Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!jade!eris!mwm From: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (No one lives forever.) Meyer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: A1000 -> A2000 expansion box? Message-ID: <2822@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: Tue, 17-Mar-87 03:08:54 EST Article-I.D.: jade.2822 Posted: Tue Mar 17 03:08:54 1987 Date-Received: Wed, 18-Mar-87 06:26:01 EST References: <17641@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <186@dcatla.UUCP> Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (No one lives forever.) Meyer) Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Lines: 75 [This is a flame. You've been warned.] In article <760@hp-sdd.HP.COM> nick@hp-sdd.UUCP (Nick Flor) writes: >Commodore is a great outfit. They can afford to subsidize. >It looks like noone seems to care that they're losing the >extra functionality of the Amiga 2000. What is this gibberish? I've still got the machine I paid for, and I haven't spent any more money on it. There's no way on (or off) earth I could be said to have "lost" anything! Therefore, there's no reason for me to be upset about the A2000. Likewise, since I haven't lost anything, there's no reason for anyone to subsidize me, or to subsidize manufacturers of expansion boards. Now I have to decide whether I want A2000 or zorro (or maybe 86-pin :-) expansion slots. Maybe some sharp manufacturer will figure out a way to turn Zorro slots into A2000 slots with a cheap attachment, and I can get either in one slot. Makes me feel sorry for all those A2000 owners who won't be able to turn A2000 slots into zorro slots. Nick, wake up. There isn't any "extra functionality" in the A2000. It's got more memory inside, but no software will notice that. Anything that will run on a stock A2000 will run on an A1000 + cheap memory board (and at current prices, the A1000 will cost less). True, you can hang extra hardware on an A2000. To get that, you have to buy an expansion box for the A1000. So? You've _always_ had to buy an expansion box for the A1000 to get any significant extra hardware on it. Why does the introduction of a machine that has the slots inside make you think you've been hurt, and need to be subsidized? If this were like the long string of Mac upgrades, where software that ran on the new machines wouldn't run on the old ones without an upgrade, I'd understand you gettig upset. But that didn't obligate Apple to subsidize, and this isn't even that kind of case. BTW, why weren't you screaming for "subsidized" or "free" 1.2 enhancements? After all, software that expects you to have that won't run on 1.1 (unless someone took great pains to make it do so!). After all, at 150,000 users, that's only 2 and 1/4 million dollars it would have cost Commodore (assuming that the $15 price tag was cost, which seems likely) to give one to everyone. Of course, any subsidy has to come from _somewhere_. It ain't gonna come from the stockholders, and it ain't gonna come from labor (I can here the unions now: "You want us to take a 5% pay cut for WHAT!?!?!"). It might come for the programming staff, but I bet they wouldn't like it. Gee, it must come from selling the new machines. Guess who's gonna wind up paying that? Why, the customers, of course! That means they'll sell fewer machines, which means there won't be as large a customer base, which means that there will be less software/new hardware for the machine, which means you'll wind up with software that isn't as good, or costs more, or both. You sure _that's_ what you want to encourage? On the other hand, Perry's suggestion that Commodore could help by allowing hardware developers to add riders to power supply orders & the like seems like a good one. Wouldn't cost Commodore anything (I'm assuming a nominal charge for paperwork/etc.), and would wind up as a net lower cost for the end users. Now, what I _am_ pissed about is that the A2000 is, if anything, a noticable step _backwards_ from the A1000. They put a place for eighty-eighty-sux family processors in it, lowered the ergonomics of the machine (no place to store the keyboard? yuch), and raised the price over the A1000. Why were they wasting time adding marginal features/misfeatures, instead of working on something that's as far ahead of the A1000 as the A1000 was ahead of the rest of the world in '85?