Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ukma!rutgers!sunybcs!sbcs!root
From: root@sbcs.sunysb.edu (root)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: AM(iga un)IX
Summary: networking on 2500UX
Message-ID: <2421@sbcs.sunysb.edu>
Date: 21 Mar 89 02:09:13 GMT
References: <72@snll-arpagw.UUCP> <6330@cbmvax.UUCP> <74@snll-arpagw.UUCP>
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Lines: 65

In article <74@snll-arpagw.UUCP>, paolucci@snll-arpagw.UUCP (Sam Paolucci) writes:
> In article <6330@cbmvax.UUCP> ditto@cbmvax.UUCP (Michael "Ford" Ditto) writes:
> ->In article <72@snll-arpagw.UUCP> paolucci@snll-arpagw.UUCP (Sam Paolucci) writes:
> I have some difficulty with the Ethernet card response.  First, let me
> give you my opinion, and then I'll justify it.  I believe that if
> Commodore is going to be committed to the Amiga 2500UX and AMIX, then
> it will have to fully support networking.  Given the above, then
> Commodore should market an ethernet card.  What would happen, god
> forbid, if a third party company which produces such cards goes belly

	Sam, the other side to your argument is this: what if, god forbid,
	Commodore continues to undercut and screw their developers by
	bringing any profitable product in house because it is
	"strategic"?  This happened to all the third party disk people,
	memory people, soon the genlock people, etc.  If this trend
	continues you will have ZERO hardware developers in the Amiga
	marketplace and then what?  When the next "gotta have" hardware
	widget comes down the pike, you will be left to wait for Commodore
	to provide it.  Do you like to wait for two years for such things?

> up?  I know and appreciate the fact that Commodore does not want to
> undercut third party developer efforts, but when it comes to a
> specific piece of hardware or software which is essential to the
> overall usefulness of the product it is essential that Commodore has
> some control over.  This was recognized by Apple in coming out with
> their Ethernet card even at the expense of potentially undercutting
> their third party developers.  If I may make an analogy, fully relying

	I would like to see some justification of your statement.  Are
	you actually suggesting that Ethernet cards would enjoy as wide
	of an installed base as a floppy drive?  Come on.  Practically
	speaking I would doubt that Commodore will ever ship more than
	30-40K Amiga 2500UX given the nature of the workstation market
	and the fact that they are up against incredibly strong competition.
	Of those 30-40K, how many will be Ethernetted?  Maybe 20%?
	Perhaps the answer is to have Commodore produce "strategic products", 
	but to price them such as to give third parties some room to stay
	in business.  
	
> on third party developers to provide an Ethernet card on a Unix
> machine is like relying on third party developers for floppy drives,
> and selling an Amiga 2000 without any.
> 
> I hope that some priority is being put in being abe to use the Amiga as a
> diskless node.  I think that it would be a very competitive Unix machine.
> I also hope that NFS would become available as quickly as possible.

	We have had an A500 booting up over NFS, and BOOTPARAMS.  

> 					-+= SAM =+-
> "the best things in life are free"

	It really befuddles me why Ethernet, 2500UX, etc are an issue
	for future growth at all.  Commodore really needs to spend all
	of its available cycles AND THEN SOME on getting device
	independent graphics, new graphics chips, the Hedley, 68030 based
	machines, etc to market.  These are all hard things that no third
	party developer can tackle.  Expending all the resources it will
	take to field/support Unix, networking, etc will only damage
	efforts to make the fundamental changes to the Amiga architecture
	that are necessary to remain competitive with Apple, korean 386
	boxes, etc.  IMHO.
	
					Rick Spanbauer
					Ameristar Technology