Because to me it was. A500 was a 1 month project for these guys not 12, and these are the designers who could improved things much better than the ECS/AGA delayed chipset surely.
C= West Chester and new man at the helm in 86 got it more wrong than anyone else IMO.
The only reason the A500 was in West Chester was because the Los Gatos team rejected the "Fat" architecture as unworkable. They were wrong. And you clearly have not the slightest idea of how custom chip development is done, or how long it takes.
The problems with delivering new chips on time was never one of ability... we had in West Chester chip designers every bit as good as those in Los Gatos (and no, that's not me). The problem was high level, and corporate: Commodore spent big money on executive's salaries, not technology.
And yes, "the new guy", Marshall Smith, was useless. But he wasn't running West Chester, he ran Commodore. Had they not closed Los Gatos, the same problems would have existed. Not to mention that Los Gatos didn't even have proper IC CAD systems until C= supplied them.... they were hardly setting any IC design records.
It's also the case that, while the Los Gatos office was closed, the team was not sacked. They were welcome in West Chester. But that did mean leaving California. Of course, actually having been there, I might have a slightly different prespective. But hey, if you think Atari and the Tramiels would have done better.... my advice: find some less mind-altering drugs. Or ask some of my good friends from Los Gatos Amiga how the "Handy" was treated at Atari.
