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From: dca@toylnd.UUCP (David C. Albrecht)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: A2000 serial port != A1000 (ackkkk!)(and 500 || <> 1000 ||)
Message-ID: <179@toylnd.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Oct-87 00:50:15 EST
Article-I.D.: toylnd.179
Posted: Mon Oct 26 00:50:15 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Oct-87 00:14:36 EST
References: <1962@ucbcad.berkeley.edu> <610@louie.udel.EDU> <2548@cbmvax.UUCP>
Organization: Dave & Anne in Charlottesville, VA
Lines: 37

> The parallel cable is now the same as the IBM PC parallel printer cable
> that can be found in any mom & pop computer store or accessory catalog.
> 
> The serial cable is now in reasonable confomance with EIA RS232 standards
> and should cause no major problems with any normal piece of data communications
> equipment, even when using the dreaded 25-conductor cable!
> 
> Seriously, we agonized over this quite a bit, but decided that using standard
> cables that would be readily available would be of benefit to the users in
> the long run.  With the old arrangement, you had to either hope your dealer
> would stock the special Amiga cable or know which pins to cut to make it
> work.  

Well, that's all fine and good.  But really I would think that incompatibility
with add on devices for the 1000 is just as serious if not more so a problem
than incompatibility with IBM pc cables.  At the very least you should have
manufactured an add-on box which would have provided connectors which fit over
the existing 2000 ones and provided proper 1000 ones on the other side. If
necessary sockets on the back of the 2000 could have been provided for power
pins which the widget box could use if the 2000 connectors don't already have
them.  I'm not normally one for adding odd little useless hardware bits
thereby driving up the cost of a box for everyone but I dare say that for some
time the 2000's main audience is likely to be upgrading 1000 owners especially
at the price it is at now.  It has basically thrown all the development that
went into the add on hardware devices for the 1000 out the window and all us
1000 owners are going to have to go out and scrounge up our own widget boxes
because you didn't provide them.  I dare say I would have scraped up the
$20-$30 such a box would probably go for.  I haven't got my 2000 yet (just
ordered it) which is probably just as well because I'll probably be
considerably grumpier after I try to connect my MIDI connector, my Perfect
Sound sampler, and my Digi-View widget.  Those and the minor grumps:
my custom printer cable and serial to phone connector cable.

It's alright to make a departure in the next generation its the lack of the
migration path that's the bad idea.

David Albrecht