From: barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett)
Subject: Re: More AmigaWorld Lies
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 00:02:20 GMT

In article <35014@cbmvax.commodore.com> mks@cbmvax.commodore.com (Michael Sinz) writes:
>barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett) writes:
>>There are probably plenty of people at Commodore who ahve not been using
>>Amigas as long as I have.
>
>Yes, but not in the engineering group.  I know that most of us had machines
>in 1985.  I know that I was a developer for the Amiga at the time of the
>New York show (the 1985 Amiga introduction to the world...)  Randall Jesup
>was an Amiga user back then, so was Dave, etc.  But that is not important.
>There are some here that did not have their machines from the beginning.
>However, they have been *constructive* in their efforts with the Amiga.
>Many of us have come from other industries to help make the Amiga be
>better.  We do not spread falsehoods or flames but rather try to really
>do something.  (Products as 3rd parties or Amiga development as employees
>of Commodore.)

   I have tried to be as constructive as possible.  Take for instance my idea
for getting the Amiga into the CD-ROM multimedia market, by marketing a 
modified version of the CDTV OS that would allow A3000's with SCSI CD-ROM
drives to run CDTV software, among other things.  IMO, this would be a far
more workable solution in the long-run and easier to develop than Commodore's
recent "solution" of connecting a CDTV to an Amiga via a parallel cable.
First of all, it would not turn people's existing third-party CD-ROM drives 
into instant white elephants.  Second, it would have added flexibility 
in terms of allowing multimedia for other platforms (Mac and IBM/MPC) to
run on the Amiga.

>When we tell you that you do not have your facts correct and yet you
>continue to state as if you *know* (as if it is a fact) when you only
>have your own (slanted) view as to what is really going on, you do
>a disservice to the Amiga and the Amiga community.  As everyone knows,
>the Amiga is not perfect.  Commodore is not perfect.  In fact, nothing
>is perfect.  However, we are also not absolutely bad nor do we try to
>be bad.

   You and the others at Commodore engineering are good hard-working people,
but you just have bad management direction.  The replacing of SCSI with IDE
in the new systems is probably the most infamous example of this.  Luckily
the guy who made this decision is no longer working for Commodore, but the
damage has been done.  You yourself used to say in your .sig: "Programming
is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for life."  This applies
to hardware developing, too.

>/----------------------------------------------------------------------\
>|      /// Michael Sinz  -  Senior Amiga Systems Engineer              |
>|     ///                   Operating System Development Group         |
>|    ///   BIX:  msinz      UUNET:  mks@cbmvax.commodore.com           |
>|\\\///    "A master's secrets are only as good as the                 |
>| \XX/      master's ability to explain them to others" - Michael Sinz |
>\----------------------------------------------------------------------/

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| Marc Barrett -MB-  |  email: barrett@iastate.edu
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc