Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ll-xn!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tektronix!tekcrl!tekfdi!bobb
From: bobb@tekfdi.TEK.COM (Robert Bales)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Did CA screw 1000 owners?
Message-ID: <1912@tekfdi.TEK.COM>
Date: 13 Apr 88 05:45:33 GMT
References: <6119@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: bobb@tekfdi.UUCP (Robert Bales)
Distribution: na
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR.
Lines: 32
Keywords: opinion no flame really

In article <6119@watdragon.waterloo.edu> sbmueller@trillium.waterloo.edu
(Stephan Mueller) writes:

>IMVHO: 

>It seems reasonable for 1000 owners to be annoyed that CA seems
>to have 'abandoned' their machine, (I know, I know they haven't
>abandoned it, but you know what I mean, things like not letting
>'em upgrade to the new chips,

It's not that Commodore won't let them upgrade. A "chip" is no good by itself.
To accomplish something useful, each of the connections on the chip must be
hooked up to something which either drives it or is driven by it (in the case
of a display chip, things like the memory and the video generator). Now, I am
not an insider with Commodore, and I have not compared the schematics of the
1000, 500, and 2000, but to the best of my knowledge, the situation is this:
the new chips can not be used in the 1000 because the circuits that would be
needed to support them do not exist in that machine. So the "lack of support"
has nothing to do with "abandonment" by Commodore, but is due to a basic
internal hardware incompatibility. Could Commodore have made the circutry in
the 2000 the same as the 1000? Yes. And then the two machines *would* have
been compatible: in all likelihood, neither would have had the new chips.

>and the sorts of things that some dissatisfied 1000 owners have beefed about)
>since (to me) it seems that it would be EASY to keep 'em happy.  Sell 'em
>the darn chips.

But 1000 owners would have nothing to do with them.

   Bob Bales
   Tektronix, Inc.

I help Tektronix make their instruments. They don't help me make my opinions.