Do You Believe There Are Only 2000 A4000T's Out There?

[amiga1084]

Hello All,

I own two Escom A4000T's does that mean I have two of 2000 machines out there? The figure of Escom only making 2000 machines has to be wrong. The amount of machines poping up on Ebay all the time and machines I seen up for sale in my area makes me believe this must not be the case. Love to hear your opinion on this subject.

Happy New Year To All,

Thanks in advance,
Merv Stent  

[Everblue]

They are the same machines that keep getting bought and resold.

[dannyp1]

I don't believe that sales figure either.  I have 5 of them here in different states of disrepair.  I also don't believe it is the same ones being sold over and over again on EBay.  There are many sold on EBay that seem to come from people who had used them for Toaster type of activities.  Where did the 2000 figure come from and where is there a list of how many of each model were sold?

Dan

[Ilwrath]

Yeah, I have to say, I'd question that figure, as well.  Besides the fact I've never heard it before, the Escom A4000T is fairly easily available to anyone who wants to shell out the money for one.  

I wouldn't think that would be the case for a system that had a total run of 2000 units almost 15 years ago...  

As Redrumloa had stated in his auction, there may well have been less than 200 COMMODORE BRANDED 4000T's.  I've only seen two of those.  Is this the point of confusion?

[recidivist]

If the 2000 units were all  originally purchased by knowledgeable people who wouldn't and didn't reflexively  consign those "old,obsolete computers" to trash or recycling,that could be accurate count.

On the other hand ,I answered an ad for free Amiga computer stuff,and the nice lady gave me a big stack of manuals,etc.She explained that she and her husband had taken the Amiga itself to the city-sponsored computer recycling center!!!!Oh,yes,it did have a bunch of extra cards installed. :boohoo:

[HopperJF]

From a 1995 issue of CU Amiga Magazine, shortly before the 1200 and 4000 were relaunched it states that 2,000 A4000Ts were on order to US customers so the figure is blatantly wrong

[orb85750]

Has anyone compiled a list of known 4000T serial numbers or serial number ranges to get a handle on the total?

On a similar note, what is the source of the assertion that under 10,000 Commodore SX-64 computers were made?  Anyone know?

[djbase]

amiga1084 wrote:
Hello All,

I own two Escom A4000T's does that mean I have two of 2000 machines out there? The figure of Escom only making 2000 machines has to be wrong. The amount of machines poping up on Ebay all the time and machines I seen up for sale in my area makes me believe this must not be the case. Love to hear your opinion on this subject.

Who says Escom made only 2000 units? Where does this came from? There are at least 5000 units around.

[Matt_H]

I was always under the impression that 2000 was the high-end estimate of Commodore 4000Ts. There have to be / have been more Escom units.

[murple]

I could believe a small number like 2000-4000. If these were popular and in demand computers, it'd be a different story... but with Amiga dead for well over a decade now, I suspect that the number of people in the world who still own and use Amigas is pretty small. Among people like us, these are great machines with real value. To the vast majority of the world though, they're just old electronic junk. I wouldn't be surprised if the same few machines are getting passed around among collectors and retro hobbyists. With many people being happy with 1200s or Commodore 4000s (not to mention older non-AGA models) I could believe that a couple thousand Escom 4000s would be enough to satisfy the market.

[arnljot]

Again it's a question of definition, isn't it?

How many did Escom build, and how many did they sell. Was it JIT production for the market?

Hard to say. A lot of NOS CD32s exist. But they were for the most part built by Commodore and siezed by courts since Commodore lost that law suit (remember one of the triggering factors for why they went belly up?).

Commodore didn't do JIT production, I don't think so.

And Escom couldn't have been ready with their own production facilities and all to retool them for Amiga production, probably they just used the same as Commodore did.

So they probably didn't JIT either.

So what's the gap between built and sold? I'm sure the number of sold must be quite low, remember - they were bankrupt too, and  new owners weren't keen to sell stock taken over or restart productions...

No, I suspect the number of Escom A4Ts to be quite close to the number of Commodore A4Ts. Both in number of units built, and number of units sold. With perhaps a small edge to Commodore in units sold as there seems to be more NOS Escom units than Commodore units.

[Lorraine]

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[QuikSanz]

@amiga1084

Do Amiga Technologies A4000Ts Count? Here's one.

Chris

[Matt_H]

One area of focus could be QuikPak - they manufactured and distributed 4000Ts in North America from the restart of production in 1995 through some point in 1998. Only 2000 built in that timeframe doesn't make sense, especially when you consider there was also a European factory. Back then, the market was small, though still viable. Exponentially larger than today's userbase.

News from that period, especially North American news, will probably yield the best information - Amazing Computing, Amiga Informer, and CUCUG's Amiga Web Directory are probably the best sources.

[djbase]

Escom wanted to make 100.000 A1200 and 6.000 A4000T in total. Remember that Escom crashed only a few months after the A4000T was on sale. From the serial numbers I have I can estimated that a minimum of 5.000 A4000T and 80.000 A1200 were made. From the Commodore A4000T there must be at least 150 units so a total of 200 is possible.