From: charlet@hubcap.clemson.edu (Charles E "Rick" Taylor IV)
Subject: Re: Floppy size in 1200?
Organization: Clemson University
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 22:39:09 GMT

dnavas@oracle.uucp (David Navas) writes:

>In article <36692@cbmvax.commodore.com> grr@cbmvax.commodore.com (George Robbins) writes:
>>Is this really a buy/no-buy point for you?

>Depends very much on the price.
>Let's list the disadvantages:
>	No 16bit sound	(competition, Falcon)

Perhaps forthcoming.  

>	No SVGA gfx	(competitin, clones)

AGA graphics, though.  

>	Limited upgrade path from A500
>			(competition, Amiga)

Someone's going to buy a new 500 over a 1200?  Not likely.  Besides, you 
can't take your 500 peripherals, for the most part, to any other Amiga 
model.  (Unless you want to use your RAM chips, if they're the right sort.)
And face it, you'd bottleneck the heck out of your shiny new 020 if you put
a 500 RAM card on it!

>	Keyboard-computer single case
>			(competition, clones)

You're missing the target market here.  Besides, the keyboard+case isn't that
much bigger than your basic keyboard.

>	680E20, against 68030
>			(competition, Falcon)

note the Falcon is much like the Mac LC in that you've got the 030 on a 16-bit
bus (or so I'm told.)  Can we say "slow"?

>	smaller, less capable floppies
>			(competition, everyone else)

Well, maybe C= can justify this one by saying they wanted to keep the 
"standard" ... but then you have to wonder about the A3000 + A4000, which
both have HD floppies.  Go figure.  (But I *do* agree with you here in that
the 1200 *should* have HD floppies ... this is C='s one mistake on the 
1200 that I see so far - but it won't put me off of buying a few of them.)

>Now, we have to weigh these disadvantages against the competition's
>disadvantages.  I think we come up pretty much a draw (more or less) and
>the deciding factor will be price.  If an A1200 WITH a 40meg harddrive
>was $400, it is an outstanding value, and the above limitations could
>be understood by the obvious target market.

If it was that cheap I'd buy one for each room. ;-)

>If an A1200 with a 40meg harddrive and without a 1960 runs for $700, cheap
>386 clones (with detached keyboards, reasonable floppies, cheap VGA
>monitors included, etc.) run for about that much, and the A1200 becomes
>much less attractive.

What kind of monitors *can* the 1200 use?  (a question)  Which monitors 
will let you use which video modes (say I can't afford a super-expensive
multisync, for example...)  Does anyone have a definitive list here?

Mind you also that a cheap 386/16 or 386/25 running windows is no match 
for a 2-meg-chip Amiga with an 020 running AmigaDOS speedwise.  Windows
"multitasking" on a 386 is a joke.

>It is very much up to marketing whether this machine makes sense or not
>to have built (with this feature set).

>That said, the A600 is worth about $150 in my book, and as I'm pretty
>sure Cmdre isn't going to start selling it at that price point, it was a
>mistake to have made it.

You're probably right that C= shouldn't have bothered with the 600 in the US,
as it will probably be effectively killed here by the 1200.

>David C. Navas						dnavas@oracle.com
>Working for, but not speaking on behalf of, Oracle Corp.

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