From: kws1x@cyclops.micr.Virginia.EDU (Kenneth W. Smith)
Subject: Eyecatching Titles, LTD.
Summary: Strange Allusions Galore!
Originator: kws1x@cyclops.micr.Virginia.EDU
Keywords: Life, Amigas, and Everything Else
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 22:00:57 GMT




     Fellow Netters and Amigoids,

     Pandemonium is reigning in comp.sys.amiga.whining, er, uh, advocacy.
  I've read this Amiga group (and the others) since the great Hydra effect
some time ago, and now, Great Rome has passed its zenith.  Originally, it was
a great idea to have all of the flame-fests centralized.  It has kept the
other groups somewhat uncluttered.  But now, all the whining, the flaming,
the yelling, the dark thoughts, they've taken on a life of their own, like
Barker's "Son of Celluloid".
     I'm not calling for advocacy's eradication.  It serves a positive
function, IMHO.  But even those things positive need perspective, and that is
difficult to achieve given the myriad of personalities and opinions that
flood the nets every day!
     Degeneration is a natural occurrence (singing: Entropy!  It's getting
all over me!).  It's time to muck out the stalls and break out the Mr. Clean.
     Occasionally, a rational head will rise out of the morass "like a shaft
of gold, while all around is dark."  (Obligatory Python reference)  Even
those with well thought prose seem reluctant to waste the energy it takes to
swim to the surface and yell, "Hey, wait!  I have a different opinion and a
much more cheery outlook!"  Whether I am one of these remains to be seen. :)

     Technology:

     Let's face it.  The decade of the '80's in America spoiled us
technologically.  Now, we expect more out of our toys without wanting to pay
the price for advancement.  In August 1990, I drove 2 hours to the nearest
Amiga dealer, and effectively paid $3800 for an A3000/16/40 (yes that's
*40*), a 1950 monitor, and Digi-Paint3.  (Sorry, couldn't resist throwing
that last bit in...)  "Boy, were you stupid," many of you are thinking.  Was
I?  Bartering has all but dropped out of our US business system.  The people
behind the counters in Kmart can't haggle with me about the price of goods,
though Lord knows I've tried.  :)  Prices are set, usually.  (Blanket
statements never hold true 100% of the time.)  So you have several options.
1.) You can pout about not being able to afford the gleaming new toy that you
want.  2.)  You can wait until the toy drops in price so that you can buy it.
(2a.  Usually by that time another toy, shinier than the first, appears.
Right?)  3.)  You can bite the bullet and work out some fiscal way to obtain
that object of your desires.  4.)  You can go buy a different, cheaper toy.
Add to this list as desired.
     I paid what I did in 1990 because I wanted THAT toy at THAT time.  I saw
my options as those above.  What Educational Discount?  I was a lowly Lab
Tech at the time, well, still am but a little better paid.  :)
     To sit there and whine, "I want, I want, I want the next generation
Amiga with its 32-bit chipset and super-whizzo blitter and mega-bass-boomin'
better-than-CD-quality sound and Neuro-Helmet-Joystick/Mouse-Adaptor(tm) and
12.8 Gigs of ram RIGHT NOW!  And I want to pay less than I did for my
autographed copy of BLAZEMONGER XII!! (~$500)", gets no one nowhere.
     Do we as consumers have the right to expect good service?  If it has
been promised to us, YES!
     Do we have the right to have products to work as advertised/promised?
YES!
     HOWEVER, these are not the things which are debated most vehemently
here!  A lot of people here seem to feel that C= has some "moral obligation"
to cater to someone who has bought a product from them.  ???  If C= says,
"We'll pick up your A500, repair it, and send it back to you via Gold
Service", and you have that in writing, then they had DARN WELL BETTER DO IT!
But I don't remember reading anything in the paperwork I got with the A3000
saying that, "We, C=, will provide YOU, the owner of this machine, with a
neat new OS every 6 months, new custom chips, and a free 200megHD each year
fully loaded with all the graphics data needed to play Psygnosis' new
LEMMINGSMONGER!"  (Sorry, Dan, but I love the concept. :)
     Commodore has fulfilled their end of the business deal.  THEY GOT THE
MACHINE OUT THE DOOR FOR YOU TO BUY!!  I see no other obligation for them,
except to replace the machine if it doesn't work right out of the box and to
uphold their warranty.  Your end of the business deal is to decide whether
you want that machine or not.  Would I research buying a computer as
throughly as I would if I were buying a car?  DARN RIGHT, I would.  Either is
a major investment for most of us.
     Honest question:  How do you guys afford to buy system after system, and
still look to the future, saying, "Yup, if this A4000 comes out, I'll shell
out the money to get it."  When my wife and I were "discussing" getting an
Amiga, we found it would be a major investment for us.  We (yes, we!) decided
that the A3000 would suit our needs/wants for quite a few years to come.
Now, 2 years later, we know we couldn't afford an "upgraded" system, eg. the
rumored A4000, but we know we wouldn't need it anyway.  Of course there is
the burning desire to keep on the "cutting edge", so to speak, but at some
point, practical sense must intervene.  I can't afford to put myself into
debt again (still!) just to point at my computer and say, "Lookey here!"
     Which brings us to:

     Obsolescence:

     Anything that isn't the latest model is obsolete, right?  How did we
ever do any sort of computing without multiple megs o' ram?  I have a friend
who recently put his CoCo3 into a tower case, patched in an IBM 3.5" drive,
and added a hard drive.  Crazy bastard?  Well (stop laughing out there!) to
him, his computer is not an obsolete 8-bit machine because of its utility to
him as a tool.  Granted, he is saving for an Amiga some time down the road,
but the point is the CoCo will be obsolete TO HIM when it ceases to be
useful.  My C128-D still gets used a lot for my word processing (Yay,
Paperclip!) when my wife has the Amiga tied up.  Do I need 1280x1024x256 for
what I use my computer for?  Not yet.  :)  If and when I find I need/want
that kind of capability, the technology will probably have dropped in price
to where I can afford it, and every one else on the "front lines" will be
clamoring for that 8000x8000x16.7mil capability and wanting it for the same
price or lower.  Enough power tripping, people.  You are not a weenie for not
having the latest toy.  Hmm, seems I heard that sort of thing around the
fourth grade or so...

     Ethnocentricity:

     Huh?  What?  I'll explain.  Every 20th posting or so (fact not
verified...see, I'm covered :) a soul from OUTSIDE of the US posts and gently
(or not) reminds readers that things are different where they live.
Different?  How can that be?  We all know that events OUT THERE are the same
as in the US.  (For the humor-impaired, that was sarcasm...:)  Just because
C= doesn't seem to be dominating in the US doesn't mean they can't be faring
well elsewhere.  I will state that I don't know.  I have no "facts" or
figures, sales reports, etc. to make a claim either way.  Moral of the story?
When -MB- says, "C= sucks", and someone else says, "C= is okay", they could
both be right!  :)

     Amiga is dead, Amiga is dead:

     It will be someday.  When the market ceases to support the Amiga, then
it will only die when its users stop using it.  C= no longer makes the C128,
I believe (again, no solid evidence on my part, and I don't really want to
drive to West Chester to try to verify this...:), but it's not dead.  See
"Obsolescence" above.
     I'm not a hardware guru, but I know enough to glean that the Amiga
architecture is neat stuff indeed.  For all those who have left for other
platforms, there will be others who will discover the Amiga and be enchanted,
for whatever reasons.  C= may seem to be lacking in its willingness or
ability to present our machines to consumers, but they've gotten 3 million
units out the door.  Not bad for a dead machine.
     "C='s lack of standardization has doomed the Amiga."  People ask me if
my "Omega" is IBM compatible, and I answer them with, "Thank God, no.  But it
can be if I really need it."  Perplexing looks all around.  "Standards" and
preferences don't always go hand in hand.  In the September issue of Amazing
Amiga on page 20, (Look, everybody, a reference!), the review of Co-Tronics
Engineering's KB-Talker begins with:
     "Commodore doesn't have the greatest reputation within the computer
industry.  Its tendency to avoid industry standards has frustrated more than
a few people...The A2000/A3000 keyboard is much closer to the AT 101-key
industry standard, but again Commodore misses the mark."  (Reprinted without permission.)
     Again, THANK GOD C= didn't go with that standard.  Of the Macs, clones,
Amigas, Tektronics, ADMs, and other keyboards that I have used or been forced
to use, the A3000 keyboard wins IMHO.  And I do a lot of typing.  In this
case, IMHO, a non-standard keyboard is a PLUS for the machine.

     Will this multi-page rambling get to a point?  Sure.  (Well, I can't
promise that...:)  It's good for netters to have a place to vent some steam
and scream and cuss for a while.  But that doesn't mean that it can't be well
thought out ventilating.  My posting here is hardly a knee-jerk response.
I've read and digested for a looooooong time before breaking my pact with
myself and posting here.  :)  We all need to step back, take a breather,
examine our motives, make some waffles (Ah! Too much MST3K!), and wonder if
our whine-levels are a tad disproportional to what we are whining about.
Ultimately, we die, kiddies.  Now THERE'S perspective.  :)
     As exacting (and opinionated) as people tend to be in this group, I
expect this article to be poked, prodded, ripped, drenched with octane and
lit, and have some kind souls to point out to me where I've deviated from
their prescribed paths of "normalcy".  All I can say is have at it and excuse
the typos.
     My Amiga is right for me.  If C= drops it tomorrow, it'll still last me
an extra, EXtra, EXTRA long time.

     Without warning,

     K. W. Smith, Jr.
     kws1x@cyclops.micr.Virginia.edu

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