Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!psuvax1!vu-vlsi!cbmvax!daveh From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: upgrades and standards, this time without the flames Message-ID: <2639@cbmvax.UUCP> Date: Tue, 27-Oct-87 14:09:44 EST Article-I.D.: cbmvax.2639 Posted: Tue Oct 27 14:09:44 1987 Date-Received: Fri, 30-Oct-87 05:20:15 EST References: <5634@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA Lines: 74 in article <5634@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>, mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer) says: > 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. Can't happen. Any hardware upgrade would have to happen to ALL systems out there if it were to be made a viable required upgrade. Very soon now, there'll be as many non-A1000s as A1000s in the Amiga world. Regardless of how upgradable there are, they're all A1000 compatible now. So any new software release would have to include these systems, even if we started shipping some kind of enhanced system tomorrow. Which also isn't happening. There's just ONE operating system for A1000s, A500s, and A2000s. And it's staying that way, enhancements or not. > 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. If it's an SOTS box, talk to its manufacturer. These were never encouraged by C-A, that's why C-A published the full expansion box schematics and all. Microbotics has an adaptor for their StarBoard for the A2000. Want to run any SOTS box for the A1000 on the A500, add a power supply and a short extender. It'll be turned around, and awkward if it's got connectors coming out the front, but it should work if designed properly. If it's a 100 pin device, it'll work just fine in an A2000, only the casework gets in the way. But you 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. Most SOTS designs won't work chained off an expansion box. Try it some time. They've got a hard enough time working as a second SOS. I wanted an 86 pin edge on the A2000, but it was shot down for exactly this reason. If the A2000 accepted SOTS, we'd have all the same A1000 problems all over again. Card A from Vendor 1 doesn't work with Card B from Vendor 2, etc. SOTS is a real bad idea, and never should have even been mentioned in the Amiga literature. Sure, it's cheaper to add one memory box that way then to buy a real expansion box, but by the time your second box is purchased, you're loosing money and reliablity with SOTS. And a third is completely out of the question, even if the second works. Most SOTS that pass the bus don't do it correctly, and most SOTS don't work right on a correctly done pass through. The card from factor change was really unfortunate. Cards are the proper way to expand, since they force everyone to come at least a bit closer to the specified way of doing things, which forces them to be more compatible whether the individual vendors like it or not. > 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. I think the time to drop SOTS was before SOTS existed. Couldn't do that. So this was the next best thing. Since last March, at the very least, all A1000 owners have know that SOTS was going away. And it went away on an otherwise A1000 comptible machine. So you don't REALLY have to upgrade to stay in the Amiga family and use nearly every software product you can expect for this generation. And if you want to look further ahead, you can buy A2000 style expansion cards and expect them to work on All Amigas. >