Worst of the Worst Think Comodore has done.

[jutrem]

REPLY

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commodore_jim wrote

As for the hard-drive issue, this was something of a vicious circle and the software publishers of the time need to accept some responsilibltiy also.

Commodore didn't ship hard-drives with early Amigas such as the 500 because most of the popular games software, i.e. arcade games, were not hard-drive installable.

Conversely, many software publishers didn't make their games hard-drive installable since Amigas weren't shipping with hard-drives installed (although I suspect this was a convenient excuse used by many publishers to produce non hard-drive installable titles, as copy protection would be even more difficult).

** Some also claimed memory requirements.  The average A500 user had 1 mb in the late 80-early 90's.  Some games asked for 1.5 meg if installrd on a hard-Drive.


What was needed was for one side to show some faith and Commodore did this by shipping the 600 and 1200 with hard-drives as optional extras.

Still, many developers refused to play ball.

** I think many old Amiga developers thought the A500 was the only Amiga oround. Instead of writing software that took advantage of the higher end machines (like the A3000 and later the A4000) they kept to the 1mb/no HD  ECS spec.    The same developers on the x86 PC would require the latest graphic's card on the fastest CPU.

 We all have PC's.  PC users always upgrade or purchase new hardware for the latest games/apps. Most A500 users never upgraded to a higher end Amiga because for games there was to reason to.
 



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[jutrem]

  Instead of catering for the low end they shoul have focused on the high end Amiga's.  The high end will eventually become the low end over time.  Last year a 2Ghz pc was high end. Now we have 3ghz at the high end followed by 2.5 then 2ghz.

 Instead of releasing the A1200 they should have made available a base A4000 mb/box that the customer could customize. When they released the 1200 they split the market. There was alway's a 1200 camp and a 4000 camp.  Developers and manufacturers have always have to develop two versions of their products.  Imagine the cost difference if Phase 5 only had to develop the 3/4000 version of the PowerPC card.  Imagine the cost difference if Elbox only had to develop the 4000 version of the mediator PCI card.

here's an example (using 1993/1994 standards)

- Base A4000 2mb chip RAM AGA 1.76mb fdd KB//MS
- Upgrade to Mid-Tower
- Select from 040,030, or 020 CPU card
  * the 020 A4000 CPU card  was made but not sold
- Add extra 4,8,12,16 mb in 72pin SIMMS
- IDE HD options none, 120mb, 200,300 and up etc..
- Optional SCSI interface and Drives
- Optional internal /external CD ROM
- Optional ZIII video card (3rd party) for the high end
- Optional upgraded 3rd party CPU card for high end.

After a year or two the price of the base A4000 would be down to the 400~500 dollar starting price of the A1200 for those who really wanted one.

This would have allowed more PC like reseller customization.  That might have help the Amiga market grow.