CommodoreUSA CEO Interview Answers

[Darrin]

LOL.... I wish because then I have the resources to acquire the IP. Sorry, I am not Barry.

Well your posting style at 3am after a night on the town exactly matches Barry's style at midday after a cup of coffee.  An easy mistake to make.  

To the point, put your money where your mouth is. You have no more of rights over intellectual property then 10 to 20 million Commodore owners who had first generation purchasing of Commodore products. First generation purchase: I mean, purchased from authorized Commodore distribution and had the official warranties with Commodore or at least qualified. In other words, you didn't get your first Commodore from another another customer.

I have put my money where my mouth is.  Over the last couple of years I've purchased Keyrahs, RTG cards, SDFFs, card readers, Amiga/C64 Forever, a Chameleon64, a C-One, a Minimig and ARM board, an FPGA Aracde and pre-ordered an X1000.

What have you done?

I've bought several PCs too, but I got them from HP.  More powerful than C-USA can do and a fraction of the price.  My C64 Forever and Amiga Forever still run on them though.

As for feeling that you guys think they have any rights over the trademark with all about 10-11 full pages worth of questions that are really unrealistic claims.

Yeah, expecting Barry to just bugger off and sell some PCs is unrealistic.  However, we live in hope.

What I am trying to get at is why you guys waste so many pages of questions that you already know the answer is that the your suggestions are totally useless and only serves less than a 1000 individuals worldwide. Real companies for international commercial trade of goods requires a market base of at least a million potential customers.

If this was "wasting pages" then we would be posting on CommodoreAmiga.net.  This is the site we have all used for years to discuss the Amiga variations.  C-USA insist on coming here and posting rubbish and as we're here we feel the need to respond.  If they're not interested in what we think then they should stop posting here.  They keep telling us we're not their target customers so why on Earth do they keep coming back?

If you have potential customer base of 1000 individuals then you have to spend no more then $100 in R&D.

Better than that, I don't need to spend a penny on R&D because others (MikeJ, aCube, Hyperion, Indivision, etc) are already doing it and have been for years.  I just by the finished products as I pointed out above.

[Darrin]

I'm not selling them. In addition, you might want to know how business operates if you suggest or propose ideas for someone to invest their money.

That would be a good start for you guys. Take some courses in business and run a business.

It might do you some good in your life as well.

Just for the record, I don't need you to tell me how to run a business or to go on a course.  I own my own company and I'm doing very well thank you.

You need to tell C-USA how to run a company and to go on a business course because computers do not equal furniture.

[Darrin]

I'll ask you a serious question, would any of you buy new commodore 64 software on the various peripherals like maybe an intelligent drive that runs on ethernet and you use the various ethernet modules to load the software off of.

I ordered a PETDISK for my CBM 8032 last week if that helps.

[Darrin]

Business is simply about selling a product that people would use at a fair price. Jack Tramiel did quite well with that philosophy.

Of course it isn't furniture but Barry been in business with cable companies and more for some time. I have talked to him before. Darrin, I don't work for CommodoreUSA. I am independent in that regard but I may certainly have good enough relations That he might consider listening to the thoughts and then decide. I am not promising anything.

I been done such roads before.

Yeah, I've seen his resume.  Cable companies have captive markets.  This is entirely different and his approach is all wrong.  I've talked to him before via PMs and frankly he should have kept himself in the shadows right from the start, picked a good PR guy, done some research and finally TOLD THE TRUTH.

He's not going to listen to anything you say.  He has a major personality disorder with has become obviously clear.  He might be able to bully his staff by screaming at them, but he is out of his league here.

As for your "good relations" with him, that will only last until you tell him "no".  Don't fall for it.  As long as you stroke his ego then he'll keep you around, but once he has no more use for you then you're gone.

[Darrin]

Why does every CommodoreUSA fan say they don't work for them???

Legal Liabilty probably.

That plus Barry told them to say that.  

[Darrin]

Alright, I would want to have an idea of price and media its on. On one end, I would have to consider media suitability and availability.

I know floppy disks are getting hard to come by.

MicroSD, MMC/SD would be the ideal medium now. Alright, so, that means software on such would make a good media target. Of course, at cost plus some amount.

I like the PETDisk idea and maybe cover also IEC and perhaps generic ethernet could be pulled off for other systems.

Just tell him to produce a batch of Minimigs (v2.0) in a cheap plastic case (2 layers of plastic parted with spacers and an engraved logo), a pre-loaded SD card with ROM images, Workbench, some ADF games and a 3.1 Hard File and put it on the market for Xmas.  He could even sell AFD games from his "App Store" if he ever gets a Webmaster capable of creating it.

A quick, easy project.  The hardware designs are Open Source, the FPGA code is Open Source, he has the rights to the ROMs and Workbench and the case could be made by a McEmployee on minimim wage.

Of course he was told this right at the start and never listened.  He'd rather sell us overpriced PCs loaded with Linux and hope that we don't notice.

[Darrin]

To be fair, after looking at the answers after his reply, I think the Amiga community in general I think is being too harsh on his company, and being too pessimistic about certain things a little too early. He has said he is a small company slowly working to rebuild the Commodore and Amiga brands. As  Leo has mentioned many times before Rome wasn't built in a day…..

CUSA I believe is doing things right - it's not doing anything 'wrong' except maybe have slightly more expensive offerings in some product lines to Apple? But even then it's coming down cheap.
I just heard they launched the new Vic Mini the other day….and that's a completely new product to the last one (which I remembered was similar to the Amiga Mini)….

...and as if by magic, the Shopkeeper appeared...

To be fair, you're not paying any attention and just reading of a script that Barry gave you.

The VIC-Mini in case you missed it is a old machine, made for years by someone else, rebadged and stuck in a C-USA box.  We've already seen links to the original website and the 50% lower prices they used to charge (retail) if you ordered from them directly.

The smoke and mirrors is endless.

I can't wait for the next C-USA drone to show up and tell us how wonderfull Barry is.  Perhaps his bank manger, golf partner or pool boy might like to drop in for a while.  

[Darrin]

They are a Linux PC vendor selling x86 boxes.  This is Amiga.org.

Jesus Christ why can't people understand this just isn't relevant here?

They do understand it.  They're paid to ignore it.  

[Darrin]

I think after this post I'm just going to join those not posting on any CUSA threads and wait for CUSA to go away.

That's what they want.  If they can bore us to death then they can make lots of new threads, fill them with positive "Barry approved" content from sponsored accounts and hope that they'll show up at the top of any Google search.

It is like World War One, they're hoping that we run out of troops before they run out of bullets.  

[Darrin]

get FPGAs cheap just by buying in bulk.

Assembly is cheaper in bulk.  The Minimig doesn't need a big expensive FPGA.  aCube have already made some.  I have one.

[Darrin]

Barry:  "Hello boys and girls!  I'm your Uncle Bazza and I'm the host of the C-USA Smoke & Mirrors show.  Now I know I've been a bad boy in the past, but thanks to Prozac I'm a new man and I just want to be your friend.  Talking of friends, I've brought two with me.  Meet Middleman and Wildstar.  Say hello to the children guys."
Middleman:  "Hello boys and girls!"
Wildstar:  "Hello boys and girls!"
Barry:  "Why don't you guys tell everyone how nice I am?"
Middleman:  "Oooh!  Uncle Barry is really, really, really nice."
Wildstar:  "He's even nicer than that!  He's like a double helping of nice with a big dollop of icecream on top!"
Middleman:  "I love icecream!"
Wildstar:  "And Uncle Barry loves the Amiga!"
Barry:  "Well there you have it boys and girls, I love you all and I'm a really, really nice guy."
Middleman:  "With icecream!"
Wildstar:  "Yes Uncle Barry, don't forget the icecream!"
Barry:  "OK, that's all until next week.  Remember to come to my website and pre-order a computer with excessive RAM, a sub-standard graphics card, no expandability and an underpowered PSU"
Middleman and Wildstar:  "And icecream!"
Barry:  "You guys are so funny.   Hey, where's Dammy with my meds?  I feel the need to insult someone."

[Darrin]

Ok, no one outside the Amiga community would be interested in spending more then $50 on computers of 1992 amiga specs. Darrin, the FPGA manufacturers don't give much saving in bulk volume order. The chip is a $200 chip. If Jeri kept the C64DTV on FPGA, it would have cost $99 instead of like $9.99 to produce. There basically is no bulk savings. Also, you can't get the level of bulk volume. It is not supplied.

Neither Altera or Xillinx will have the price of the FPGA down to $9.99 and the rest of the board components costing $10 in bulk volume of 100,000-200,000. It needs to be able to be produced and sold at price compable to the new atari 2600 reproduction or the C64DTV with simple keyboard and mouse with a Vic-slim like case. Amiga lettering.

ASIC would be the process needed to be done from FPGA to ASIC.

We would need to get the complete package down to 1/10th the price for actual cost and then double the price for profit and overhead cost.

That bein a max spec'd hw.

It can be a computer, or it can be a retro games console, or a dev board, or an advanced alternative to the Raspberry Pi.  The market is endless if the price is right.  Ask Nintendo.

[Darrin]

$50... Get it down to that price and you got something.

I could say the same thing for C-USA's existing product(s).

[Darrin]

Alright, I'm getting old.

Thanks

No, what is happening is that you have told us so many lies that you can't keep track of them.

So now Barry has sent 3 henchmen here to try and do some damage control.

I bet his blood pressure is through the roof.  

[Darrin]

Just went by what Leo told me.

Same old excuse, it is always someone else's fault.

So are you confirming that Leo is a liar?  Thanks.  We'll save this quote too under "Dammy confirms that C-USA CTO spreads lies".

Cheers.

[Darrin]

Damn you are a nasty person so no, that is not correct.

Actually I'm a very nice person.  Ask anybody who has met me.  Probably because I'm an honest person and honesty is something you appear to know very little about.

So, what YOU said and what I interpreted from it is absolutely correct.