higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom SALES) (10/10/87)
in article <1102@omepd>, hah@mipon3.intel.com (Hans Hansen) says: > C O M M O D O R E > H A S W A S T E D M I L L I O N S D E V E L O P I N G A N i b m > H A R D W A R E C L O N E ! W H E R E A R E l o t u s 1 2 3, > d b a s e I I / I I I, s y m p h o n y, m s - w o r d, m s > p r o j e c t, f r a m e w o r k I I, w o r d s t a r, r : b a s e > 5 0 0 0, e t c , T H A T R U N U N D E R 'E X E C' A M I G A > N A T I V E ? I W I L L N E V E R B E A B L E T O R E P L A C E > T H A T O T H E R C O M P U T E R O N M Y D E S K A T W O R K > W I T H A N A M I G A U N T I L T H E S E P R O G R A M S R U N > N A T I V E O N T H E A M I G A ! You make it seem as if Commodore can wave its fingers and have those programs ported to the Amiga. Since 1985 Commodore has talked to the developers of ALL THOSE programs. Each of those successful companies has become more conservative and won't port to a machine unless it's "already established." What a terrible chicken-and-egg situation. Fortunately, WordPerfect Corp. had the forsight to see the Amiga's virtues, but apart from them, I assure you there's little we can do. And since we have little influence over those companies, we offer optional MS-DOS compatibility to make those programs run on Amigas. It is also important to note that many companies buying microcomputers, (and the Federeal Government) will not buy anything that does not run MS-DOS. So even if we had ported versions on the Amiga, that would not be sufficient. > The Amiga is not a toy, what it is is a business computer that can emulate > a toy! True. > It is a business computer that can be used for anything a creative > programmer can envision. And we wait patiently for the fruits of such programmers, wherever they may be. There's only so much we can do to stimulate software development. We have conferences, support programs, help out on usenet and bix, help these companies at shows... it's not like we're standing still. Also, the Mac AND the PC didn't have much in the way of software for 2 years, either. > IT IS A BUSINESS COMPUTER without any business software !!!!! This simply isn't true. WordPerfect, MaxiPlan (better than Lotus by far), DPaint (one of the best paint programs ever), Professional Page (out next month from Gold Disk, which independent reviewers have said is better than PageMaker and Ready-Set-Go), ExCad (faster and better CAD than most things on the PC), to name a few. Apologies to great products not mentioned. > What are you talking about?? The A1000 has a FEATURE *** YES A REAL > FEATURE *** that the others don't have. Commodore Marketing has > never understood the potential of the WRITEABLE CONTROL STORE ! > The ability to upgrade my 'firmware' by using a different boot disk is > so far superior to tearing my Amiga apart and replacing ROMs that I will > never, except under extream duress, replace the WCS with ROMs! I'm > not saying this because I'm not a hardware hacker or afraid to open > up my box, I was one of the Engineering techs at Amiga and also > finished the GenRad 2275 ATE test suite for the Zorro board. This is simply not true, either. Most people want to boot off hard disk, thus not requiring them to do anything in order to boot, except for turning the computer on. Most users don't care about the operating system at all, otherwise, how could so many MS-DOS machines have been sold? :-) > What you could have done is created a connector for > that board that could then be configured as 'FAST RAM' or a WCS! If you see that good a market for what you apparently think is such a simple product, market it! There's ALWAYS things a company would like to do, but they always have to prioritize them and do what resources permit. > What NEW product? You have repackaged the A1000 and stripped out a > very valuable piece of hardware. Oh I guess you are refering to the > clock circuit (A500) or maybe you are refering to the 1000w power > supply in the A2000, for surely can't be refering to the A2000 IBM > clone sockets!?? I can buy 3 PC clones for the price of one A2000 ! With an A2000 you do also get 5 A-M-I-G-A slots don't forget, as well as CPU slot, video slot, room for 3 drives, plus, 1Mb RAM to start with. > Hans Hansen > ATE Test Development Coordinator > GP7SM -- one more super whizzy from the company that started it all. > > These be my words and no one elses. I speak for me, Intel hires firms > to speak for it, I ain't a firm. Judging by the market reception to the A500 and A2000 even before our new promotions, I think your opinions are definitely in the minority Hans. A1000 owners are upgrading to the A2000 in DROVES, and the A500 is selling very well. Paul.