Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    > What is a amiga 3000? How is it different from the other amigas?
    
    As far as anyone knows, it was an April Fool's joke played on a
    club in San Diego.

    re: .0
    
    The Amiga 3000 is a rumored future Amiga.  It doesn't exist as a
    product.  As .1 mentioned, the only 3000 that has been publically
    shown was a hoax done as an April Fools joke.  CBM has demoed the
    2500, basically a A2000 with additional boards.  I suspect future
    Amigas will be A2000s with boards.  If a particular configuration
    of that is popular, then they may move the board stuff to the
    motherboard.
    
    -dave
         

    
    I think CBM will eventually have to invent a new 32-bit buss. 
    Dave Haynie has discussed what a future buss might look like on
    BIX.
                                                  
    Right now, an A2000 with an '020, '881, and 32 bit RAM will supposedly
    out-compute a Mac II, (according to CSA) but with a 32 bit buss,
    the Mac can communicate with the outside world faster.
    
    Either way, an A3000 is a long way off, meaning years.  Don't postpone
    a purchase decision based on long range rumors.  No matter what
    you buy, it will eventually be eclipsed by a more powerful machine.
    
    Dave is esentially correct; for the forseeable future, the Amiga
    will use the A2000 as a platform with upgrades to the processor
    and custom chips.
    
    Ed.
     
                                                   
    

    And I thought Commodore was finally going to get it right with an
    Amiga with a 68020, 68882, decent RAM (2M+), reasonably priced and
    fast hard disk and no flicker.  (Commodore are like IBM - if enough
    people complain about a bug they rewrite the brochures and call
    it a feature!)

 r.e   
>   < Note 1594.4 by SNOC01::SIMPSON "Those whom the Gods would destroy..." >
>                             -< Wishful thinking >-

>    And I thought Commodore was finally going to get it right with an
>    Amiga with a 68020, 68882, decent RAM (2M+), reasonably priced and
>    fast hard disk and no flicker.  (Commodore are like IBM - if enough

    	 I dont understand this. Are you trying to say that not building
    a SUN-3 for $1000 and instead producing a machine with more power
    than a MAC for heaps less dollars was a mistake? I too, have a wish
    list for my ideal PC/Workstation, I'm hanging out for DIGITAL to
    build it! 8^) meanwhile just because technology (and its ONLY
    technology) has started to come up to my favourite PC doesnt mean
    they GOT IT WRONG.

            All the things you want are available NOW, you just have to pay
    money for them. No, they do not all come from Commodore and yes
    they do cost. BUT they cost if you buy them from ANY Vendor. 
    	There are clearly defined market segments these machines are
    fitted into, with clearly defined cost constraints imposed in putting
    them into this space.( I seriously doubt, hacker community support
    aside, that Commodore could SUPPORT a high volume Workstation product
    in the 68020 space, the logistics are very much different. You have
    to bring third party people in to spread the support load, hence
    the more flexible, open box approach.). I'd love my Amiga at 
    what I paid for it and have 1200x1200 Colour with 24 bitplanes and
    a 68030 ect. ect. ect.! 8^) BUT I wouldnt expect Commodore to last
    a week and I think my bacon would be delivered by airmail as well!
    
       	  C'mon guys, the Amiga is the cream of 68000 based micros,
    an excellent PERSONAL computer at a great price. Commodore have
    made the machine adaptable and in doing so extended the life of
    the concept. It is not dead because some faster PC's have come around.
    It is still a great buy compared to anything else costing around
    the same bucks, and quite a few machines above it. Stop comparing
    Apples to orangutangs.

>    fast hard disk and no flicker.  (Commodore are like IBM - if enough
>    people complain about a bug they rewrite the brochures and call
>    it a feature!)
	No company is like IBM, yet all companies are like IBM.
        This statement is very glib but makes just as much sense as
    the comparison above it i.e none.	

    Even if Commodore dont produce the next killer PC, they have shown
    other makers the sort of things that should be in such a beast.
    If it takes Apple or Next, DEC or someone else to do it, fine. If
    it's good I'll consider buying it BUT it will want to have good
    sound as well as graphics and be adaptable & well priced.
    
    
        John 	
    

    perhaps CBM will have to find another comapny to buy before they
    top the Amiga..after all, the Amiga wasn't home grown.   John

    
    I heard that CBM actually PAYS Jay Miner to not work on any other
    designs.  
    
    I'd rather see him get paid to do a new, backwards compatible chip
    set.
    
    Ed.

    re: .7--I wonder if I could get Digital to pay me not to work on
    competitors' products.  What a wonderful source of income.
        John Sauter

r.e.
>    < Note 1594.8 by SAUTER::SAUTER "John Sauter" >
>                            -< I want some of that >-
>
>    re: .7--I wonder if I could get Digital to pay me not to work on
>    competitors' products.  What a wonderful source of income.
>        John Sauter

    If half of Europe can be paid NOT to produce farm products, the
    US Governmant could afford to give you money NOT to grace us with
    computer products even if DEC wouldnt. Have you thought about taking
    your proposal to the Japanese? 
   
    

    re: .9
    
    Lots of Americans are also paid to not produce farm products.  However,
    I suspect the Japanese government is too clever to fall for that
    ploy.  In any case, I remember Shakespere's motto: ``Put not your
    faith in princes...''.  I'd rather work (or not work) for DEC than
    for any government.
    
    By the way, what are butter mountains?  Agricultural surplus storage?
        John Sauter

        I sure hope Commodore hires somebody with taste to design the
        packaging of the 3000.  In my opinion, the 2000 is one of the
        ugliest machines I have ever seen, taken top honors over the IBM
        PC which has held the ugly award for over 4 years in a row.
        
        Bob
        

    
    I always thought the A1000 was pretty 'uptown' looking, and boy,
    do I miss my keyboard garage.  But the A2000 was deliberately designed
    to be ugly, since it reassures business types that there are indeed
    slots in the box.
    
    However, the Mac II has slots and a whomper power supply, and I
    get sexually excited when I look at one.  Maybe its the platinum
    color?  Platinum blonde?  Loose women?  Sex?

        I agree, the A1000 is one of the best from a physical
        design/looks point of view.  I understand all the functionality
        available in the A2000, but I sure would not like to look at it
        all day.
        
        The other issue I have is that a box that big needs a floor
        stand.
        
        Bob

    For Sale,
    	10 Rainbow floor stands to be sold as a Job lot, just lying
    around doing nothing but taking up floor space. 8^)
    Yeah, the A2000 is pretty big-fat-'n-ugly but I guess there is a
    limit to the amount you can do with that much board+power supply
    real-estate without making it 'boxy'.
    	There is something rather classy about the MAC][ though and
    its pretty big and boxy, its amazing what a good face plate can
    do. A Vaxstation 2000 is perfectly boxy, but I feel they still look
    pretty great.
    
    John
    r.e butter mountains John, you hit it right on the head. We often
    	talk here of the Butter Mountains and Wine Lakes of Europe.

    
    I like the look of the A2000, it has a nice solid, "this is a 
    computer" look.  Like they didn't waste a bunch of money designing
    a "styled" box.  Same with the A1000, except it did have that
    keyboard garage to make it seem taller.
    
    The Atari ST is my favorite example of styling gone wrong - slanted
    function keys.
    
    -Dave

    
    Actually, I DO have my A2000 floor-mounted, and without a stand.
    I just stood 'er up on end and braced it against the inside wall
    of my desk.  Looks good down there, and you can't hear the fan noise.
    
    Ed

Well, the 2000 is pretty boxy, I have a black Seagate hard drive bezel
in the front, and yeah, it's not pretty, and a little noisy.

But, I'm one of the old goats who built an IMSAI 8080, with front panel
of plexiglass with lots of LEDs and hex-head screws, sheet-metal roof,
fan like a turboprop (vacuumed up the cat one day...), 28 amp power
supply... 

I just don't TRUST these wimpy little FLAT things, even if if they've got
16 times the memory- gotta have front panel, gotta have some LEDs, gotta
have a floppy slot facing FRONT, where I can SEE it, gotta SOUND like it's
running when it is, now that's a COMPUTER, just like my PRO350...

In case there's any doubt- :^)
John O.

        At least the PRO had styling, too bad about the rest though (I
        really liked my PRO, but it had its drawbacks).
        
        The Atari function keys are strange, but because they are so big,
        there is not any problem using them, Atari lucked out.
        
        Box's are box's.  Styling helps a lot a couple of lines in the
        right place would have made the A2000 more apealing to the eye.
        
        Even a decent front panel, with real leds or even an LCD display
        would be more appealing.  (Yes I still miss the real panels that
        used to come with PDP-11/70's.)
        
        Digression -
        
                I have found that one of the most satisfying objects to
                own has been a Crown reel-to-reel tape deck.  It has real
                5" VU meters (pure analog) and a real functional control
                layout.  My wife says, and I agree, that this is just my
                ego and the function of the machine can be served with
                other less expensive means.
        
                I think that, for some of us, the front panel on a
                computer or being able to get to the internals of the
                operating system, may produce that same satisfaction.
        
        Bob

    re .5
    
>    Even if Commodore dont produce the next killer PC, they have shown
>    other makers the sort of things that should be in such a beast.
 
    Actually, in .4 I was being facetious, but .5 is garbage.  There
    were and are serious problems with the Amiga, and they simply should
    not be.
    
    Putting 512K in a graphics based machines is little better than
    Apples efforts with the MAC 128, after all the IBM world has been
    complaining for *years* about the 640k limit, yet there is no *easy*
    way to add RAM to my 1000.  512K is dumb.
    
    Non-standard serial and parallel ports are bad design (remember
    pin 23 - power - it blows your printer up).
    
    The expansion slot on the side is a joke that went out when Adam
    was a boy.  IBMs had expansion slots in 1981.
    
    Finally, the flicker in hi-res.  I understand the technical reasons
    why this is so - and it is still the most stupid piece of design
    I have seen.  I bought the Amiga because of its graphics power -
    and *I CAN'T USE IT*.  Hi-res is essentially unusable unless you
    have a 2000 and Microway deinterlacing board.  There is no excuse
    for it - unless the original designers were blind.
    
    Now, I still love my Amiga and use it more and more, but the fact
    is that it has unnecessary flaws.  That's what gets me the most
    - they are all unnecessary.  How the hell can anyone design a machine
    in the eighties and *not* make provisions for a hard disk?  How
    can you design a graphics machine and then build it so that its
    most powerful feature - hires - is unusable?  Why, oh why, build
    non-standard ports that give you no benefit and costly headaches?
    Plus of course, they give you two operating system interfaces -
    but don't give you the manual for the most powerful one.
    
    I was being facetious about the 68020 and 68882, as I said, but
    frankly, the guy who said that Commodore's management were brain
    dead hit it right on the nail.  The Amiga could have been brilliant
    and *not* flawed - for the same price, but it isn't.  For no good
    reason.     

    ... and a flicker free hi-res display is still absolutely useless
    to me if/when I decide to videotape the picture ...

    re: .19
    
>   Putting 512K in a graphics based machines is little better than
>   Apples efforts with the MAC 128, after all the IBM world has been
>   complaining for *years* about the 640k limit, yet there is no *easy*
>   way to add RAM to my 1000.  512K is dumb.
    
    I don't understand what you mean by this statement.  I've got a
    Starboard II which I added to my A1000 in about 5 minutes and it worked
    with every program I own.  The operating system accepted it without any
    startup modifications whatsoever.  Every program I have is capable of
    taking advantage of this memory.  I could easily tack on up to 8 meg if
    I wanted to.  Admittedly the SOTS boxes are not as attractive or well
    defined as internal slots like the A2000 or PCs, but I've had no
    problems with this whatsoever.  Think about what it takes to add memory
    to a PC or MAC (not MAC II).  Even if you do add it to your PC only
    certain software titles can use it (and I do mean limited titles).  One
    of the things that impressed me most when I first saw the amiga is the
    simplicity of adding RAM to the architecture. 
    
    As far as CHIP memory goes, it would be nice to have more.  But
    since I've gotten the Starboard, I rarely even come close to running
    out of CHIP memory.  We've seen some pretty incredible games and
    demos using that 512K of chip memory.
    
    - steve mcafee

>    dead hit it right on the nail.  The Amiga could have been brilliant
>    and *not* flawed - for the same price, but it isn't.  For no good
>    reason.     

Wrong.  High-res monitors are MORE EXPENSIVE than ordinary TV
resolution (15Khz) monitors.  Flicker-free high res - at the time the
Amiga was designed - would have added about $200 to the monitor.  These
days the price of 34Khz montors has gone down some.

    
    Most of the problems mentioned here are being addressed in the Enhanced
    Chip Set, such as a non-interlaced 400 line mode, while retaining all
    the current video modes.  Jay Miner in fact does admit that not having
    BOTH interlaced (for NTSC/video) and non-interlaced was a huge mistake.
    I agree.  I think Commodore could have sold truckloads of A1000s, even
    without slots, if it had a better display, or at least an optional,
    higher priced monitor as an option.
    
    If it's any consolation, FlickerFixer should be available for the
    A1000 & A500 soon.  I read a release notice in a UK computer rag.
    The price was listed as 230 lbs.
    
    Ed.
    
    

    re: that depressing note
    
    Most of the "serious" problems you mentioned are specific to the A1000,
    which was designed way back when folks were looking for killer
    game machines.  The A500/A2000 fixes a number of those problems.
    
    One thing to consider is cost.  A computer is a tradeoff of features
    vs. price.  Commodore was selling the A1000 as a home and small 
    business computer.  That market is very price sensitive.  The 
    competition in the home market was the Atari ST and the Apple IIGS. 
    Neither one offered color 640x400.  The ST has no expansion bus.
    Nor did they have a blitter, HAM mode, pull down screens, multitasking,
    etc.  I left out ibmpc AT clones since only recently have dropped in price
    low enough for the  home market. 
    
    The A1000 has 256K and easy expansion to 512K.  After all, who would
    ever need more than that :-).  But they did provide a bus just in
    case you wanted to add more.  Or things like the Insider provide
    ST style memory expansion.
    
    I do agree with comment about missing a easy way to hook up a harddisk,
    it should have had a SCSI port.  You shouldn't need to get an expansion
    box just to hook up a harddisk (there are harddisks that attach
    to the parallel port, but they don't seem to popular).
    
    -Dave
    p.s. I like having a 640x400 color display that doesn't require
    me to buy a special monitor for it.  I'm not too impressed by
    flickerfixer, the enhanced chip set, or the Hedley monitor.  I
    want 640x480 and lots more colors on a Zorro II graphics board
    before I spend the money for something like a NEC Multisync monitor.
    

    
    The following is a list of computers that made it to the Big Time
    with no expansion capabilities, no hard disk support, limited video,
    slow floppies and insurmountable competition from behemoth computer
    companies....
    
    	Macintosh 128K
    
    The point here is that by continued development and hardware upgrades,
    Apple made the Mac into a real computer.  Yes, lots of hardware
    was rendered obsolete.  Yes, it cost real money to upgrade to the
    latest and greatest configurations.
    
    You have to accept the fact that computer hardware will grow obsolete
    and be replaced by better hardware.  So will your automobile and
    your physical self.  
    
    The A500/A2000 represent a lot of improvements over the original
    A1000, and they will continue to be improved, but be prepared to
    spend money to get the improvements.
    
    Just for fun, try to find someone who has maintained the latest
    Mac or PC hardware, starting with the original models.  See if they
    can recall what it cost to stay current.
    
    If you add up all the costs, to go from an A1000 to a killer A2000
    is not out of line with hardware upgrades from other vendors.  In
    fact, an A2000 with flickerfixer, multisync, and hard drive compares
    in cost to a monochrome Mac SE with a hard drive.
    
    Ed.
    

The 1000 would have been a lot more expandable if Commodore hadn't been
going broke.

In order to keep costs down, Commodore (actually Amiga Inc before
Commodore bought them) decided to sell the basic machine with only
a buss connector for expansion and to market the expansion box
separately.  The expansion box, code named Zorro, was designed, but
Commodore didn't have enough money to produce and sell it.  Instead,
Commodore sold the plans for the five-slot Zorro box to anyone who
wanted them for $20.

    Re: that depressing note
    
    A second to reply .24!
    
    Any design is a compromise.  For the incredibly low price I paid 
    for my A500, its capabilities are astounding.  I never could 
    justify spending a great deal for a home computer, just as an 
    extension of my own sense of values.  The A500 is an absolute 
    _steal_ for the power it affords.  
    
    I also can't bring myself to blow a wad on a NEC Multisynch.  I 
    live with that "dreaded" flicker without much of a complaint when 
    I think about the price tag on one.  Think I'm a cheapskate that
    just can't appreciate nice hardware?  The sales figures for 
    the A500 indicate that a lot of folks feel the way I do.
    
    The Amiga's a super machine!  Some folks just get peculiar 
    delight in dwelling on the negative!