lachac@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Gerard Lachac) (04/27/87)
Does anyone on the net have any real information on the recent removal
of T. Rattigan as CEO of Commodore?? So far stocks have been affected,
and from what I gather a lot of other things.
For instance the list price of the A2000 going from $1495 to $1695. At
a small computer show in Fairfield, NJ that was the price orders for the
A2000 were being taken for.
What other price/policy changes will be taking place? I heard that Kmart
et al. will now be the major distributor of CBM products.
"Tis the best of time, tis the worst of times..."
--
"Truth is false and logic lost..."
- Neil Peart
(who at the time didn't realize he was talking about RU)
lachac@topaz.rutgers.edu <--------OR--------> {seismo|ames}!rutgers!topaz!lachacali@rocky.UUCP (04/28/87)
In article <11465@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> Gerard Lachac writes: >For instance the list price of the A2000 going from $1495 to $1695. I have Abel Supply's price list from April 16th (before this "upheavel"), and they mention the Amiga 2000 suggested retail price as $1695, not $1495. Seems like the price raise is not related to this upheavel. Along totally different lines, has anyone tried executing the "littletask" example from Chapter 9 of Rob Peck's book under Manx? I have had no luck -- I've set the littletask stack to 10000, the main program stack to 40000, and still no luck. Seems like the littletask can do simple things like "while(1);" and function calls to other functions in my program, but as soon as I call an Exec function like (FindTask()), I get a GURU. (I realize I can't call AmigaDOS functions from a task. I just want to be able to call FindTask(), FindPort(), and Get/PutMsg()...) This program works under Lattice anyway --- At least the compiled version on Peck's disk does... Ali Ozer, ali@rocky.stanford.edu [ps. I'm using Manx 3.30e and still waiting for my 3.40a.]
ali@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Ali Ozer) (04/28/87)
In article <276@rocky.STANFORD.EDU> I write: >Has anyone tried executing the "littletask" example from Chapter 9 >of Rob Peck's book under Manx? I have had no luck. > Tom Rokicki just pointed out that I need to call geta4() (or do the same sort of thing in assembly) otherwise anything I do involving any globals is not going to work... I haven't tested it yet, but I think that will work. Ali Ozer, ali@rocky.stanford.edu
kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan) (04/28/87)
In article <11465@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> lachac@topaz.rutgers.edu (Gerard Lachac) writes: > >Does anyone on the net have any real information [...] >What other price/policy changes will be taking place? I heard that Kmart >et al. will now be the major distributor of CBM products. Well, not REAL real information, but I had an enlightening conversation with a local dealer last week about the Amiga. The gist of the conversation was that Commodore had really killed dealer relations with the list price cut to $1295 for the A1000, which, he said, was done without consulting with or warning the dealers, and the price cut all came out of the dealer's profit. He related the story of a local dealership, which took delivery on several hundred Amigas, then got the shock of the price cut. The owner, he continued, told his sales staff: "Sell them for what you can get, then close the place down." He concluded: "Commodore is never going to succeed if they keep lowering prices." I thought about this one for a while. I love, as a consumer, having great hardware at low prices, but most of the Amiga dealers of last year in the Norfolk area don't carry the line any more. It isn't much fun having to drive to the next town to get service or shop for accessories. The fellow I spoke to was selling off his Amiga software at cost - nobody was buying. Amiga software piracy locally is rampant, so it is easy to see why. Driving your dealers out of business is a fine way to end up in Kmart, as is joining the ranks of PC Clones. The A1000 was a fantastic machine. The A2000 is a PC Clone with some nice features, which were unique a year ago but are state of the art this year (Apple has better sound, IBM has more low res colors and better high res resolution, Atari does Juggler too..."Runs IBM software? Yawn. I want a home machine for fun. I have to live with that junk at the office all day."). Guess which way of presenting yourself has the better chance of succeeding in the market. Disgruntled Commodore stockholder (former happy Commodore stockholder ;-). Kent.
grr@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (George Robbins) (04/29/87)
In article <276@rocky.STANFORD.EDU> ali@rocky.UUCP (Ali Ozer) writes: >In article <11465@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> Gerard Lachac writes: >>For instance the list price of the A2000 going from $1495 to $1695. > >I have Abel Supply's price list from April 16th (before this "upheavel"), >and they mention the Amiga 2000 suggested retail price as $1695, >not $1495. Seems like the price raise is not related to this upheavel. I would worry about the price when the units show up on the shelves. All is preliminary until then. I think it probably a bit early for anyone to be taking deposits. -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@seismo.css.GOV Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)
carolyn@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Carolyn Scheppner CATS) (04/30/87)
In article <276@rocky.STANFORD.EDU> ali@rocky.UUCP (Ali Ozer) writes: >[] >Along totally different lines, has anyone tried executing the >"littletask" example from Chapter 9 of Rob Peck's book under Manx? >I have had no luck -- I've set the littletask stack to 10000, the main >program stack to 40000, and still no luck. Seems like the littletask >can do simple things like "while(1);" and function calls to other >functions in my program, but as soon as I call an Exec function like >(FindTask()), I get a GURU. (I realize I can't call AmigaDOS functions >from a task. I just want to be able to call FindTask(), FindPort(), >and Get/PutMsg()...) This program works under Lattice anyway --- At least >the compiled version on Peck's disk does... The following is a re-posting of the sava4/geta4 inline assembler required when spawning a task (or process or interrupt handler ?) with Manx. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (From: crunch@well.UUCP (John Draper)) I got permission from Jim Goodnough from Manx to publish the following information. Manx C has some problems when spawning tasks. It appears that the A4 register is improperly set. Below is some code that you need to add to get multi-tasking to work properly. Before calling the "AddTask" function, it is necessary to call the sava4() function which is listed below. Then, in your Task, you need to call geta4(). The code below can be included in your source or be seperately compiled and linked into your program. /*==================================================================== Get and Save A4 Regs code for Manx =====================================================================*/ #asm a4sav dc.l 0 public _sava4 _sava4 lea a4sav,a0 move.l a4,(a0) rts public _geta4 _geta4 move.l a4sav,a4 rts #endasm -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Carolyn Scheppner -- CBM >>Amiga Technical Support<< UUCP ...{allegra,caip,ihnp4,seismo}!cbmvax!carolyn PHONE 215-431-9180 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=