bernie@metapro.DIALix.oz.au (Bernd Felsche) (02/23/91)
In <1991Feb16.180604.10623@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu> mitroo@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Varun Mitroo) writes: >You tell me - why is the 2000 so much more expesive than the 500? They have >the same processor and custom chips, the same video and monitor. What's >different? The SLOTS. Of course, unless you are saying that commodore is >making a huge profit on the 2000s by doubling its price over a 500... The 2000 is a lower-volume product. The cost per unit, to recover R&D is much higher, per UNIT. Besides, it's been designed twice. There are also matters relating to the production costs of a larger motherboard, which you may argue, is due to the slots, the larger power supply, lots of metal (-:)) and, etc. >Unix on the amiga does not use the blitter at all. What I am implying is >that commodore's unix takes out much of the originality of the Amiga. After >all, the only thing that makes the amiga different from any other 680x0 box >is its custom chips and its operating system. With unix, commodore has >phased out both of these. New orders are not going to come from unix people >who have "AmigaDos compatibility" as one of the checkmarks. Commodore is >only going to sell the 3000UX to people who already have amigas and want >unix - a small market. I think you've got the wrong end of the stick. FUD possibly? Even C= are not that foolish, are they? They have to use the blitter to display something, don't they? The current (apparent) lack of blitter support is due to the fact that the blitter addresses have to be protected from user processes to stop the system falling over when the programmer goofs. You can also access the Amiga hardware through /dev/amiga, which as yet, is not all that well documented :-) When UNIX is ported to a machine, it is ported to the CPU first... with basic support for the peripheral hardware. Bells and whistles come later, as the environment matures. >Commodore must realize - are they going to sell amigas that run unix or sell >a unix computer. If the latter, then AmigaDos and its custom chips are extra. >Maybe if they could run AmigaDos as a task under unix, there would be more >incentive to buy a 3000UX. I agree that AmigaDOS under UNIX would be very nice. (c.s.a.advocacy seems to have 50% of its volume filled with THAT message.) For Commodore to ignore the A3000's other capabilties when targeting the UNIX market is short-sighted. People want AmigaDOS... even thos who also want UNIX. AmigaDOS can do more that UNIX (read on, don't ignite your flame-throwers yet :-)), especially with respect to real-time, and multi-threaded processes. It is a mature operating system for that hardware platform. >Sun must have done something right to have such a huge installed base. Four reasons: Marketing. Marketing. Marketing. Reputation. >Marketing hype can only go so far. ... Further than you'd credit.... why do you think IBM-PC's were successful? Certainly not because of the brain-dead OS, or the (even then) primitive hradware architecture. > .... SPARCstations are at least twice as fast >as the 3000UX. Doing what? Which CRAPSstation? (Sorry, dyslexia lures) Please don't compare the $20,000 box to the $5000 box. By Sun's own admission, sales of the SLC (aka "Super Low Cost") were disappointingly low, mainly because they got their market research wrong, and many people just didn't want monochrome, diskless, relatively slow workstations, with no expansion slots. I'd like to be able to afford a SPARCstation (or even Solbourne), and all the equivalent software that I have for my Amiga. But I don't have the money to spare, and I doubt if many others would. It's simply not a Personal Computer one could afford to keep at home. The A3000UX is just on the edge of affordability, and also makes, IMHO, a great little PC. -- Bernd Felsche, _--_|\ #include <std/disclaimer.h> Metapro Systems, / sale \ Fax: +61 9 472 3337 328 Albany Highway, \_.--._/ Phone: +61 9 362 9355 Victoria Park, Western Australia v Email: bernie@metapro.DIALix.oz.au