From: skip@cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Here's one for ya....
Date: 16 Sep 92 03:03:29 GMT
Organization: University of Mississippi, Dept. of Computer Science

In article <AHANSFOR.92Sep14220748@wpi.wpi.edu> ahansfor@wpi.wpi.edu (Andrew L. Hansford) writes:
>>>>>> On 14 Sep 92 17:27:06 GMT, iank@microsoft.com (Ian Kennedy) said:
>iank> Now, my question: What happens to A4000 owners when these new
>iank> chips hit the market in new cool machines with zippy 24bit
>iank> graphcis and 16bit 100Khz sound? Speculations anyone?
>
>Probably they will take there SCSI-II cards, there DSP cards  and
>there 040 cards out, go get a A5000 sans SCSI and processor, (if C=
>sticks to the Zorro III compatibility and 030 bus on the motherboard)
>take it home, put the 040 board back in (boy that 060 board looked tempting)
>along with the SCSI-II and DSP card.  (Gee I'm glad these were not
>built onto the mother board)

I'd like to see this taken one step further at some point in the near
future.  C= could sell the motherboard alone to various third parties
who would then add the processor board, memory, hard drives, backplane,
case, floppies, power supply, keyboard, mouse, etc.  This would allow
for a number of different configurations from various companies in 
much the same way that Clones are offered now.  C= spends less time
trying to configure systems and can concentrate their resources on
developing new and exciting software.

I'm certain that there are persons who will disagree with my suggestion,
but please remember that what I or anyone else says has very little
impact on what C= does, if any at all.  But allow me to explain my
reasons first, then feel free to point out the holes in my reasoning.

Many people have stated that the third party companies have played a
large part in the success of the Amiga.  Well, these companies must
be able to sell something in order to remain in business.  The A3000
is a fine machine, but it includes so much that I doubt many A3000
owners have purchased much in the way of third party hardware.  While
there may be some who have purchased an 040 board, framebuffer, or
other add-on, I'd bet that the numbers are significantly less than
the numbers of SCSI boards for the A2000.  If the third-parties are
not selling products to A3000 owners, it may make them less likely
to develop for that market.  The solution is for C= to make it much
more lucrative for the third parties to support the expandable Amigas.
If GVP could buy the motherboard and supply their own 040 board, 
SCSI II Zorro III board, 1G hard drive, etc. and then sell it as 
the Amiga-compatible GVP ImpactStation, they might be more inclined
to also develop versions of their EGS for Zorro III.

Of course there would need to be some sort of quality control to ensure
that the Bozo Clone Emporium doesn't begin selling Amigas which use the
same junk that many Clones are built from.  Commodore could grant some
sort of seal of approval to those companies which meet their standards,
something like the MPC label.  By remaining the only supplier of the
motherboards, custom chips, ROM, Zorro III bus, etc., Commodore can
avoid the confusion which prevails in the Clone realm.  The result is
not a multitude of Amiga clones, rather, it results in a number of
different Amigas, each of which shares a common base.

Would this work?  I honestly do not know, but I'd like to see what the
effects of such a competitive system would be on the Amiga.  I'd be
willing to bet that the bundles from third-parties would go a long way
towards satisfying the wants of current and prospective Amiga owners.

But then again, I am just speculating and may be totally off-base.

>Then they will post to .advocacy that they had to pay for a new case
>and power supply and now they have a bare 4000 for sale.

Or under my plan they'd have a bare AGA motherboard for sale.  :-)

>I hope this will be the case.  I'm looking for some sort of commitment
>to the modular processor idea from C= for at least one generation (the
>AAA or TC "two-chip").

Me too, but I'm going to stick with them for a while in any case as 
my confidence in them has been fully restored.

>If you are happy with your 3000 then great.  Many 500/2000 owners
>decided not to get the 3000 and might now be moving to the AGA
>machines.  

I hope that C= will introduce AGA machines in configurations that will 
convince lots of Amiga owners to move up, whoops, I mean PowerUp.  :-)

>-- Andrew Hansford
>   ahansfor@wpi.wpi.edu

Skip Sauls
skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu