#Newest AGA Amiga…
14 messages in this thread
If you were to guess what type of product to put in the mid-point price
range between the A1200 and the A4000, would it look something like this:
AGA Chipset
68030 CPU
80Mb IDE Hard Drive — SCSI Optional
2Mb CHIP RAM
2Mb FAST RAM
PCMCIA 2.0 slot
3 internal expansion slots
$1500
And when would you release it? Soon? Would it have other features as
well? An even lower price? More power?
– via Whap!
Pretty much sums it up, expcept I want 486 or P5 Bridgeboard slots too and
would expect more like a $2000. price tag. Better yet, offer me a
motherboard swapout for my 2000 and watch Tom run.
Has any major computer manufacturer ever offered a motherboard
upgrade swap besides maybe clones? Seems kinda unpresidented IMHO.
Later
I believe that Apple did with some of the Mac II's but I'm not positive.
Mark Kelley
128K Mac -> 512K "fat" Mac.
I think they did it again with the 1+MB version…
// Brian — Cruising on AutoPilot…..
\X/
John
You can get motherboards swaps for clones and for many Macs as well. In
fact, if you consider the Amiga to be the "#3" platform, not offering
motherboard swaps is unprecedented.
On the Mac, you can go from a CX or CI to a Quadra; from a II or a IIx to a
IIfx…seems like they had others, but four is good to start with. They
offer the same policy on certain laser printers, too.
Jonathan
Jonathan…
People make this argument all the time, that you can do motherboard
swaps on Macs, etc. This tends to leave CBM looking a little bit behind as
far as customer service is concerned. But consider this.
If you pay a lot MORE for a high end Mac in the first place, and then
pay a LOT of money for a motherboard swap to turn that initially expensive
Mac into a Quadra, is that really a bargain?
I'm willing to bet that if I bought a high end Mac, and then paid to
have the guts changed to turn it into a Quadra, I would have spent enough
money on the upgrade to buy a 4000, or at least be in that ballpark.
Would it make people happier if Commodore charged 75 percent of the
price of the 4000 to do motherboard swaps?
I kinda wish this argument would go away, and never return. CBM has been
pretty generous with power up type programs, methinks.
Jim
Or look at some motherboard swaps on Silicon Graphics hardware… in one
particular upgrade, they charge about $200 less than full retail price of
the higher machine… and we're talking $12K machines. It's like burning
money. 🙂
Jim,
Wow there, little fella!
I was simply replying to message that said that motherboard swaps do not
exist outside of clones. As we both know, this is untrue.
Now, whether it makes sense or not…that might be a different story.
Would I pay $1750 (fictional retail price) for a motherboard that makes my
2000 a 4000? Very likely! CBM would make out pretty well, since they
would not need to throw in things like a power supply, case, keyboard,
hard drive, etc. They would not need to pay labor to put the machine
together…they would not need to pay for packaging in the same degree.
So…I think that in offering something like this, they would:
* Make more money, both on volume and margin.
* Throw their dealers a bone, as many folks would opt for an authorized
installation.
* Get AGA technology out to a wider audience, and make it a new (and much
larger) standard platform.
Hopefully, it would allow folks like me to keep their present peripheral
investment intact, especially if they plopped SCSI or SCSI-2 on the
motherboard. I think of it as a more win/win arrangement than anything
else….just because Apple gouges on price for new machines and upgrades
doesn't mean that CBM would need to do so.
Rethink it…it makes a great deal of sense, and would do wonders for
consumer loyalty. Even if CBM broke even on the deal, it would help the
platform, and give them bigger volume discounts on a whole lot of
components…and keep their factories busy. It really makes some sense.
Jonathan, via AutoPilot // Only Amiga makes
\\// it possible…
If they did offer it for the 2000, I don't think that it would be at that
price. I'm with the other guy. Generally mother board swaps are only
slightly less than buying a whole new one! Take my HP Deskjet 500C for
example. If I wanted to upgrade to the new 550C, HP charges a little over
$500 (plus shipping and about 3-4 weeks mail time). That's a lot of money
onsidering for $200 more you can get a whole new one. I would make out
better trying to sell the 500C used and then buying a new 550C. Also, it
would still look like a 500C and I just don't see the point.
fully agree! Michel
O.K. but I guess not Good precedence…….
Amiga is #1 platform when it comes to video graphics/multimedia in
my book.
Can you put a Quadra mother board in a Mac plus :^)
Apple used to provide motherboard upgrades for the Mac line, but they were
so expensive it was only slightly less than just buying a whole 'nuther
computer.
Its not really worth it, except for the company.
Sure, I have worked as a computer techno-nerd for about 23 years and it is
very common for us to swap out main logic boards (motherboards in PC talk)
on controllers, cpu's, peripherals, copy machines, you name it. I guess if
we limit it to home computers it *is* only common on PC Clones. The
principle is sound though, and there is no reason it couldn't work.
While it may sound bad to have 16 bit peripheral controllers on a 32 bit
motherboard, that is exactly what DEC, HoneyWell, IBM and most companys
did during a certain transition period. I put some of the upgrades in and
did time trials on them, and guess what? As long as the memmory and the
fixed disks are on the 32 bit buss they ran just as fast as their
replacements that are 32bit throughout. Most peripherals don't need it.
Matter of fact, it was an embarrassment to sales that some of the hybrid
32/16 bit systems that had hardware intelligent disk caching were
outperforming their quad-proccessor 32 bit products featuring bus
contention wait states at no extra cost.