Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!texsun!letni!dms3b1!caleb!jdp
From: jdp@caleb.UUCP (Jim Pritchett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: board<>3000 RETRACTION-NEAT NEWSGROUP
Message-ID: <10213.AA10213@caleb>
Date: 18 Oct 90 03:28:05 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga
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In article <27567@usc.edu> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes:

> The Amiga 1000 *NEVER* supported MORE THAN ONE SOTS.  Al third parties that
> claimed otherwise were fooling you. Commodore-Amiga was VERY specific about
> this in ALL thir documentation. Some third parties played games with the
> SOTS concept and were bit.  Thir fault, not Commodore's.

Well, this is not completely correct.  Back when the A1000 first came
out, the A1000 was promoted as having the capability to add multiple
SOTS end to end.  Once third parties actually started producing SOTS
stuff, many problems were discovered when trying to do this.  (Supposedly,
the problems were mainly due to the extra noise on the bus caused by
the Kickstart daughterboard - a last minute kludge to the design.)  Later,
the official CBM line became as Mr. Papa stated.

I've been on various networks since the Amiga was announced in the summer of
1985.  I bought my A1000 in December of that year.  (Yeah, I know that many
others got their Amigas before I did, but I got one of the first few that
arrived in stores in my area.)

From the net traffic on the subject over the years, it seems that some
A1000s would perform well with 2 or even 3 well designed SOTS cards.
However, most would fail to work properly under the same conditions
with the same cards.  A very few A1000s were reported to fail with only
ONE SOTS!  This is why CBM went to the single SOTS rule.  However, the
first time that I heard anyone claim that this was official policy was
about 1.5 to 2 years later!

One of the primary reasons that many people believe that CBM had always
had the single SOTS rule is the fact that a certain hardware developer
(which sold expansion boxes) spread the "single SOTS" idea far and wide
over the networks.  While I think that the particular developer has
produced high quality products for the Amiga, I think that his conduct
on various networks over the years has been highly questionable.  His
typical pattern has been to show up frequently on the networks when he
has a new product near completion.  He then hypes it heavily.  In the
early days he usually blasted his competitors quite severely.  Sometimes
he also provides helpful info.  After he has done all the free advertising
that he wants to do, he disappears until the next product is near
completion.  I don't intend to mention names here because I think highly
of this developer.  Also, most of the description above also applies to
quite a few other Amiga third-party developers on the networks over the
years.  (Just to prevent misinterpretation, I am NOT referring to
Mr. Papa - he doesn't make hardware as far as I know.)

P.S.  Contrary to the common anti-commercial bias on this net, I like
the product announcements and supplemental information provided by some
developers.  What I don't like is biased flaming of competitors.  Also,
I don't like repetitive, thinly veiled advertisements full of hype about
their products.





--

                                                Jim Pritchett


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