Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!mephisto!udel!mmdf From: BARRETT%FOREST.ECIL.IASTATE.EDU@cunyvm.cuny.edu (Marc Barrett) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Amiga Ideas.... Message-ID: <15241@snow-white.udel.EDU> Date: 28 Mar 90 14:08:44 GMT Sender: mmdf@udel.EDU Lines: 55 As I said in my last message, I have had pure motives in all the trouble I've started here. since the Amiga 1000 was intorduced in 1985, Commodore has not been on the offense in the computer industry at all. quite the contrary, everything Commodore has introduced since 1985 has been an effort to 'catch up' to the rest of the industry. With IBM, compaq, and Apple introducing powerful new workstation systems, unless Commodore gets into shape, they do not stand a chance in anything but the low-end home computer market. I do not want to see this happen. And is doesn't necessarily have to happen. All it requires is to prevent this is a little capital and a lot of imagination. Instead of contributing trouble now, I would like to contribute ideas. I have already outlined the possibility of instilling a 10-bitplane HAM mode into the Lowell video board. This alone would cause Apple a lot of trouble. This would allow Commodore to produce a product with the capability of producing millions of colors on the screen with less than 2/5 the amount of memory per frame as the Apple graphics board requires. There is also this small company called Digital Animation Productions which is producing a product called the Video Transputer. The last I heard, there are having quite a time trying to develop and market this product themselves. What if Commodore were to purchase this small company, and make the Video Transputer circuitry standard hardware for an Amiga Graphics Workstation? What would THAT do to the FX??? (A LOT. The Video Tranputer has the same graphics capabilities as the FX, but a hell of a lot faster. Put into a high- end 68030-based Amiga, and given a 32-bit communications channel to the 68030, it would, quite literally, blow the FX out of the water, for approximately the same price). Then there is also the Video Toaster. I doubt NewTek would want to be acquired by Commodore. But what if Commodore were to license the Video Toaster, and offer an Amiga 3000 package with the Video Toaster? I was in one of only TWO Amiga user's groups nationwide which were priviledged to see the V.T., and it blew me away. And NewTek hasn't been sitting on their hands with it for the last two years, either. It is 10 times more powerful now than it was then, and man was it powerful then. The trouble is, a lot of companies don't like to touch third-party hardware because of the risks involved. They'd rather go with hardware from the company that produces the system. An Amiga 3000 package with Video Toaster would be just what the doctor ordered for such companies. Other ideas can be considered. I just want Commodore to go with one of them, instead of sitting on their hands as they have since the MAC II was originally introduced. -MB- AMIGA FOREVER!!!