From: mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Amiga Future?!?y
Distribution: world
X-NewsSoftware: GRn 1.16f (beta) by Mike Schwartz & Michael B. Smith
Date: 30 Jul 92 00:34:01 PST
Organization: Amiga makes it possible

In article <tony.712448396@ais.org> tony@ais.org (Tony Poole) writes:
> mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz) writes:
>
> >CBM has wonderful engineers and plenty of wasted R&D efforts of their own
> >(i.e. CDTV).  However, CBM lacks the ability to instill confidence in their
> >products in the marketplace without showing the kind of support that an
>
> I don't know about this.  You have to realize that readers of c.s.a.advocacy
> are a cynical bunch when it comes to Commodore.  You (I) may not have
> started out that way, but reading the BS here day in and day out tend to
> involuntarily make you that way.
>

Less than cynical, and you don't have to be a usenet reader to see 386 clones
with monitor, hard disk and 256 color displays going for not much more than
an a500 with ONLY floppy disk drive and monitor.  The Amiga only has 32 colors
and does not do photoquality graphics.  Without a REAL CPU, RAM, and a hard
disk, playing a 10 diskette game or running spreadsheets just isn't much fun.

> The point is, you guys (and I) are assuming *everyone* wants *everything*
> *now* like you do.  I'm happy with my computer.  It runs my UUCP feed, my
> comm program, a few image proccessing programs, a word processor, etc...
> Would I like a 68040 Amiga?  You bet!  Would I get one immediately when it
> came out?  Nope, not me.  There are many other things to worry about first.
> Hell, at the moment, I want a 14.4K modem before anything else, 256 colors
> or not.
>

I just want CBM to keep up.  They started out with a huge lead in the industry,
with multitasking, superior graphics capabilities, and a GUI that works
better than anyone else's.  There has been a steady decline in the Amiga's
relative power and now the Amiga is WAY WAY WAY behind in everything but
operating system.  And now the OS is losing its edge, too.  You can't tie
an OS to a slow 68000 and 8 year old hardware technology and expect to
push the envelope very far.

There has been ZERO innovation from CBM.  Lots of enhancements, yes.  But the
dike has sprung soooo many leaks and CBM engineers don't have enough fingers
to plug them all.

> Most people are happy with their Amiga.  A great deal are ecstatic about it.
> There are lots of 500's out there for a reason - they are low end, and low
> end means low price, and that sells, especially in a recession.
>

I am actually happy with the Amiga.  I have a similar opinion to Skip
Sauls, though - CBM SUCKS, the Amiga is GOOD.  It used to be CBM
sucks, the Amiga is GREAT.  The Amiga is still useful, and there are
a few apps worth using the Amiga for.  But fewer as time has gone on.

> I kinda got off track.  My main point is that the average Amiga user (ie
> without net access) who doesn't read c.s.a.advocacy doesn't think things are
> so bad.  I know, I talk to a lot of them day in and day out.  They're my
> family, friends, and relatives.  Do I jade them by recanting Marc Barrett
> posts all the time?  Hell no, what would it accomplish?  Do I express my
> wishes for a 256 color solid palette?  Yeah, to which I hear a great deal
> "What's the big deal, we have HAM and Dynamic Hires?".  Seriously.  It's not
> viewed as that big a deal.
>

Some people are just downers all the time.  Marc hasn't been right the whole
time - far from it.  But I am not stupid.  I see the writing on the wall.
I see zero sales of Amigas.  I go to the local Amiga store and see no new
apps for months at a time.  I see no compelling games to buy anymore either.
THe best games are ports from other machines now.  I see neato hardware from
3rd parties from time to time, but the good stuff is damn expensive - so expensive
YOU won't buy it so I can make product for it (and you).

I read Marc Barret posts for several years, not just a few months.  I never
bashed CBM like I intend to from now on.  I never bashed the Amiga, and I
likely never will.  I would not be able to live with myself if I recommend
an Amiga to anyone anymore - except for vertical market applications like
video work.

Wasn't it over two years ago that the toaster came out?  Sales of Amigas
jumped from 2mil to 3mil and sales looked strong.  We haven't hit 4mil
yet.  Maybe we won't.  Marketing.  Marketing.  Marketing.  I am done
marketing the Amiga for CBM.  Let them pull their own weight like the
hundreds of other computer manufacturers.  They all advertise in magazines
all year 'round.  This makes it so the stores don't have to carry the
full burden.

> When the CDTV was frist reviewed, a lot of Amiga users I know said "Wow!
> That's neat!"  I thought it was neat.  Neat sells.  The R&D on CDTV wasn't a
> waste.  CDTV is a great product to get average people to use a computer for
> real things in their living room.  The R&D on CDTV was well spent, but
> unfortunately hasn't been followed up with a sufficient effort to push the
> product to the consumer (IMO CD-I doesn't escape this either).
>

Marketing.  Marketing.  Marketing.  There are 50,000 CDTVs, maybe.  That's
not much of a market to induce anyone to make products for it.  CDTV is
a lousy audio CD player - I know, I have one and that's all I use it for.
Nothing at all compelling to buy on disk.  My CDTV player doesn't recognize
many of my music disks.  It doesn't recognize the buttons on the front
pannel - they beep but the machine sits there doing nothing.  Push
fast forward button and nothing happens.  Hit play and the disk starts
playing song 1 again from the start.  Piece of JUNK!

And here's the amusing part - I go to a PC store that is the size of
a large department store - in fact it was a federated (previously owned
by Atari Corp <- jack tramiel) store before.  50 aisle of PC hardware
and software.  50 different PCs running all kinds of apps that I wish
I had right now - I need an income tax planning package, know of one
for the Amiga?  And there are 486 boxes with 4MB of RAM, 80Meg Hard
drives, 256 color VGA graphics, and built-in CD ROM drives for $1100.
Compare that with CDTV.  CDTV pales in comparison.

> Now that I read this group a great deal, I do kinda have the "Commodore
> Attitude", but I realize that if I didn't read this group, I wouldn't.
> So why do I read it?  I wish I had a great answer, but I mainly do for
> information.  If you can glean through all the BS in this group, and
> construct an appropriate kill file for the likes of John Anderson, you can
> learn a lot about other platforms as well as the Amiga.  Learning about
> other platforms can help you understand computers in general, what's
> possible, what's not, etc...
>

You simply don't get out much.  For every Amiga store with 4 aisles of
software and a few hardware products behind a counter, there are
50 stores like the ex-federated store (CompUSA, FWIW).  Go get a copy
of PC-Shopper magazine for $3 and see 700 pages (more like a phone
book) of COMPUTERS (in general) advertised and not one Amiga ad or
dealer in the thing.

I deal with all kinds of computer users, not just Amiga users.  I
am simply amazed at how few of them have even heard of the Amiga.
Word of mouth just doesn't cut it.


> People like Mike Schwartz might think they need a 68040 Amiga.  Most
> *people* don't.  There are far more users than programmers.
>

People like Mike Schwartz see 68030 Macintoshes selling for half the
price of the A3000 and little more than a new A500/A600 setup.  People
like Mike Schwartz see that VOLUME makes it possible to bring much
more powerful hardware and software to the masses at much lower costs.
People like Mike Schwartz wonder where the $1000 030 Amiga with
256 color graphics and 4MB of RAM is.  People like Mike Schwartz
want to write software for that kind of machine instead of for
a 68000 box with 1Meg or less of slow memory.  People like Mike Schwartz
want to be able to cheaply buy great software instead of having to
write everything themselves.  Mike Schwartz may need an 040 Amiga,
but who are the people who are buying 50MHz 486 clones for less than
the A3000 costs?  Who are the people who are buying Quadras?  Hmm?

> Most users are still satisfied, or at least content with what they have.
>

CBM seems to be satisfied with what they have done to the Amiga.  I remember
the back-door that the original Amiga team put into 1.2:  We made Amiga,
they fucked it up.  I can't agree more.

>
> --
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Tony Poole                       tony@umcc.ais.org * tony@irie.ais.org
> Traverse City, MI USA          tony@cherry1.trv.mi.us * tony@cherry1.UUCP

--
Amiga programmer of: GRn, MailMinder, Budokan, Beyond Dark Castle, Dark Castle
Sega Genesis programmer of: Dick Tracy and Marble Madness.
Mike Schwartz  (ames!zorch!amiga0!mykes or mykes@amiga0.sf-bay.org)
1124 Fremont Ave.
Los Altos, CA 94024

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy