Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Amiga coverage in Byte
Message-ID: <19497@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 4 Mar 91 23:35:04 GMT
References: <91059.184958CXW148@psuvm.psu.edu>
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 43

In article <91059.184958CXW148@psuvm.psu.edu> CXW148@psuvm.psu.edu writes:

>      A review of a multimedia product (software, I believe), for the IBM
>actually stated that the product was slow, and the interface exceedingly poor.
>The reviewer's conclusion was, "If this is the best IBM animation product
>produced, my money's on Apple."

>       Apple?  An article about an IBM animation program, and he compares it to
> _Apple's_ animation!!?

In BYTE's defense, I think they've managed to improve recently.  They have had
more Amiga information.  I, for one, don't buy BYTE specifically to hear about
Amigas, or PCs, or anything that's real system specific.  I buy it to hear 
about goings on the computer industry as a whole.  Things like the Video 
Toaster, or perhaps the article on Exec from a month or two ago are reasonably
significant to the industry.  I don't think a review of "BlazeMonger IV" for
the Amiga, or the 5,768,347th way to write a TSR for MS-DOS would be a 
reasonable thing to read about in BYTE.

Of course, like most magazines, BYTE doesn't [a] write all their own articles,
or [b] have editorial staff with knowledge of every system.  They can't do
all that much about the former as long as they solicit articles from the 
outside (necessary for anyone trying to do something beyond reviews and
editorials).  The latter is a problem -- you would expect any member of the
editorial staff assigned a particular review, etc. to be knowledgeable in the
field.  If that field is dominated by Amigas or Suns, the article should
certainly at least mention these other system, rather than misleading the
reader.

They also don't automatically know about every product introduced.  They are,
after all, tracking quite a few.  If a company releases a new goody, and 
doesn't tell BYTE about it by sending them a press release, BYTE probably
won't show it in their "What's New" section (or whatever that's called now).
On the other hand, if they publish announcements of software package type A
for IBM, they should publish that same type for any machine they get a press
release about.  It shouldn't surprise anyone that there are more things 
released for PClones than for Amigas, Macs, Suns, NeXTs, Ataris, whatevers;
there are simply more of those toys out there.

-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
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	"What works for me might work for you"	-Jimmy Buffett