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From: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: A1000 -> A2000 upgrade offer, yet again...
Message-ID: <5596@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Fri, 23-Oct-87 04:07:29 EST
Article-I.D.: jade.5596
Posted: Fri Oct 23 04:07:29 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Oct-87 14:43:33 EST
Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer)
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
Lines: 181


Yet another chance to vent steam at CBM.

<Let's look at this more closely.  There are still tons of
<A1000's out there, so I see no reason why you couldn't sell your
<memory add-on board at a user group to an A1000 owner.

Ok, let's try. I've got a 2-month old ASDG minirack C with an 8M/4 (4
meg, expandable to 8). I'm going to continue to write off the earlier
memory card I already sold used.

Anyone out there wanna pay $1450 for that mini-rack C and 8M/4? Offer
stops being good if you can't get me a check before the A2000 tradein
stop.

<I'll say it again - whoever believes this is clearly in the minority
<based on the overwhelming success of our trade-in program, and our
<current sales volume.

Yeah, the trade-in is a nice things. It almost makes up for no
expansion standard, and then changing it in the middle of the game.
Almost.

<>>Gee, what a neat buy-back program. Something else to leave me stuck
<>>with obsolete hardware.
<>
<>Yeah, I'm pretty disenchanted with Comode-or myself.
<
<You guys MUST be kidding !
<
<I bought a VCR a long time ago.
<It doesn't have HQ.
<It doesn't have MTS.
<It doesn't have eighty gizillion nice features.
<
<Nobody offered me an upgrade on that.

Does the spiffy new VCR work with same TV set that the old one works
with?

<The car I bought several years ago is not as nice as the new ones.

Do you have to renovate your garage to get that nice new car into it?

<My five year old calculator has no upgrade policy.

Do you have to rewire your house to use the new calculators?

<Whats the deal ?

I have, sitting on my desk an A1000. It cost me $1295 + tax. Street
value is probably about $500. Plugged into it is a rack using a
standard bus.  It costs $1350 + tax, or about the same as the A1000.
Street value on the *chips* is > $1000. Guess which one is useless if
I upgrade? Guess how many times I've been bitten by a company being
wishy-washy about expansion standards?  Guess which *single* company
was responsible.

"The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose
from."

<I guess if you were running things, we'd have consumer
<protection groups making so that you had to upgrade everything for free.
<Of course this would cause the cost of innovation to exceed any
<potential benifits, leading to a complete halt in any effort to
<innovate.

Nah. Merely require people calling something a "standard" not to
change it.

<The price of buying electronics today is that they depreciate. Better 
<electronics will be available in the future at a better price.

Ah, that's why my old system went for 6 years and three different
CPUs, and *all* the old cards still worked on it. Nuts, the disk
drives were from the system before that one.

<Inherently, the A2000 has many more capabilities than the A1000. 

Giggle. Snicker. Guffaw. Let's see: IBM-PC compatability. I can buy
two IBM-PC *systems* for the cost of the upgrade. And those two IBM-PC
systems are worth the same as the IBM-PC compatability on the A2000:
zip. Expansion slots. All I've gotta do is wait for the 2000-n-1. And
that should cover the cpu upgrade slot, too. Video expansion. Yup,
that my A1000 can't do. More chip ram. Hey, that's two. Well, maybe.
Have to wait and see. ROMed OS. That I can do on the A1000. 9 Meg of
RAM. That I can do on the A1000. TOY clock. Got one already (had one
since three months after I bought my A1000). A keyboard that hurts my
fingers. That I don't want. No place to store the keyboard. Ditto.

I count two - and that could well be one if Bryce has his way. Even
then, it'd almost be worth downgrading to an A2000 to have that video
option and assured more chip ram. If only the true cost of the
downgrade weren't more like $1500, and I had some assurance that I
wouldn't have to go through this again next year.

In other words, many is <= 2. Or maybe 3, if you like the IBM
compatability and think that paying three or four times the cost of a
clone is worth it to get it into the box with your Amiga.

<The fact we offer any upgrade at all does not alter the fact that your
<machine still runs, and does everything we said it would as well as we
<would. You bought something, and you got a fair deal.

Correct. The upgrade isn't the problem. It's the incredibly Charlie
Brown act with the expansion specs, and the implied "if you fail to
upgrade, you have no one to blame but yourself" that came from you
guys. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't even consider upgrading.

<The upgrade is not on a par with the second coming. We do not claim
<this. However, it IS pure gravy. It gives you an option. We are under
<no obligation to offer this. Its a pretty damn nice thing to do.

Yeah, it's a nice thing to do. About the same as the Apple upgrade for
old Mac owners when the Fat Mac came out - except that upgrade didn't
leave people stuck with old expansion products that wouldn't work on
the new machine. People bitched about that, too. For about the same
reasons - they didn't feel like it was really an option, as they'd be
left out in the cold in the future if they failed to upgrade. But at
least they didn't have to figure out what to do with old expansion
products.

<I'm sorry you don't like the basic realities of buying something, and
<having something better come along later.

Ah yes - something better! The new, improved Zorro ][. EXACTLY like
the old one, except the old one won't work in it, and vice versa! And
wait, next year we'll put hydrodexoyribobenzene in it, so it'll be
even BETTER!!!

See figure 1.

<Perhaps a discussion of the inherent faults of innovation and
<improvement should be moved to comp.stone.age or net.electonics.tube
<or net.count.with.sticks.

A discussion of innovation certainly don't belong in any newsgroup
discussing machines designed by CBM.

Or can you show me something about the A2000 that's innovative? Not
the CPU slot - been done before, several times. Not the IBM-PC &
<other stuff> in the same box - ditto. Not the 68020 upgrade on an
Amiga - ditto. Not the possiblity of running <other stuff> tools and
Unix at the same time - ditto. Not more CHIP ram; that's not an
innovation, that's just more of an old thing.

<What the hell are you bitching about?

CBM acting like CBM has always acted.

<You don't have to upgrade to an A2000.  Hardware suppliers *still*
<sell memory and hard disks for the A1000.

Ok, so where do I buy an ethernet card in Zorro I? Unless I'm lucky
enough to find a dealer that still has a few in stock.

<I hope support for the A1000 does indeed dry up.
<I hope the A1000 does indeed die.

CBM is working hard to make your hope come true.

<(Commodore wants another C64, and is capable of doing it with the
<A500... for better or worse)

Yeah, CBM could well turn the A500 into another C64. Of course, the
C64 was worth more as spare parts than as a computer. Best thing I
ever did for some friends was wean them from the C64 to a real machine
with a decent multi-tasking OS. And the entire system cost less than
the A500 cpu retails for today.

	<mike

P.S. - one person expressed concern via email at seeing me (normally
willing to defend the Amiga to the death) bashing at C/A. I'm not
bashing at C/A. Amiga did a great thing. To bad the company died. I'm
bashing at CBM. Different thing entirely.
--
And then up spoke his own dear wife,			Mike Meyer
Never heard to speak so free.				mwm@berkeley.edu
"I'd rather a kiss from dead Matty's lips,		ucbvax!mwm
Than you or your finery."				mwm@ucbjade.BITNET