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Yes it's true. They had the demos arround for a while and are
have been taking deposits for the first shipment which is expected
within a few days. (Before the weekend)
Price $995 (Canadian)
Includes:
5 1/4" drive
512 K memory
1.2 workbench/Kickstart.
If I had a good use for one I buy it, at that price, you can't go
too wrong.
Steve
Calgary.
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| I have used Data General One diskettes sucsessfully using a Beta
Transformer. It formats a standard 3 1/2" disk to 720K. I tested
some Infocom games on both the Amiga and DG One. Worked like a
charm. One warning, telecommunications don't work very well under
Transformer. I had Crosstalk (DG One version), and the program
seemed to run fine, but I don't think it knew how to properly
communicate with the serial port.
Hopefully, sidecar solves those problems.
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| If it is, the dealers are keeping it a secret - at least in the
Ottawa area. I am going to the Ottawa Amiga Users meeting
tomorrow night, and as there is always reps from one or two of the
stores selling the Amiga, I'll see what they have to say.
Art
(Paul - I got the Scholar working - thanks!)
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| Couldn't wait for the Users Group meeting, so I called one of the
dealers in town, Lynx Technical Services, who are dealing almost
exclusively in CBM products and with respect to the AMIGA, are
pushing it very aggressively. They have, by far, the most
software on display and more importantly the most technical
expertise when compared to the other dealers (which are affiliated
with national chains) in town.
They had a Sidecar in town a week ago to play with. It appears
that CBM has a couple of units that they are having their area
salesfolk lend to their dealers, for a short period of time, to
wet their appetites. The salesman indicated that he has been
guaranteed a quantity (??) shipment in no greater than 30 days
{I'll check in 30 days and let you know how good their word is!}.
The selling price will be between $750 and $1000 Canadian and will
come with 256K (socketed for expansion to 512K), 3 expansion
slots, 5 1/4" drive, DOS 3.2, WB & KS 1.2, and 8087 socket (all
this substantiates Steve Drew's findings and what we have read in
the various magazines).
The story he gave me was that CBM Westchester had 1600 units {I
think we had heard this figure before} and had retrofit 600
(reshielding) to meet FCC requirements {we also knew this was a
problem}. Apparently they found this to be a pain and decided to
stop with the reshielding on the balance of 1000 and sell them in
Canada, as we are not subject to the same criteria as you folks
are with respect to FCC (it meets CSA and the local Power
Commission specs, and that is sufficient). Consequently, we get
1000 and you get 600! All subsequent units will be manufactured
to meet FCC (I didn't get into the whens and hows with respect to
these).
With respect to performance, the salesman was impressed, saying
that the Transformer wasn't in the same league as the Sidecar. He
said that they tried to place the Sidecar on the buss, after the
COMSPEC memory option, and there was fallout, but not total
failure. Both he and the the CBM rep felt that this problem was
not unsurmountable with some software/hardware tweaking by COMSPEC
{again, we'll hold judgment on their optimism}. He also said that
while they didn't have the unit long enough to try it out, they
were told that a Hard Card, or other Hard drive, could be
partitioned into AMIGA DOS and PC DOS sections.
Bottom line is that he is confident that this is not vapourware
and they are looking forward to this an added attraction that can
only help AMIGA sales. He has a couple of units schedule for
receipt prior to the end of this month and they are planning
demonstrations on Nov 27th and 28th, and hope to put the units
through their paces (he invited me to bring any any IBM software I
may have to check it out). I hope they will test out some of the
"expansion" hardware that is available for the IBM PC in order to
put to rest some of the unanswered questions that are floating
around, like hard drive partitioning. This will certainly be the
acid test!
I have circled those dates in November and plan on visiting them
for a demonstration. I'll keep you posted.
Art
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