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From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Yet more A1000->A2000 upgrade questions
Message-ID: <2470@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 12-Oct-87 11:49:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbmvax.2470
Posted: Mon Oct 12 11:49:47 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Oct-87 05:58:35 EDT
References: <1102@omepd>
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 44

in article <1102@omepd>, hah@mipon3.intel.com (Hans Hansen) says:

> What are you talking about??  The A1000 has a FEATURE  ***  YES A REAL
> FEATURE  ***  that the others don't have.  Commodore Marketing has
> never understood the potential of the WRITEABLE CONTROL STORE !  The
> ability to upgrade my 'firmware' by using a different boot disk is so
> far superior to tearing my Amiga apart and replacing ROMs that I will
> never, except under extream duress, replace the WCS with ROMs!  I'm
> not saying this because I'm not a hardware hacker or afraid to open
> up my box,  I was one of the Engineering techs at Amiga and also
> finished the GenRad 2275 ATE test suite for the Zorro board.

Perhaps I should clear up a bit of confusion here.  Since 1.2, every Amiga
has had the capability upgrading it's "firmware" buy using a different boot
disk.  If you want to replace your 1.2 libraries with something else, without
replacing your ROM, a suitably configured 1.FUTURE disk on startup would
replace each and every ROM library with an equivalent in RAM.  Most owners
of ROM machines would probably rather have this in ROM eventually, to save
RAM, but there's not absolute need for it.  Also, without a ROM based system
it will be impossible to do some cool things (booting directly from hard disk
is one that comes to mind).

> Where is the PRICE/PERFORMANCE improvement?  Neither the A500 or the
> A2000 offers any performance improvements.  
  ^^^^^

Obviously you aren't using an A1000 with 9 megs of RAM and two hard drives,
all in one relatively compact box.  And you probably aren't into advanced
video applications either.  Or 68020 expansion.  Personally, I don't care
about IBM compatibility either.  

> I have NOT seen anything worthwhile come out of Commodore sinse the bean
> counters let the best HW/SW design team in Silicon Valley or maybe the
> world, slip away.

Of course the fact that the A500 is selling at several times the best rate
the A1000 ever acheived certainly can't be considered worthwhile.  I guess
you're not a software developer, either.

> Hans Hansen
-- 
Dave Haynie     Commodore-Amiga    Usenet: {ihnp4|caip|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh
   "The B2000 Guy"              PLINK : D-DAVE H             BIX   : hazy
    "Computers are what happen when you give up sleeping" - Iggy the Cat