lgreen@pnet01.cts.com (Lawrence Greenwald) (05/13/89)
If this has already been posted, my apologies.
The following article was published in "Government Computer News" in its
May 1 edition (page 81). It is reproduced here without permission of the
publishers of GCN (you think I'm gonna bother with such trivialities??)
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"Amiga Finds Friends in Federal Offices" by Rick Vizachero, GCN Staff
PHILADELPHIA - Following in the footsteps of the Macintosh, but with
substantially more PC compatibility and UNIX coming along, the Commodore
Amiga has established a beachhead in federal agencies.
Keith Masavage, product manager for Commodore Business Machines
Inc., West Chester, Pa., said in an interview with GCN at the National
Computer Graphics Association show late last month that NASA in Houston,
the Library of Congress and the National Park Service all have major deals
with Commodore for Amigas.
Amigas, with models using Motorola 68000 or 68020 microprocessors
along with custom chips for sound, graphics and animation, have become
popular professional design and graphics computers because of the level of
color graphics and multitasking delivered for the price, Masavage said.
NASA is the current major federal user of Amigas, he said. The
space agency uses Amigas for computer-aided design, solid modeling,
simulation, graphics design and desktop publishing, among other
applications, Masavage said.
The Library of Congress recently completed a deal to use the
machines as workstations to access optical disks that catalog library
holdings. The library will also use Amigas to overlay graphics onto video
for productions to be shown in a traveling exhibition, Masavage said.
The Park Service will be putting Amigas at the heart of interactive
video information kiosks, he said.
The Amiga 2000, using the 68000 microprocessor, and the 2500 model,
using the 68020, have industry-standard XT and AT bus slots. XT and AT
coprocessor boards with Intel microprocessorsand ROM BIOS chips from
Pheonix Technologies Ltd. in Norwood, Mass., are available to let the Amiga
run MS-DOS as well as the multitasking AmigaDOS.
Along with many graphics and design application programs,
mainstream office packages such as WordPerfect and clones of Lotus 1-2-3
have sprung up for AmigaDOS. More than 700 packages are available for
AmigaDOS, a Commodore statement said.
Masavage said the Amiga's ability to run native MS-DOS amd use PC
expansion cards has helped the computer move into government.
The Amiga is on the General Services Administration schedule thru
dealers who sell it, including ComputerLand in the Washington area,
Masavage said.
The Amiga 2000HD with 1M RAM, a 40M hard drive and monitor lists
for $2,999. An Amiga 2500 with 3M RAM, a 40M hard drive and monitor lists
for $4,699.
The 8088-based XT expansion card lists for $799. The 80286-based AT
expansion card lists for $1,599.
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Your tax dollars at work...
P.S. Is Monty Saine? How the heck do I know...I only see him once a month
at SDAUG and SDADS meetings!!
Larry Greenwald
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