From: mks@cbmvax.commodore.com (Michael Sinz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: @$#^@$%# 2.04!  (Enough!)
Date: 31 Jul 92 12:37:28 GMT
Reply-To: mks@cbmvax.commodore.com (Michael Sinz)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA

To those of you who are not the target of this:  I am sorry, but I
just had to do this.  Please don't hold it against me.

To those that are a target:  I am no sorry...

prall968@Armstrong.EDU writes:
>In article <1992Jul30.060025.10217@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> urjlew@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Rostyk Lewyckyj) writes:
>>Since DOS 2.04 has been officially released, it is certainly desirable
>>to have as many applications, both major and minor, as possible,
>>support and exploit its features. However because there are so many
>>systems which are stuck with older releases of DOS, because 2.04
>>is not available to them, it is counterproductive to AMIGAs image
>>to have the software require 2.04 to even run. Current owners of
>>systems that want to but cannot upgrade become frustrated and feel
>>let down by C= and the program vendors. Prospective machine buyers
>>seeing the situation will be wary of buying a system where
>>they may not be able to upgrade to the next version of the DOS and
>>applications revision.
>
> Yes exactly... I don't want to hear all about this "Well you can buy a
>KWICKSTART Board.." I shouldn't need to.. In fact why should I have to BUY
>the new roms in the first place.. seems if C= wanted to keep happy loyal
>customers they could offer them out as a good dealer..

Oh, so, maybe we should also give you that nice hard drive that everyone
is now getting in A3000 systems too!  Maybe that display enhancer for all
of you A1000/A500/A2000 users too, after all the A3000 has it!

Come one, guys!  What in the world kinds of drugs are you using?
Commodore is not here to give away anything.  We are here it make
money selling a product that people will hopefully wish to buy.
The reason they buy it is because it does something for them (plays
games, runs CAD software, does video production, etc).  We support
the product with what can only be considered "better than required"
support with upgrade software that will work on older machines,
with hardware trade-in offers, and many other such things.

If you had bought a car and the next year they had a better cassette
deck for it, would you expect to get one for your car?  Or how about
those "poor" IBM-PC, XT, and 286-AT users and the fact that they can
not run OS/2 or WindowsNT or the latest Ultima game?

Things move forward.  New items cost money.  ROM chips are not free
and they did not get developed for free.  The fact that we continue
to put effort into making the ROMs work across all models of the Amiga
is many times seen as beyond the call.  2.0 has specific code in it
to make it work with A1000 machines even!  Now, you have to install
it into your machine and, as it turns out, the A1000 was made before
we had switched to ROM.  This means that you need to get a ROM
addapter card.  They are available at rather low cost, depending on the
features you want in the card.  (Some let you magicly switch between ROM
versions, etc.)

I am sorry if you can not afford to get the latest toys.  I can't afford
to get the latest model of my car, but that is not the car company's
fault.  (I would like to have ABS brakes, but my model year did not have
them and it costs over $3000 to add them but the new model year has them
and it does not cost any more than mine did, so why does it cost $3000
to add...)  Hey, things move forward and sometimes you have to say that
you can not afford to do so or that you must pay a little to do so.

>>I place the blame squarely on bad system design and bungled
>>system support by C=. The bad design is in choosing to put such
>>a large portion of the system in ROM, so that upgrading to the
>>next revision of the operating system requires hardware modification
>>in the form of swapping ROMS. This makes upgrades unnecessarily
>>difficult and in some cases practically infeasible. For example
>>upgrading an A1000 to DOS 2.04. Since obtaining and installing
>
> And too many people here on the net are the WHY should C= support the
>sickly spindly ole 1000 types.. WHY? Because some of us cannot upgrade
>to a 2000 or 3000. We have sunk hundred if not thousands into our machines
>and we want to be able to use this machine...

Well, I have an A1000 that was one of the first machines made in 1985.
While I also have other machines, I still use the A1000 for some simple
video output as part of my AV system.  I can run 2.0 on it with the
kickstart ROM board it has.  The fact that this works is already more
than I would have expected.  Technology moves forwards.  I do not expect
Commodore to do anything special for me because I once bought a machine
and more than GM should do anything special because I bought a 1984 Buick
back in 1984.

I did not trade in the A1000 because I did not wish to part with it.  I
also, however, do not blame Commodore for not staying with the 1985 system.
I do not think I could productively program without 2.0.  The features that
are in it and the fact that it is so stable (rock solid as many people say)
makes it orders of magnitude better.  Some of the new functions in the OS
makes it possible to write better software in less time and have it be
smaller, faster, more powerful.

I also know that in the IBM-PC world, very few, if any, new products are
being developer for 8088-based DOS-3.x machines.  Over 99% of all new
software in that market is now aimed at the 286/386 line with either
Windows or OS/2.  Why?  Because of what can be done in those enviroments
due to the fact they are newer technology.  Microsoft Word for Windows
could never run on your 8088-based IBM-PC.  Is Microsoft the devil
because of that?  No.  They are providing a product that does what costumers
want and they are doing this using the best technology that is available
to them.

So many of you complained that there is no new OS.  You wanted feature XYZ
and function QRS.  Now, with Release 2 of the OS, we both developers and
users a much better enviroment that stacks up not to 1985 standards but to
1990s standards.  Developers wish to make products that are up to today's
standards and users wish to have such products.  If you are happy with things
like KindWords or Scribble! then great.  If you want something like
FinalCopy or ProWrite, things have moved on.  In fact, most people would
love to have Microsoft Word or at least that feature set, but that feature
set just does not happen back in 1985 technology.

>                                          ... Too many have the 'Well I own
>a 2000/3000/2500.. why should I bother' type of mentality and its that type
>that make more and more amiga users drop out.. Here localy I have seen 3
>amiga 500 users drop out and buy clones because of a lack of support locally
>and a general I don't care attitude from C= down to other users...

Commdore, in general, cares more about its users than any of the clone
companies or even IBM itself.  Large accounts get special treatment from
these companies, but do you think IBM or Microsoft gave people a way to run
OS/2 or Windows applications on the IBM-PC or XT machines?  Or how about
trade-in offers from J&D's Clone-PC/286 to the nice new 386 system that is
required for OS/2 2.0 since you were running OS/2 1.3 on it before?

On the nets you tend to hear the whining of the few people that just can
not deal with change or somehoe had a bad experiance.  How many times have
you seen the other 95% of the users who are happy say "And Commodore
did this for me" or "And my machine ran my program today without crashing"
or "My dealer just offered me an upgrade"?  These happen all the time but
don't show up here.

I care about the Amiga.  I would not be working as one of the OS developers
if I did not.  I also care about the A1000 since it was the "original."
However, things move forwards.  My A3000 has a SCSI drive that does
over 2meg/second of data transfer.  My A1000 can not do this, and I wish
it could at times.  However, what could I do about it?  I can't run
Windows on my old IBM-PC (if I still had it) and I can not run Mac System-7
on my old 128K-RAM Mac (let alone my Lisa, both of which have long since
been put out to pasture)  It is not the fault of IBM or Apple that this does
not work other than the fact that they moved forward.  If they did not,
somethink like the Amiga in 1985 would have replaced them completely.
(What a nice thought) but then something else in 1990 would have replaced
the Amiga completely.  (What a sad thought)

So, I guess all of this basically was a flame at those whining users of
whatever machine (be it A1000, Lisa/Mac, IBM-PC) that want technology
to stand still since they "got on" at some point but do not wish to
follow.  It also was usefull for me to vent my anger at these postings
that say that 2.0 is bad because it is not free or because we have
not upgraded every machine and given them $100 in cash because they
needed to be upgraded.  If enough of this whining goes on, maybe
Commodore will listen to what is being said and we will no longer make
new operating systems or machine such that the current machines will
continue to be as usefull as the machines (not) sold next year.  After
all, if Commodore can make you users happier, it will try.  And, if
you are upset that we are trying to move forward, maybe we should go into
reverse.  (Bring back the C-64; make all applications compatible with
it and the 64K of RAM it has...  Who needs a 1Meg RAM machine!)

/----------------------------------------------------------------------\
|      /// Michael Sinz  -  Senior Amiga Systems Engineer              |
|     ///                   Operating System Development Group         |
|    ///   BIX:  msinz      UUNET:  mks@cbmvax.commodore.com           |
|\\\///                                                                |
| \XX/                      Eloquence is vehement simplicity           |
\----------------------------------------------------------------------/