Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!walt.cc.utexas.edu!greg
From: greg@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Greg Harp)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga competitiveness
Message-ID: <37871@ut-emx.uucp>
Date: 3 Oct 90 21:10:27 GMT
References: <32251@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
Sender: news@ut-emx.uucp
Reply-To: greg@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Greg Harp)
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
Lines: 58

In article <32251@nigel.ee.udel.edu> AAW151%URIACC.BITNET@brownvm.brown.edu (Andy Patrizio) writes:
>I'm talking if you go to your local dealership. He isn't going to sell you
>parts, he sells it as a whole. And even if you do buy from Computer
>Shopper (and what professional will? CS is for hackers who want to build
>their own, not a corporation that wants to waste time assembling the box.),
>you WILL buy a hard drive. Application software demands it. Only an idiot
>would buy a 286/386/486 with 2 floppies.

Actually most corporations buy LAN systems, where the nodes rarely have ANY drives.

The bank at which I did my testing this summer used 3Com stations (which are
diskless Pee Cee clones with, I believe, a 286 and 1MB) and a plain-old 286
with some HUGE disks hooked up for a server.  (What?! I have to shut down the
net to access the server?)  I finally had to bring a machine from the office
and pop a 3Com Ethernet board into it so I could copy files from/to the server
during the work day.

[Silly Pee Cee LAN systems.  Haven't they heard of multitasking?  One should be able
to sit down at the server and work on it without having to shut down the net!]

>Don't forget, this is Apple we're talking about, the company that's a living
>testament to the dangers of a monopoly in business. Macs originally came
>without a hard drive because they didn't want it to compete with the Lisa
>(this was in 1984, mind you). When the SuperDrives came out, Apple freaked.
>"You're not SUPPOSED to be able to put a hard drive inside a Mac!" was
>their cry.

Ain't it funny that so many mega-successful machines were not intended to get that
far?  Remember that IBM's original expectations were that no one would want more
than 64K of RAM.  "Nah," they said, "It'll be obsolete by the time there are needs
for _that_ much RAM."

>Actually, if I was to make any ONE big change in the Amiga line, I'd get rid of
>the IBM slots, or at least introuce another box with six or eight Amiga slots.
>One friend who does video work has loaded his 2500; Flicker fixer, HD, GVP 3001
>card, Frame Buffer, and RAM up the wazoo. More slots are needed in this beast.

True.  The rumored 3500 is supposed to have something like 5 Zorro III slots,
but since the motherboard already has the display-enhancer, 18MB RAM capability,
and SCSI you probably don't need more than the extra 5... (of course I was 
accusing IBM of assuming such things above, wasn't I?)

> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>* Andy Patrizio                    |  Box 705 Ellery Hall        | what else? *
>* Bitnet: aaw151@uriacc.bitnet     |  University of Rhode Island |   Amiga!   *
>* Internet: aaw151@uriacc.uri.edu  |  Kingston, RI 02881         |      //    *
>* Usenet: simon@sbs.bbs.com        |  USofA                      |  \\ //     *
>* MaBellNet: (401) 782-2758        |                             |   \X/      *
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Greg

             Disclaimer:  "Who me?  Surely you must be mistaken!"         _ _
"The lunatic is in the hall.  The lunatics are in my hall.        AMIGA! ////
 The paper holds their folded faces to the floor,                       ////
 And every day the paperboy brings more." -- Pink Floyd           _ _  ////  
                                                                  \\\\////
        Greg Harp               greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu            \\XX//