Commodore Free 11/Commodore_Free_Issue_11_2007_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/t.iv jens 3

Text File | 2007-01-01 | 8.2 KB | 248 lines

u    Interview with Jens Schofield
         Individual Computers

 http://www.jschoenfeld.com/index.htm

PART 3 of 4

Q-Have you ever had to cancel a project
during its creation, for any reason?

A-Not many, but there are some. I
wanted to do a second, extended version
of the Graffiti for a long time (higher
resolution, more colours etc), but that
turned out to be so expensive that I
never even got to a prototype stadium.
Another thing that I tried was a simple
adapter that turns PC HD disk drives
into Amiga disk drives, but it turned
out to be not so simple; in the end, it
was a dual floppy controller with a lot
more capabilities than the Amiga & the
PC floppy controller. That project was
not shelved completely, I have re-used
parts of it for the very first Cat-
weasel. As I mentioned earlier, there's
one version of the Catweasel that never
made it into mass-production; it's a
low-cost version for the parallel port
that required a lot of CPU power. It
was a predecessor of the MK2 version &
I did not complete it because the speed
gain of the MK2 over the MK1 was
extremely good. At the same time, I was
able to reduce the price, so there was
no need to create in-house competition.
Two obvious things that never reached
the market can still be seen on my web
page: I explained Atlantis before, but
"Kickflash" in the form as it's adver-
tised on my page also never reached the
market. The reason for that is the
license for a Kickstart ROM that I
never had. I did not want to produce a
product that's only worth something if
you create an illegal copy of a Kick-
start ROM, so it never went into prod-
uction. However, recent communication
with Amiga Inc gives hope that I can
have an affordable Kickstart license,
so finally, eight years after announ-
cing the product, I'll be able to prod-
uce a legal version of that Kickstart
switcher/flasher.The last thing I
remember that I shelved was an early
concept of the VarIO. The current
VarIO only has a high- speed serial
and a high-speed parallel port. Other
plans included a PS/2 port for mice &
keyboards, but the design that I made
was somehow buggy. I never took the
time to find the cause of the
"sometimes-missing-a-bit" error, but
focused on some cool interfaces
instead. The choice was right for two
reasons: Shortly after that, E3B's
Subway came out, making PS/2
peripherals for the Amiga almost
obsolete (at least those that need
drivers, like the VarIO), & the VarIO
as it's available right now got top
ratings in the German Amiga magazine.

Q-Do you use Amigas at work (apart from
testing the hardware you produce)?

A-Not any more. I used an Amiga for my
emails from 1994 until 2002. Back in
1994, no real Internet software &
access was available to the masses, so
I had to do some tinkering: I used Matt
Dillon's UUCP package for the Amiga &
an Arexx converter to go from UUCP to a
format that a famous mailbox software
(Fastcall) understood. It worked quite
good, & I even managed to make it Y2K-
compatible with an additional tool. I'd
love to use the Amiga a little more,
but CAD- Software, FPGA compilers &
OpenOffice are just not available.

Q-How has the decline in the Amiga
market after the demise of Commodore
affected Individual Computers & your
sales statistics?

A-The demise of Commodore happened when
I registered my business, & I started
making my own designs much later, so
that did not affect me. However, I do
see that the Amiga market is not really
growing! The funny thing is, no matter
how often I think "it's going to be
over this year", customers come & bring
the Amiga numbers to a level where it
was the year before. That's right,
there has been no real decline in Amiga
hardware sales for the last 4 years.
However, Amiga does not make the
majority of my income, I'm happy that I
have the retro computing products & the
mainstream computer things such as the
PCI diagnosis card - all that combined
pays all my bills & even gave me the
freedom to go on a holiday for the 1st
time in years in summer 2006.

Q-Has the development of "Next
generation" Amigas in the past years
had any impact on your business? We
might have to do some word definitions
first: Something can only be an Amiga
if it has Amiga spirit. Neither the
overpriced Eyetech boards, nor any
other PPC-mainboard has it. I have
mainly lost money on the Next-gen
boards, where the Peg caused the
majority of my losses.

A-bplan's PPC boards would be perfectly
suited to fill the gap in the Amiga
hardware market. The dream-alliance
that I talked about earlier would
surely involve one of their designs,
Hyperion's OS (maybe spiced up with
some MOS features) & Clone-A for the
true Amiga spirit [see below for more
information on the topic of "Clone-
A"], be it with an add-on card, or even
with embedding the technology in a
board that bplan designs.I hope that
this makes it clear that I'm not "all
against blue or red", but "for the
Amiga community" & reuniting forces.

Q-You recently made a deal to supply
ACK Software Controls with parts for
their upcoming PowerVixxen, do you
have any other business relationships
within the Amiga market?

A-There's no real partnership with ACK
Software Controls. Adam Kowalczyk has
received sample connectors, he placed
an order, caused some cost on my side
that he never paid & failed to show
prototype pictures of his designs since
2005. I tried settling with him, but he
obviously found someone else to fool. I
don't expect any true hardware to come
out of his new cooperation.Apart from
that, there's only two names that are
connected to classic Amiga hardware:
E3B with it's USB & networking products
& Elbox. E3B is a close cooperation
partner -- we talk openly about all
plans, do the parts buying together to
reach decent quantities for orders in
fareast, & when it comes to customer
support, we also help each other out.
Elbox on the other hand is not really
open for cooperations. I tried to
supply drivers for my PCI cards in
their PCI boards, but their methods of
protecting their intellectual property
go way too far in my opinion. Elbox
even set Michael Bvhmer (the owner of
E3B) & me to "full moderation" on the
Yahoo Mediator mailing list, which
means that our postings cannot only be
kept from reaching the list, but they
can even be altered without other
readers being able to see if it's
really a genuine posting. I'm not
saying that this has already been done,
but the pure possibility of it keeps
Michael & me off that mailing list.

Q-How come you're so committed to the
Amiga & C-64? It can't really be all
about the money, now can it?

A-That's right, the money is a second-
ary reason to put so much time into
products that only sell a few hundred
units. There are many other reasons - I
grew up with these machines, & it's fun
to squeeze out even more out of them.
It's a challenge to solve hardware-
related problems with today's tech-
nology. It might seem easy with the
possibilities we have today, but the
challenge is to make it worth while,
even with the high production cost &
low quantities.

As I said earlier, it's got to be fun,
& fun doesn't only mean money, but also
doing it for a community that
appreciates the work, & getting
attention for accomplishing things
that others thought were impossible.
I've made a lot of friends through my
business over the years, & I always
enjoy going to Amiga shows. The show
itself is mostly work, but the party-&-
going-out part after the shows makes up
for that. That's where I got to know
really interesting people that I think
can only be found in the Amiga comm-
unity. I wouldn't like to do the same
in a grey PC market where it's all
about huge quantities & anonymous
sales.

Q-Being one of the most active hardware
developers in the Amiga market, with
talent & a great track record, have you
ever considered developing a "next
generation" Amiga motherboard?

A-I actually did, yes, but that would
require two big developments that I
don't have in my portfolio yet: A fast
CPU design & the Amiga chipset. To me,
an Amiga needs at least an OCS/ECS
compatible chipset, otherwise it does
not really feel like an Amiga. I'd have
lots of peripherals to put on the
board, & have lots of ideas to add
value without increasing the price
dramatically. However, the development
process for such a board is long &
expensive, so I never really started...
until about a year ago.

Continues in part 4