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From: taab5@ccvax.iastate.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Commodore Research and Development.
Message-ID: <1991Jan3.003449.1@ccvax.iastate.edu>
Date: 3 Jan 91 06:34:49 GMT
Sender: news@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System)
Lines: 87


   I would seriously like someone to tell me why, over the past few years,
Commodore's research and development has become very, very lax.  To prove
my point I would like to present six cases in which Commodore hardware R&D
has fallen well behind the rest of the industry -- in some cases two or
three generations behind.


   CASE 1: THE CMOS CHIPSET AND THE ATARI LYNX
   Some of the original Amiga founders were able to scale the Amiga chipset
down somewhat and produce a CMOS version of it that preserves the 4096 colors
and 4-voice stereo sound of the Amiga.  Commodore, with a much larger
budget for R&D, has been unable to do anything with the Amiga chipset except
make some very minor improvements.  Commodore has been trying for many years
to produce a CMOS version of the Amiga chipset that finally includes some
significant improvements, but completion of this chipset is probably still
many years away.

   CASE 2: COMMODORE'S PC-CLONE R&D:
   Commodore is perpetually a full generation behind the rest of the world
in developing PC-xompatible systems.  Commodore did not have any IBM PC
compatible systems at all until PC/AT-compatible systems were readily
available.  Commodore also did market their first PC/AT-compatible systems
until 386-based systems were widely available.  Finally, Commodore did
not get their first 386-based systems on the market until 486-based systems
were becoming available from a large number of companies.

   CASE 3: THE A2410 "U-LOWELL" VIDEO BOARD:
   It is very plain how much confidence Commodore's management has it
their engineers.  When the Commodore manglement people finally realized
that their flagship computer system had fallen several generations behind
the rest of the world in video display technology, they did not have their
engineers develop a new video board for the Amiga.  Instead, they decided
to purchase one from outside the company.  Even with this, the graphics
capabilities of the A2410 are no better than those of video boards that
have been available for MAC and PC-compatible systems for several years,
and the A2410 isn't even available yet.

   CASE 4: COMMODORE'S CD-ROM TECHNOLOGY:
   Commodore, to this day, does not have any CD-ROM products available for
any of their systems.  Commodore is developing the consumer-oriented CDTV,
but the CDTV is not available yet, whereas CD-ROMs have been available
for MAC and PC-compatible systems (in some cases as standard hardware) for
several years.

   CASE 5: HIGH-DENSITY FLOPPY DRIVES:
   High-density 1.44MB 3.5" floppy drives have been available for PC/AT
and 80386-based systems for several years.  They have even been available
for MAC systems for mor than two years, and are now standard hardware
on all MAC systems.  These drives have been available for so long that
they are already being considered out-of-date, and several companies
(including IBM and NeXT) are moving beyond these drives to 2.88MB drives.
2.88MB drives are readily available for MAC and PC-compatible systems from
several third-party companies.  Now that 2.88MB drives are becoming
increasingly common, the Amiga is only now just starting to have 1.44MB
drives become available for it, and they are not compatible with IBM 1.44MB
drives and are not even from Commodore.

   CASE 6: LAPTOP COMPUTER SYSTEMS:
   Now that monochrome laptop computers are as common as briefcases,
and many companies are starting to produce color laptop computer systems,
Commodore has only very recently produced their first monochrome laptop
computer, and it is a PC-clone.  Commodore has absolutely no laptop Amigas
of any kind, and the few third-party "portable" Amigas that are available
are so bulky as to make desktop computer systems look like hand-helds by
comparison.  In addition to this, all of these "portable" Amigas are
monochrome -- an insult to the 4096-color Amiga.
   If a small company like Epix -- with an R&D budget much smaller than
Commodore's -- can produce what is essentially a handheld Amiga, complete
with the Amiga's 4096 colors and four-voice stereo sound, then Commodore
should be able to produce a color Amiga laptop that preserves these
capabilities of the Amiga and more.  There are color laptop 80386 machines,
Apple is developing a color laptop Macintosh, and there are even some color
laptop SPARCstations, but there are absolutely no color laptop Amigas.


   In conclusion, I feel that Commodore has fallen so for behind in their
R&D that they will probably never catch up.  Commodore has never been
a company that produces innovative new technologies, and very likely never
will be.  Commodore is a 'catch-up' company that is forever trying to
catch up with the rest of the industry, to avoid going out of business
altogether, and will likely always be this way.

    AMIGA -- YESTERDAY'S TECHNOLOGY, FOREVER!!!


                                   -MB-