From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Its a sad sad day...
Date: 5 Oct 92 23:07:43 GMT
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA

In article <1992Sep28.042221.9288@disk.uucp> sparks@disk.uucp (John Sparks) writes:

>Here is what I think CBM should do (should have done a long time ago):
>The special chips (graphics and sound) should be like they did with the
>CPU on the A4000, be on a modular system. a separate board. Then when
>CBM comes out with improved systems, CPU's, graphics, sound, whatever,..
>old customers can improve their machines to the latest and greatest without
>having to trash their whole investment.

>Why couldn't CBM do this? WHY? Even Dave Haynie said this was what he 
>wants in a machine (totally modular). If they can put the CPU on a separate
>board, why not the graphics chips? why not the sound chip?
>PC's do it, Macs do it. CBM should have done it with the A2000 forward.

Well, really, PCs and Macs don't do it.  Sure, they have graphics boards.  You
can get those for the Amiga too.  Today, you can program them MS-DOS style,
directly, or UNIX-style, with X.  Eventually, RTG will make them more like
Mac display boards.  And like Mac display boards, they won't do lots of 
Amiga-style things, but you'll have to accept that.  Same goes with other
features like sound.  Folks, that IS what the expanison bus is for.  That's
what the PC folks use it for.  

You'll notice in the PC and Mac biz now, more and more nowadays, are putting
stuff on the motherboard.  If you want an upgrade, you can't change a chip
around, you buy a new graphics board.  In the PC business, they've moved
state of the art graphics upgrades from ISA to EISA/MCA to private local buses
and now to VESA local bus or Intel's chip interconnect.  You can't expect
half of the boards you buy today to support that yet.  These are exactly the
same reasons you shouldn't expect plug in upgrades on the Amiga now.  

If you had some custom Amiga chips slot on the A2000, something like the 
Coprocessor slot, it wouldn't be any different than what you have now.  That
slot would have been a 16-bit slot, just like the A2000's coprocessor slot.
Commodore left both of those behind for the A3000, and probably someday we'll
have to leave behind the A3000/A4000 processor slot.  Those are specificially
designed to be thrown away when there's a good reason.  Long term hardware
compatibility is ONLY to be expected on the expansion bus, because is is a 
standard independent of the system its on.  Because of this, it isn't always
going to have the performance you may want or the cost of something integrated
into the motherboard.  It's the same story on other platforms too.

>I also have a question for CBM. what happens after all the current stock
>of A2000 and A3000 motherboards are used up? 

As long as those systems are made, new motherboards will be made every so often.
If they get discontinued, they probably collect a stock of parts and call it 
quits.

>will you continue to produce them with ECS or re-design them to the AGA 
>chipset, or discontinue them altogether?

When you want to build a new A3000, a sales company somewhere notifies the
factory, they build it and ship it out.  When you want to re-design a 
motherboard, you involve an Engineer for about 4-6 months, a PCB person for
maybe a month, FCC/FTZ/whatever test people, etc.  Then you have to spend 
time and money to recertify the system in every country that requires
certification, etc.  If the system is something like the A2000, which has
been pretty much replaced by the A3000 line for two years, it doesn't take
a rocket scientist to guess which road C= is going to take.  There is simply
no profit in redesigning the motherboard.  C= has enough trouble with the
things that should be profitable.  

>And please make the A5000 totally modular and stop this crazy trade-in
>crap.

This "crazy trade-in crap" is the best deal going around here.  IBM doesn't 
give you trade-in credit when that PS/2-30 you bought a couple of years ago
suddenly doesn't run the latest and greated software very well.  YOU'RE ON 
YOUR OWN.  I like the idea of modular systems, but that's mainly because I
think we can make the Amiga line more interesting that way, we'll spend less
time re-inventing the wheel.  And it may make upgrades easier, but in the
area of sounds, graphics, etc. that's the job of the expansion bus.  If that
doesn't work, you have a software problem that needs correction.

Sometimes absolutely you have to re-invent the wheel.  The wheels on my wife's 
ex-Escort wouldn't do my Eagle Talon any good at all.  And if I spend my time
trying to shoehorn those old wheels onto my new Amiga GT while Apple and IBM 
are instead building new wheels, I'm not doing Amiga buyers any favor.


-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Cool Advanced High-End Systems You Can't See Yet)
 "The Crew That Never Rests"  {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh   BIX: hazy
              "I got a pocket full of kryptonite" -Spin Doctors