NetNews Offline 2/NetNews Offline Volume 2.iso/news/comp/sys/amiga/misc-part1/7062

Internet Message Format | 1996-08-05 | 5.6 KB

Path: dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!hchworth.demon.co.uk
From: Paul Chan <paul>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: New slot box Amiga
Date: Tue, 05 Mar 1996 14:55:27 GMT
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References: <4hgsel$[e-mail]>
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[e-mail] (George Noel) wrote:
>It was announced the production of the A1200+/A1300 was cancelled and
>that it was contracted out to be redesigned.  My question is, is this
>machine really going to be the A1300 or has the new lowend Amiga been
>cancelled altogether?
>
>The original design for the A1300 was going to be a slight modification
>to the A1200 case and motherboard but now is being said to be a slot box
>when finished.  Will this remain the lowend or are they scrapping the
>idea and starting work on an A5000 desktop with the '060 standard and AGA
>chipset?  Or could this be the startings of the Power Amiga?  If so would
>the A4000t be the new "lowened" and would they be able to lower prices
>enough for it to be considered that?
>
>Considering the viewpoint of an all-in-one case by some of AT officials,
>it was crucial to get the lowend price range yet now they decide to have
>the "lowend" a slot box?  Would this be the equivalent of an A1200T or
>will it be a desktop?  Seeing as how there is nothing new going to be in
>the new lowend (chipset/drive wise) wouldn't a slot box AGA lowend Amiga
>be reinventing the A4000 desktop as someone else put it or would they
>only be adding a slot for RAM/Drives and a graphics slot and leaving out
>the PC slots?  How will this affect the price range and would the lowend
>processor still be the '030 as talked about or higher?
>
>Better question.. will this be reveiled  at the CeBIT and how long after
>would mass production/distribution take place?
>
>Or was this all a hoax and they are sticking to the original plan but
>decided to release this news perhaps to boost A1200 sales stopping people
>from waiting for the "A1300"?

That`s a very cynical view to take isn`t it? ;) ;)

I would suggest it`s a possibility. AT should have known the reaction of the
crowd here to an announcement of a machine that was supposedly better spec than
the poorly received A1200. The likelier solution is that, with AT sticking
rigidly to their IMHO unreasonable price structure, you could reasonably expect
the A1200Plus/A1300 to be priced at 700 UK pounds (with extra RAM) and that
doesn`t guarantee a hard drive IMHO either. In other words AT were scared off
further development of the A1200Plus by:

1.      Possible backlash from further frustrated Amigans who view the A1200
Plus as still not enough in terms of technical ability.
2.    Same as above, except backlash is due to prohibitive price and shouts of (I
could get a fully kitted out Pentium at that price!)
3.    Low sales of the A1200 are partly due to expectations of an A1300, something
that would not happen if the A1200 was expandable in the first place an
assurances were in place that essentially said you could upgrade your A1200 now
to the same spec as the A1300, which, if the A1300 came with a few ZorroIII
slots, is patently untrue (Yes, I know about the tower kludges, but that`s all
they are: kludges, and overpriced at that!).

As far as slots go, the average mid-range Amiga user only adds a gfx card, a
few hrd drives, and maybe a CD drive. There has been very little need for the
Zorro sots in anything other than much higher end uses.

If an biggish Amiga came out with room for cheaper internal expansions (CD, HD,
floppy) and an improved motherboard gfx/sfx upgrade, then 90% of existing
Amigans would be happy. Not only would they be happy, but with some extra
expansion potential (direct cpu slot) and some carefully placed information
(i.e. don`t worry folks, buy now, you can upgrade to the standard of the next
machine by buying a new PDS card) you can avoid the paranoia that surround the
expectations of Amiga owners when a new machine is due out.

Past machines have been completely revolutionary, making older machines
obsolete due to the impossibility of upgrade. A guy who bought an A600 the day
before the A1200 went into the shops was screwed. A guy who buys an A2400 (for
arguments sake) is OK because when the A3600 comes out the later, he hasn`t
lost too much money because all he has to do is swap out the cpu card and maybe
upgrade a few gfx/sfx chips if necessary.

When AT said the A1200Plus will be based on the A1200 with very minor
adjustments they were doing the right thing in terms of marketing their
announcement carefully. Unfortunately, the A1200 isn`t a very desirable machine
at the moment anyway (I`m sure you read my list of shortcomings with the
A1200).

Their last announcement that I read about (maybe from a 2nd hand source) was
that they would unveil a prototype PPC macine instead. This makes things
interestng. If they were to say that the A1200 accelerator upgrade for this
included a DSP or somesuch to improve the sound and maybe add to the gfx speed
they would have a lot of interested customers looking at the A1200 again. In
fact, to coincide with the announcement, they could cut the price of the A1200
slightly (say, 50 UK pounds) to sweeten it up.

All they have to do is announce the prototype, say it won`t be ready until next
year, announce the A1200 card (as described above) will be ready in Summer, and
then drop the price of the A1200 at the same time.