From: bruce@zuhause.MN.ORG (Bruce Albrecht)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: New Amiga(s) Expansion/Future
Distribution: world
X-NewsSoftware: Amiga GRn V1.29 4/25/92 (Beta) by Mike Schwartz
Date: 10 Oct 92 21:39:54 CST
Organization: Society to Stamp Out Bogus Organizations

In article <67346@cup.portal.com> Christopher_Thomas_Winward@cup.portal.com writes:
>   1: The development of the A4000 without a SCSI interface. (Obviously).
>
>This means that an A4000 is a scaled-down A3000 with the AA chipset.  It
>has a missing interface port, that highly useful SCSI port, that makes the
>A3000 a truly powerful and extensible system.  'But you can buy one as an
>interface board'.  This may be true, but we all know that more devices
>(and useful ones at that) are able to be produced when developers know
>that their target machines will definitely have hardware built in that
>they can support.

This is bogus.  The IDE drive is accessed through the SCSI.device, because
they map all the SCSI commands into the IDE commands.  All A4000s will have
hard drives.  All A4000s can have SCSI (with a A2091A, if need be).  If someone
were developing Amiga targeted peripherals that required a SCSI interface
(such as tape drives, CDROMs, etc.), they would continue to do so, and require
the A4000 owner to get a SCSI card (maybe even bundle it), just like any PC
SCSI device manufacturer.
>
>   2: The development of the A600 with fully surface-mounted components.
>
>The A500 is more powerful than this machine because of its sockets and
>expandability.  The missing expansion port is another inconvenience.
>The PCMCIA connector slot that this machine has is definitely a step
>towards the future, and I suppose a version to connect to the A500 could
>be worked out, but this still means that there are going to be very few
>products for a while for that machine.

Commodore UK says that the DOA rate for new A600s is quite a bit better than
that of the A500 (seems to me it's less than 1/3rd of the A500), which is
a pretty good reason to do it.  The average A500 user, especially those in
Europe, doesn't pop out the 68000 and replace it with a 68030 anyway.

The PCMCIA peripheral market is starting to ramp up, because most of the
PC laptops now use it.  I can't say that all PC PCMCIA cards will be usable
on the A600, but if they are, the A600 users will have a lot to choose from.

>
>   3: The development of a CDTV/CD-ROM device for the A500.
>
>Commodore has just introduced the A600, destined to be a replacement for
>the A500.  Which must be exactly why Commodore has just released an
>expansion unit for one of its products which they plan to discontinue.
>It would have been a much more workable solution if they had designed a
>PCMCIA interface to fit the A500 expansion bus, THEN design a CDTV unit
>to plug into the PCMCIA connector.  I guess it was too much for them to do
>something logically at the marketing division?

The A570 was completed before the A600 was released.  I don't know why
Commodore didn't release the A570 earlier.  Maybe they were trying to
avoid competing with the CDTV market.

>
>   4: Producing two completely different standards for 'high-end'
>      machines vs. 'low-end'.
>
>   There is no AA chipset in the A600.  There is no 68030 in the A600.
>   There is no way to upgrade any chips other than the processor in
>   ANY of the new surface mount Amigas other than a motherboard swap.

As stated above, Commodore seems to be more concerned about reliability
than upgradability.  I haven't seen the A600 motherboard, but I would assume
that it doesn't have 32 bit wide data buses, which I believe are necessary
for the AA chipset.

>Who in their right mind would ever dare to develop specifically for the
>A4000 and AA chipset when it only comes on one or two of the most
>expensive machines?  No real applications will become available to make
>use of the new chips unless they become standard.  How does Commodore
>figure that making their own machines non-standard in their own product
>line will help them?  The A600 is the machine that will define what types
>of programs will be written for the Amiga line.  Using old, dead processors
>like the original MC68000 along with the ancient 16-bit chipset is not
>going to do anything to advance their state-of-the-art machines.
>Why do they find it necessary to take a step backwards for every step they
>take forwards?  And then they think they're moving? Somebody needs to give
>them a clue at marketing and show them how to get off of the treadmill
>(I KNOW you're running faster, but YOU AREN'T GETTING ANYWHERE *SLAP*).

Well, maybe you won't see very many games written for the AA chipset (at
least not yet), but some of the productivity software already works with the
AA chipset with its larger color palettes.  It will be the graphics oriented
software (video and print graphics) which will make use of the AA chipset
first, and that market is not as likely to buy A600 class machines anyway.
>
>   The number of A3000s sold, and the response to its introduction, proves
>that there is a real market out there for the more powerful machines. C=
>now backs away from the power users a bit and gives us a taste of ancient
>technology in their new machines.  The A3000 was and still is a true
>innovation in power from C=.  The A4000 is an A3000 without the SCSI port,
>(but with a removable processor module), with a 68040 (you don't need an
>A4000 for this), and the AA chipset (you can do a motherboard swap for
>this (?)).  Overall, the A3000 looks like an expandable A4000 to me.
>Gives us all lots of reasons to buy the 4000, doesn't it?

I can't afford an A4000 right now, and I probably wouldn't upgrade to one
immediately anyway because I'd rather wait until Commodore either has an A4000
class machine with SCSI or a Zorro III SCSI card, because I have SCSI
peripherals that I would want to keep.  I have played a little bit with an
A4000, and I must say that the hi-res graphics are very nice, and if I were
someone who worked a lot with graphics applications, I would certainly 
consider getting it.

--
bruce@zuhause.mn.org
Youth is wasted on the young.

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware