'm not saying that everything is roses at Commodore, because it isn't. However, I bought an Amiga because it had qualities that the IBM PC and Macintoshes lack. But if enough prospective Amiga buyers get turned off by postings like yours, Commodore will never have the bucks for R&D to play catch-up, or even become leading edge. If you dislike Commodore management so much, find another platform (I'd recommend the NeXT machine), and switch. -- bruce@zuhause.mn.org
andy@cbmvax.commodore.com (Andy Finkel) (01/06/91)
In article <6361.27847abf@zeus.unomaha.edu> kkrueger@zeus.unomaha.edu writes: > I am shocked that there has been such a response to his post. I thought >everyone had him in the kill file. You must be newcomers. Actually, I have >found that it is not so much what he says, but how he says it. I will, on >occasion, agree with him, but by the time I get done reading the message, I >want flame him like everyone else. I think the kill file is the best solu- >tion to the matter. The problem is that he keeps changing his account name, or posting header, and keeps slipping out of kill files. andy -- andy finkel {uunet|rutgers|amiga}!cbmvax!andy Commodore-Amiga, Inc. "And Amiga has not forgot the retailer." Any expressed opinions are mine; but feel free to share. I disclaim all responsibilities, all shapes, all sizes, all colors.
dave@exactus.UUCP (Dave) (01/06/91)
taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu writes: > > I would seriously like someone to tell me why, over the past few years, > Commodore's research and development has become very, very lax. To prove > my point I would like to present six cases in which Commodore hardware R&D > has fallen well behind the rest of the industry -- in some cases two or > three generations behind. > > [MOST OF THE FLAME DELETED] > > In conclusion, I feel that Commodore has fallen so for behind in their > R&D that they will probably never catch up. Commodore has never been > a company that produces innovative new technologies, and very likely never > will be. Commodore is a 'catch-up' company that is forever trying to > catch up with the rest of the industry, to avoid going out of business > altogether, and will likely always be this way. > > AMIGA -- YESTERDAY'S TECHNOLOGY, FOREVER!!! > Well, I tend to agree with you, and realistcally speaking, all I see from a lot of developers out there is to basically deny it left and right, when it is obvious that the Amiga is already way behind in the video display technology (among several other things). Way back then, I used to be one of those saying that not only the Amiga has MORE colors, BETTER resolutions, and NTSC compatibility, but I also couldn't resist telling them how much cheaper it was. Today, I find myself working 80% of my time under Windows 3.0 with a TIGA 34020 card, which until very resently was not even talked about by the Amiga Developers community. Yes, the Toaster and the VideoMaster are too excellent technologies that beat anything out there, but they are NOT Amiga technology by any means. Short from it... The VideoMaster 32 is based on the 34020 chipset from TI, which is readily available on other platforms as well. It is also quite incorrect to say that this technologies are too expensive on the PC world, because they are not. A Hercules Graphics Station Video Card, which is based on the 34010 chip, with 24 bit support, goes for a little less than $700 street price. And even SuperVGA cards are not capable of displaying 1024x768x8bits with considerable speed, and they go for as little as $350.00. It is quite sad that none of the Amiga video cards can't even display the operating system on them. Here we have a graphics.library that does nothing for device independency! Even Windows 3.0 has this kind of capability. But that's not all, I have seen several developers here not even concerned about this most important capability! Soon enough (if not already), we will be talking about the 10 different video standards on the Amiga, each one of them with its very own set of programs that work with it and only it. Dave +---------------------------------------+---------------------------------+ | David Salas | Exactus : David Salas | | President | Genie : EXAC-DAVE | | Exactus Information Services | UUCP : exactus!dave | | (707) 524-2548 @ 2400 (8N1) | Fax : (707) 524-2546 | | (707) 524-2553 @ 9600/1400 (V32/HST) | Voice : (707) 524-2547 | +---------------------------------------+---------------------------------+
seanc@pro-party.cts.com (Sean Cunningham) (01/06/91)
In-Reply-To: message from taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu Again??? I see alot of the reverse. Other companies are trying to catch up to Commodore in the video market, the multimedia market (in terms of hardware delivery), and will soon be trying to catch up to C= in UNIX. While Commodore may be a little late in releasing their video board, you can't ignore the work of third party developers. There are a ton of 24bit (and near 24bit) devices either available now, or will be soon. Apple wasn't even close to being the first to come out with a 24bit display card for the Mac. You can thank the Mac's third party for its lead today, not Apple. If Commodore were to never come out with a board, but released a good rtg.library, I'd make no difference to me. IBM's best offering is XGA...it's 24bit market is solely held by its third party as well. Sean >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> .SIG v2.5 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc RealWorld: Sean Cunningham ARPA: !crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc@nosc.mil Voice: (512) 992-2810 INET: seanc@pro-party.cts.com ____________________________________ // | * All opinions expressed herein | HELP KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/ | Copyright 1990 VISION GRAPHICS | >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
raible@cbmvax.commodore.com (Bob Raible - LSI Design) (01/07/91)
In article <75723@unix.cis.pitt.edu> sjcst2@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Scott J. Corley) writes: >Dave , does this mean that we wont see SVGA resolution graphics on the >next generation of the Amiga chipset because it has to stay compatible >with the 15.75kHz scan rate of NTSC and getting SVGA resolution >requires a higher scan rate? I hope this isnt true. Even if Commodore >or some 3rd party company comes out with a FlickerFixer for a high >resolution NTSC compatible mode , it still isnt as good as having a >high scan rate built in. I have a A3000 and I hate it when you move >things on the screen and you get a double image because of the >built in FlickerFixer. Its really annoying when reading text. > > > Scott Corley I'm not even related to Dave H. but I'll answer for the simple reason that I'm responsible for ECS Denise and am working on stuff that directly relates to your question(I hope that's sufficiently vague :3). Currently, the Amiga chip set is synchronized to the NTSC color clock and incidentally the chip memory bus cycle. This results in pixel clock rates of 7,14,and 28MHZ in the latest chip set(ECS as found in A3000). Scan rate is totally programmable in these chips and higher scan rates are easy to configure. I assume by SVGA you refer to the 35KHZ scan rate, 1000x768 screen variety(literature I've seen refers to several screen formats under the heading of SVGA). In this case the pixel clock required to fill the screen is about 36MHZ. This is not equal to the color clock multiplied by a power of two and would require changing the system clock rate or uncoupling the system clock from the pixel clock. Both require major architectural changes to the custom chip set. Far easier would be to offer 56MHZ pixels(28MHZ x 2). As I said scan rate would be programmable by the application(50KHZ or so I presume). This is within the display range of a lot of multisync monitors. PS: pls note that 31KHZ is already offered in 3000,your statement seems to imply 15KHZ is current limit.
glmwc@marlin.jcu.edu.au (Matt Crowd) (01/07/91)
In article <9793.tnews@templar.actrix.gen.nz> jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz (John Bickers) writes: >Quoted from <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu> by taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu: >> CASE 1: THE CMOS CHIPSET AND THE ATARI LYNX > > CBM has to remain backward compatible now. Will a correctly written > program on the 1000 also work as is on a Lynx? A Lynx only has a resolution of less than 320*200 (can't remember off hand). C= needs their next chip set to do 1024*768. The Lynx can look really fast because it isn't moving much graphics around. It might be a good game machine... but that's not what we want our Amigas to be. Look I am certain Bob is working very hard on the new chip set, but flaming the old one on the net won't help much. >> CASE 5: HIGH-DENSITY FLOPPY DRIVES: > > Why? Because people in business use Macs with 1.44 MEG disks, and think the Amiga is pretty poor because it can't use them! I speak from experience. >> -MB- >-- >*** John Bickers, TAP, NZAmigaUG. jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz *** >*** "Snake through the chaos with a smooth noodle map" - Devo *** Colin.
peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) (01/07/91)
In article <1991Jan4.042822.9185@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> md41@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Marcus Dolengo) writes: >Why he mentioned commodore's pc clones is beyond me, all I can say is that C= >didnt start making clones until maybe 4 years ago, if my memory serves me >right. No, it is already 6 years ago. The first PC 10 was designed at Commodore Braunschweig, Germany, and shipped in spring 1985. > And the laptop industry only recently started booming, with all sales >being messy dos machines Well, at least Commodore Germany is now distributing an AT Notebook style computer named CLT-286. -- Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions... Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk
daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (01/08/91)
In article <75723@unix.cis.pitt.edu> sjcst2@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Scott J. Corley) writes: >In article <17114@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes: >> CASE 3: THE A2410 "U-LOWELL" VIDEO BOARD: >>This board is ..... >>intended to provide be a decent UNIX workstation type display, and in fact >>is very similar to the displays on our color Apollo systems here at C=. >Dave , does this mean that we wont see SVGA resolution graphics on the >next generation of the Amiga chipset because it has to stay compatible >with the 15.75kHz scan rate of NTSC and getting SVGA resolution Have any of these standards groups finally gotten together and decided what "SVGA" really means? As for scan rates, ECS already does a VGA compatible 31kHz scan rate, so I guess in some ways, that answers your questions -- while 15kHz compatibility is important, it's not the limit. What limits the complexity of any built-in Amiga video display is, ultimately, the cost of the thing. We can always build more expensive add-ons, just like Apple, IBM, Sun, and the rest of the world does. What's built-in, though, as to be justified, in terms of unit cost and R&D costs. >I have a A3000 and I hate it when you move things on the screen and you get >a double image because of the built in FlickerFixer. Its really annoying >when reading text. On your A3000, you can elimiate that in WorkBench by going to "productivity" mode, though you'll lose some colors. On any non-interlaced display, the A3000 VDE system avoids this "digital ghosting" by simply scan doubling, rather than frame buffering. Certainly this is a good thing to build in, and obviously a more advanced system could extend "productivity" resolutions to more bitplanes. Lots of people out there want better built-in graphics. So do I. However, it's not obvious to folks who don't have to build such chips how complex an operation this is. Let's look at the PC market in comparion. They have a number of register level video standards, which in the past at least were set mainly by IBM: CGA, EGA, MCGA, VGA, 8514?, and most recently, XGA. IBM was kind of secretive about VGA, so it took a few years for the several chip companies out there to clone a VGA device, which is about a 30,000 transistor device. These clones were, in general, register-level copies, since no one had the IBM schematics (I don't know if anyone actually tried to reverse engineer real IBM VGA chips, though this is done in practice through the industry). So far, at least one company has just recently done an 8514 clone, which was made more difficult due to its line-draw hardware and the fact that IBM didn't disclose the register model at all. Now XGA, which is rumored to be roughly a 100,000 transistor device, is being released. Based on the fact that IBM is telling all, apparently, about the device, in order to lure folks into adopting XGA vs. any of the existing VGA+ clone things out there as a standard, the folks who watch the chip business are estimating XGA clones in 2 to 3 years. Now lets look at the Amiga chips. Any one Amiga chip is likely to be nearly as complex as an 8514 or XGA device. While C= certainly has had all the schematics for these things all along, back in '85 when the A1000 came out, they were all hand drawn. It takes awhile to put them into CAD format, and obviously they were all hand done designs, not based on any of the automated logic generation things you use for modern chip designs. And of course, they're all in NMOS. ECS Agnus is about the largest chip you'd want to put into NMOS. Anything going at a higher speed, or adding major features, would have to go into CMOS. That implies a redesign -- this is a custom chip, not a gate array. You specific real transistors, and count on them, not simply gates as you would in designing a gate array (they let me design gate arrays, like Buster, but only real chip designers like Bob Raible design full chips). So, I just want everyone to realize that our chip guys haven't just been sitting idly by since '85, or even '88 when ECS chips started coming out. They just have had alot more work on their hands than most folks realize. > Scott Corley -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy "Don't worry, 'bout a thing. 'Cause every little thing, gonna be alright" -Bob Marley
swarren@convex.com (Steve Warren) (01/08/91)
In article <6361.27847abf@zeus.unomaha.edu> kkrueger@zeus.unomaha.edu writes: > I am shocked that there has been such a response to his post. I thought >everyone had him in the kill file. You must be newcomers. Actually, I have >found that it is not so much what he says, but how he says it. I will, on >occasion, agree with him, but by the time I get done reading the message, I >want flame him like everyone else. I think the kill file is the best solu- >tion to the matter. Absolutely. This is from my kill file: THRU 60564 /Marc Barrett/h:j Of course, this does not help me when "MB the Fool" continues moving around and posting from anonymous accounts. Here is the header from the post that generated this thread: >From convex!texsun!sundc!seismo!dimacs.rutgers.edu!mips!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!news.cs.indiana.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!news.iastate.edu!ccvax.iastate.edu!taab5 Mon Jan 7 15:48:50 CST 1991 >Article: 60201 of comp.sys.amiga >Path: convex!texsun!sundc!seismo!dimacs.rutgers.edu!mips!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!news.cs.indiana.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!news.iastate.edu!ccvax.iastate.edu!taab5 >From: taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu >Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga >Subject: Commodore Research and Development. >Message-ID: <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu> >Date: 3 Jan 91 06:34:49 GMT >Sender: news@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System) >Lines: 87 He personally promised me (in email) that he would not purposely evade my kill file in this manner any longer. This thread represents the third time he has broken his word. I am tired of reading his ignorant postings, so once again I am putting iastate in my kill file. If you go to iastate and this makes you mad then do something about it. Figure out a way to impress on Mr. Barrett the importance of not posting his inflammatory rheteric from an account that generates an anonymous header. I don't care if he wants to spew his ignorance all over the net. But he needs to make sure he is identified in his header. -- _. --Steve ._||__ DISCLAIMER: All opinions are my own. Warren v\ *| ---------------------------------------------- V {uunet,sun}!convex!swarren; swarren@convex.COM
tron1@tronsbox.xei.com (Kenneth Jamieson) (01/08/91)
In article <bruce.6616@zuhause.MN.ORG> bruce@zuhause.MN.ORG (Bruce Albrecht) writes: >>In article <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu> taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu writes: >> In conclusion, I feel that Commodore has fallen so for behind in their >>R&D that they will probably never catch up. Commodore has never been >>a company that produces innovative new technologies, and very likely never >>will be. Commodore is a 'catch-up' company that is forever trying to >>catch up with the rest of the industry, to avoid going out of business >>altogether, and will likely always be this way. >> >> AMIGA -- YESTERDAY'S TECHNOLOGY, FOREVER!!! >> >> >> -MB- > >Ah yes, the monthly flame from Marc Barrett. As usual, you are preaching on deaf >ears, Marc. It serves no purpose to do so. Commodore management doesn't pay much >attention to Usenet (although Copperman did tell me that he does get read some >postings given to him by his staff). Amiga owners doen't care to hear that their >machine is no good. Prospective Amiga owners get turned off because they hear more > >bruce@zuhause.mn.org That seems to be pretty accurate. No one wants to hear anything bad about this machine. I mean I >OWN< the machine and I am intimidated by the ferver here! I don't think I am in the mood to argue more numbers here , but I can only say this.... I have a 400$ SVGA card and a MULTISYNC II. I may create graphics on the Amiga (it has the tools I need) .. but when the time comes to DISPLAY them .. the go to the 386 and UNIX. The RANGE of colors needs updating much more than the number of lines of resolution does. I mean , 24 bit will be nice, but it would be ok to just get a REAL set of 256 that has a full 8 bit range. -- ========[ Xanadu Enterprises Inc. Amiga & Unix Software Development]======= = "I hate you, take your things and get out of this house!!!!!" = = (pause) - "Hold me!" ( same girl, elapsed time 6.5 seconds) = =========== Ken Jamieson: uunet!tronsbox.xei.com!tron1 =================== = NONE of the opinions represented here are endorsed by anybody. = === The Romantic Encounters BBS 201-759-8450(PEP) / 201-759-8568(2400) ====
taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu (01/08/91)
In article <17192@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes: >Lots of people out there want better built-in graphics. So do I. However, >it's not obvious to folks who don't have to build such chips how complex an >operation this is. Let's look at the PC market in comparion. They have a > [stuff deleted] >So, I just want everyone to realize that our chip guys haven't just been >sitting idly by since '85, or even '88 when ECS chips started coming out. >They just have had alot more work on their hands than most folks realize. OK, designing a chipset is quite a bit of work. However, it would help a LOT if Commodore was spending more on research and development. As a friend of mine said in a recent message in this thread, companies in the U.S. spend an average of around 8% of their total sales on R&D. This is considered fairly poor, because companies in Japan spend an average of 15% of their total sales on R&D. In fact, Business Week ran an article once that said, basically, that if American companies do not start spending more on R&D, that America will continue to lose technological ground to other countries. Now let's look at Commodore. Until recently, Commodore had been spending only slightly more than 2% (actually 2.1%) of their total sales on R&D. In the 1990 fiscal year, they raised it, but only to slightly more than 3%. No wonder it is taking Commodore's engineers so incredibly long to produce that chipset!! In a world where spending of 8% of total sales on R&D is considered poor, spending of 3% of total sales on R&D is absolutely pathetic! Big companies like Exxon or IBM can get away with spending small amounts (as a percentage of total sales) on R&D, but a small company like Commodore cannot. The average for the computer indisty is around 7%, and until Commodore gets their R&D spending up to at least this level (preferably much higher, because small companies tend to have to spend larger percentages of their sales on R&D than large companies), Commodore will continue to lose technological ground to their competitors. In conclusion, the 32-bit Amiga chipset is a lot of work for Commodore's engineers because Commodore has so few of them. If Commodore had been spending at least the industry average of 7% of their sales on R&D all along (instead of the pathetic 2.1%), Commodore would have had more engineers to work on the chipset, and the chipset might even be done by now. As it is, the chipset probably will not be available for at least another three years, if I correctly interpret the vague hints given by various Commodore engineers on CSA. >-- >Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" > {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy > "Don't worry, 'bout a thing. 'Cause every little thing, > gonna be alright" -Bob Marley -MB-
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (01/08/91)
In article <600@tronsbox.xei.com> tron1@tronsbox.xei.com (Kenneth Jamieson) writes: > I don't think I am in the mood to argue more numbers here , >but I can only say this.... I have a 400$ SVGA card and a MULTISYNC >II. I may create graphics on the Amiga (it has the tools I need) .. >but when the time comes to DISPLAY them .. the go to the 386 and UNIX. > Well get DCTV or the HAM-E or (whenever it comes out) the ColorBurst. They all come with 24-bit to their format converters. You can get better from those than from SVGA. Also, HAM-E is developing an improved HAM-E (release this month or next month) which gives the high-res 640x??? modes instead of 320. (of course that can be overscanned to 768). That should be good. >-- >========[ Xanadu Enterprises Inc. Amiga & Unix Software Development]======= >= "I hate you, take your things and get out of this house!!!!!" = >= (pause) - "Hold me!" ( same girl, elapsed time 6.5 seconds) = >=========== Ken Jamieson: uunet!tronsbox.xei.com!tron1 =================== >= NONE of the opinions represented here are endorsed by anybody. = >=== The Romantic Encounters BBS 201-759-8450(PEP) / 201-759-8568(2400) ==== -- Ethan "Don't forget the importance of the family. It begins with the family. We're not going to redefine the family. Everybody knows the definition of the family. ... A child. ... A mother. ... A father. There are other arrangements of the family, but that is a family and family values." -- Dan Quayle, of course. Our beloved Vice President. It's just too easy!
taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) (01/08/91)
In article <17192@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes: >Lots of people out there want better built-in graphics. So do I. However, >it's not obvious to folks who don't have to build such chips how complex an >operation this is. Let's look at the PC market in comparion. They have a > [stuff deleted] >So, I just want everyone to realize that our chip guys haven't just been >sitting idly by since '85, or even '88 when ECS chips started coming out. >They just have had alot more work on their hands than most folks realize. OK, designing a chipset is quite a bit of work. However, it would help if Commodore was spending more on research and development. As a friend of mine said in a recent message in this thread, companies in the U.S. spend an average of around 8% of their total sales on R&D. This is considered fairly poor, because companies in Japan spend an average of 15% of their total sales on R&D. In fact, Business Week ran an article once that said, basically, that if American companies do not start spending more on R&D, that America will continue to lose technological ground to other countries. Now let's look at Commodore. Until recently, Commodore had been spending only slightly more than 2% (actually 2.1%) of their total sales on R&D. In the 1990 fiscal year, they raised it, but only to slightly more than 3%. No wonder it is taking Commodore's engineers so long to produce that chipset... In a world where spending of 8% of total sales on R&D is considered poor, spending of 3% of total sales on R&D is much too low. Big companies like Exxon or IBM can get away with spending small amounts (as a percentage of total sales) on R&D, but a small company like Commodore cannot. The average for the computer industry is around 7%, and until Commodore gets their R&D spending up to at least this level (preferably much higher, because small companies tend to have to spend larger percentages of their sales on R&D than large companies), Commodore will continue to lose technological ground to their competitors. In conclusion, the 32-bit Amiga chipset is a lot of work for Commodore's engineers because Commodore has so few of them. If Commodore had been spending at least the industry average of 7% of their sales on R&D all along (instead of 2.1%), Commodore would have had more engineers to work on the chipset, and the chipset might even be done by now. As it is, the chipset probably will not be available for at least another three years, if I correctly interpret the vague hints given by various Commodore engineers on CSA. >-- >Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" > {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy > "Don't worry, 'bout a thing. 'Cause every little thing, > gonna be alright" -Bob Marley -MB-
h112706@lehtori.tut.fi (Herranen Henrik) (01/08/91)
In article <1991Jan7.094914.8441@marlin.jcu.edu.au> glmwc@marlin.jcu.edu.au (Matt Crowd) writes: Path: cc.tut.fi!news.funet.fi!sunic!uupsi!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!brolga!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!marlin.jcu.edu.au!glmwc From: glmwc@marlin.jcu.edu.au (Matt Crowd) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Keywords: Marc Barrett. Date: 7 Jan 91 09:49:14 GMT References: <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu> <9793.tnews@templar.actrix.gen.nz> Organization: James Cook University of North Queensland Lines: 30 In article <9793.tnews@templar.actrix.gen.nz> jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz (John Bickers) writes: >Quoted from <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu> by taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu: >> CASE 5: HIGH-DENSITY FLOPPY DRIVES: > > Why? Because people in business use Macs with 1.44 MEG disks, and think the Amiga is pretty poor because it can't use them! I speak from experience. How poor those Mac people are. I'm running my Amiga with a 100 MEG hard drive, which is much more convenient than a 1.44 MEG disk :-) >> -MB- >-- >*** John Bickers, TAP, NZAmigaUG. jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz *** >*** "Snake through the chaos with a smooth noodle map" - Devo *** Colin. -- Henrik 'Leopold' Herranen Internet: h112706@cc.tut.fi Snail Mail: TTKK/Paarakennuksen neuvonta/PL527/33101 Tampere/Finland "I don't need no arms around me, I don't need no drugs to calm me" - PF 1979
mykes@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz) (01/08/91)
Commodore seems to have its hands full with just making 2.0 work and getting their CD ROM machine out the door. I am still waiting for my 2.0 Enhancer package at a nearby Amiga dealer, and Commodore announced that they would ship the CD ROM machine in Sept. 1990 (at Summer CES '90) with a hundred titles and hundreds more by 1991. Not that I am criticizing Commodore here, just that they really do have their work cut out for them. The CD ROM machine looks like it will be great, especially if CBM can get the price down to near Laser Disk player prices. Actually, laserdisk machines aren't exactly setting the world on fire, saleswise, so maybe they should be trying to get the price down to half what they announced it to be so it would be a real consumer item instead of a hobbyist device. After all, CBM did well with a low priced C64, which was more of an appliance than a computer to most of its owners. It is not that CBM is not trying, they are getting the Amiga 500 into better distribution channels (like Sears) and they could compete with and possibly be better than all of the new 16-bit video game machines if they made a version of the Amiga 500 with a cartridge port, no keyboard, and a video game operating system for $200. What commodore really needs to do is to finish the products they have under development and to get the big players (Microsoft, Lotus, Ashton Tate, etc.) to provide real business software for the machine so they can compete with IBM and Mac. If you look at things in perspective, Apple is having just as much of a problem getting system 7.0 out the door as CBM is 2.0. If the software base gave business users a reason to buy the machine, the Amiga could sell 10's of millions. If there were 10 Million Amigas, a laptop would make a lot of sense, but who needs a $2000 laptop to play video games (albeit the best games around). I say, just give CBM a chance, things look good for the future, even though development is slow. It just takes time to do things right. Even though the CD ROM machine is not out, I am glad that they did not make the same mistake with it that they did with the Amiga in '85. You see, they shipped the Amiga before it was finished, and we all know how long it has taken for it to gain a decent reputation. I just hope that the CD ROM machine works and works well. Who wants a 4x sampling CD player that Gurus a lot? Another thing to consider is that CBM does have some fine engineers and it does show in the Amiga 3000 and Amiga Unix. The Amiga is still far ahead of the competition in many areas and it is advancing. It is kind of fun to watch the other computer manufacturers copying the things that the Amiga does best and not doing as good a job at it. Keep it up CBM, but let's try to be a little more timely.
lron@easy.hiam (Dwight Hubbard) (01/09/91)
In article <41220@nigel.ee.udel.edu>, Marc Barrett writes: > As for IBM, the mainframe market is totally dominated by IBM, precisely ^^^^^^^^^ Really, that's why they laid off all those personel that were on the production line for the 3090, give me a break IBM has been loosing ground in the mainframe market for quite a while. Why would a company buy an IBM mainframe when they can get a machine that's compatible with the IBM machine but faster, cost less and backed buy a well established company??? > because IBM spends quite a lot on R&D. IBM is one of the few U.S. The amount of money spent does not equate directly to the results, any company that would throw a fortune into developing a new OS for their PC systems when they could have obtained the rights to an OS that would do the same basic things is obviously not wisely spending their R&D $$$ wisely. > ALL research at Commodore is very short-term, precisely because > Commodore's managers are more worried about short-term profits then > long-term strength. Really, and how do you know what R&D projects are going on at Commodore?? or IBM or any other company. CDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDBDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD? 3 Dwight Hubbard 3 USENET : uunet!easy!lron 3 3 Kaneohe, Hawaii 3 GT-Power: 029/004 (lron) 3 3 3 CFR : 31:910/101 (Dwight Hubbard) 3 @DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDY
jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz (John Bickers) (01/09/91)
Quoted from <1991Jan7.094914.8441@marlin.jcu.edu.au> by glmwc@marlin.jcu.edu.au (Matt Crowd): > In article <9793.tnews@templar.actrix.gen.nz> jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz (John Bickers) writes: > >Quoted from <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu> by taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu: > >> CASE 5: HIGH-DENSITY FLOPPY DRIVES: > > > > Why? > > Because people in business use Macs with 1.44 MEG disks, and think > the Amiga is pretty poor because it can't use them! I speak It occurs to me that people in business can be told that a Syquest is like a floppy drive, and that's 44M. Where I work, this would be the point that I'd make - if you have a need for large capacity removable media, things like the Syquest (and for that matter optical disks) are available. On the other hand, this would go down ok because we have a lot of PCs with 720K drives. Someplace with only 1.4M drives may think differently. IMHO, in this age of lharcs and pkzips 1.4M is not that big a jump from .8M. It can be significant, but it's not as important as the jump from 170K or 360K to 720K or 880K. These things sort of taper off. > Colin. -- *** John Bickers, TAP, NZAmigaUG. jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz *** *** "Snake through the chaos with a smooth noodle map" - Devo ***
bruce@zuhause.MN.ORG (Bruce Albrecht) (01/09/91)
>In article <600@tronsbox.xei.com> tron1@tronsbox.xei.com (Kenneth Jamieson) writes: > That seems to be pretty accurate. No one wants to hear >anything bad about this machine. I mean I >OWN< the machine and I am >intimidated by the ferver here! In this case, it's not that nobody wants to hear anything bad, as much as we're tired of seeing the same people post essentially the same complaints month after month after month. > > The RANGE of colors needs updating much more than the number >of lines of resolution does. I mean , 24 bit will be nice, but it >would be ok to just get a REAL set of 256 that has a full 8 bit range. I think most of us would agree that the Amiga could be improved in this area, but posting misinformation coupled with slams on Commodore management will not improve Barrett's case. -- bruce@zuhause.mn.org
TAAB5@ccvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) (01/09/91)
In article <439.278981b1@vger.nsu.edu>, <manes@vger.nsu.edu> writes: >In article <1991Jan7.212330.1@ccvax.iastate.edu>, taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) writes: >> In article <17192@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes: >> [Lots deleted] >> In conclusion, the 32-bit Amiga chipset is a lot of work for Commodore's >> engineers because Commodore has so few of them. If Commodore had been >> spending at least the industry average of 7% of their sales on R&D all >> along (instead of 2.1%), Commodore would have had more engineers to work >> on the chipset, and the chipset might even be done by now. As it is, >> the chipset probably will not be available for at least another three years, >> if I correctly interpret the vague hints given by various Commodore >> engineers on CSA. >> > >Ah.. the Mongollian Horde concept. It worked for IBM why not Commodore? Actually, I am talking about the Japanese Horde concept, and it does work, at least for the Japanese. Have you ever wondered why all VCRs, all camcorders, all CD players, all laserdiscs, most TVs, and most computers are made in Japan? People in the U.S. have blamed it on cheap labor, but this is only a small part of the real reason. The real reason? Better engineering. Japanese companies put 2-3 times the engineering talent into their products as do American companies. The result: better products. Companies in other countries are catching onto this idea, and are putting putting more of their total sales into research and devlopment. Unfortunately, companies in the U.S. have yet to learn this idea, especially companies like Commodore. It is fortunate that very few U.S. companies are as bad as Commodore in this respect, though, or we'd be in *REALLY* bad shape! As for IBM, the mainframe market is totally dominated by IBM, precisely because IBM spends quite a lot on R&D. IBM is one of the few U.S. companies that are still highly respected in Japan, precisely because IBM is one of the few U.S. companies that have caught onto the concept of putting a lot of money (as a percentage of total sales) into R&D. BTW, over half of IBM's R&D budget goes into long-range scientific R&D -- research that may not pay off for 50 years or more, if at all. A lot of research at IBM is on things like superconductivity, nanotechnology, and other research that does not turn short-term profits. By comparison, ALL research at Commodore is very short-term, precisely because Commodore's managers are more worried about short-term profits then long-term strength. > >(smile) > > >> >>>-- >>>Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" >>> {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy >>> "Don't worry, 'bout a thing. 'Cause every little thing, >>> gonna be alright" -Bob Marley >> >> >> -MB- > ^^^^ > (There is no cure) > > > -mark= > > +--------+ ================================================== > | \/ | Mark D. Manes "Mr. AmigaVision" > | /\ \/ | manes@vger.nsu.edu > | / | (804) 683-2532 "Make up your own mind! - AMIGA" > +--------+ ================================================== -MB-
rjc@wookumz.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) (01/09/91)
In article <41220@nigel.ee.udel.edu> TAAB5@ccvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) writes: > > >> > Japanese companies put 2-3 times the engineering talent into their >products as do American companies. The result: better products. Companies >in other countries are catching onto this idea, and are putting putting >more of their total sales into research and devlopment. Unfortunately, >companies in the U.S. have yet to learn this idea, especially companies >like Commodore. It is fortunate that very few U.S. companies are as >bad as Commodore in this respect, though, or we'd be in *REALLY* bad >shape! > > As for IBM, the mainframe market is totally dominated by IBM, precisely >because IBM spends quite a lot on R&D. IBM is one of the few U.S. >companies that are still highly respected in Japan, precisely because >IBM is one of the few U.S. companies that have caught onto the concept >of putting a lot of money (as a percentage of total sales) into R&D. >BTW, over half of IBM's R&D budget goes into long-range scientific R&D -- >research that may not pay off for 50 years or more, if at all. A lot of >research at IBM is on things like superconductivity, nanotechnology, >and other research that does not turn short-term profits. By comparison, >ALL research at Commodore is very short-term, precisely because >Commodore's managers are more worried about short-term profits then >long-term strength. Tell me marc, how do you know so much about the Japanese culture and what American companies they respect if any. How do you know ALL Commodore research is 'very short-term'? You don't work for Commodore. How do you know what Commodore managers are thinking? Sometimes I wonder if you have any intelligence at all. You see one little press release on a promotion and some lay offs, then make BROAD SWEEPING IGNORANT conclusions on things you know nothing about making yourself look like a total idiot. Then after 3 or 4 posts telling about the new newsgroups, especially comp.sys.amiga.advocacy, you continue to post these messages to comp.sys.amiga. You have no idea what your talking about as shown by your 'Atari Lynx has Amiga custom chips' and your 'Commodore is cutting R&D' qwhen in fact, I heard that Andy Finkel said they just hired 3 new engineers, and layed-off no one. Please, please keep your posts out of Comp.sys.amiga and redirect your drivel to the appropriate group. >> >>(smile) >> >> >>> >>>>-- >>>>Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" >>>> {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy >>>> "Don't worry, 'bout a thing. 'Cause every little thing, >>>> gonna be alright" -Bob Marley >>> >>> >>> -MB- >> ^^^^ >> (There is no cure) >> >> >> -mark= >> >> +--------+ ================================================== >> | \/ | Mark D. Manes "Mr. AmigaVision" >> | /\ \/ | manes@vger.nsu.edu >> | / | (804) 683-2532 "Make up your own mind! - AMIGA" >> +--------+ ================================================== > > > -MB-
jonka@microsoft.UUCP (Jonathan KAGLE) (01/11/91)
In article <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu> taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu writes: [...] > In conclusion, I feel that Commodore has fallen so for behind in their >R&D that they will probably never catch up. Commodore has never been >a company that produces innovative new technologies, and very likely never >will be. Commodore is a 'catch-up' company that is forever trying to >catch up with the rest of the industry, to avoid going out of business >altogether, and will likely always be this way. > > AMIGA -- YESTERDAY'S TECHNOLOGY, FOREVER!!! I guess you're right, Commodore is way behind-- doomed, it appears. Other computer companies provide far better technology at lower prices. From the looks of your recent postings, you'll probably be selling your Amiga soon and buying a PC compatible or a NeXT. Amigas certainly aren't interesting anymore. Goodbye Marc, -Jonathan