Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:42476 comp.sys.amiga.tech:7852
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Amigas -- why the 90 day warranty?
Message-ID: <8288@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: 26 Oct 89 16:00:21 GMT
References: <1989Oct24.193454.23743@ddsw1.MCS.COM>
Distribution: na
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 34

in article <1989Oct24.193454.23743@ddsw1.MCS.COM>, karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) says:
> Summary: Heh, this is a CONSUMER item.  Major consumer items have warranties
> Xref: cbmvax comp.sys.amiga:44851 comp.sys.amiga.tech:8474

> 1) The plastic case. [...] I have not looked closely at an A2000.  

The A2000 has a metal case with a plastic front bezel, like most Clones.

> 3) Custom components where not necessary.  Specifically, floppy drives and
>    (to a lesser extent) keyboards.  The floppy drives in particular seem to
>    be custom just so they can be (720K & 1.44MB "PC" style 3.5" drives have
>    a diskchange signal, which the Amy needs, so why not use them?)

The floppy mechanisms used are industry standard 3.5" drives (the same kind you
use for 720k floppies on Clones).  There's a little bit of extra logic in 
external drives that sends the proper ID code to the Amiga, so it knows what
kind of drive is connected and can thus automatically mount that drive for you.
This logic also allows independent motor control of 4 daisy chained drives, 
which you can't get using the industry standard 34 pin ribbon cable alone (most
Clones only support two drives, anyway).  

The keyboard does a number of things that PC keyboards don't do.  Same reason,
I suspect, Macs don't use Clone keyboards.  The layout, however, is pretty close
to standard (if anything, the AT keyboards mess up here by screwing around with
the position of the control key and building an immense and annoying caps-lock
key.  DEC set a reasonable keyboard standard long before there ever was an 
IBM PC).

> Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl)

-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: hazy     BIX: hazy
                    Too much of everything is just enough