espie@ibis.Stanford.EDU (Marc Espie) (12/07/90)
There has been an ongoing ``discussion'' about bad programming,
copy-protection and other subjects. I don't specifically want to argue
on these things, this is the reason why I don't post this as a
follow-up.
I'm currently in the US, but I've been living in France till this
year. There are some things I had to live with which you probably
aren't aware of.
First of all, european spirit about piracy is far away from US spirit.
As far as I know, this is not an unsignifiant portion of french amiga
users who are pirates, but many of them. There are many reasons for
that. This is partly a cultural question. People may realise it is
thievery, but they don't care... From my point of view, the
north-american culture has some odd quirks too :-) This gives a
justification for copy-protection. Most of the games get cracked sooner
or later (there are some bad-luck cases where a hacked-up version
appears before the release), but it usually takes a month or so. This
is this month which justify the protections, the biggest part of a
``typical game'' sales-figure occurs during this month.( I don't like
copy-protections either. From my point of view, this is a bad
justification)
Second point, some people are growing up and being responsible... I
have seen some pirate versions which say: if you like this game, go and
buy it. and some people do ! I, personnally, had a pirate version of
Populous for two days. I just went out and bought it. The problem with
this kind of attitude is that software companies still expect people to
be stupid. Why would you want to buy a program which is BUGGY, doesn't
recognize your memory expansion, and costs lots of money ? There is a
natural sort which is beginning to happen. People are getting hacked-up
programs, test them, and buy what they need and, most importantly, what
*works*. I am not sure of the extent of this, I just hope I'm not doing
wishful thinking. (DISCLAIMER: I'm not a pirate. I use my amiga mostly
for programming. I've bought Lattice C, 4 or 5 games, and use hundreds
of PD programs. Most of the games I bought, like populous or indiana
jones, are good games for the price I paid for them. I also happen to
like 3d-demos... I stumble quite often upon pirates material, I can't
help it.)
Third point, there is a very basic reason for the way people program
the amiga here in Europe. they don't get the technical documentation.
I've seen the RKMs cost something like $30 each around here ? Well,
DOUBLE that price for France (importation material). That begins to
become expensive, doesn't it ? Add to that the fact that *many* people
don't read english (impossible ? No, quite reasonnable... how many of
you read chinese ? or indian ? so few ? Hey, you're cutting yourself
from half the people in the WORLD !). and there is NO french
translation of the ROM Kernel. Add to it that many people don't even
know there is a RKM... There are maybe three or four shops in France
where you can buy it (France is a small country ? ok, but there
60,000,000 persons here. Crowded, according to US standards !). On
the other hands, you find bad french books... which do mostly dirty
things, like busy-waiting and accessing the hardware directly.
Furthermore, the amiga didn't really catch-up in France. About 3/4 of
these books are translated from the german. Queer...
This is not quite all. The same price problem occurs for american
software. A few knowledgeable users know how to mail-order from the US
directly. The rest has to deal with incompetent dealers, which (won't
say ``who'' here) propose them outdated versions for an exhorbitant
price. So this is no great wonder most would-be programmers were using
the Kseka assembler (pile of crap) some two years ago, and nobody knows
anything about PD C-Compilers... So don't wonder so many europeans
demos don't even work on an NTSC Amiga... (I don't want to give them
an excuse. Just some piece of information.)
The situation might get better as people start upgrading to 2000 and
3000. but... French prices are about the DOUBLE of american prices.
Example ? a basic 3000 costs 30000f, which is something like MORE than
$5000. And there is NO educational price to speak of (as far as I
know... I left France three months ago).
I don't want just to be a critic. I think some things might be done.
First of all, Commodore might get a contract to get the RKM translated
in French/German, other languages (speaking for my own friends, here).
This might be expensive, especially since they can't expect to get any
$$ here. But... think of the reputation. Many programs made in Europe
are broken, won't ever be able to run with AmigaDOS2.0. This might be
slow-mo, but *if* people know why they're doing wrong, they might get
careful.
There is a second, most unexpensive thing to do. Add something like 10
pages to every documentation distributed with every amiga, explaining
what you can do if you want to be OS-friendly, and what you can't...
(like the first pages of the RKM). SAY EVERYTHING. Be technical when
necessary, tell people that you ARE technical. The average user won't
read it. The would-be programmer will remember it is here, and won't
break the OS for the sake of it. Also, if you do it carefully, you
might be able to change the point of view of Joe User. Make
badly-written programs look BAD. Make Joe realize that recognizing a
second-floppy, or a memory-expansion is EASY, and there is NO EXCUSE
for not doing it. Of course, WRITE THESE PAGES IN FRENCH, GERMAN, or
any other local language (russian, chinese :-)). Once again, this
doesn't give you any money, but this has a big potential effect.
Now for the answers: please don't flame me. I'm trying to be
reasonnable here, and I will answer to reasonnable questions, comments
(cookies, honey, ...:-) ). This is a partial picture of the situation,
which is obviously not complete and/or accurate. Feel free to add, but
do not save net bandwidth. I will post a summary/followup of
interesting things I will receive. (I most certainly have made some
grammar mistakes... Don't post rectifications, email them to me !)
If other people from other countries have further comments (what is the
situation in your home country ?), that surely can be interesting.
If you think my ``solution'' is not a good one, propose another one...
This is just a starting point, I am none too good at finding solutions.
Marc
--
espie@flamingo.stanford.edu, espie@dmi.ens.fr
Progris riport 1:
thee miga masheen is not sellin as well as
forcasted.jnmoyne@lbl.gov (Jean-Noel MOYNE) (12/07/90)
Quite good overview of the problem, but I believe one should
pinpoint a little more at least one aspect: the price in France are more
like 3 times the American prices. France is an expensive country, and
that's also true for computers. Amigas are cheaper in Germany, Belgium,
and UK (at least). And then again, most of the young people buying Amigas
in France are students, and don't have a lot of money.
Why do you believe that CBM is selling so much A500 in Europe ? Not
because Europeans are only using Amigas as a Nintendo and for doing small
poor programs ! Because they are the cheapest ones ! One year ago, an
Amiga 500 with 1 Mega of RAM (i.e. w/o external drive or monitor) was
about $1000 in most of the shops in Paris. You had only a very few places
where you could buy the set of RKMs, and earlier (maybe 2 years ago) one
of the only places where you could find the RKM was selling the RKM lib. &
devs. for around $100. (And the worst is that you know that it's a rip-off
since you can see the American price tag of $28 printed on the cover).
So when the average guys has enough in his savings to buy an
Amiga, he buys it, and then he doesn't have any money to spend on
software. And if he saves money again it's spare it for buying the
hardware he really needs (you buy your Amiga, then spare for 6 mounths for
the memory extension, then here comes XMas time and if you're lucky you'll
have enough for a second floppy, and then you look at the price of a HD
(the A590 used to be $1000 when it went out) aso ... ). That's the way you
end up having certified Amiga developpers actually writing code and making
programs on a A500 with 2 drives and 1 Meg.
It's not an excuse for pirating, but it helps to understand why
there's so much piracy in Europe, and the attitude people have towards it.
At the same time, sometimes programs won't work with a heavy hardware
configuration not because the programmer used dirty programming, but
because he never had any chance to try his program on such a
configuration. One of my programs wasn't working with a 68020 or 68030
(clean programming, I was just using the Lattice C 5.00 at the time (-:
that's more than enough), since I was working on a 500 I couldn't know
about the bug.
The rest of the really dirty programming comes from the Commodore
64. Yes, a lot of people who have an Amiga now had a C64 before in Europe.
This is especially true in Germany. And the only way to program a C64 is
to program dirty, but then you could get really a lot out of the C64's
chips. When all these guys who where puting sprites in the border on a C64
bought an Amiga, they saw it as a Super-Mega C64. They learned 68k asm
(which is like a structured programming language in front of the 6502
asm), saw the price of the RKM libs.&devs. and bought the RKM Hardware
ref. And they began to program the RKM Hardware ref in one hand, and the
k-seka assembler on the screen (a real P.O.S. I can't understand somebody
can use this stuff, even on the C64 we had better!).
Sure Multitasking was interesting, but it sounded and looked a
little boring, and boy ! This copper thing is marvelous (C64 guys are
allways interested by raster ints, the nicest thing the C64 was doing).
All these guys where programming mainly on a stock A500 (or
A1000) with sometimes 2 drives and usually no memory extension (1 drive
and 512k is all you need to program with the k-seka). I don't try to
excuse them, I just try to explain why they are doing so. They where I
should say. In addition you should understand that a guy programming a
game in Europe knows that the great majority of people who will buy and
use the game won't have anything like a 68020 or a HD.
And now, I'd like to say it's a little time to stop this European
Bashing we see here on the net, that's unfair ! You have a lot of
Europeans programmers who make clean programs, 'european style' has become
an expression to say dirty programming. The prices are going down in
Europe now (but are still more expensive than here) and as people will
have other configurations, the programs will work on these configurations.
As developpers have better configurations, they will hopefully write
programs that will work on their own develpmt machine.
I don't believe too much in methods and solutions to try to
change that, Commodore is now offering labs with all sort of Amiga models
where developpers can go and try their programs. On the other hand there
are still a lot of books you buy to learn how to program the Amiga that
will teach you dirty programming. I've seen some of these books (mainly
from Data Becker which is the main publisher for Amiga literature) where
on the floppy disk given with the book you have 2 versions of the example
program, one for 1.2 and the other one for 1.3 .... why ? The program does
direct jumps in the ROM... draw your own conclusions...
JNM
for(i=0;i>0;)
printf("I know, my American is awfull!\n");
--
These are my own ideas (not LBL's)
" Just make it!", BO in 'BO knows Unix'U3364521@ucsvc.ucs.unimelb.edu.au (Lou Cavallo) (12/07/90)
G'day,
{This is *long* ... quit now or forever hold your peace. :-)}
Marc Espie (espie@ibis.Stanford.EDU) writes:
* There has been an ongoing ``discussion'' about bad programming,
* [...]
*
* I've seen the RKMs cost something like $30 each around here ? Well,
* DOUBLE that price for France (importation material). That begins to
That's my experience here in Australia but as they are in English the
accessability language wise is no problem. They are expensive.
I do not think Australian programmers have any reputation for ``bad''
programming practices.
* [...]
* I don't want just to be a critic. I think some things might be done.
* First of all, Commodore might get a contract to get the RKM translated
* in French/German, other languages (speaking for my own friends, here).
I hope that CBM can do this. It may indeed be part of it's strategy
even now but perhaps they are not telling us.
Perhaps Dr. Peter Kittel (I hope I remember your name correctly) can
comment on the German perspective, for example?
I believe that at least one CBM product, AmigaVision, will have some
internalisation added to it. Perhaps CBM technical documentation is
just as important?
* [...]
* There is a second, most unexpensive thing to do. Add something like 10
* pages to every documentation distributed with every amiga, explaining
* what you can do if you want to be OS-friendly, and what you can't...
* (like the first pages of the RKM). SAY EVERYTHING. Be technical when
* necessary, tell people that you ARE technical. The average user won't
* read it. The would-be programmer will remember it is here, and won't
* break the OS for the sake of it. Also, if you do it carefully, you
* might be able to change the point of view of Joe User. Make
* badly-written programs look BAD. Make Joe realize that recognizing a
* second-floppy, or a memory-expansion is EASY, and there is NO EXCUSE
* for not doing it. Of course, WRITE THESE PAGES IN FRENCH, GERMAN, or
* any other local language (russian, chinese :-)). Once again, this
* doesn't give you any money, but this has a big potential effect.
I really like that idea and it in fact reminds me of some tips that I
recall seeing in the "monthly" posting to comp.sys.amiga.tech by CBM
CATS employees.
* [...]
* If other people from other countries have further comments (what is the
* situation in your home country ?), that surely can be interesting.
I have met *one* self professed cracker, he claimed to be an ex-member
of a known `Pirating' (well cracking/distributor) group. His attitude
wrt this activity seemed to be of great respect for the programming in
this sphere of activities. Assembler programming was important (and I
believe his first language, he was learning C). {I'm reporting this as
a `dis-interested' bystander. I suspected on a personal level that he
was the type who would proceed to better programming practices and I'm
of the opinion that he was a very competent type.}
As will be no doubt the norm every where most Australian programmers I
have met .. or contacted electronically..seem to be so called ``good''
programmers in that they spout RKM calls with ease. :-)
* If you think my ``solution'' is not a good one, propose another one...
* This is just a starting point, I am none too good at finding solutions.
No, in fact, I urge this discussion to proceed and try to determine a
list of suggestions that may perhaps be presented to various CBM arms,
such as representatives for the various international CBM headquarters
world wide.
I suggest that your idea of a `legal coding style guide' is as useful
in English as for any other language and should not be overlooked for
English speaking countries either.
* Marc
* espie@flamingo.stanford.edu, espie@dmi.ens.fr
Two last comments to offer to this (long, sorry!) followup.
1. What sort of/how good is the User group support overseas? {It is
possible to borrow programming books here in Australia. Dare one
say in fact that CBM Aus tech support is not as good as it could
be, apparently. Programming self help groups are popular here, I
believe (IMHO).}
2. What does Apple {AH, HANG HIM I HEAR THEM SAY! Sorry :-)} do to
promote their own form of programming advice? I believe that it
is apochryphal (sp?) wrt how important the coding style/practice
of Mac applications is to Apple. {Please Mac or Amiga fans I am
not trying to start *another* religious war. If you wish to post
a flame try alt.computers.religion which I do read/post to.}
I've finally found a thread to participate in that is *NOT* one of
the "NeXT vs Godzilla" or "Hitler was a net.hacker.badguy" type.
:-)
yours truly,
Lou Cavallo.U3364521@ucsvc.ucs.unimelb.edu.au (Lou Cavallo) (12/07/90)
G'day, Jean-Noel MOYNE (jnmoyne@lbl.gov ) writes: > [...] > where developpers can go and try their programs. On the other hand there > are still a lot of books you buy to learn how to program the Amiga that > will teach you dirty programming. I've seen some of these books (mainly > from Data Becker which is the main publisher for Amiga literature) where > on the floppy disk given with the book you have 2 versions of the example > program, one for 1.2 and the other one for 1.3 .... why ? The program does > direct jumps in the ROM... draw your own conclusions... Perhaps Commodore should write and have published (in various languages) a series of "How to program the Amiga" _texts_ from the beginner to advanced levels? I know I'd buy some of them. {Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against the RKM's but they are references no? _I_ prefer to mix my learning with a balance of text book and reference manual learning. My first programming "text" was a reference manual (my friends sold it to me in disgust as they could not understand it. I used that book a lot! :-)} In fact what I'd most like to see (but never expect to) is a CBM seal of approval for other publishers' Amiga texts and reference manuals. Sort of like the "this software is AmigaDOS 2.x compatible" stickers. :-) > JNM > > for(i=0;i>0;) > printf("I know, my American is awfull!\n"); Perhaps you you should check the warranty on your American. Perhaps the faulty parts him/her are replaceable? :-) yours truly, Lou Cavallo.
peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) (12/07/90)
In article <1990Dec6.201824.13502@Neon.Stanford.EDU> espie@ibis.Stanford.EDU (Marc Espie) writes: > >Third point, there is a very basic reason for the way people program >the amiga here in Europe. they don't get the technical documentation. >I've seen the RKMs cost something like $30 each around here ? Well, >DOUBLE that price for France (importation material). That begins to >become expensive, doesn't it ? Add to that the fact that *many* people >don't read english (impossible ? No, quite reasonnable... how many of >you read chinese ? or indian ? so few ? Hey, you're cutting yourself >from half the people in the WORLD !). and there is NO french >translation of the ROM Kernel. This IS a real problem. We tried to make up a German version of the RKMs in cooperation with Addison-Wesley. The first attempt failed totally. They had some programmers hired that knew a little (but only a little) about the Amiga and nothing about German orthography. They simply explained some functions doing the reverse thing than they actually do. - Don't know what the actual status is, should ask them... > Add to it that many people don't even >know there is a RKM... There are maybe three or four shops in France >where you can buy it (France is a small country ? ok, but there >60,000,000 persons here. Crowded, according to US standards !). Oh, that's a little different here in Germany. You already find the RKMs and other Amiga literature in every better technically oriented bookshop. (But what I never saw is that Bantam AmigaDOS book: Bantam has NO German subsidiary, only a very incompetent distributor.) > On >the other hands, you find bad french books... which do mostly dirty >things, like busy-waiting and accessing the hardware directly. >Furthermore, the amiga didn't really catch-up in France. About 3/4 of >these books are translated from the german. Queer... Yes, shame on us. Those are those Data Becker books (known as Abacus in US) teaching you just the wrong way. And also all the German Amiga magazines provide at least 50 % of their programming examples with bad, OS unfriendly code. One of them now is making fun by adding a disclaimer to such listings like that one found on cigarette boxes warning you about health risks, very funny :-(. - It's a simple fact that we are too few and have too little time to constantly bash on them and teach them the right way, sigh. (As far as I know there is not such a problem in the US, because their magazines don't publish listings at all? Or did I get something wrong here :-)?) >The situation might get better as people start upgrading to 2000 and >3000. but... French prices are about the DOUBLE of american prices. >Example ? a basic 3000 costs 30000f, which is something like MORE than >$5000. And there is NO educational price to speak of (as far as I >know... I left France three months ago). Well, prices are always astonishing me: While A500 and A2000 are cheaper here than in US, the A3000 is much more expensive. Don't know why, either for the former or the latter. >There is a second, most unexpensive thing to do. Add something like 10 >pages to every documentation distributed with every amiga, explaining >what you can do if you want to be OS-friendly, and what you can't... >(like the first pages of the RKM). SAY EVERYTHING. Be technical when >necessary, tell people that you ARE technical. The average user won't >read it. The would-be programmer will remember it is here, and won't >break the OS for the sake of it. Also, if you do it carefully, you >might be able to change the point of view of Joe User. Make >badly-written programs look BAD. Good point. We should think about it. -- Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions... Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk
peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) (12/07/90)
In article <1363@ucsvc.ucs.unimelb.edu.au> U3364521@ucsvc.ucs.unimelb.edu.au (Lou Cavallo) writes: > >Perhaps Commodore should write and have published (in various languages) a >series of "How to program the Amiga" _texts_ from the beginner to advanced >levels? Ah, I forgot something in my previous posting: Such a beast exists already but is only about two pages big, is found at the beginning of every RKM and in all the DevCon docs. One day I just translated this into German and spreaded it here to magazines, developers and dealers. Well, it even got printed in our biggest Amiga Magazin, but that was all, not much effect to see. As you perhaps see, we try at least... ("The crew that never rests", amen :-) From one of our registered developers I hear that he is just about to publish such a book in German! I tend to trust him, so that we perhaps can recommend this one to all the rest, let's hope! >In fact what I'd most like to see (but never expect to) is a CBM seal of >approval for other publishers' Amiga texts and reference manuals. >Sort of like the "this software is AmigaDOS 2.x compatible" stickers. Well, if YOU are willing to pay so much more for your next Amiga, that every country is able to hire another (wo)man to do these reviews, then perhaps. You see, I keep a (suspected not complete) list of all Amiga books published only in German language. This list fills already seven (or even 8?) pages. Who would be able to read and check all this? And all the monthly magazines? -- Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions... Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk
etxtomp@eos.ericsson.se (Tommy Petersson) (12/07/90)
In article <8442@dog.ee.lbl.gov> jnmoyne@lbl.gov (Jean-Noel MOYNE) writes:
-
- Quite good overview of the problem, but I believe one should
-pinpoint a little more at least one aspect: the price in France are more
-like 3 times the American prices. France is an expensive country, and
-that's also true for computers. Amigas are cheaper in Germany, Belgium,
-and UK (at least). And then again, most of the young people buying Amigas
-in France are students, and don't have a lot of money.
-
- Why do you believe that CBM is selling so much A500 in Europe ? Not
-because Europeans are only using Amigas as a Nintendo and for doing small
-poor programs ! Because they are the cheapest ones ! One year ago, an
-Amiga 500 with 1 Mega of RAM (i.e. w/o external drive or monitor) was
-about $1000 in most of the shops in Paris. You had only a very few places
The official retail price in Sweden is now about $1050 with 512kb RAM...
You can normally buy it for $800, which isn't cheap either. Not so long
ago a Commodore external disc drive cost $310... Amiga 2000 without everything
cost $2600. Atari 520 is much cheaper, $540 with several games, compared
to $800 bare. Lucky Commodore the Atari's are not only cheap when it comes
to money... The 3000 is more reasonably priced, about $5300.
Funny, in the "real business world" over here (Unix systems et.al), the
frase "American programming" stands for smart-coded, badly structured, sloppy
code...
[What happens if/when the Amiga is included in the real business world?]
Tommy Peterssondvljhg@cs.umu.se (J|rgen Holmberg) (12/08/90)
Hi all! The article I am responding to was just a tiny bit long :-). So here are my view on the subject. Peoples attitude towards piracy IS changing. Their wallet size isn't --> hence piracy will remain for a long while. About the messages asking you to buy pirated software you like. They would be a good thing if it wasn't for the fact that they are put in by those crackers in europe that are into organised selling of pirated software. They make big bucks out of illegal activities and then add that disclaimer. :-( About the price of the A3000. The price in sweden is more like $10000 for an A3000 25Mhz 100Mb Hd machine. Basically you can buy a '486 or '040 machine with any other OS cheaper. Add to this commodores reputation for nonexistant service and poor marketing and you will realize that A3000 doesn't stand a chance in sweden. I will still buy one in germany if I can afford it but the swedish market will not do so. Regards, Jorgen -- ******************************************************************************* email dvljhg@cs.umu.se - other ways to communicate are a waste of time. Everything I say is always true, just apply it to the right reality. "Credo, quia absurdum est."
U3364521@ucsvc.ucs.unimelb.edu.au (Lou Cavallo) (12/08/90)
G'day, Peter Kittel GERMANY (peterk@cbmger.UUCP ) writes: > Lou Cavallo (U3364521@ucsvc.ucs.unimelb.edu.au ) writes: > > [...good news from Peter, particularly about the German developed text...] > >>In fact what I'd most like to see (but never expect to) is a CBM seal of >>approval for other publishers' Amiga texts and reference manuals. >>Sort of like the "this software is AmigaDOS 2.x compatible" stickers. > > Well, if YOU are willing to pay so much more for your next Amiga, that > every country is able to hire another (wo)man to do these reviews, > then perhaps. You see, I keep a (suspected not complete) list of all > Amiga books published only in German language. This list fills already > seven (or even 8?) pages. Who would be able to read and check all > this? And all the monthly magazines? Yes, a strong point here (the need for $DM to pay for this). I hope it can happen one day. Now your last point suggests a job opportunity. Darn, if only I knew German! :-) > Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions... > Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk yours truly, Lou Cavallo.
etxtomp@eos.ericsson.se (Tommy Petersson) (12/10/90)
In article <1990Dec7.161251.27384@cs.umu.se> dvljhg@cs.umu.se (J|rgen Holmberg) writes:
-Hi all!
-
-The article I am responding to was just a tiny bit long :-). So here are my
-view on the subject. Peoples attitude towards piracy IS changing. Their
-wallet size isn't --> hence piracy will remain for a long while. About the
-messages asking you to buy pirated software you like. They would be a good
-thing if it wasn't for the fact that they are put in by those crackers in
-europe that are into organised selling of pirated software. They make big
-bucks out of illegal activities and then add that disclaimer. :-(
One problem is that many people have bought several lousy games for high
prices, and don't want to make that same mistake again. They start to get
pirated games, often made from buggy beta-versions, and won't buy "that
lousy software either". In several magazines, having a disc included (like
AmigaFormat), a demo version with a limited part of a game is included.
You can get a fair understanding of the game and how well it is done, and
decide if You want to buy it. I think this is the best way to go. Game
companies must be thought to plan for a demo version of a game. The normal
magazines couldn't then cope with the raized number of demos wanting to be
included on the disc, so this have to be handled in a way similar to the
Fish discs. It won't solve anything, but be a bit on the way.
-About the price of the A3000. The price in sweden is more like $10000 for
-an A3000 25Mhz 100Mb Hd machine. Basically you can buy a '486 or '040 machine
-with any other OS cheaper. Add to this commodores reputation for nonexistant
-service and poor marketing and you will realize that A3000 doesn't stand a
-chance in sweden. I will still buy one in germany if I can afford it but the
-swedish market will not do so.
I don't know if the A3000 will be that expensive in Sweden (discounts are
possible even in this country) but if You compare the prices for the other
machines it is possible. I think that it is the last two years that the
largest user poll in a big swedish computer magazine have had Commodore
in a rock bottom position on support and quality. They were in a class of
their own (something like 25% dis-satisfied customers compared to 12% for
second place). These figures were for Commodore PC support, which is at a
priority sky-high over Amiga support. It has even gone so far that Commodore
Sweden one day suddenly closed down and You only had an answering machine
saying something about 'reorganizing'. Sweden was made into a subsidary of
Norway (what a shame).
I beleive Commodore will have to keep a firmer grip on their daughter
companies in other countries, the same way as Apple do (they can make some
things right, they to).
-
-Regards, Jorgen
---
-*******************************************************************************
-email dvljhg@cs.umu.se - other ways to communicate are a waste of time.
-Everything I say is always true, just apply it to the right reality.
-"Credo, quia absurdum est."
Tommy Peterssonifarqhar@sunc.mqcc.mq.oz.au (Ian Farquhar) (12/12/90)
In article <1990Dec6.201824.13502@Neon.Stanford.EDU> espie@ibis.Stanford.EDU (Marc Espie) writes: >If other people from other countries have further comments (what is the >situation in your home country ?), that surely can be interesting. Well, I'll bite. I don't think many people in the US are quite aware of the software situation outside, and what follows is a compilation of my experiences with Australian software distributors. If any other Australians want to comment or correct, please feel free, but I doubt that there are people who have not had many of the experiences I relate below. The situation in Australia is this: Software costs between two and three times the US retail price. As such, buying software is a very expensive proposition. Software is also about three to six months behind, as it is shipped via sea-mail. For this massive outlay of money, you are supposed to get user support. The problem is that unless your problem is absolutely and completely trivial ("I am sorry Sir, you insert the disk in the disk drive, not into the power plug. A terrible oversight that we failed to mention this in the manual."), you will not get any help. Most local distributors have poor MS-DOS support, let alone Amiga support. When I once rang about an upgrade to a program (more on this later), I was asked if the Amiga was IBM compatible. Support from US distributors? Well, some are good (I will mention Innovatronics and Pixelations here as they are particularly good in my experience). However, most will simply refer you back to the local distributor, who is probably going to be useless anyway. BTW, don't forget that this is costing $2 per minute in phone charges, so every time they say "hold on while I transfer you to someone who may be able to help you" you can hear money gushing away. A US tech support person has never ever called me back, and I have spoken to several people who have had exactly the same experience. Upgrades? Rarely. There are certain packages I am still trying to upgrade. And if you have to do it through the US distributor, you have to pay in US currency, and it costs money for the currency conversion and bank draft. Besides, I have never once received an upgrade notice, or indeed any of the things that they promise when you send in your registration card. Anything upgrades they do send come via sea-mail, which can take weeks or months. Australia is often portrayed as a pirate centre, and this I would not deny. I am not supporting pirates, they are theives, but there is another side of the coin, and that is the distributors. I feel that I have been ripped off by them too. Disclaimer: My opinions are my own, and do not represent those of Macquarie University. -- Ian Farquhar Phone : 61 2 805-9404 Office of Computing Services Fax : 61 2 805-7433 Macquarie University NSW 2109 Also : 61 2 805-7205 Australia EMail : ifarqhar@suna.mqcc.mq.oz.au
JKT100@psuvm.psu.edu (JKT) (12/13/90)
In article <618@cbmger.UUCP>, peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) says: >... all the German >Amiga magazines provide at least 50 % of their programming examples >with bad, OS unfriendly code. One of them now is making fun by adding >a disclaimer to such listings like that one found on cigarette boxes >warning you about health risks, very funny :-(. - It's a simple fact >that we are too few and have too little time to constantly bash on >them and teach them the right way, sigh. (As far as I know there is >not such a problem in the US, because their magazines don't publish >listings at all? Or did I get something wrong here :-)?) > AmigaWorld is starting that new Tech Journal of theirs... Judging the above info, there may be a vast market for them to explore in Europe to increase circulation.... Kurt -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- || Kurt Tappe (215) 363-9485 || With. Without. And who'll || || 184 W. Valley Hill Rd. || deny it's what the fighting's || || Malvern, PA 19355-2214 || all about? - Pink Floyd || || jkt100@psuvm.psu.edu --------------------------------------|| || jkt100@psuvm.bitnet jkt100%psuvm.bitnet@psuvax1 QLink: KurtTappe || -----------------------------------------------------------------------
dvljhg@cs.umu.se (J|rgen Holmberg) (12/13/90)
In article <90346.213248JKT100@psuvm.psu.edu> JKT100@psuvm.psu.edu (JKT) writes: >In article <618@cbmger.UUCP>, peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) says: >>... all the German >>Amiga magazines provide at least 50 % of their programming examples >>with bad, OS unfriendly code. One of them now is making fun by adding >>a disclaimer to such listings like that one found on cigarette boxes >>warning you about health risks, very funny :-(. - It's a simple fact >>that we are too few and have too little time to constantly bash on >>them and teach them the right way, sigh. (As far as I know there is >>not such a problem in the US, because their magazines don't publish >>listings at all? Or did I get something wrong here :-)?) >> >AmigaWorld is starting that new Tech Journal of theirs... Judging >the above info, there may be a vast market for them to explore in >Europe to increase circulation.... > > Kurt Considering that many of the examples in german magazines are written by former demo coders I think you are fighting a losing battle when you try to make them write OS friendly. /Jorgen -- ******************************************************************************* email dvljhg@cs.umu.se - other ways to communicate are a waste of time. Everything I say is always true, just apply it to the right reality. "Credo, quia absurdum est."