alexh wrote:
Mechanically the prometheus just doesn't work in the desktop Amiga's. I mean come on:
http://www.relec.ch/prometheus/images/A4D01.jpg
It didn't mechanically work well in the towered Amiga's either.
http://www.relec.ch/prometheus/images/A4T01.jpg
http://www.relec.ch/prometheus/images/A3T01.jpg
Do you remember what year the Prometheus was released? Do you know how many competing products were available at that time? And BTW your assertion that it works poorly in tower cases totally ignores Zipper's comment in this thread. In the case of the original orientation, it works better in some cases than others.
Matay could have tried to sell the PCI riser card you demonstrate in your example A4000D. I am almost sure this was a user discovery and a homebrew mod.
Umm, that would be me. Matay was essentially out of the Amiga market and my company, Anachronism Industries, demonstrated this possibility and sold many kits. You can call us doing a "user discover" if you wish as we were a 4 person company at the peak of it's short existance. Here's a hint for you, there is not a single major corporation in the Amiga community. Not now, not in 2004 and not in 2001. Anachronism Industries employing 4 people edged out probably every other "Amiga" related company out there by a factor of 4X at the time.
Anyhow, splitting hairs. It worked and made many customers happy for a fraction of the cost of a Mediator and you never had to worry about hard drive trashing, other hardware mysteriously stop working, license issues or other nonsense.
Matay could have designed and sold metal brackets to make it easier to fit PCI cards safely and sturdily. I dont think that ever happened.
You would be thinking wrong. Every Prometheus was sold with sturdy metal brackets
It was the right product (technologically speaking) and right time. Just a poor roll out and too many corners cut to lower costs. Matay should have targetted one case (probably official commodore A4000D) and created the best possible mechanical design. Then use the profits from those sales to pay for PCB reworks (and metal work, replacement back panels etc) for other cases.
You are entitled to your opinion, I just think it is strongly misguided. You know what year the Prometheus was released? Do you know how many were produced in total? Do you know what quantity most major Amiga hardware releases are produced in? Let's just say very few companies do it for the money and many end up losing money. A common rumor is Matay lost money big time. I don't remember if Prometheus production details were ever made public, but I can say that Matay did not get rich. My company bought out the remaining stock and sold approximately 33% of all Prometheus ever made in one year, in part because of our super aggresive pricing, and to a lesser extent making it available to desktop users. When all was said and done, it was a major investment and we barely broke even on the product. No complaints, it was a loss leader, we did ok overall, mostly on non-Amiga product. Don't be fooled into thinking Elbox is raking in the cash or is a big company. You will probably never see another full new product from them again, just minor redesigns.
This is getting a bit off topic. I like Prometheus, you don't. You like Mediator, I don't. We are both entitled to our opinions.
