torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) (04/16/91)
There's an interesting tidbit of news in this week's MacWeek magazine. Quoting from an article about the National Association of Broadcasters show, to be held in Las Vegas next week: "NewTek Inc. The maker of the popular Video Toaster, a Commodore Amiga-based video editing system, will announce a standalone Toaster that can read Macintosh files directly. Price at $3,995 and due in June, the new Toaster no longer requires users to buy an Amiga. "We've taken the cool parts of the Amiga and put it together with the Toaster into a single box," said Steve Hartford, NewTek product manager. With the current Toaster, Mac-generated graphics have to be converted and output as an NTSC (National Television System Committee) video signal before being brought into the system. The new Toaster will be able to read Macintosh disks containing files in PICT, Postscript and 3DGF (3-D Geometry Format), as well as FACT, a file format supported by Electric Image Inc.'s animation program." [End of quote] What I find interesting is the second paragraph "We've taken the cool parts of the Amiga and ...". Does this mean they've licensed the Amiga hardware from Commodore, or do you think they're buying up Amigas and ripping the guts out of them? -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Evan Torrie. Stanford University, Class of 199? torrie@cs.stanford.edu Fame, fame, fame... What's it good for? Ab-so-lute-ly nothing
cs326ag@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Loren J. Rittle) (04/17/91)
In article <1991Apr16.060721.4531@neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes: > > There's an interesting tidbit of news in this week's MacWeek magazine. >Quoting from an article about the National Association of Broadcasters >show, to be held in Las Vegas next week: > [article deleted to save space...] >[End of quote] > > What I find interesting is the second paragraph "We've taken the >cool parts of the Amiga and ...". Does this mean they've licensed the >Amiga hardware from Commodore, or do you think they're buying up >Amigas and ripping the guts out of them? There has been some talk of a deal. At that price, one can only imagine that they must have. Actually some questions still remain: Does it ship with a plain 68000? Boy, LightWave would be fun to use without a 68030@<25MHz, NOT! How much memory will this beast ship with? 5-7MB min. to be useful! HD? At that cost, I think it must be a bare bones 68000 with 5MB of memory... I can see why NewTek would want to make a self contained box... I hear (from a dealer friend) that the return rate on the Toaster is as high as 50%! 'cause poor saps get the thing without understanding that it needs a computer! large HD, and memory... I heard one story (that I will not repeat) that had me rolling on the floor about a guy who got a Toaster and returned it due to the above minunderstanding. >Evan Torrie. Stanford University, Class of 199? torrie@cs.stanford.edu Loren J. Rittle -- ``The Amiga continues to amaze me--if I had not been told that this video was created using the Amiga and Toaster, I would not have believed it. Even Allen said, `I think I know how he did most of the effects.' '' - Jim Lange Loren J. Rittle l-rittle@uiuc.edu
ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) (04/17/91)
In article <1991Apr16.060721.4531@neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes: > > There's an interesting tidbit of news in this week's MacWeek magazine. >Quoting from an article about the National Association of Broadcasters >show, to be held in Las Vegas next week: > >"NewTek Inc. The maker of the popular Video Toaster, a Commodore >Amiga-based video editing system, will announce a standalone Toaster >that can read Macintosh files directly. > Price at $3,995 and due in June, the new Toaster no longer requires >users to buy an Amiga. "We've taken the cool parts of the Amiga and >put it together with the Toaster into a single box," said Steve >Hartford, NewTek product manager. It seems that NewTek has decided that betting their company's future on the Amiga platform is not a good idea. And I think they're right. In any case, they stand to profit more per unit. That $4K price surely does not contain an additional $2500 cost in parts, over the card in the Amiga box. But they could never sell a $4K add-on to Amiga owners, no matter what it did. This now seems to be a common occurance. Take a successful Amiga product, migrate to a different platform (or in the case of NewTek, no platform at all), and sell it for a lot more. And succeed in selling it. ByteByByte did this with Sculpt-4D. It cost $250 on the Amiga. The Mac version, not as powerful, sells for $2500. The Mac magazines gave it favorable reviews. -- First comes the logo: C H E C K P O I N T T E C H N O L O G I E S / / ckp@grebyn.com \\ / / Then, the disclaimer: All expressed opinions are, indeed, opinions. \ / o Now for the witty part: I'm pink, therefore, I'm spam! \/
rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) (04/18/91)
In article <1991Apr17.134058.4503@grebyn.com> ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) writes: >In article <1991Apr16.060721.4531@neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes: >> >> There's an interesting tidbit of news in this week's MacWeek magazine. >>Quoting from an article about the National Association of Broadcasters >>show, to be held in Las Vegas next week: >> >>"NewTek Inc. The maker of the popular Video Toaster, a Commodore >>Amiga-based video editing system, will announce a standalone Toaster >>that can read Macintosh files directly. >> Price at $3,995 and due in June, the new Toaster no longer requires >>users to buy an Amiga. "We've taken the cool parts of the Amiga and >>put it together with the Toaster into a single box," said Steve >>Hartford, NewTek product manager. > >It seems that NewTek has decided that betting their company's future on >the Amiga platform is not a good idea. And I think they're right. I think the Amiga will be around for a long while, especially in Europe. In Europe the Amiga is selling like C64s used to, and C= sold more 64's than Macs (almost 3x as more). >In any case, they stand to profit more per unit. That $4K price surely >does not contain an additional $2500 cost in parts, over the card in the >Amiga box. But they could never sell a $4K add-on to Amiga owners, no >matter what it did. > >This now seems to be a common occurance. Take a successful Amiga >product, migrate to a different platform (or in the case of NewTek, no >platform at all), and sell it for a lot more. >And succeed in selling it. ByteByByte did this with Sculpt-4D. >It cost $250 on the Amiga. The Mac version, not as powerful, sells for >$2500. The Mac magazines gave it favorable reviews. This is the underlying reason. I don't think NewTek is in danger of going bankrupt. They just want more $$$. Porting to the Mac market is going to yield more profit. I don't blame NewTek for wanting more money, I just wish they would have waited longer before porting the Toaster. The Toaster was an incentive for people to buy Amigas. There's nothing wrong with people who already own Macs purchasing a toaster for the Mac, however, I don't like the idea of the Toaster generating Mac sales or helping the Mac to become _thee Desktop Video_ platform which is the Amiga's niche. NewTek didn't wait long enough so now anyone who was going to buy an Amiga+Toaster is going to think Mac+Toaster. I think NewTek will probably kludge the IBM+Toaster together too, since the IBM market is much bigger than the Macs'. If the standalone toaster has an Amiga in it perhaps it is a good idea since it profits Commodore to sell Amiga chips. I wonder if NewTek just used the custom chips, or whether they included the Amiga OS too. Otherwise, they would have to port LightWave and Toasterpaint to the Mac OS. I also hope NewTek's new fondness in other platforms doesn't take away there support from the Amiga platform. (Like fixing the Toaster to run on an A3000). I don't think NewTek's decision is going to hurt the Amiga much. I heard there are other Amiga companies producing Toaster clones which can't help but drive down the cost and drive up the quality through competition. The Toaster could use some refinements like real-time painting in 24bits instead of HAM mode with preview. Another point. The MacToaster is $4000, and to use a Toaster you need atleast a 68030, lots of ram, a big HD, and a Fast HD interface. You can do without these luxuries, but I wouldn't want to wait a long time for framestores to save, or a render. Any Video Magazine could do a price comparision and show the Amiga toaster platform is cheaper and better. Lots of functionality will be lost on the Mac side, like, what about Arexx? If the standalone toaster doesn't have a 68030 Amiga in it with OS, it looks like all you will be able to do with it is DVE's and Switching. (No Arexx control) Perhaps Commodore should make a NuBUS card with the Amiga chipset on it and sell it as a Mac video card. Better yet, sell a complete Amiga on a card and call it an 'Amiga emulator' for the Mac. Better yet, package the Amiga in a slick looking black case with a CD-ROM and sell it is a consumer device/computer add-on. Oh? They've already done that. >-- >First comes the logo: C H E C K P O I N T T E C H N O L O G I E S / / > ckp@grebyn.com \\ / / >Then, the disclaimer: All expressed opinions are, indeed, opinions. \ / o >Now for the witty part: I'm pink, therefore, I'm spam! \/ -- +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | // The opinions expressed here do not in any way | | uunet!tnc!m0023 | \X/ reflect the views of my self. | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
hood@cbmvax.commodore.com (Scott Hood) (04/18/91)
In article <1991Apr17.134058.4503@grebyn.com> ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) writes: >In article <1991Apr16.060721.4531@neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes: >> >> There's an interesting tidbit of news in this week's MacWeek magazine. >>Quoting from an article about the National Association of Broadcasters >>show, to be held in Las Vegas next week: >> >>"NewTek Inc. The maker of the popular Video Toaster, a Commodore >>Amiga-based video editing system, will announce a standalone Toaster >>that can read Macintosh files directly. >> Price at $3,995 and due in June, the new Toaster no longer requires >>users to buy an Amiga. "We've taken the cool parts of the Amiga and >>put it together with the Toaster into a single box," said Steve >>Hartford, NewTek product manager. > >It seems that NewTek has decided that betting their company's future on >the Amiga platform is not a good idea. And I think they're right. > >In any case, they stand to profit more per unit. That $4K price surely >does not contain an additional $2500 cost in parts, over the card in the >Amiga box. But they could never sell a $4K add-on to Amiga owners, no >matter what it did. > >This now seems to be a common occurance. Take a successful Amiga >product, migrate to a different platform (or in the case of NewTek, no >platform at all), and sell it for a lot more. >And succeed in selling it. ByteByByte did this with Sculpt-4D. >It cost $250 on the Amiga. The Mac version, not as powerful, sells for >$2500. The Mac magazines gave it favorable reviews. >-- >First comes the logo: C H E C K P O I N T T E C H N O L O G I E S / / > ckp@grebyn.com \\ / / >Then, the disclaimer: All expressed opinions are, indeed, opinions. \ / o >Now for the witty part: I'm pink, therefore, I'm spam! \/ Have you SEEN what this "box" looks like??? To Amiga 2000 owners it may look very familiar (he, he)! Enjoy! -- -- Scott Hood, Hardware Design Engineer (A3000 Crew), Commodore-Amiga, Inc. {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!hood hood@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com "The views expressed here are not necessarily those of my employer!"
ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) (04/18/91)
In article <1991Apr17.213337.3693@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: >In article <1991Apr17.134058.4503@grebyn.com> ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) writes: >>It seems that NewTek has decided that betting their company's future on >>the Amiga platform is not a good idea. And I think they're right. > > I think the Amiga will be around for a long while, especially >in Europe. In Europe the Amiga is selling like C64s used to, and >C= sold more 64's than Macs (almost 3x as more). I didn't say (although I see where it would be easy to infer) that the Amiga platform was going to dissappear; in fact, I think Amigas will be selling many years from now. I see the Amiga remaining successful at the low end, the consumer machine (A500) and CDTV. I think the high end machines have a questionable future. (I'd make a side bet: any new C= custom chips will be geared toward improving CDTV. Faster animation. Better sound. No better resolution, still plain NTSC. More colors. Decompression hardware. Stuff a CDTV device needs. Not designed to support a GUI for business productivity, nor a competitive megapixel workstation display, nor a departure into device-independent or retargettable graphic model.) > This is the underlying reason. I don't think NewTek is in danger of >going bankrupt. They just want more $$$. Porting to the Mac market >is going to yield more profit. I don't blame NewTek for wanting more money, >I just wish they would have waited longer before porting the Toaster. Now *that's* what you should bet the company on: a large market with money to spend and willingness to spend it. You just have to look around a little bit, to see that MacroMind can sell for thousands what Commodore gives away free (AmigaVision). And it's because of a fierce resistance to Commodore products for serious applications. Is it any wonder developers leap to the other platforms? -- First comes the logo: C H E C K P O I N T T E C H N O L O G I E S / / ckp@grebyn.com \\ / / Then, the disclaimer: All expressed opinions are, indeed, opinions. \ / o Now for the witty part: I'm pink, therefore, I'm spam! \/
xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU (Marc Barrett) (04/18/91)
In article <1991Apr17.213337.3693@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>, rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: >In article <1991Apr17.134058.4503@grebyn.com> ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) writes: >>In article <1991Apr16.060721.4531@neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes: >>> >>> There's an interesting tidbit of news in this week's MacWeek magazine. >>>Quoting from an article about the National Association of Broadcasters >>>show, to be held in Las Vegas next week: >>> >>>"NewTek Inc. The maker of the popular Video Toaster, a Commodore >>>Amiga-based video editing system, will announce a standalone Toaster >>>that can read Macintosh files directly. >>> Price at $3,995 and due in June, the new Toaster no longer requires >>>users to buy an Amiga. "We've taken the cool parts of the Amiga and >>>put it together with the Toaster into a single box," said Steve >>>Hartford, NewTek product manager. >> >>It seems that NewTek has decided that betting their company's future on >>the Amiga platform is not a good idea. And I think they're right. > > I think the Amiga will be around for a long while, especially >in Europe. In Europe the Amiga is selling like C64s used to, and >C= sold more 64's than Macs (almost 3x as more). Keep in mind that most of the Amiga's sales are in Europe, while NewTek is a U.S. company. NewTek is reliant on the strength of the Amiga market HERE, and large sales of Amigas overseas will not help them. >>This now seems to be a common occurance. Take a successful Amiga >>product, migrate to a different platform (or in the case of NewTek, no >>platform at all), and sell it for a lot more. >>And succeed in selling it. ByteByByte did this with Sculpt-4D. >>It cost $250 on the Amiga. The Mac version, not as powerful, sells for >>$2500. The Mac magazines gave it favorable reviews. > > This is the underlying reason. I don't think NewTek is in danger of >going bankrupt. They just want more $$$. Porting to the Mac market >is going to yield more profit. I don't blame NewTek for wanting more money, >I just wish they would have waited longer before porting the Toaster. >The Toaster was an incentive for people to buy Amigas. There's nothing >wrong with people who already own Macs purchasing a toaster for the Mac, >however, I don't like the idea of the Toaster generating Mac sales or >helping the Mac to become _thee Desktop Video_ platform which is the >Amiga's niche. The MAC is already becoming "_thee Desktop Video_" platform, by default. In the past couple of weeks, Apple has held no less than three seminars on MAC video at Iowa State, all of them advertized in in the Iowa State Daily. Last Fall, there was a big broadcast video/ multimedia convention held in the Union, with representation by more MAC systems than I could count. The Amiga was represented by a sign reading "Ames Amiga User's Group", right next to an empty table. People around here have been glorifying in the increased Amiga sales in Europe to the point that they have been blind to the fact that the Amiga market in the U.S. is dying. The U.S. now accounts for less than 8% of Commodore's world-wide sales, and this will likely get worse as Commodore focuses more and more on Europe. With this in mind, I have been quietly predicting for many months that NewTek would find the MAC market totally irresistable, and I was right. > > Perhaps Commodore should make a NuBUS card with the Amiga chipset on it >and sell it as a Mac video card. Who would buy it? I don't really see why an MAC owner would want to pluck down $1500 for a video card that has 640x400 interlaced graphics with 12-bit color, when that same MAC owner would purchase a card from Apple that gives them 640x480 non-interlaced graphics with 24-bit color and a high-speed RISC graphics coprocessor to boot. >>-- >>First comes the logo: C H E C K P O I N T T E C H N O L O G I E S / / >> ckp@grebyn.com \\ / / >>Then, the disclaimer: All expressed opinions are, indeed, opinions. \ / o >>Now for the witty part: I'm pink, therefore, I'm spam! \/ > > >-- >+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ >| rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | // The opinions expressed here do not in any way | >| uunet!tnc!m0023 | \X/ reflect the views of my self. | >+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ---------------------------------------------------------- / Marc Barrett -MB- | BITNET: XGR39@ISUVAX.BITNET / / ISU COM S Student | Internet: XGR39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU / ----------------------------------------------------------
ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) (04/18/91)
In article <20725@cbmvax.commodore.com> hood@cbmvax.commodore.com (Scott Hood) writes: >In article <1991Apr17.134058.4503@grebyn.com> ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) writes: >>In article <1991Apr16.060721.4531@neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes: >>>"NewTek Inc. The maker of the popular Video Toaster, a Commodore >>>Amiga-based video editing system, will announce a standalone Toaster >>>that can read Macintosh files directly. >> >>It seems that NewTek has decided that betting their company's future on >>the Amiga platform is not a good idea. And I think they're right. > >Have you SEEN what this "box" looks like??? To Amiga 2000 owners it may >look very familiar (he, he)! When I wrote that, I did not know that the stand-alone Toaster was in reality an unlabelled Amiga 2000. But that's just the first step. On BIX there was a new item that said a Mac version was under development. So would this be an Amiga chipset on a NuBus card? Would Commodore think of this as some kind of victory? -- First comes the logo: C H E C K P O I N T T E C H N O L O G I E S / / ckp@grebyn.com \\ / / Then, the disclaimer: All expressed opinions are, indeed, opinions. \ / o Now for the witty part: I'm pink, therefore, I'm spam! \/
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (04/18/91)
In article <1991Apr18.121236.404@news.iastate.edu> xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU writes: >> Perhaps Commodore should make a NuBUS card with the Amiga chipset on it >>and sell it as a Mac video card. > > Who would buy it? I don't really see why an MAC owner would want to >pluck down $1500 for a video card that has 640x400 interlaced graphics with ---------- >12-bit color, when that same MAC owner would purchase a card from Apple >that gives them 640x480 non-interlaced graphics with 24-bit color and a >high-speed RISC graphics coprocessor to boot. > Once again you miss the point. You knock the Amiga for one of its features! It is the interlace video which allows the Amiga to do the video work it does without having to buy expensive addons. If it weren't for that the Amiga would have nothing but games. -- Ethan Q: How many Comp Sci majors does it take to change a lightbulb A: None. It's a hardware problem.
rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) (04/19/91)
[why is it, that Marc always pops up when the Mac is mentioned.] In article <1991Apr18.121236.404@news.iastate.edu> xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU writes: >In article <1991Apr17.213337.3693@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>, rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: >>In article <1991Apr17.134058.4503@grebyn.com> ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) writes: >>>In article <1991Apr16.060721.4531@neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes: >>>> >>>> There's an interesting tidbit of news in this week's MacWeek magazine. >>>>Quoting from an article about the National Association of Broadcasters >>>>show, to be held in Las Vegas next week: >>>> >>>>"NewTek Inc. The maker of the popular Video Toaster, a Commodore >>>>Amiga-based video editing system, will announce a standalone Toaster >>>>that can read Macintosh files directly. >>>> Price at $3,995 and due in June, the new Toaster no longer requires >>>>users to buy an Amiga. "We've taken the cool parts of the Amiga and >>>>put it together with the Toaster into a single box," said Steve >>>>Hartford, NewTek product manager. >>> >>>It seems that NewTek has decided that betting their company's future on >>>the Amiga platform is not a good idea. And I think they're right. >> >> I think the Amiga will be around for a long while, especially >>in Europe. In Europe the Amiga is selling like C64s used to, and >>C= sold more 64's than Macs (almost 3x as more). > > Keep in mind that most of the Amiga's sales are in Europe, while >NewTek is a U.S. company. NewTek is reliant on the strength of the >Amiga market HERE, and large sales of Amigas overseas will not help >them. It would if the there was a PAL version of the Toaster. >>>This now seems to be a common occurance. Take a successful Amiga >>>product, migrate to a different platform (or in the case of NewTek, no >>>platform at all), and sell it for a lot more. >>>And succeed in selling it. ByteByByte did this with Sculpt-4D. >>>It cost $250 on the Amiga. The Mac version, not as powerful, sells for >>>$2500. The Mac magazines gave it favorable reviews. >> >> This is the underlying reason. I don't think NewTek is in danger of >>going bankrupt. They just want more $$$. Porting to the Mac market >>is going to yield more profit. I don't blame NewTek for wanting more money, >>I just wish they would have waited longer before porting the Toaster. >>The Toaster was an incentive for people to buy Amigas. There's nothing >>wrong with people who already own Macs purchasing a toaster for the Mac, >>however, I don't like the idea of the Toaster generating Mac sales or >>helping the Mac to become _thee Desktop Video_ platform which is the >>Amiga's niche. > > The MAC is already becoming "_thee Desktop Video_" platform, by >default. In the past couple of weeks, Apple has held no less than >three seminars on MAC video at Iowa State, all of them advertized in >in the Iowa State Daily. Last Fall, there was a big broadcast video/ >multimedia convention held in the Union, with representation by more >MAC systems than I could count. The Amiga was represented by a sign >reading "Ames Amiga User's Group", right next to an empty table. So what? As if Iowa State seminars have anything to do with the market at large. How about when the Amiga steals the show at the National Broadcaster's convention, or when almost everyone one of my local cable channels uses the Amiga for their titling. Why don't you check out Camcorder or Video magazine? I hardly think the Mac has the desktop video market when they don't have the software, hardware, and price advantage the Amiga has. Compare the quality and amount of Amiga paint, raytrace, animation, and titling programs to the Mac. The Amiga has been building on this market since 1985 just like the Mac has done with DTP. > People around here have been glorifying in the increased Amiga >sales in Europe to the point that they have been blind to the fact >that the Amiga market in the U.S. is dying. The U.S. now accounts >for less than 8% of Commodore's world-wide sales, and this will likely >get worse as Commodore focuses more and more on Europe. With this in >mind, I have been quietly predicting for many months that NewTek >would find the MAC market totally irresistable, and I was right. "99.7 percent of statistics are made up." Marc, please don't quote meaningless %'s or make blanket statements about the Amiga market. The U.S. market is not dying, it has been increasing. Why don't you join the procrastinator's prediction club so you can predict events after they happen. In case you haven't read, NewTek's M*cToaster is really an A20000+Toaster. >> >> Perhaps Commodore should make a NuBUS card with the Amiga chipset on it >>and sell it as a Mac video card. > > Who would buy it? I don't really see why an MAC owner would want to >pluck down $1500 for a video card that has 640x400 interlaced graphics with >12-bit color, when that same MAC owner would purchase a card from Apple >that gives them 640x480 non-interlaced graphics with 24-bit color and a >high-speed RISC graphics coprocessor to boot. Because with those 'horrible interlaced' graphics you can do cheap genlocking and encoding, not to mention nice animation. Add a DCTV to that package and the 12bit screen becomes a NTSC full color frame. BTW, stop calling M*c adapters '24-bit' cards. They are 8bit, not 24bit. The 24bit ones are expensive, and can't do animation. I remember some Mac company released a device 1 yr ago that could do switching like the Toaster with framegrab and animation. It costed $100,000 and contained 32megs of ram to do animation. Also Marc, the Amiga screen can also do 480 vertical resolution. You can overscan up to 768x480. Further more, Flickerfixers cost near $200 now, and the ECS Denise has non-flicker modes. This is bound to start another M*c vs Amiga war, but I don't think the Mac is a desktop video platform. I'm also tired of hearing these sissy arguement about flicker, somepeople must have weak eyes. :-) -- +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | // The opinions expressed here do not in any way | | uunet!tnc!m0023 | \X/ reflect the views of my self. | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
xgr39@isuvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) (04/19/91)
In article <1991Apr18.160220.24426@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>, es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) writes: >In article <1991Apr18.121236.404@news.iastate.edu> xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU writes: >>> Perhaps Commodore should make a NuBUS card with the Amiga chipset on it >>>and sell it as a Mac video card. >> >> Who would buy it? I don't really see why an MAC owner would want to >>pluck down $1500 for a video card that has 640x400 interlaced graphics with > ---------- >>12-bit color, when that same MAC owner would purchase a card from Apple >>that gives them 640x480 non-interlaced graphics with 24-bit color and a >>high-speed RISC graphics coprocessor to boot. >> > Once again you miss the point. You knock the Amiga for >one of its features! It is the interlace video which allows the >Amiga to do the video work it does without having to buy >expensive addons. If it weren't for that the Amiga would have >nothing but games. I should have also mentioned that the 8/24GC from Apple can output 15KHz interlaced graphics with the flip of a switch... > > -- Ethan > >Q: How many Comp Sci majors does it take to change a lightbulb >A: None. It's a hardware problem. ---------------------------------------------------------- / Marc Barrett -MB- | BITNET: XGR39@ISUVAX.BITNET / / ISU COM S Student | Internet: XGR39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU / ----------------------------------------------------------
jimm@amiga.UUCP (Jim Mackraz) (04/20/91)
(Ray Cromwell) writes:
)> People around here have been glorifying in the increased Amiga
)>sales in Europe to the point that they have been blind to the fact
)>that the Amiga market in the U.S. is dying. The U.S. now accounts
)>for less than 8% of Commodore's world-wide sales, and this will likely
)>get worse as Commodore focuses more and more on Europe.
)
)"99.7 percent of statistics are made up." Marc, please don't quote
)meaningless %'s or make blanket statements about the Amiga market. The U.S.
)market is not dying, it has been increasing.
It has, has it? Got any figures for that assertion? Heard the published
estimates on Amiga sales in US last year? Talked to any US software
developers?
I won't quote the published number of A500 sales in the US last year,
because I can't give the reference to whatever magazine made the
quote, but if I had a nickel for every time Marc B. was less full
of shit than his detractors, I could afford to buy them all.
) This is bound to start another M*c vs Amiga war, but I don't think
)the Mac is a desktop video platform. I'm also tired of hearing
)these sissy arguement about flicker, somepeople must have weak eyes. :-)
Unfortunately, how *suitable* the Mac or Amiga is for DTV probably won't be
correlated to how *successful* they are in DTV.
jimm
--
--- opinions expressed herein are my own. ---
"... Because they can."
- profound punchline to joke about dogsdaveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (04/20/91)
In article <20725@cbmvax.commodore.com> hood@cbmvax.commodore.com (Scott Hood) writes: >In article <1991Apr17.134058.4503@grebyn.com> ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) writes: >>In article <1991Apr16.060721.4531@neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes: >>> There's an interesting tidbit of news in this week's MacWeek magazine. >>>"NewTek Inc. The maker of the popular Video Toaster, a Commodore >>>Amiga-based video editing system, will announce a standalone Toaster >>>that can read Macintosh files directly. >>It seems that NewTek has decided that betting their company's future on >>the Amiga platform is not a good idea. And I think they're right. >Have you SEEN what this "box" looks like??? To Amiga 2000 owners it may >look very familiar (he, he)! Indeed. The gang from Kansas is clever, but they didn't invent this. This is a common technique. Look it up under OEM. Another industry example: the Mentor Workstation, upon which the A3000 and various other critters were designed. Mentor designed this workstation like this: - Take one Apollo Workstation - Add three Mentor nameplates, for keyboard, monitor, and box. - Add cool Mentor software - Sell the box as a Mentor workstation Sound familiar? It should. -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy "That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight" -R.E.M.
peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (04/22/91)
In article <1991Apr16.060721.4531@neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes: > Price at $3,995 and due in June, the new Toaster no longer requires > users to buy an Amiga. "We've taken the cool parts of the Amiga and > put it together with the Toaster into a single box," said Steve > Hartford, NewTek product manager. Sounds like they've put an Amiga 500 motherboard, extra RAM, a Mac drive, and the Toaster (along with a bit of software glue) in a box and called it a new product. That would fit the $4000 price ($1500 toaster, $500 Amiga, $2000 in circuit boards, software, and packaging). Note that it doesn't attach to the Mac as a peripheral, as far as I can see. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' <peter@sugar.hackercorp.com>.
sysop@tlvx.UUCP (SysOp) (04/23/91)
In article <1991Apr18.043012.19333@grebyn.com>, ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) writes: ..... > I didn't say (although I see where it would be easy to infer) that the > Amiga platform was going to dissappear; in fact, I think Amigas will be > selling many years from now. I see the Amiga remaining > successful at the low end, the consumer machine (A500) and CDTV. I > think the high end machines have a questionable future. Why? I mean, I can't think of any reason why all of a sudden the higher- end machines should be less popular. If nothing else, it's inevitable that people will want to expand in some way, as technology makes the 68000 look slower by comparison. > > (I'd make a side bet: any new C= custom chips will be geared toward > improving CDTV. Faster animation. Better sound. No better resolution, > still plain NTSC. More colors. Decompression hardware. Stuff a CDTV > device needs. Not designed to support a GUI for business > productivity, nor a competitive megapixel workstation display, nor a > departure into device-independent or retargettable graphic model.) In one of the c.s.a groups, a job notice was posted by a Commodore person asking for resumes for a position where one of the tasks was programming a DIG. I'm willing to bet that Commodore will have such a library, after some amount of time. The downside is that I would think it would be some time before it was widely supported, but I don't see any major problem, or at least, nothing to cause me to throw up my arms and cry "doom, doom!" :-) .... > around a little bit, to see that MacroMind can sell for thousands what > Commodore gives away free (AmigaVision). And it's because of a fierce > resistance to Commodore products for serious applications. Is it any > wonder developers leap to the other platforms? What can we do to encourage the use or acceptance of Amigas? Anything? (Doom, doom! ;-) .... > ckp@grebyn.com \\ / / ... -- Gary Wolfe, SYSOP of the Temporal Vortex BBS // Amiga! ..uflorida!unf7!tlvx!sysop, unf7!tlvx!sysop@bikini.cis.ufl.edu \X/ Yeah!
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (04/27/91)
In article <6499@amiga.UUCP> jimm@amiga.UUCP (Jim Mackraz) writes: >(Ray Cromwell) writes: >)> People around here have been glorifying in the increased Amiga >)>sales in Europe to the point that they have been blind to the fact >)>that the Amiga market in the U.S. is dying. The U.S. now accounts >)>for less than 8% of Commodore's world-wide sales, and this will likely >)>get worse as Commodore focuses more and more on Europe. >) >)"99.7 percent of statistics are made up." Marc, please don't quote >)meaningless %'s or make blanket statements about the Amiga market. The U.S. >)market is not dying, it has been increasing. > >It has, has it? Got any figures for that assertion? Heard the published >estimates on Amiga sales in US last year? Talked to any US software >developers? > >I won't quote the published number of A500 sales in the US last year, >because I can't give the reference to whatever magazine made the >quote, but if I had a nickel for every time Marc B. was less full >of shit than his detractors, I could afford to buy them all. > Try starting with the annual reports from Commodore. Although Canada and the US can't be separated (they only give a North America figure) sales HAVE been increasing. Of course, it hasn't been anything like what has happened in Europe. -- Ethan "Brain? What is Brain?"