CompuServe Messages

#New Amiga from SGI!

    30-Jul-93 21:24:24
Fm: Paul Higginbottom 74140,250
To: James Roath 76440,2336
Good question James, glad to answer to the extent that I can. As for A3000 specific products, if you mean are we doing any more accelerators, the answer is no. Our goal (with the obvious exception of acceleration) is to make as many of our products work with as many Amiga models as possible. We've actually been introducing a lot of stuff in the past few months, but people have come to expect it from us so it doesn't get that much play these days, it seems. GRAPHICS We began shipping recently our incredibly powerful EGS 110/24 card although since it's such a high end product and is for the A2000 (and our accelerators) only, it doesn't get the airplay that some other stuff does. We're also close to shipping a new low cost EGS card that will run on all Amigas with slots, autosensing Zorro II or Zorro III capabilities! It will provide a lot of the EGS 110/24 capabilities at probably less than $600. AUDIO We only recently started shipping our new DSS8+ which is absolutely the best inexpensive sampler ever made. We have a 16 bit credit card (PCMCIA) sampler in the works too for the A1200. ACCELERATION AND STORAGE We're still the only company ACTUALLY shipping a SCSI interface for the A1200. In the recent WOC show in Australia they apparently sold out quickly. Our A1200 accelerator is a great great product, despite what AmigaWorld says, and 32MB RAM expansion in two elegant and small SIMMs has been SHOWN WITH the lid closed on the A1200. As for competitors' claims of 128MB expansion capabily (in a single SIMM no less), we say "absurd!" Ask them for availability and they say Q3 1994!! Sure we've all heard that double high 72 pin SIMMs are theoretically possible, but I have no idea how that could fit in the underside of an A1200 with the lid closed. Anyway… (calming down)… we have lots more in store on the acceleration and storage front in the future. And of course, GVP always sticks by customers in terms of upgrades, so we won't let you down if you buy today and want to move up in the future. OTHER Also, we recently launched big updates to the IV24, to ImageFX (new v1.5 is a killer), and PhonePak (new 2.0 software is a HUGE enhancement). We do have some other new products that I can't talk about that will be coming in the next few months as well, so you can see we're far from dropping support for the Amiga! But in return, we hope that users won't stop supporting GVP in favor of fly-by-night operators who seem to have a hot deal (or just vapor, even) du jour! We did launch a PC video product back in the Spring, and you will likely see more products from us in that direction, but that's only logical given the size of that market. The only factor that would drive GVP out of the Amiga business is lack of opportunity really, meaning there's no market. That could happen if people just seem to not be buying, and if Commodore's business turns even further south. Hope this answers your question. Paul.