lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (03/18/90)
In <1990Mar19.045610.3508@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>, es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) writes: >In article <5830@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM> brianr@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM (Brian E Rhodefer) writes: >>Recently, and from time to time, people lament Commodore's >> >>1) Hire Lotus to run their (allegedly recoded-in-C) 1-2-3 >> spreadsheet program through an Amiga compiler. > > Although I don't know a company, Gail Wellington directly >implied that there is a major company producing for the Amiga. This >was during her keynote address at AmiExpo DC. Someone on Bix (can't remember who), reported that a headhunter representing Lotus, called him asking for leads to knowledgeable Amiga programmers. -larry -- Entomology bugs me. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
brianr@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM (Brian E Rhodefer) (03/19/90)
Recently, and from time to time, people lament Commodore's feeble advertising campaigns. I can't say how effective the pre-Christmas media barrage was in generating sales, but I remember hearing that Commodore spent several millions of dollars on the effort. Given the enormous costs of advertising, it might just be cheaper to eliminate the main objections many people have against buying an Amiga: lack of a commercial-quality spreadsheet, and lack of WYSIWYG-capable document preparation. It would be interesting if Commodore could afford a little experiment: take the same amount of money, and: 1) Hire Lotus to run their (allegedly recoded-in-C) 1-2-3 spreadsheet program through an Amiga compiler. 2) Accelerate the implementation of outline-style fonts and printer drivers so that Amiga WP products could produce decent output without writing their own printer-specific drivers. 3) Develop a cheap but effective office networking scheme, a la AppleTalk. Maybe item #2 would be too expensive, but I bet that #1 could have been done for less money than Commodore spent on the print ads, and would have generated more sales. Brian Rhodefer
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (03/19/90)
In article <5830@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM> brianr@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM (Brian E Rhodefer) writes: >Recently, and from time to time, people lament Commodore's > >1) Hire Lotus to run their (allegedly recoded-in-C) 1-2-3 > spreadsheet program through an Amiga compiler. Although I don't know a company, Gail Wellington directly implied that there is a major company producing for the Amiga. This was during her keynote address at AmiExpo DC. > >2) Accelerate the implementation of outline-style fonts > and printer drivers so that Amiga WP products could > produce decent output without writing their > own printer-specific drivers. Compugraphic is going to be in 1.4, although how strongly it will be implemented is in question. Supposedly it will not be implemented very flexibly as of 1.4, but that is because they won't have a chance to make it better, at least not by the time 1.4 is released. > >3) Develop a cheap but effective office networking scheme, > a la AppleTalk. Commodore is developing Ethernet and Novell. That is public knowledge. > >Brian Rhodefer -- Ethan Ethan Solomita: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu Compu$erve : 70137,3271 Anyone giving away Amigas or Sharp Scanners??? "I'm a politician. I lie and steal. When I'm not kissing babies I'm stealing their lollipops" -- Red October (probably mungled) "If Commodore had to market sushi they'd call it `raw cold fish'" -- The Bandito, inevitably stolen from someone else
swarren@convex.com (Steve Warren) (03/19/90)
In article <5830@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM> brianr@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM (Brian E Rhodefer) writes: [...] >It would be interesting if Commodore could afford a little >experiment: take the same amount of money, and: > >1) Hire Lotus to run their (allegedly recoded-in-C) 1-2-3 > spreadsheet program through an Amiga compiler. [...] I think the expense here is not the recompiling effort, which would be a minor one-shot expense. The big expense is in packaging, distribution, inventory control (new products must be incorporated into inventory) and support. So the publishers of Lotus would have to figure out what the total expense would be of adding this product, and balance that against expected revenues, including any premium CBM might offer as an added incentive. I'm not saying it's a lost cause, but I think it would be much more complicated than simply paying for the porting effort. Cheers, -- --Steve ------------------------------------------------------------------------- {uunet,sun}!convex!swarren; swarren@convex.COM
ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) (03/20/90)
In article <5830@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM> brianr@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM (Brian E Rhodefer) writes: >Recently, and from time to time, people lament Commodore's >feeble advertising campaigns. I can't say how effective >the pre-Christmas media barrage was in generating sales, >but I remember hearing that Commodore spent several millions >of dollars on the effort. > >Given the enormous costs of advertising, it might just be cheaper >to eliminate the main objections many people have against buying >an Amiga: lack of a commercial-quality spreadsheet, and lack of >WYSIWYG-capable document preparation. > [ says how Lotus 1-2-3 and outline fonts would be supported ] Sorry, I don't think that's the problem. I think the problem that must be addressed has nothing whatever to do with technical merit or available applications. I recently overheard a story about a video production package proposed to a major TV network. It was wonderful, it was low-cost, it was high-quality, it was easy to use, and it used Amigas; and if the Amiga doesn't excel at video and graphics, nothing does. The official response: "Hey, it's great! Too bad it's an Amiga. We'd buy it if it were a Mac." I personally don't know what could be done. It's image perception. Maybe if the Amiga were bought by HP, and re-introduced as the HP Power Video Workstation, running a new WB revision that doesn't look like AmigaDOS 1.3, people might re-examine it on it's own merit. And maybe the open-minded video graphics companies that buy Amiga-based solutions will under-bid and out-perform the closed-minded PC/Mac- minded companies to the extent that they're driven out of business. There's hope, I think, but it won't come soon and it won't be easy. Look how many years ago Japannese cars were considered cheap toys, and now today the Lexus and Infiniti are respected luxury cars...
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (03/20/90)
In article <1279@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes: >Someone on Bix (can't remember who), reported that a headhunter representing >Lotus, called him asking for leads to knowledgeable Amiga programmers. > That sounds great! It sounded like Gail was implying Microsoft, no matter how improbable that might be. Imagine what will happen if both Lotus makes for the Amiga AND the next OS is called 2.0: AmigaWorld will never finish gloating! >-larry > >-- >Entomology bugs me. >+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ >| // Larry Phillips | >| \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | >| COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | >+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ -- Ethan Ethan Solomita: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu Compu$erve : 70137,3271 Anyone giving away Amigas or Sharp Scanners??? "If Commodore had to market sushi they'd call it `raw cold fish'" -- The Bandito, inevitably stolen from someone else NewTek says, "if you are waiting for the toaster, get your bread ready." Well, I say my bread is now stale so they'd better be making a microwave!
a186@mindlink.UUCP (Harvey Taylor) (03/21/90)
In <5830@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM>, brianr@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM
(Brian E Rhodefer) writes:
: Recently, and from time to time, people lament Commodore's
:feeble advertising campaigns. [...]
:
: 3) Develop a cheap but effective office networking scheme,
: a la AppleTalk.
You may recall a couple of weeks ago I was asking about a cheap
serial network for the Amiga. I have the school teaching friend who
wants to network 14 Amigas.
I received an encouraging reply from Doug Walker to the effect that
Matt had said something like this was possible, with the right cable.
I fired off some mail to Matt Dillon asking about the feasibility
of this & eventually, got a reply that the problem was the serial port
chips.
Meanwhile I had started reading up on Networks myself & came up with
a couple of relevant magazine articles.
Byte, October/1981, Page 50: Ultra-Low-Cost Network for Personal
Computers by Ken Clements & Dave Daugherty
Circuit Cellar, April/May/1989, Page 46: Creating a Network-based
Embedded Controller by Jeff Bachiochi
This last reference shows how to use a 75176 (Differential Bus
Transceiver RS-485) with a garden variety serial port. ie it solves
[for up to 32 nodes] the problem of overloading the serial chips which
Matt Dillon mentioned.
Now the thing I wonder about is the DNET code. I have poked around in
the DNET source, although I am not all that conversant in C, and I don't
see anything resembling Collision Detection. It seems to me that if I
put 15 A500s on an ULCNet, they are quickly going to hang with garbage
generated by collisions.
Could someone more conversant with the DNET particulars comment on
this, please.
<-Harvey
"Now, more than ever, it is evident that `good taste' only refers to
that which reinforces the status quo." -Andre Peret
Harvey Taylor Meta Media Productions
uunet!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink!Harvey_Taylor
a186@mindlink.UUCPfiddler@concertina.Sun.COM (Steve Hix) (03/28/90)
In article <19478@grebyn.com>, ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) writes: > In article <5830@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM> brianr@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM (Brian E Rhodefer) writes: > >Recently, and from time to time, people lament Commodore's > >feeble advertising campaigns. I can't say how effective > > Sorry, I don't think that's the problem. I think the problem > that must be addressed has nothing whatever to do with technical merit > or available applications. [...deleted...] > There's hope, I think, but it won't come soon and it won't be > easy. Look how many years ago Japannese cars were considered cheap > toys, and now today the Lexus and Infiniti are respected luxury cars... The first Japanese imports *were* cheap. Some of them very unreliable. But they learned from their mistakes, improved their engineering skills, outmanufactured overyone else,... The Lexus and Infiniti are a completely different kettle of fish. They look nice, perform well, and are *well supported*. That last is as important, if not more so, than all the rest. ------------ "...Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded..." Plato, _Phaedrus_
rob@cos.com (Rob Clark) (03/29/90)
In article <5830@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM>, brianr@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM (Brian E Rhodefer) writes: > ... > Given the enormous costs of advertising, it might just be cheaper > to eliminate the main objections many people have against buying > an Amiga: lack of a commercial-quality spreadsheet, and lack of > WYSIWYG-capable document preparation. This is it! In the recent Amiga vs. Mac vs. whatever flames, people have been saying: "I can't understand why people would buy a Mac Plus....". The reason is: It probably has the right software for their needs. It has Excel and WingZ, for example. Whatever the deficiencies the Amiga may have, they are certainly no greater than those of any Mac, it's just that the support isn't there to get the Amiga where it should be. > > > 1) Hire Lotus to run their (allegedly recoded-in-C) 1-2-3 > spreadsheet program through an Amiga compiler. > Or Excel for Amiga, anybody? I suppose the problem is: How do you a get major s/w producers interested in the Amiga? With the exception of Word Perfect, I can't think of any other PC/Mac s/w biggies working on the Amiga. Apple generated support for the Macintosh, so why can't Commodore? ... > > > Brian Rhodefer -Rob-