CBM cashing in its chip
13-Jan-86 17:05:55
Sb: #4843-CBM cashing in its chip
Fm: Dave Haynie/C128 Land 76703,2047
To: Jack Deckard 73105,1301
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As far as I've heard here, the two plants closed were not really necessary
any more. The plant in England was assembly only, and far behind Japan, Hong
Kong, and Germany in terms of production automation and low costs. The plant
in California was a small chip fab plant. As most of our production chips
are made in the far east or in King of Prussia, I believe them when they say
this too was trimming the fat (you can't always believe what you hear, even
if you work here). CBM isn't likely to be making the same volume of
computers now as it had in the past, for the simple reason that nobody wants
the extremely cheap computer (i.e. VIC-20, C64). Thus the C128 becomes
bottom of the line for future projects. The C64 is still made, but not in the
volumes of the past. CBM sold nearly six million C64s, and expects to go over
six million this year. That's more units than all IBM PCs and PClones
combined. And a C64 contains about as many custom chips as an Amiga. Of
course the Amiga parts are much more complex, but when it comes to chip fab
its essentially the same thing.