Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!psuvax1!news From: melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) Subject: Re: Amiga OS *IS* state of the art, but the NeXT is better In-Reply-To: greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu's message of 5 Apr 91 08:54:19 GMT Message-ID: <_z8Gw7zh1@cs.psu.edu> Sender: news@cs.psu.edu (Usenet) Nntp-Posting-Host: sunws5.sys.cs.psu.edu Organization: Penn State Computer Science References: <1991Apr3.190802.11055@sugar.hackercorp.com> <1991Apr4.015311.19714@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <46749@ut-emx.uucp> Distribution: usa Date: Fri, 5 Apr 91 17:46:00 GMT Lines: 42 In article <46749@ut-emx.uucp> greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Greg Harp) writes: Sales figures, profits, etc. Such things are important to developers. They have to know what to expect when they go to market. You see, keeping such data secret allows Steve Jobs to ignore the fact that NeXT isn't making any profits, nor have they ever done so. It allows him to pull his creditor's chains just a bit longer. It allows him to talk companies (with a bit o'the green in his hands) into developing, promising them many returns for their time invester. Steve Jobs' whole marketing strategy is based on secrecy and dishonesty. You want an example? Ok. Consider the big educational discount hype. Ol' Steve is trying to sell a crippled system (only 105MB drive, no compiler, no man pages, Mathematica's gone, Lotus is gone -- you get the license for the compiler and the man pages but you're SOL until you invest in another drive) as the perfect student's machine. WHAT?!?! In addition, the average student doesn't have internet access (ask most college students if they know what the internet IS) so the only software they can get is commercial and EXPEN$IVE! Let's consider the big educational discount. A 68040(has FPU built in) machine with a 105MB hard drive, 8MB of RAM, a DSP, , a 2.88MB floppy drive, a 17" 92dpi monochrome monitor(2 bit gray scale) with only part of the software installed. What kind of Mac could you get for that price($3300)? Of course we aren't interested in the Mac here. I think $3300 will buy you a 105MB 25MHz Amiga 3000(how much RAM? -- with Unix?). 8MB of RAM and a 105MB hard drive is not optimal, but it is quite usable. How much space do you have free on your hard disk? You can get software from friends or a local users group, if one exists. How did Amiga users deal with this when the Amiga was first released? -Mike BTW: Lotus Improv was shipped free to users who bought their machines before March 31. It wasn't included on the HD.