CompuServe Messages

Yes, support is a problem. In major municipalities there are usually several dealers to choose from but in less populated areas it would only be Gold Express or mailorder. The problem with the Amiga is the reputation of being buggy. I think the systems are much more stable these days but they will never be as stable as DOS based systems, but that is the drawback of a multitasking OS. But then, on the other hand, a CDTV unit is easily replaced because it is all together. Last year a there was a writeup about the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's new head office here in Toronto. They had St.Clair Interactive put together a networked directory system using 40 A3000s in kiosks linked to a central A3000. The Amigas take care of all multimedia interaction with AmigaVision and and the server is used for database management. Apparently, they were able to put it together in 8 weeks for $60Gs as opposed to similar system that cost $2M. In this case they made special use of the Amiga because all databases and user statistics were updatable in the background due to multitasking. One of the key advantages were the ability to prototype and in the end have a work model. Commodore uses it as a demo at trade shows here. Of course, POS is different from POI. Like you said, every record is crucial. Andrew