Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!sharkey!aucis!easton From: easton@aucis.UUCP (Jeff Easton) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Wish I had an Amiga 1500 Message-ID: <446@aucis.UUCP> Date: 9 Jul 89 21:49:26 GMT References: <20219@cup.portal.com> Organization: Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI Lines: 64 In article , limonce@pilot.njin.net (Tom Limoncelli) writes: > This was discussed earlier. The designer (Dave Haynie) posted an > interesting message where he costed the whole thing out and the > difference in price was about $50-$100. That's the difference that > the customer would see. > > The reason for this is that the IBM slots use the Amiga's power supply > (P/Ss are very expensive when compared to other parts of the computer) [...] > bridgeboard. So, the cost is really in the connectors and the extra > time it takes the machine to place them and connect them. > > It is a good idea, but when you cost it out it isn't at practical as > we'd all hope for. Sorry that the news wasn't better! > > -Tom Ah, but Commodore's marketing group sell a lot of them if they presented it right. Try this scenario: CBM introduces a Amiga 1500. System is a 15" x 15" x 4" system box with three horizontal Zorro II expansion slots. All the ususal components found in the B2000 are included on the motherboard. ( A nice option at this point would be to include 4 SIMM sockets on the motherboard for FAST memory to 4 Mbytes .) Auto config circuitry could be on the 3 slot expansion daughter board. Power supply is rated at around 80 watts. This is sufficent to power three expansion boards and two drive units. Mass storage options are two 3.5" drive bays. Any combination of floppys or hard disks. i.e. 1 FD, 2 FD, 1 FD & 1 HD. Ships with 1 floppy as standard. No IBM PCAT slots, no coprocessor slot. Sells for about $500.00 less than B2000. Cost reduction comes from smaller power supply (200 W -> 80 W), reduced number of connectors (4 AT, 2 zorro, 1 video), smaller PC board, less metal, additional glue logic put into a gate array. Does this sound familiar? Can you say, Mac IICX? How is fast is Apple selling those? (hint, they cant make enough of 'em). They could sell a lot of these machines in the European market. The European market has practically dictated this form factor for a system box. They want something about the size of the monitor. Big boxes dont sell well in Europe like they do here. Take a look at a PS2 model 30 or Z286LP to see what I'm talking about. What would you do only three slots? Well, a A2090A/B/C... HD controller is a must, and then maybe a 8MB RAM card for slot #2 (especially if the motherboard dosent have the 4 SIMM sockets). That leaves 1 slot for a super video card or modem card or, or... A nice touch would be a motherboard swap/upgrade to a 68030 system around a year after intro. That may cause problems with marketing the B2000 unless a simalar option was available for it. I for one would have bought the above machine instead of my B2000. PC compatibility? I dont need it, I'm drowning in PC's around here :>. Accelerator boards? A '030 mother board would fix that. There, thats my $0.02 worth. Jeff Easton UUCP: !mailrus!sharkey!aucis!easton Zenith Data Systems OEM Engineering