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From: urjlew@ecsvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: AMIGA 2000 and IBM compatability
Message-ID: <2845@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 1-Apr-87 01:01:38 EST
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.2845
Posted: Wed Apr  1 01:01:38 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Apr-87 04:24:28 EST
Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service
Lines: 53


O.K. folks. This thursday IBM is going to announce its new PCs.
According to all the rumours they will use a new proprietary
buss, and none of the existing expansion boards will work in
this new machine. Also at the same time or shortly later, IBM
will be announcing a new operating system to go with these new
machines. Of course the BIOS of the new machines will also
be different.
So where does this leave the AMIGA 2000, (and the new MAC ?)
which have been making so much of their their IBM PC capabilities?
I realize that there is still the world of several million
existing (old style) IBM PCs, their clones, the clone makers,
and the add on manufacturers. But the fact remains that as
far as capturing a piece of the IBM market, COMMODORE and
all the rest are about to be finessed. 
The AMIGA 2000 was/is supposed to feed of the availability of
cheap IBM PC expansion hardware. But with the new standards
being set by the new machines, how much longer will the old
expansion addons continue to be available? 
   
Going of on a tangent from the previous paragraphs, I do not
really understand what if any are the constraints on what
kind of IBM PC expansion boards will work with the AMIGA 2000.
Can anybody from Commodore please post such a list or description.
Does an IBM PC or AT type cpu card have to be installed, in
order for other IBM PC or AT expansion cards to be useable?
Which of the following IBM PC expansion cards and card types
will/will not work on the AMIGA 2000:
1) Multifunction cards e.g. AST Six Pack
2) 327x emulation cards e.g. DCA Irma
3) IBM EGA graphics card        
4) IBM PGA graphics card
5) IBM PCnetwork adapter
6) IBM Token ring adapter
7) 3M Ethernet card
8) Above board or other memory expansions
9) 3086 accelerator cards
10) scsi cards
By work, I mean that their facilities will be available
to the AMIGADOS user in some reasonable fashion. That is
if PCDOS is running is an (intuition?) window, it will
be able to use say the IRma card and the E78 program to
emulate a 3278 terminal. Or use the PCnetwork to access
files from a network server. 
Notice that I am not asking for these services to be
available to an AMIGA program, although of course if thats
possible, I'd like to know about it.
   
P.S. I have an Amiga, but I am not a true believer, ready to
defend it, "because it's my computer right or wrong".
However I am not an Ed Chaban, out to villify the AMIGA,
or to insult you (or myself) by criticising it.  
I only want to evaluate the situation accurately without bias.