OPEN LETTER TO AMIGA TECHNOLOGIES, DR. PETER KITTEL
May 8, 1995
Escom AG
ATTN: Dr. Peter Kittel
Tiergartenstr. 9
D-64646 Heppenheim
Germany
Dear Mr. Kittel:
Greetings. We have been following your posts to the internet for quite
some time, and were very glad to hear of your new position with Escom.
Our company markets products to the cable television industry, and relies
heavily on the Amiga hardware and operating system both for development
and our final product. Our products range from a low-cost character
generator, based on the CD32 repackaged in a rack-mount chassis, on up to
large distributed display systems based on multiple A4000's.
This letter addresses our suggestions for what features we feel are
essential for future machines, both for our needs and the general needs of
the Amiga community. As you said in your post today, the most important
thing right now is to get the existing models back in production.
Short Term Suggestions:
As you have mentioned in your posts, it is very important to keep the
price of the low-end machines down. We definitely feel the same way, and
recognize the need for those machines in the marketplace. Therefore, our
suggested changes primarily apply to high-end machines, and the changes
for low-end models are primarily related issues such as board layout.
We feel that certain features which are not present in current models have
provided significant problems for marketing the machines. For future
models, we think the following relatively simple changes will add
tremendous value:
1. SCSI in the high-end machines (A4000)
Well over 90% of the Amiga 4000's we have shipped and encountered in the
United States market have had to be equipped with a SCSI board, which
occupies a Zorro slot. Because many of these system use the Video
Toaster, which covers over but does not use two Zorro slots, only one slot
is left free for networking, video capture, extra serial ports, etc. The
addition of a SCSI controller (such as found in the A3000) will free up an
extra slot, while simultaneously reducing the overall cost of putting a
system together, since adding 3rd party cards is inevitably more
expensive.
2. Video output in the high-end machines
The A600, A1200, and CD32 provide a composite color video output which
provide a remarkably high quality signal, better than most low-end
genlocks. This solution should also be included in the A4000. If all you
want to do is record your productions direct to video tape, you shouldn't
have to buy an expensive genlock or waste your video slot. The exact same
circuitry as the A1200/CD32 video encoder would be more than acceptable
for most uses.
3. Audio input and/or extra parallel port in the high-end machines
Most of the A4000's in the USA become equipped with a parallel-port based
audio digitizer, such as the MegaloSound from HiSoft/AVR. Unfortunately,
this requires the use of a switchbox or a Zorro slot with an extra
parallel port, which is expensive, if you want to have a printer. Having
this very inexpensive A/D circuitry integrated into the computer, or
providing an extra parallel port for a printer (or PARnet, etc.), would
eliminate this problem, and provide for more favorable direct comparison
to competition from the A/V Macintosh line of machines.
4. Internal keyboard header in the low-end machines
As I mentioned earlier, we repackage machines, such as the CD32 (and SX1)
into a 19" rack-mount chassis. We have been doing this since the days of
the A500. Unfortunately, this is very difficult to do with newer machines
like the A600 and A1200. The A500 provided all the necessary keyboard
controller lines on a header connector on the motherboard. Hooking an
external keyboard to the A600/1200 requires soldering directly to chips or
traces. Having the keyboard controller lines available just as blank,
drilled pads that we can solder to would only add a couple of cents of
cost to future machines, but would be of tremendous value to OEMs such as
ourselves.
5. Connectors should all be on front or rear of high-end machines
If at all possible, the location of the mouse connectors should be moved
to the front or rear of the computer, as was the case on the A2000. By
having connectors on the side of the machine, mounting of the cabinet in a
permanent environment, such as a rack, is difficult, and sometimes
impossible.
6. PCMCIA connector on low-end machines should be relocated
We find the PCMCIA port to be of tremendous value, and use it for both
SCSI and Ethernet applications. Unfortunately, the present location again
provides problems for mounting of card-equipped machines in a rack, or in
a professional setting. The best solution for us would be to have this
connector present on the rear of the case, or recessed in a trapdoor. If
it must remain on the left, perhaps moving it further toward the rear, and
providing a greater depth for card insertion.
We feel that the above suggestions, if implemented in the first round of
new models, would greatly increase the usefulness of Amigas in a
professional environment, while minimizing the cost impact to the lower
models.
Long Term Goals
We have three additional suggestions for the future, which I will present
here. Two are for new low-end models, and one is for the long-term future
of Amiga O/S development.
1. Faster processor in the A1200
If (and only if) the component prices are low enough, the A1200 should get
a processor upgrade. The simplest change, which wouldn't require a
substantial redesign, would be to double the clock speed of the 68020 to
28MHz. A better solution would be to go with a 68030, with more address
lines brought to the trapdoor, for more memory expansion. This would
probably introduce compatibility problems and higher costs, however.
Another suggestion would be to include SIMM sockets on the A1200
motherboard itself, so that the trapdoor could be used for other
applications without always having to squeeze memory onto the cards. A
problem many users face is that they buy one trapdoor card that accepts
one type of memory, then later upgrade to a more powerful trapdoor card
and find they have to buy all new memory.
2. Introduce an intermediate model that fits between the A1200 and A4000.
We see a need in the video production and education markets, especially in
the USA, for a very low cost Amiga model that appears more high end in
terms of case design than the A1200. We feel such a machine could be
produced using existing motherboard designs and would represent a good
niche between the A1200 and A4000. Start with an A1200 motherboard, but
put it in a plastic pizza-box style (thin form-factor) case with the
floppy drive located in the front, and enough internal room for a 3.5" IDE
drive. Provide a connector for a standard external Amiga keyboard. This
machine will not cost much more than an A1200 to produce, and won't
require a substantial redesign, but will easily overcome the established
resistance in the US marketplace to console-style case designs. This
would also be an ideal platform for low-cost multimedia delivery (see the
CD32 section below).
3. Port the Amiga O/S to your chosen RISC platform
The Amiga O/S is one of the last truly efficient, compact designs. It can
be argued than a RISC-based Amiga that runs under Windows NT or such is
not really an Amiga. We feel that in order for the basic design
philosophies that the Amiga represents to carry on into the future, the
operating system must be represented on future architectures, even if this
takes much time to materialize. Without AmigaDOS, a RISC-based Amiga will
just be a Windows box with a nice chipset.
The CD32
This product deserves special mention. The CD32 has kept our company (and
many others) going through Commodore crisis of the past year, as A1200's
and A4000's are unavailable. We have gone so far as to design a 3" x 19"
x 17" chassis that accommodates a CD32, SX1, 3.5" HD Floppy, 3.5" hard
drive, and 3.5" 270MB SyQuest drive for our high end systems traditionally
made up of A4000's.
We feel that the CD32 has a good future as an ideal kiosk / multimedia
delivery platform, and hope to see production continued.
We wouldn't change a thing for the base model, as the inclusion of
non-volatile RAM, keyboard and serial ports makes it a good all-around
machine. A step up for multimedia producers would be a CDTV-style design
with an integrated floppy drive. This could also be accomplished with the
intermediate A1200-A4000 machine described earlier and an internal CD-ROM
drive.
Thank you for taking the time to consider these suggestions. We are
looking forward to the results of your new efforts with Escom. If you
have any questions, please feel free to contact me. You may call me at
[phone numbers removed from public post], or send email to
magicbox@peak.org.
Congratulations once again on your new position; we wish you the best of
luck.
Sincerely,
Bob Richardson
Director of Product Development
MagicBox, Inc.