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From: page@ulowell.UUCP (Bob Page)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: C-Ltd.
Message-ID: <758@ulowell.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 17-Nov-86 16:12:34 EST
Article-I.D.: ulowell.758
Posted: Mon Nov 17 16:12:34 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Nov-86 08:45:45 EST
References: <2043@well.UUCP>
Reply-To: page@ulowell.UUCP (Bob Page)
Organization: University of Lowell
Lines: 78
Summary: Shipping Dec 1

Warning: this article is about 75 lines long without headers and
the signature.  Some of the information may be useful, however.

spencer@well.UUCP (Randal Spencer) wrote in article <2043@well.UUCP>:
>I tried to post this to the net a while back but the Well ate it so here 

Hmmm.  I got both here at ulo-well, on the other coast.

>On Sept 11 in net.micro.amiga Rich Rodgers (richr@pogo.UUCP) wrote:

>>SCSI controller - hard disk - power-supply combination all for the retail of
>>$995.  As with all C Ltd. products you will only be able to buy it from
>>your local dealer.

I ordered mine last week directly from C Ltd - they have a special deal
for developers, I think it was about $750 for 7-port SCSI, power supply
and 20 MB hard drive.  I say `I think' because I just told them to put it
on my plastic, you know what I mean?  They said it would ship Dec 1.
That's also the same time that Byte-by-Byte's PALjr ($1500 list,
has 1MB RAM and 20 MB DMA hard disk, no clock, doesn't pass the bus,
no expansion ports) will ship.  I already have the CardCo/CLtd aMEGA
one MB board, so I had to get the <$20 pass-through connector for it.

>>If pressured the folks at C Ltd. will probably offer the SCSI board
>>alone for a semi-reasonable cost.

It is available alone - I think it's 295 retail, but don't quote me or
flame CLtd if I'm wrong.  They have developer's discounts on that, too,
so you can buy one and hook up your own 600MB SCSI disk :-)

The only problem with all this, I am afraid, is that AmigaDOG can't
keep up with the disk/interface transfer rate.  I saw a 10 MB SCSI
drive (Xebec ?  Something like that) last weekend at the MARCA show
and it looked really sluggish.  It also had a bug someplace - the
DIR command (and LIST too) would loop on a particular entry - I
guess the file pointer was pointing back on itself.  Dave Haynie,
how about a DISKSALV for hard disks - maybe using stiffies for
intermediate file storage?  Just a thought.  DISKED makes me
shudder, as does DISKDOCTOR.  I'd rather mung a copy, if you
know what I mean.  Of course you do.

Sigh.  I've resigned myself to a slow hard disk (because of the
SOFTWARE - I won't even repeat what the author of AmigaDOS was
saying at the Developer's Conference), but at least I won't have
to be constantly changing stiffies (tan, blue or otherwise).

Anybody know of a cheap SCSI tape so I can back up the sucker?
AmigaDOS 1.2 now supports archiving/backup with a special bit
in the directory entry, so I suppose you can expect to see
incremental backup programs soon.

-- warning.  here we digress from technical talk.

>Anybody want to know why the Amiga isn't selling up to its potential?
>Anybody think that it might have anything to do with all the mis-under-
>standing the general public has about the machine?

In my opinion, the Amiga Kernel is too sophisticated for micro
programmers to tackle.  It takes mini hackers (no, not munchkins)
to understand terms like 'message passing.'  Sad but true.  The
world will catch up to the Amiga, but not for a while.  Maybe
Mess-dos version 5 or something.  Maybe by then the Amiga will
have a better DOS (I don't mean kernel) as well.

Look for a large (hopefully well-targeted) ad campaign from CBM
real-soon-now.  My guess is that they waited for both clearance
from the banks and the Sidecar & genlock products to ship.  And
now that 1.2 is Officially Here, what else could hold them back?

>Now, isn't Mac World and Amiga World put out by the same people?  Hmm...

Last year MacWorld was predicting a Horrible Death for the Amiga.
I don't see Amiga magazines concerning themselves with the Mac.
But variety is the spice of life, eh?

..Bob
-- 
Bob Page,  U of Lowell CS Dept.      ulowell!page,  page@ulowell.CSNET