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From: kim@amdahl.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: What's in a name?
Message-ID: <14218@amdahl.amdahl.com>
Date: Sun, 13-Sep-87 06:22:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: amdahl.14218
Posted: Sun Sep 13 06:22:26 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 13-Sep-87 19:38:00 EDT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation,  Sunnyvale, CA 94086
Lines: 61
Keywords: A/B2000 AmigaMail Sales forcasts international s/w


[ Everything in this line may be wrong!    (with apologies to Richard Bach) ]

Just saw a bundle of postings about the 2000 from George Robbins, so perhaps
he has a moment to answer one more quick one ...

I just received the July/August issue of Amiga Mail from CBM today (Hi, Lauren!),
and was reading thru the availability announcement for the "A500/A2000 Technical
Reference Manual" ($40, 275 pages), when towards the bottom there were some
references made to "B2000 Jumpers", "A2000/B2000 Keyboard Connector", and
"Schematics (A2000, B2000, A500)".

OK, I'll byte ... what's a B2000?


There!  That was the question.  Now a few comments about the contents of this
issue:

The focus of the issue is on developing S/W for the International Market, and
has articles by Andy, Carolyn, Eric, and Gail (also one by Don Gilbreath and
Dan Baker, but I don't know if they're CBM'ers or not).

The articles concentrate on explaining things developers need to consider
WRT keymaps, window and screen sizing, timing, text translations, dead keys,
etc.  Good stuff to keep in mind, if you're doing serious development work.

Also in the issue are some interesting Sales Forcasts, and market breakdowns.
Fer instance, CBM is *forcasting* a worldwide installed base of about 150K
A1000's, 300K A500's, and 70K A2000's by YE87 ... that's about 520K machines
total!  The install base given for June 30, 87 is about 215K for all machines
combined.

Another interesting set of numbers are the (1987) projections by language:
40% English-speaking, 30% German-speaking, 11% Italian, 10% French, and 9%
Other.  Guess it makes good sense to heed the contents of the articles mentioned
above!  I assume these are numbers for the Amiga, and not other CBM products,
since the article says, "Commodore-Amiga [not CBM] can advise on the numbers".

There's a note from Gail that mentions that advertising for the pre-Christmas
period are being finalized, and says that the 2000 "will be promoted locally
and with more specialized ads".  And, "The 500 will get broader brush".  This
seems to be supported by the Graham Kinsey ad list, just (re)posted here on
the net by Richard Sexton (Thanks!)

Lastly, there are a couple of places in the issue mention that the A2000 will
be shipping in the USA "by the end of the summer".  Lesee ... Fall starts on
September 21st or thereabouts ... yep ... hey ... *YOU DID IT*!!!

You really did!   And with a full *week* to spare!

Congratulations!

/kim


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