From: barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N. Barrett)
Subject: Re: Future Amiga chipsets
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 02:41:13 GMT

In article <1992Dec16.003000.20403@news.Hawaii.Edu> jimmy@mickey.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Jimmy Chan) writes:
>In article <Bz9BFz.GH5@news.iastate.edu> barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N. Barrett) writes:
>>   Will the price of the A4000 drop below $1500 anytime in the foreseeable
>>future?  That is where I draw the line between whether an Amiga system should
>>have SCSI or IDE.  IDE is adequate for Amiga priced below $1500, but Amigas
>>priced above $1500 should have SCSI. 
>>   Will you be buying the A3090 SCSI II card?  If so, why?  I am just 
>>wondering, because you are the only one who actually believes that Commodore
>>did the right thing by using IDE in the A4000.
>
>Marc, a couple of things here.  Currently IBM compatible systems >$1500
>are loaded with IDE so, what does that say about your justification of the
>$1500 cutoff.  Totally baseless if you need to ask.  

   Hardly.  IBM clones are a special case.  Most of the hardware that you
would hang off a SCSI bus is available in PC-specific versions, so there
are fewer penalties for a PC having IDE rather than SCSI.  There are fewer
tape drives, CD-ROM drives, etc.. available in Amiga-specific or Mac-
specific versions, so that Amigas and Macs are forced to standardize on
SCSI.  It works well enough in the Mac world, as all Macs have SCSI.  But
when Commodore put IDE into the A4000, it cut substantially the number of
options available to A4000 owners for expanding their Amigas.

>I'll take a stand and say that C= did the right thing.  Considering what an
>IDE controller costs, after talking to a friend who sells IBM compatibles,
>and what a SCSI I controller costs, that would bring up the cost of the
>A4000 a couple of hundred dollars more.

   No it would not have.  Likely, the SCSI design that would have been used,
had SCSI been inlcuded in the A4000, is the same design that is in the A3000.
This design uses one major chip and a tiny amount of discrete logic (which
Commodore no doubt incorporated in some gate array somewhere).  This design
has been available for a long time, offers very good performance with
standard SCSI drives, and is **CHEAP**.

>  And then when the SCSI II
>controller happens to come out in '93, there will be a big fuss over how
>everyone wasted money on a SCSI I controller when the SCSI II controller
>was coming out.  And I can also imagine that you, Marc, will be posting
>your inane diatribe about that also.  At least the amount wasted between an
>IDE -> SCSI II controller is less than SCSI I -> SCSI II controller.  

   Hardly.  If Commodore had included SCSI as standard hardware, most people
would have been happy with it and would not have bothered to upgrade to 
SCSI II.  Real SCSI II hard drives are EXPENSIVE, and there are no SCSI II
tape drives or SCSI II CD-ROM drives or SCSI II floptical drives.  The only
real major advantage of SCSI II over SCSI is the increased performance with a
small number of SCSI II hard drives. 

   In other words, going from IDE to SCSI II will cost far more people less
money than going from SCSI to SCSI II.  A lot of people will be purchasing
this SCSI II card not to get the increased performance that it provides only
with expensive SCSI II hard drives, but to get the flexibility that SCSI 
would have provided.  Lots of people will be buying the A3090 SCSI II card and
hanging tape drives, floptical drives, CD-ROM drives, or slower SCSI hard
drives off of it.  Senseless.

>I've said this before.  Marc, why would you, a person who owns an A500 and
>keeps mouthing off that he wouldn't buy anything again from C= again, care
>one wit about what C= includes in their new machines.  It is a bit hard to
>refrain from name calling to express exactly what I feel to reading your
>stupid notes and ludicrous accusations unlike Skip...8-).  

   I use an A3000 and like it.  I liked being able to take my A500 SCSI hard
drive and plug it into the A3000 without having to pay an additional $200 or
$300 to do so.  And as soon as Commodore comes out with this "CDTV technology
for all Amigas" that Commodore mentioned at WOC, I will like being able to
plug a CD-ROM drive into the A3000 without having to pay for an expensive
SCSI II card to use it.

---
| Marc Barrett -MB-  |  email: barrett@iastate.edu
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