rsilvers@hawk.ulowell.edu (Robert Silvers) (05/26/88)
In the latest issue of BYTE, a reader was asking Jerry Pournelle why
he was ignoring the Amiga. Jerry replied "The fact is that Atari takes
the trouble to see that I get most of the interesting third-party hardware
and software for its machines, and Commodore doesn't." He also said that
he just got an Amiga 2000, but it is a bare-bones system. Come on
Commadore! Send him a 68020 board and a fast hard disk! This guy has
been using IBM clones for years with a hard disk, how is he supposed to
be impressed with a floppy-based system? I know the issue of sending
Jerry some systems has been discussed before, but I just think that if
it is going to be done, it should be done now. It will be the best $4000.00
ever spent for the Amiga. Both cheaper and better then a magazine ad.
Are you listening Commadore?
Robert Silvers.
Box #1003 University of Lowell.
Lowell Ma, 01854
(617) 452-8823 Rm. 322 "Live free or live in Massachusetts." scott@applix.UUCP (Scott Evernden) (05/26/88)
In article <7234@swan.ulowell.edu> rsilvers@hawk.ulowell.edu (Robert Silvers) writes: > In the latest issue of BYTE, a reader was asking Jerry Pournelle why >he was ignoring the Amiga. ... He also said that >he just got an Amiga 2000, but it is a bare-bones system. ... Come on >Commadore! Send him a 68020 board and a fast hard disk! Don't bother. I have absolutely no respect for Jerry Pournelle's opinion. Do you really expect JP to sing Amiga praises in PC/Mac-only rags like Byte, InfoWorld, and wherever else he send his drivel? I see no reason to send him stuff just to stroke his ego. If he calls the Amiga junk because he doesn't get enough free stuff, then screw him. Commodore should send the goodies to Matt, or Leo, or Fred. -scott
barrett@ektools.UUCP (Chris Barrett) (05/27/88)
In article <7234@swan.ulowell.edu>, rsilvers@hawk.ulowell.edu (Robert Silvers) writes: > he was ignoring the Amiga. Jerry replied "The fact is that Atari takes > the trouble to see that I get most of the interesting third-party hardware > and software for its machines, and Commodore doesn't." He also said that I think this sound like payolla to me!!! Chris.
kent@xanth.cs.odu.edu (Kent Paul Dolan) (05/29/88)
In article <1249@ektools.UUCP> barrett@ektools.UUCP (Chris Barrett) writes: >In article <7234@swan.ulowell.edu>, rsilvers@hawk.ulowell.edu (Robert Silvers) writes: >> he was ignoring the Amiga. Jerry replied "The fact is that Atari takes >> the trouble to see that I get most of the interesting third-party hardware >> and software for its machines, and Commodore doesn't." He also said that > >I think this sound like payolla to me!!! > Not really, Chris. Jerry Pournell is not a computer heaviweight, but he has lots of experience, and big audience, and, however we feel about his treatment of the Amiga, his word carries a lot of weigh with the buying public. He isn't getting "payola," he just had to add a wing to his house to make room for all the computers. I'm sure what he needs is more desk space, not more computer hardware. Jerry is very representative of the user community, however. If what you have to show him doesn't work right out of the box, he isn't happy. His first impression of the Amiga was AmigaDOS 1.1, which would never have been released if Commodore weren't in such dire financial straits that the Amiga had to get out for the company to survive. He got a rotten impression, justifiably so, of a machine whose every other act was "Guru." Now, his working environment is full of networked, hard disk equipped, reasonably standard machines (PC-DOS or MS-DOS based), plus a few outliers, like Atari and Amiga. Unless the oddball machines have a lot special to offer, he's not going to spend a lot of time working on them to get them right; in particular, the Amiga he's working with better already have working multi-megabyte memory, a working hard disk easily partitioned and got going from following the documentation exactly, a nice feeling keyboard, an easy to read screen (Where is his large format monochrome monitor? The guy's been crying for easy to read type for several YEARS, if you want to get on his good side, just give him a screen he can read!), a bridge card and the fastest best add on boards available for the PC side, and rock solid operation. He earns his living writing; I'd be scared to death to have him doing the kind of "quasi-multitasking" he does on his clone machines with the Amiga; far too many times I've had a guru take the disk with it. Can you imagine what his column would look like if he lost a couple of days work to a disk trash problem on the Amiga? We're better off if he just plays games on the box, but if not, give him Word Perfect or what ever is a very good editor on the Amiga side, make sure his old friend Write! is on the PC side, make it a monster disk, and see if you can get a non-dongle version of Superbase or some other good database for him to keep accounts on, and dump the lot in his lap. Right now, the Amiga looks like a toy to him; OK, he's a representative consumer, make sure he has the good games programs, but also the good professional software, don't make him go looking for it. The things to notice are 1) every way we fail him, we fail the consumer market too; 2) every nice word he says about the Amiga translates directly into sales. If he were set up with a good enough system and set of software to really start to get hooked on real multitasking for his day to day work, he would probably manage to double the Amiga's sales before he was done, he has that much influence. I know his column is the first thing I read in Byte, every issue, because it is like an ongoing soap opera. Now, wouldn't it be worth sending someone there with _all_ the available and soon to be released stuff, to set it up and get it running _for_ him? Just to get him to stop slamming the Amiga would be a big market boost; let him realize what multitasking does for him (for heaven's sake, get him some of the good PD stuff, with paper docs of how it works, too; I wish he could try DNET out!) and start telling the world in his clear, widely read prose, and the Amiga will take off even faster than it has. Remember, he just has to fill a certain number of column inches of prose each month; the latest clone hot key program does that as well as the latest Amiga feature; he doesn't owe us a fair shake, we have to earn it and deserve it. Enough blathering, I hope someone in Commodore marketing notices this and finds the pearls among the verbiage; I tried to put some in there. ;-) Kent, the man from xanth.
tope@enea.se (Tommy Petersson) (05/30/88)
I think you need to give Mr. Pournelle a little more than a hard disk to impress him. Is the Video Toaster and the PVA board ready yet (enough to give one to Jerry)?
bakken@hrsw2.UUCP (David E. Bakken) (06/03/88)
In article <7234@swan.ulowell.edu>, rsilvers@hawk.ulowell.edu (Robert Silvers) writes: > > > > Come on > Commadore! Send him a 68020 board and a fast hard disk! And maybe install the FFS patch for floppys if it is stable enough - he mentioned somewhere that the floppys were fast. > Are you listening Commadore? > I hope so - unfortunately Pournelle's influence seems to be inversely proportional to his grasp of what multitasking and the Amiga in general can really do for him. -- Dave Bakken Boeing Commercial Airplanes (206) 277-2571 uw-beaver!apcisea!hrsw2!bakken Disclaimer: These are my own views, not those of my employers. Don't let them deter you from buying the 747 you've been saving hard for.