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From: admiral@m-5.Sun.COM (Michael Limprecht SUN Microsystems Mt. View Ca.)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: A different review of the A3000
Keywords: A3000 vs workstations
Message-ID: <135251@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 5 May 90 02:32:17 GMT
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Lines: 50

I got to play with an A3000 the other day. So .....
                  Are you listening CBM???


GOOD:
- The box. Nice job, looks much much better than the panzer A2000.
  Smaller footprint. SCSI port on back. Nice height.
- OS 2.0 (or whatever). Very well done, even our Sun GUI could take 
  a few lessons from this one. Very professional.
- Price. CBM hit this one right on the head. Under cutting the MAC II's
  (which isn't too hard) will help sell a lot of these. But that may
  change (see below).

BAD:
- The architecture really hasn't changed. From what I've seen the
  A3000 still has the same old chip/fast ram set up. My guess is 
  that the machine is going to real I/O bound with chip ram and 
  retrace on the bus. It's really time to change this. A Full 32-bit
  chipset, maybe some type of dual-port ram or frame buffer for the
  video. Anything to speed up the bus. The A4000 maybe??
- ZIP memories. I've always had problems with these things in sockets.
  I know they save a lot of acreage on the board but I don't know. I 
  sure hope this doesn't cause problems. 
- Calling it a workstation. When you do this you put this machine up
  against some real heavy hitters (Sun, DEC, MIPS and to lesser extent,
  Apple). This box has a nice price-point and that will help but not that
  much. Check out Friday's S.F. Chronicle. There's an article on Sun
  releasing a new workstation in the $4-5K range (list). And it will be
  I figure 4X's faster. This trend of high speed/low cost workstations 
  isn't going away. As a personal computer the A3000 is fast but as a 
  workstation it's a slug.
  Since CBM is pushing the multimedia angle, change the name to something 
  like "Media-Station". This avoids the workstaion label and opens a whole
  new way to promote the A3000.
- Need 8-bit color hi-res, if your going to call it a workstaion.

OVERALL GRADE = B (not counting bugs at this point)

I've read quite a few reviews over the last couple of days and from the
prespective of past Amiga's it's a great machine. But it's evolutionary,
not revolutionary by any means. This machine can give CBM the time
necessary to build something really nasty for the workstaion market. I 
just hope they do.

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"I think there's a world market for about 5 computers."
        - Thomas J. Watson, Chairman of the Board, IBM (around 1948)
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