4000 in Byte
Jerry writes about what he finds useful and interesting around his place.
His business is writing. Things that foster that get tried first. He is
sent things in incredible bulk. (You really have no idea how much bulk.)
It is to some extent random chance that he will talk about any product
that crosses his threshold. (I hesitate to say desk as if that volume of
"stuff" were deposited daily on his desk the poor piece of furniture would
collapse.)
If someone sends him something they think there is a good chance will be
interesting enough to him to talk about they will often independantly take
out an ad in BYTE. Pioneer already knew Jerry is into CDROMs as a
convenient storage media. A changer is a logical extension of a single
CDROM drive. They gambled, and won, that he'd talk about it. In fact he
liked it so much he DID do a product endorsement for it. He accepts no
compensation for the endorsement. He only endorses things he uses and
particularly likes.
I suspect there is an element of this timing gamble in Commodore's
advertisement in BYTE. David Archambault knew when that A3000 was shipped
to Jerry and may have made some guesses regarding article lead times. OTOH
I understand from David Archambault that they had planned a rather
agressive targeted advertising campaign about that time anyway so it may
have been pure coincidence given article lead times etc etc.
Making the accusation that he was directed to write about the Amiga and
responded to such direction by the people who market ad space in BYTE is a
direct insult to him and to BYTE magazine. BYTE is very heavily
compartmentalized such that this DOES NOT HAPPEN. And if it is discovered
that it IS happening the offending party is dropped forthwith. The writers
and editors of BYTE find such accusations particularly loathsome because
of the strictures they are operating under. I do not know what all
magazines you have worked for. I do know BYTE since I was on their payroll
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