rmeyers@tle.dec.com.UUCP (03/26/87)
I just got back from the Boston Computer Society general meeting where
the Amiga 2000 was demonstrated. Commodore was there in force: President
of Commodore Tom Rattigan, software wizards RJ Michal and Dale Luck,
engineering reps from Germany and Pennsylvania, and a handful of others.
There were about three or four Amiga 2000s sitting out for people to play
with. The machines were so mobbed I couldn't get close enough to count
them. There were no Amiga 500s, however.
Commodore "announced" two new pieces of information:
First, a working prototype of the AT bridge card was shown. Literally,
they held up this card and said it was the AT card. I do not know if
they plugged it in a machine so people could see it running. They were
careful to state that this was not yet a product and a delivery date
was not set.
Second, an Amiga 1000 to Amiga 2000 upgrade was mentioned.
An Amiga 1000 owner from the audience asked what was Commodore was
going to do for him. He worried that the Amiga 1000 was an orphan
and that no one would write software for it as opposed to the Amiga
500 and Amiga 2000. (Sigh, the fellow had wax in his ears, or between
them: the Amiga 1000 is completely software compatible with the 500 and
2000. The only thing to worry about is Amiga 1000 hardware upgrades.)
Anyway, the Commodore president gave a rather bland answer, but one
of the random Commodore representatives chimed in with "And you can
take advantage of the trade up policy to trade your Amiga 1000 in on
an Amiga 2000." After the presentation was over, while people were
milling around playing with the machines and talking to the luminaries
at the meeting, I asked the rep who mentioned the trade up policy
for more details. She said that details were not finial, but Commodore
was thinking of something like you give them a Amiga 1000 and $1000
and they give you a new Amiga 2000.
I have no idea if the Commodore representative was authorized to
mention the trade up policy: it could be they shot her after the
show.
----------------------------------------
Randy Meyers, not representing Digital Equipment Corporation
USENET: {decwrl|decvax|decuac}!tle.dec.com!rmeyers
ARPA: rmeyers%tle.dec.com@decwrl.dec.comlachac@topaz.UUCP (03/26/87)
In article <8814@decwrl.DEC.COM> rmeyers@tle.dec.com (Randy Meyers 381-2743 ZKO2-3/N30) writes: >Anyway, the Commodore president gave a rather bland answer, but one >of the random Commodore representatives chimed in with "And you can >take advantage of the trade up policy to trade your Amiga 1000 in on >an Amiga 2000." After the presentation was over, while people were >milling around playing with the machines and talking to the luminaries >at the meeting, I asked the rep who mentioned the trade up policy >for more details. She said that details were not finial, but Commodore >was thinking of something like you give them a Amiga 1000 and $1000 >and they give you a new Amiga 2000. Now THIS is interesting. I heard tell of this on a local BBS, but I thought it was some rumor mongerer doing some random/wishful thinking. Anyway the guy said that his dealer said CBM will take back old A1000 to use to sell at discount to schools and if you give him another $750, he'll give you an A2000. $750 is at least reasonable (that's about a $750 buyback on your A1000). Asking for $1000 is ridiculous, you might as well get an expansion box. But I am jumping the gun. Can we have some "official" word on this from some of the net-viewers at CBM?? A hint???? (How about a true or false, you can at least be binary?) -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Isn't fun the best thing to have?" lachac@topaz.rutgers.edu
annette@bacchus.UUCP (03/26/87)
In article <8814@decwrl.DEC.COM> rmeyers@tle.dec.com (Randy Meyers 381-2743 ZKO2-3/N30) writes: >I just got back from the Boston Computer Society general meeting where >the Amiga 2000 was demonstrated. Commodore was there in force: President >of Commodore Tom Rattigan, software wizards RJ Michal and Dale Luck, >engineering reps from Germany and Pennsylvania, and a handful of others. > >There were about three or four Amiga 2000s sitting out for people to play >with. The machines were so mobbed I couldn't get close enough to count >them. There were no Amiga 500s, however. ^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ I guess I have to differ with this statement, but there WERE Amiga 500s there, at least three or four of them. (I got to play with one for a whole 2 minutes while everyone else was drooling on the A2000s.) - Annette* ---------------------------------------- annette@athena.mit.edu (sorry, I don't know the uucp address (yet ;-))
serf@hscfvax.UUCP (03/27/87)
About the hardware at the recent BCS General meeting --
There were nine new machines -- two A2000's on stage, four A2000's in front of
the stage, and three A500's in front of the stage. At least one of
the A500's was expanded to 1 Meg; it seemed that each A2000 had a
different configuration.
Pardon me if I forget names, but I see the machines more often than
the people...
One of the A2000's had a CSA 68020 board in it, and was being shown by
someone from M.I.T. Said board plugged into the CPU/coprocessor
expansion slot; I don't remember whether it had a 68881.
Another sported a new Amiga high-persistence monitor. It wasn't bad,
but it *still* would flicker when pushed for contrast (example:
black-on-white horizontal lines in interlaced mode). When I saw it,
the A2000 was running DPaint II; text looked good, and ghosting was
not a problem save when the background was black. Then again, I also
heard a rumor that a multisync monitor (~$600?) with some sort of
(~$300?) box would be available for 640 x 400 non-interlaced display.
This rumor came from a dealer...
Also visible (but not plugged in to anything, so far as I know) were
an 8-meg expansion card (fully populated) and the SCSI card. I
believe that the AT-card was working on one of the machines; I never
checked that, though.
I did get a chance to play with an A2000 with the Bridge (XT) card,
though. An IBM is much nicer to deal with when running on an Amiga!!
There are a bunch of nifty bells & whistles that allow you to set up
the PC window any which way you want. More impressive, though, were
some other features:
-- the ability to cut and paste (using the clipboard.device) both
text and graphics between a PC-window and any Amiga program (such as
Notepad) which deals with the clipboard.device. This means that you
should be able to easily take crummy PC graphics & clean 'em up on the
Amiga, and do presentations, etc., etc.
-- the ability to "freeze" a PC-window and go on to some other PC
application in the meantime. Handy for keeping compiler error
messages around when you're working in an editor, as RJ Mical pointed
out.
-- the ability to display a Lotus 1-2-3 graph in one (color) window while
working on data in another (monochrome) window; this was demoed.
-- the ability to make some businessmen-types positively drool.
This probably has something to do with the above features. There were
a few "My company is looking to buy an AT, how soon will this stuff
you're showing be available?"-type questions. (Do I get an award for
Most Ridiculous Adjective of the Month?) 'Tany rate, enthusiasm was
high in those quarters.
Oh, yes, the Amiga Trade-ins:
The news on trade-ins was provided by Betsy from Tech Plus (I forgot
her last name, sorry). Essentially, yes, you give them $1K + your old
A1000 CPU & keyboard (sans monitor, peripherals, Insiders, etc.), and
they give you a new A2000 (sans monitor, peripherals, Insiders, etc.).
If I have the urge to buy an A2000, I'll probably do as she suggested
-- sell my A1000 on my own & thus get a better deal. BTW, I hear that
Tech Plus is the local Commodore rep, correct me if I'm wrong.
I hope this provides a little better info, but fear that I've just
opened a big can of worms (albeit an interesting one). Enjoy.
-- John Lockhart
serf@hscfvax.harvard.edu
(until 5 April 1987 or so)
=======================================================================rtolly@cca.UUCP (03/27/87)
Summary:Corrections to R Meyers Report on BCS: Couple of corrections to Randy Meyers report on the Boston Computer Society meeting where the A2000 and A500 were launched: This was the North American launch of both machines, despite the A2000 having been shown several places already. Several 500's WERE on stage and available to be played with. Most of the presentation concerned the 2000. Tom Rattigan introduced the machines. Henry Ruben (sp?), Gail Wellington, and RJ Mical gave technical presentations and demos of the 2000. The person who mentioned a 2000 for 1000 trade-in program was NOT from Commodore - she was Betsy Piper, from Tech Plus, the New England manufacturer's rep for Commodore. THEY will be offering this program on their own, not Commodore. It will be up to other area manufacturer's reps, dealers, or possibly Commodore, to provide that in other areas of the country. Betsy and Tech Plus are acting on their own here. A third-party 68020 board was running in one of the A2000's, I don't know from whom.
page@ulowell.UUCP (03/28/87)
rmeyers@tle.dec.com (Randy Meyers) wrote in article <8814@decwrl.DEC.COM>: >I just got back from the Boston Computer Society general meeting ... >There were no Amiga 500s, however. There were three or four A500's there, next to the A2000's. >I do not know if they plugged [the AT card] in a machine Yes, they did install it and had people play with it. >Second, an Amiga 1000 to Amiga 2000 upgrade was mentioned. >One of the random Commodore representatives chimed in That "random" rep was the president of the company that handles Commodore's New England Technical Representation. >I have no idea if [she] was authorized to mention the trade up policy: >it could be they shot her after the show. She was not, and she might have been. It is not final -- it could be better than that, it could be worse ... it could be non-existant. ..Bob -- Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept. ulowell!page, page@ulowell.CSNET
jwabik@umnd-cs.UUCP (03/29/87)
> I just got back from the Boston Computer Society general meeting where > the Amiga 2000 was demonstrated. ... an Amiga 1000 to Amiga 2000 > upgrade was mentioned. ... Commodore ... chimed in with "And you can > take advantage of the trade up policy to trade your Amiga 1000 in on > an Amiga 2000." > ... details were not finial, but Commodore > was thinking of something like you give them a Amiga 1000 and $1000 > and they give you a new Amiga 2000. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Let me get my calculator. A2000 = $1495; A2000 - $1000 = A1000; :. $1495-$1000 = $495 for my A1000? And I thought I got screwed when I bought my last new-used car! *coff* Now I KNOW that Amigas can be had pretty cheaply these days, but I think $495 is pretty rediculous. (If indeed this will be the trade policy).o =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > Jeff Wabik {jwabik@umnd-cs-gw.umn.edu} < > University of Minnesota, Duluth {umn-cs!umnd-cs-gw!jwabik} < > Duluth, MN 55812 < > "I feel fine." - Spock, Star Trek IV. A sad day for all TRUE trekkies. < =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (03/31/87)
References: To all A1000 users: Just to set the record straight - there WILL be a policy to allow you to upgrade to an A2000. However, the details will not be announced until AFTER the A2000 is shipped. Paul Higginbottom Sales Support Manager