cmcmanis@pepper.UUCP (09/17/87)
Well for what it's worth (and I think it's worth quite a bit) the Amiga
2000 is now available in stores in the San Francisco Bay Area. Actually
they have been since monday. The list price for 2000 + 1080 Monitor is
$2395. Although that includes 1Mb of RAM (on the motherboard). And of
course 1.2 in ROM. The strange thing is, that this is almost exactly
what my Amiga 1000 + Allegra cost when I bought it (in December '85 for
full list of course). So what does this mean? Well, it means a pretty
decent machine for Commodore. Lets look at the past complaints and see
how they faired shall we ?
C) "I want need more than 512K memory, has anyone seen a memory board that
works with the expansion connector?"
The 2000 has 1M standard, and a 2M add on card is available now.
C) "Does anyone know if manufacturer Foobar autoconfigures? I can't run there
board and the Zeeblox board off the expansion connector."
The 2000 has internal slots that are easier to design to, and provides
more power and automatic RF sheilding.
C) "I want PC compatibility NOW!, and not with this p.o.s. 'transformer'
thing." followed by :
C) "The SideCar finally makes it to the market and first it makes it
impossible to find my desk, then I have to switch on my machine just
right, and now I can't use any expansion modules (besides it)."
The 2000 has the 'BridgeCard' available now, it doesn't interfere with
Amiga expansion, and takes up no additional desk space. It is also priced
competitively ($500) with clones (which would take up more desk space).
C) "How come every damn hard disk for this thing costs $1500? Look at the
PC hard disks, they are only $300 for the same amount of storage."
The 2000 has a hard disk interface that runs both SCSI and ST506 drives.
And while it is not cheap (I believe it is $400) you can now use those
$300 ST506 drives. Even the BridgeCard + PC harddrive (500 + 300) is
cheaper than previous Amiga drives and you get PC compatibility as well.
YES, you can use the BrideCard's hard drive from the Amiga side.
Those are some of the big ones I remember, I'm sure there are others. As
for price I think you have to look at it from the perspective of what you
get. My feeling is that if Apple had been thinking straight this is what
the Mac SE would have looked like. Color, slots, PC-compatibility, easy
expansion. The only thing Commodore could have added but didn't was a
higher resolution graphics mode that used a higher, NTSC incompatible,
scan rate. My suggestion is that they keep the current NTSC compatibility
but make an optional higher resolution available. That would silence just
about all the complaints (except for the ubiquitous 'it costs too much.').
As for the competition ? Well I rate computers as 8bit, 16bit, and 32bit.
And *only* compare machines in those categories (so no Mac II comparisons)
The Amiga sits solidly in the 16bit category with it's 68000, and 16M
address space. It's competitors (as I see it) are the PC/AT, the Mac [+,SE],
and the Atari [520,1040,Mega] ST. I think it does very nicely in this group,
offering a good mix of price, expandibility, software, and performance.
Note that neither Atari, nor Commodore have entries in the 32 bit category
(to compete with the Mac II and PS-80 and 386/ATs) Atari has stated they are
working on something, I don't think Commodore has although they have mentioned
a 68020 board/upgrade for the A2000.
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.