Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!killer!elg
From: elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: The Amiga Transputer Board
Message-ID: <4454@killer.UUCP>
Date: 14 Jun 88 05:45:17 GMT
References: <8806131524.AA29958@decwrl.dec.com>
Organization: The Unix(R) Connection, Dallas, Texas
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In message <8806131524.AA29958@decwrl.dec.com>, schabacker@fra04.dec.com (posting for Christian Balzer) says:
>>Perhaps you saw a paper handed out at Devcon, entitled "Transputer design
>>concept" or something like that. Note the words "DESIGN CONCEPT" -- that is,
>>it's just an idea, that may or may not eventually be available, depending upon
>>whether Commodore sees any market for such a board. 
>No way Jose, the Amiga Transputer board (A2800, A2404??? :->) already
>has left the vapourware orbit and is on its landing path. There was
>one in one of the Amigas at CeBIT

My office here is cluttered with hardware that runs yet never made it
to market, so I'll "believe it when I see it", so to speak. The
problem is marketing such a beast. It may be possible to market it
effectively in Europe, where users are generally more technically
proficient (i.e.  all the users are "hackers" a' la' Richard
Stallman). But if you look at the products that Commodore has brought
to market recently, none of them are "niche" products... they're
products usable by the general public, thus giving a larger market to
go for. But a Transputer board appeals to a "niche" market -- graphics
processing and other highly parallelizable applications, generally.
Which is NOT the general public.

Commodore's strength is its manufacturing capabilities, which can
churn out large quantities of machines for a low price. Commodore
can't make small quantities of things any cheaper than 3rd-party
developers can. Thus when a "niche" product comes up, Commodore should
get into it only if it requires system modification (e.g. the new
hi-res B&W monitor that Duck et. al. are working on software for). I'd
rather have enhancement of the current machines and introduction of
other wide-appeal hardware, than dozens of niche products of dubious
utility to the average man-on-the-street.

Just my views on why I'm not counting on a Commodore transputer in my
machine anytime soon (as for 3rd-party transputers... we'll have to
see). 

--
Eric Lee Green    ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg
          Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509              
"Is a dream a lie if it don't come true, or is it something worse?"