Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!daveh From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Newsgroups: alt.sources.amiga Subject: Re: Amiga Blues Message-ID: <13697@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 8 Aug 90 05:31:14 GMT References: <20260001@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com> <1037@flash.UUCP> Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax (Dave Haynie) Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 81 In article <1037@flash.UUCP> klg@flash.UUCP (Kevin L. Gross) writes: >In article <20260001@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com> guest@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com (Guest) writes: >>The Amiga is a VERY nice machine. It's capabilities with graphics and >>sound allow the machine great versitility and user-friendliness in a >>UNIX-style environment. Why are there no notes about this very very very >>good machine? >Because IMHO, the people that make the Amiga lie through their teeth when >it comes to supporting the hardware and living up to their claims of >expandability. What are you on, acid or something? Is the Amiga the only computer you've ever had experience with? Care to site just one case of where you have been lied to? >I'm not real crazy about buying any more Amiga equipment so that I can >be told things like: > 1. We don't support that hardware any more. Computers are eventually out of date. The A1000 is not made anymore, though you can still get most of the parts. Have you tried IBM for support on the original PC lately? How about Apple on the Apple I or the original Apple II? Tandy on the TRS-80 model 1? DEC on the PDP-8? Sun on the Sun-2? No computer lasts for ever. Still, the A1000 can be upgraded to do much of what an A2000 does by way of third party add-ons, especially an internal device called "the Rejuvenator", which gives the A1000 extra Chip memory, 512K ROMs, and a video slot. > 2. We don't support that software any more. > 3. Our software doesn't have to be forward compatible. > 4. Our software doesn't have to be backward compatible. > 5. You have to reboot in order to run our program. All software is required to be upward compatible. And it should exit gracefully if it requires hardware of software revisions not present. And it's illegal to take over the machine. All developers know these things. But Commodore-Amiga can no more force developers to do things than IBM or Microsoft can under MS-DOS or Apple can under MacOS. You'll the same story on any other platform -- good companies upgrade their software, especially if failures are due to their own programming mistakes or dirty tricks. Bad companies often don't upgrade their software. The Amiga's overall probably got more programs that survive OS upgrades than most systems. Ever notice how many MS-DOS 4.0 users keep copies of 3.3 or 2.x handy? Or how many different versions of Finder the typical Mac owner keeps around? This is a problem, and it's up to all of us to badmouth the companies that refuse to upgrade their software. > 6. Our hardware has to be the last on the expansion slot. That's completely illegal, and anyone claiming that will likely fail on the Amiga 3000's backplane and be forced to fix their mistakes rather than burden the user with them. And you do find this kind of thing on the ISA (PC/AT) bus as well. > 7. Normally, memory chips are $100/MB, but for you, an Amiga > owner, its $700-800 to upgrade from 1MB to 2MB RAM. Just like with any computer, once you're out of on-board memory, you need to add a memory board, not simply another chip. Zorro II memory boards for the 2000 can be had for under $300 for 2 Megs boards, under $800 for 8 meg boards, which in fact does happen to work out to $100/Meg. A1000 memory boards in their own case go for more like $400 for 2 megs. > 8. Guru crashes are the fault of the Amiga, they are caused by > vendors who don't write software the way Commodore wants. Or, for that matter, the way Motorola requires it to be written to function on the 68000. The vast majority of GURUs are the result of sloppy programming. The Amiga is better at identifying software failures than the PC/MS-DOS or the Mac, since programs run in User mode while the Exec runs in Supervisor mode (eg, the way Motorola intended it to be). So the Amiga tells you of a failure, where the Mac or PC might simply freeze up. >-Kevin L. Gross Systems Mgr. klg@Summation.WA.COM -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy Get that coffee outta my face, put a Margarita in its place!