Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!nuchat!sugar!karl From: karl@sugar.UUCP (Karl Lehenbauer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Amiga UNIX Message-ID: <1918@sugar.UUCP> Date: 2 May 88 22:12:09 GMT References: <211@laic.UUCP> <113@dms3b1.UUCP> Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX Lines: 47 Summary: minimal Unix == minimal price == most impressive price In article <113@dms3b1.UUCP>, dave@dms3b1.UUCP (Dave Hanna) writes: > ... 100 Megs would be nice to have, but, C-A, do you really > have to make it a minimum? Agreed, for this and the rest of the system. The basic system should be priced with the minimum hard drive, the minimum amount of RAM and should not require the hires monochrome board. (I certainly hope the mono board is not required for Unix in any case.) Then it could be the price leader, or at least appear to be. Anyway, why shouldn't people be allowed to eke by with a small system if they want? And what's "small" anyway? Sugar, here, (a Unix system) started out with only forty meg, which was fine for a couple of people writing code, until we started running news, when we upgraded to 70 meg. Seventy meg is still a lot. Tektronix made the mistake several years ago with their Unix-based cross- development systems, of using a PROM to turn a 35 meg hard drive into a 13 meg hard drive to produce a low level system. Had they sold the 35 meg system at the 13 meg price, they would have captured valuable market share by having the clear price leader. As it was, they never did, and now they're out of the market. I worry about the Amiga. It is so clearly so much the best in so many ways, yet it hasn't achieved a large share of the personal computer market. I'd like to see a three hundred dollar A500, but then I'd like to see a cow fly, too, and since I have no idea what it costs to make and distribute one (A500), it may not be any more possible. By the way, does Commodore still make many/most of their own chips, or did that bit of vertical integration slip away? Heck, if you made it this far, we're friends, so I want to take this opportunity to make a philosophical statement about hacking and flame Apple: Apple made the Hacker's Machine, approx 1979 to 1984. With the introduction of the Mac, Apple abandoned the hackers. (The Mac II will retrieve some of them, but only the most affluent.) It's closed architecture, monochrome display and high price were off putting. With that, I think the IBM PC became the next Hacker's Machine, but we all knew it was pretty crappy. (Bill Gates, perhaps the most successful hacker in history, was reported in the Wall Street Journal as having angered many bigtime executives for calling the '286 "brain damaged." He knows it is, and we know it too.) The Amiga 1000, I think, was clearly the next Hacker's Machine, at least for software guys. Computer video hacks had been waiting a long time for an affordable NTSC machine. HAM was fortuitous. Apple, to me, proved that they have lost all hacker integrity when one of their spokespeople claimed that the GS's 65816 would be a better choice as a standard processor for CD-ROM standards than the 68000. No hacker with respectable credentials and a reputation to lose - no one who knows the score - could honestly make that claim. -k -- "I think Michael is like litmus paper - He's always trying to learn" - Liz Taylor ..!{bellcore!tness1,uunet!nuchat}!sugar!karl, Unix BBS (713) 438-5018