From: danaf@bray1a.its.rpi.edu (Frank R. Dana Jr.)
Subject: Re: A4000
Reply-To: danaf@rpi.edu
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 07:09:12 GMT

In article <kdarling.717138363@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu>, kdarling@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes:
|> skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls) writes:
|> >The folks at C= worked too hard on improving the Amiga too have so many
|> >jerks act like a bunch of whining brats.  Hell, if that is the response
|> >that C= gets when they introduce a new machine it is no wonder that new
|> >Amigas are so few and far between.
|> 
|> Skip, the people who are complaining are potential customers, not brats.
|> It's up to Commodore to make a desirable machine.  Their customers are
|> not required to heap praise on one that has a perceived flaw.

Bless the voice of common sense! Commodore is here to SELL US A COMPUTER, not
give us attitude. 

Text from a previously dead message of mine which ran into a backlog in the 
message server... forget who I was replying to:

((((((((*****DEAD LETTER*****))))))))

In article <Bv3MwA.5A2@starnine.com>, mikeh@starnine.com (Mike Haas) writes:
|> In article <+l0yv+q@rpi.edu> danaf@rpi.edu writes:
|> 
|> >Yeah, well, watch out for that ol' imagination. I let my imagination run away
|> >on the A4000. I imagined new, PC-killer resolutions, the DIG standard we've been
|> >begging for for so long, and improved 16-bit sound. I was let down.
|> 
|> You don't know the difference between imagination and
|> child-like fantasy.  Grow up.

First of all, screw you. The attacks in here are getting way too personal lately.

Ok, now I can start a real reply... venting is good.  8)

I don't think anything I imagined was in the realm of hopeless fantasy. All of
those wishes are not technical impossibilities - *EVEN* Commodore, a company
with an R&D department of about 7 people (note: that was a joke. Look:  8)  )
could handle bigger and better resolutions, new 16-bit sound (it's already
out in 3rd party...) and MAYYYBE even a DIG. That's not a big consideration with
me... if Commodore's own graphics devices are good enough, then we don't need
Device Independant.

|> >BTW: While I'm on the topic, I'm sick of hearing about how great the A4000 and/
|> >or the Amiga line will be in "6 months"  or "two years" or "someday". 
|> 
|> I agree.  Let's talk about how great the A4000 is NOW!

Ok...

HD drives. New colors. WB 3.0. 



Hmm... I'm done. Not a long list, is it?

|> >Live in
|> >the present, guys. The IDE interface in the A4000 is NOT excused by the fact that
|> >a SCSI board will be ready "soon". 
|> 
|> I don't hear C= making excuses.  They made a design decision and
|> you are free to not buy the A4000.  Admittedly, SCSI is a better
|> interface that I too, would have preferred, but get off it.  It IS
|> a hard-drive interface that will do quite well in the interim.
|> It may have something to do with A4000 MSRP = $3699, A3000T MSRP =
|> almost $6000.

That's a sh*tty attitude. Commodore's job is to make people WANT to buy a 4000,
not to build the thing and say, "Here, if you want it, buy it". The Honda 
commercials LIE - anything over $1000 does not sell itself. And the A3000T is
just plain overpriced!

|> >The inclusion of the old Paula chip is NOT
|> >excused by the fact (?) that we will have a DSP card "in 6 months". If the
|> >A4000 was not READY, it shouldn't have been RELEASED! 
|> 
|> Mature a little, willya?  The A4000 IS ready.  It addresses one of the
|> lines most serious limitations that was hurting in the marketplace...
|> graphics resolutions.  What mainstream machine has a DSP as
|> standard equipment?  Not many.

WHERE???? WHERE are the great new resolutions? 800x600? Excuse my ignorance, but
that's still considered sorta LOW by MAC & PC standards! The A4000 has BETTER
resolution... but certainly not anything I'd consider "good". And addressing 
one problem out of many is not much of a solution. Does this mean every time
Commodore fixes one little deficiency in the Amiga line, we'll get a new 
computer? We could be up to the A10,000,000,000 in a couple of years!

|> It also adds a standard 68040 machine at a COMPETITIVE price.  Pay
|> attention.

Fine... but the LCD for the Amiga line is STILL... **STILL** a 68000 with no
hard drive and low density disks. Know what that means? It means that some
companies will take advantage of the new hardware. It means that some companies
will make their games hard drive installable. It means that some companies 
**MIGHT** even make GAMES that require a hard drive and an accelerator.

..But not many.


Just think... our computer is, at the lowest level, controlled by a $15 (in mass
quantity) 10-year-old processor chip! It costs less than the &^$&%$&$% MOUSE!!!

That should worry people.

|> >Commodore pulled the same
|> >crap with the A3000 - you got a beta version (for all intents and purposes...) 
|> >of the O/S, and missed out on a lot of improvements. 
|> 
|> I didn't.  I have all the improvements.  I was very glad to accept
|> Workbench 2.00 at the time... and it worked pretty damn well.
|> Wake up.

WHERE?? I agree that the 2.04 release of WB works very well... I use it myself,
and rarely use the $75 MultiStart I had slapped into the port. But 2.00??? I've
never met one person (before...) that said 2.00 worked anything better than
"eh... ok, I guess..."

|> >So, if the A4000 isn't FINISHED yet, why didn't Commodore wait 9 months, get it
|> >__DONE__, and release it at the WOC New York next summer? 
|> 
|> What a total flake!  If you even have to ASK that question...
|> Somebody rescusitate this guy before he's totally brain-dead.

I know, I know, I keep hearing that **EVERYBODY** would have dumped their Amigas
if Commodore hadn't put out a new machine. I'm sick of that reasoning already.
For one thing, I think we're mostly devoted fools who will stick with Commodore
no matter what. Look at me: after 2 disappointments in 3 years, I'm still 
waiting expectantly for the A5000! There's just something about the Amiga I 
can't resist... and believe me, it's nothing Commodore built into it. It's all
that stuff that the loving hands at Amiga Co. installed way back when. Commodore
will never be able to take that out - but it'd be really nice if they could put
some new FEATURES in.

Don't get me wrong... I have no problem with any part of Commodore in particular.
Their software programmers are just getting better and better, the R&D guys are
still churning out ideas, and the hardware designers do their best to put the
stuff in. It's really the SPEED at which they move (8+ years for a new sound
standard!?!?!?) and their marketing decisions which get to me.


((((((********REALITY*********)))))))

Again... that was not a flame at you, Kevin... it was to... uhm... lesse...
oh, right! Mike Haas.

|> kevin <kdarling@catt.ncsu.edu>

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=======Amiuser============Frank R. Dana, Jr.============Doc Ami=======     
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