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From: karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Amigas -- why the 90 day warranty?
Summary: Obfuscation of the issue
Message-ID: <1989Oct27.162224.688@ddsw1.MCS.COM>
Date: 27 Oct 89 16:22:24 GMT
References: <1989Oct24.193454.23743@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <8288@cbmvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger)
Distribution: na
Organization: Macro Computer Solutions, Inc., Mundelein, IL
Lines: 56

In article <8288@cbmvax.UUCP> daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) writes:
>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

>> 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.

And the 500?  The 1000 (admittedly defunct now)?

>> 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).  

"There's a little bit of extra logic in external drives".... which means
that they won't work unless you have that extra bit of logic!  In other
words, they are indeed different.

Independent motor control sounds interesting, but it's hardly necessary.

I call this "change because it felt good", or more likely "change to make it
harder for people to patch in non-proprietary hardware".

>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).

Keyboards I can understand -- as long as replacements are available at
reasonable cost ($100 or so).  They >are< different; I don't expect you to
use the scancode system of a PC (although it would have been nice to see
compatibility there as well).

I noticed that conspicuous by it's absence was a response to my query
regarding warranties....

>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

--
Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl)
Public Access Data Line: [+1 312 566-8911], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910]
Macro Computer Solutions, Inc.		"Quality Solutions at a Fair Price"