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From: acphssrw@csun.UUCP (Stephen R. Walton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga 1000 buy-back & changing standards...
Message-ID: <847@csun.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-Oct-87 21:17:37 EST
Article-I.D.: csun.847
Posted: Fri Oct 23 21:17:37 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Oct-87 03:34:48 EST
References: <5550@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: acphssrw@csun.UUCP (Stephen R. Walton)
Organization: California State University, Northridge
Lines: 38

In article <5550@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer) writes:
>Warning: I'm about to vent a lot of steam at Commodore.
>
>I bought into the Amiga expansion market early, buying an 2-slot
>86-pin expansion and a half-full 8Meg board for same early last
>summer.

[I assume Mike means summer '86 here;  summer '87 is now "last summer."]
Why?  I bought my Amiga in spring '86 and already knew then about the
Zorro spec and knew not to buy anything other than a full up Zorro box.
It seems to me Perry was already posting his er, uhm, "comments" about
Amiga expansion then.

>Marvelous, just effing marvelous. The A2000, with the keyboard that
>makes my fingers ache, that ugly IBM-PC look, no keyboard garage, no
>pencil holder, etc. is what I'm asked to upgrade to. Not bloody
>likely.

But after comparing an A2000 with an A1000 with an ASDG 2000-and-1
attached, which do you prefer?  I don't have enough real estate on
my desk for the latter.

>Thanx, but no thanx. I'll stay with a machine designed by someone who
>knows the meaning of "ergonomics," and when it dies change to a
>machine from a company that understands that changing buses is not
>something one does on a yearly basis.

My understanding is this:  The people who sold 86-pin boxes had no
business doing so;  there was never anything from CBM indicating such
a box would work.  The original Zorro I 100-pin spec changed several
times, which basically had the effect that very few people built any
hardware to it, ASDG being the almost sole exception;  most everything
else was slap-on-the-side, and people who bought those (like my
Alegra) knew we were buying non-standard stuff even 18 months ago.
Now, CBM has finally released a machine with a standard, well documented
well supported internal expansion bus, and the hardware developers
were told about the new bus far enough in advance that the expansion
hardware was ready before the A2000 actually shipped in the US.
   Doesn't sound too bad to me.