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From: mwm@eris.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Publicity etc
Message-ID: <5938@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Tue, 17-Nov-87 01:20:26 EST
Article-I.D.: jade.5938
Posted: Tue Nov 17 01:20:26 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Nov-87 03:28:11 EST
References: <5886@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> <2760@cbmvax.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer)
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
Lines: 104

In article <2760@cbmvax.UUCP> daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) writes:
<in article <5886@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>, mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer) says:
<> 
<> Damn straight. I can get a Mac II for $2077.  Need to buy a keyboard
<> for an extra $137. But that comes with hypercard and a SCSI
<> controller.
<
<Ahhhh, so!  So Mike, you're still in school?

No, I run Unix systems for UCB. Staff/faculty get the same discount as
students.

<No wonder you've been flaming so heavily!

I already said that you shouldn't confuse acting irrational with being
irrational. Similar comments apply to acting like a student vs. being
a student.

<Now I understand, and I'm sorry for flaming back.

Don't be sorry for flaming back. Do be sorry for not keeping it to the
topic at hand.  

<No reason to jar you into reality so quickly.  Soon enough, you'll finish
<up there.

Sorry, I finished my degree long ago. Not that I hadn't done work in
the real world well before getting my degree.

<For instance, try writing all
<your own software when you have to also spend 10-15 hours a day at real
<work.

I have. That's how mg got done.

<I've tried, and I KNOW how to build a better Emacs (better than
<MG or Gosling's or whatever) and better spreadsheet and a better video
<display board.  So do lots of people.

Yeah - I'm one of them. At least for the software part of it. But if I
never do anything but tweak existing tools into better shape, I never
get to do anything interesting.

<But I've got negative free time
<already, and I only sleep 4-5 hours a night, on good nights.

But you seem to like dealing with the "real" world. Why don't you take
off and market those things on your own? Me, I don't want the
headaches involved with turning them into real products.

<That's why 
<99% of us need the commercial sector; in the hopes that one of those who
<knows will be able to make something almost as good that I can buy rather
<than spend a year of time I don't have and make it myself.

True. Amiga did it, but it took CBM to market it. To bad CBM couldn't
do it again.

<I've never liked reality all that much, but I haven't found a better solution.

Try academia, or being independently wealthy.

<> Vaxstations are to expensive. But a Sun 3/50 is $3500, plus $1000 for
<> or so for a disk (from someone other than Sun, of course). Add $300
<> for a full Unix.
<
<> Given that pricing, why should someone your average user buy an A2000?
<
<SOFTWARE is a good one.  If you can write all your own, OK.

Ah, but you don't *have* to write your own for Unix (unlike the
Amiga). It's already been done. No matter how much I like mg, real
GNU blows it out of the water. X is free. VC is free. Scheme is free.
KCL is free. Most of the better Amiga PD/PA software started life on
Unix. Of course, if you want commercial software, the Unix market is
much better established than the Amiga market.

<But for the 
<the rest of us that need to buy it, you can get lots of A2000 software for
<the extra $2500 or so.

I count $2000, tops. $1500 if you buy your Amiga from a local dealer
(the Sun 3/50 price has that).

<Plus, the A2000 is expandable, the Sun 3/50 isn't.

The inability to go beyond 4Meg of real memory is a pain - but with VM
and lots of fast disk, not insurmoutnable. Most of the rest of the
A2000 expandability is builtin (more serial ports, SCSI disk
controller, ethernet in either thick or thin flavors).

<And next year at least a few folks will be running their Amiga in the same
<speed range as the Sun 3/50 for still quite a bit less, and they'll still
<be expandable.

Hmmm - you really expect to have a 15MHz 68020 + MMU for $500 or so
(you did say "quite a bit less")? How about memory that's 32 bits wide
instead of 16, and running at a clock rate that's not half the
processor speed? Finally, how about a 1200x900 display?

Of course, if you're really into either speed or expandability, the
3/60 starts at about $5300.

	<mike