I thought I would add an interesting story about Amix...
Do you folks remember the brochures for the Amiga 3000UX? You can view a page here:
http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/adverts/unix/page5.jpgI tracked down a few of the professors in this advert to ask about the Amiga 3000UX in their programs, the demise of Commodore, and looking back what did they think.
The replies I received were almost all like this:
-The Amiga 3000UX and Amix were amazing compared to to competition in terms of speed, price, and support. Commodore had that on-site support deal going on during this time
-The students and faculty really loved the machines. The ability to 'dual boot' was a very a real novelty at the time and offered great flexibility for all involved.
-In the end, it was a disaster for all involved. Why? Well, each university made it mandatory for a student to buy this computer (ie parents). This isn't new or out-of-the-ordinary, however, it puts great pressure on the university to support this computer for the life of the student.
When Commodore killed the Amix platform and then went bankrupt, it caused utter panic for these organizations. Parents used the argument "Hey you told us we HAD to buy THIS computer for our son/daughter for your program so you better damn well support it."
The guy from Lowell told me that they made it mandatory that each student buy a fully loaded Amiga 3000 UX with 18 meg of ram (16/2). That was quite an investment by students and parents not too mention the additional price of software and a printer. I'm trying to remember what he listed for software but I think it was a WP like Excellence! and a few others...I can't remember.
Some students were planning on doing their BA, MA, and PhD so their computer had to last 6-ish years. When Commodore/Amix died, then you had a mix of students that the university had to support which became a bigger headache.
One of the people in the brochure told me that it became so bad that as students graduated the university offered to buy back their Amiga 3000UX for twice as much as the student paid for it. That is how desperate they were for replacement parts.
In the end, almost all said that it was a solid platform and performed flawlessly but the sinking of Commodore was a disaster for everyone.
Cheers!
-P