Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!labrea!jade!eris!mwm From: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: upgrades and standards, this time without the flames Message-ID: <5634@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: Mon, 26-Oct-87 21:45:30 EST Article-I.D.: jade.5634 Posted: Mon Oct 26 21:45:30 1987 Date-Received: Thu, 29-Oct-87 05:06:12 EST References: <5596@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> and lots more Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer) Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Lines: 104 This time, I'm not going to vent steam at CBM. I'm going to explain in simple words what bothers me about what they are doing. But first - >> Cripes! I am sick of hearing all this bellyaching about the A1000<->A2000 >> upgrade. My fault. My first flame caught the upgrade as an innocent bystander. Well, mostly innnocent bystander. The upgrade *is* a good deal. CBM is offering you between two and three times the street value of your A1000 in trade, and they probably can't get that much out of it. I apologize for having stirred that bit of trouble up. Of course, the A2000 is in many ways an *inferior* machine to the A1000. Mostly because someone decided it had to have the look and feel of the IBM PC. As a result, I ignored the ugprade offer when it showed up. After all, I wouldn't be willing to trade my A1000 for an identically configured A2000, why should I *pay* to get a less-well configured machine? But then George had to go and say: > I would also point out that Commodore is keeping the brave souls who > bought the A1000 in mind by offering them and only them the special > A1000 -> A2000 upgrade deal. This deal may or may not appeal to you, > but please comtemplate what it suggests about Commodore's plans for > the future... I did go and contemplate Commodore's plans for the future. I recalled what Apple did to the Lisa after their upgrade program. I remember what my friends who had VIC-20s had to say after the C64 came out. After all, Bob Page says: >> Even *I* can't believe that CBM would be so silly as to alienate all >> their A1000 owners. I could. Especially since they are taking some pains to see to it that there aren't that many A1000 owners out there. I don't know what they have in mind. I suspect a hardware upgrade that won't work on the A1000, followed by a software upgrade that won't work on non-upgraded hardware. This will quickly leave A1000 owners in the same shape as people who haven't upgraded to KS1.2. In other words, I got really nervous. So nervous, in fact, that I decided that $1000 to get a machine that wasn't gong to be "orphaned by desertion" was probably worth it. If I could move my memory to the A2000, I'd upgrade. Much as I detest the packaging on the A2000, I'd consider it worth it to avoid whatever CBM has in mind. Except CBM changed the form factor, so the expansion memory that I've already bought twice won't work. Makes it much less attractive. I told some people who had being thinking about an Amiga about the form factor change, and got back the reply "So CBM still has a death wish, huh?" Haven't heard since from them about an Amiga. I said some nasty things about CBM because of that form factor change. I said even nastier things about DEC when they changed buses (they have three peripheral device buses now), to a *proprietary* bus architechture. One for which they won't sell certain types of cards I need. One for which the slowed down the specs on the Unibus so the bus adapters will work. Hold on a second? Bus adapters? What's that? Just what you'd think it is. An adapter that plugs into the new bus so I can run old cards on it. While DEC is in general giving their customers a much nastier time than CBM, they *still* provided a facility so that old peripheral controllers will work on the new hardware. We took tape controllers out of our creaking old 11/70s, and plugged them into bus adapters on our brand-spanking-new top-of-the-line 8800s. We can use them. Basically, CBM made two serious mistakes with the A2000 and the A500. On the A500, they moved the expansion slot so that A1000 expansion would have hell working with it. On the A2000, they failed to provide an expansion slot. Sure, the internal bus is nice. But there's no way to put (expensive) old cards into it. It would have been *much* nicer to your customers to forget the upgrade offer (I expect that the A2000 will be available for the $1300 price people are paying for one shortly, anyway), make it possible to use A1000 SOTS cards on the A2000, and announce (then) that the next generation of machines wouldn't have any SOTS support. Making the A500 work with A1000 products would have left A500 buyers a reasonable upgrade path to the A2000. CBM is trying to market the Amiga as if it were a toy (aka the C64 and vic-20). I'd suggest they consider it as a real computer, and look at what the people who are making a living selling (Sun, DEC & IBM mainframes) such are doing about peripherals. CBM would do well to copy those companies, rather than continuing the strategies that worked with the VIC-20 and C64.