From: davidme@qdpii.comp.qdpi.oz.au (David Meiklejohn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Amiga sightings and other things positive.
Date: 9 Nov 92 07:30:26 GMT
Organization: Qld Dept Primary Industries

In article <1992Nov8.192504.6710@ra.msstate.edu> skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls) writes:
>Hey Amiga Advocates, how about something a bit more positive around here?
>The NoMoreBimboPoliticiansWhoUseFalcons threads are getting rather old and
>are doing nothing other than upsetting everyone.  Why don't we see if we
>can do a little more Amiga Advocating instead of bashing and flaming the
>living daylights out of one another?  I'm as guilty as anyone else, but I
>will be happy to make peace and let these negative threads die.

Yes, please!  I haven't been posting much recently, because there just hasn't
been anything worth talking about.  That's a bit hard to understand, because
surely the things we've been waiting for and arguing over for so long are
finally happening.

Consider - we were disillusioned because nothing seemed to be happening, and
it seemed that Commodore might give up on the Amiga altogether.  Things were
so bad that I almost bought a 486!  Our much vaunted graphics were being
passed by SVGA, but now we're back up there.  Price/performance was looking
bad compared to PCs, but Commodore suprised us by making the A4000 the least
expensive (as opposed to PC-style "cheap") '040 machine on the market.  But,
people complained, we still needed a cheap (but not nasty) low-end 32-bit AGA
machine to compete with $1000 386's.  Commodore delivered, with a well designed
system that's more expandable that I'd expected.  Then, there's been lots of
clamouring for DIG/RTG.  What do we see?  No hardware registers being detailed
on AGA and definite moves in the right direction in the way the graphics
library was extended in 3.0, in addition to the display database introduced
in 2.0.  And, it used to appear that Commodore didn't have a plan.  That's a
bit hard to say after the WOC Pasedena talk.  What's more, with their current
releases, it looks like they're not just spewing vapour - it look like they can
deliver.  Heck, C= are even advertising in non-C= mags!

I think things are looking better for the Amiga than they have since it was
introduced, so why isn't there any advocacy happening?  Beats me...

>In other matters, I will be the proud owner of an A4000 in a day or so and
>will be showing it along with an A3000 and Toaster equipped A2000 at the
>campus computer fair.  Apple, IBM, SGI, and hordes of Clones will be on hand 
>with their latest wares and we want the Amiga to look good next to them.  We
>contacted Commodore last year and asked them to send us brochures and any
>other sort of promotional material, but they sent next to nothing.  :-(

Well, I guess, despite what I said above, Commodore is still Commodore.
Hopefully the machines you're showing can speak for themselves.  Amigas used
to sell that way...


-- 
David Meiklejohn (also known as davidme@qdpii.comp.qdpi.oz.au)
 - Regional support guy for PC's, Unix, and networks thereof.
 - But I'd rather be using an AMIGA!  Wouldn't you?
Find me in Mareeba, Australia (on the pointy bit in the northeast)