#Portable Amiga at WOC
72 messages in this thread
Here is a little nice press release for you:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW AMIGA PORTABLE FROM NEWER TECHNOLOGY TO DEBUT AT THE WORLD OF COMMODORE
SHOW IN TORONTO
WICHITA, Kan. –11/13/91– Newer Technology announced the development of a
new, true portable, Amiga computer. Based on the Motorola 68000 processor
running at 7.16MHz, the Model 10 is 100% software compatible and available
with the 1.3 or 2.0 Commodore ROMs. A monochrome LCD display is standard
and a color LCD will be available soon. The model 10 will bi officiallay
announced and on display at the next World of Commodore show in Toronto,
Canada December 6-7-8 1991.
A second 24MHz 68030 portable — the Model 30 — with an optional 68882
math co-processor, is currently under development but will not be
officially announced until January 1992.
The Model 30 Amiga portable is the ideal platform for the software
developpers, graphics applications, video, animation, CD-TV, audio/MIDI
users and AmigaVision users.
The completely new design of Model 10 is compact: 2" tall, 11.7" wide and
8.3" deep when closed and weighs from three to six pounds depending upon
configuration. It features 2MB of internal memory soldered onto the
motherboard with expansion to up to 8MB total. An 86-pin expansion bus is
available. One 3.5" 880K floppy drive is also standard. Battery power is
completely dependent upon configuration and attached peripherals.
Available peripherals from Newer Technology will include and external 40MB
hard disk, and internal 20MB hard disk, RAM upgrades to 8MB, battery
charger and a PC hardware upgrade. Projected peripherals include a CD-ROM
drive, sound output interface, SCSI II Dart RAM drive, external tape drive
and an external color display.
Pricing and availability will be announced at the Toronto show.
————————————————————————
Isn't that nice!? Can't wait for it!!
– via Whap!
Do you have any GUESS of a ballpark price? $1000? $10000? $5?! 🙂
Darin SPC Technical Support
– via Whap!
Prices are still to come from our distributor… They will probably not be
available until the first demonstration of the Model 10 at WOC in two
weeks!
– via Whap!
First thing I want to know is the name of the principals of that company.
That city's name should give Amigaphiles the willies. 🙂
The ghost of Ed Lippert surfaces again eh John??
How so the ghost?
Ron
I think the point is that the past 2 times Ed Lippert went into business
the companies went belly-up (CardCo and CLtd). Also one company that took
over the Kronos went belly-up also (Micro-Dyne) in Wich. KS.
Elvin:
So what? I know there are a few professionals out there who are bitter with
Ed Lippert. But as the owner of a Kronos controller and a Lazerxpress
printer, I sure like the products his enterprises put out. I'm in no
position to determine if he short-changed earlier co-venturers as was
stated on here a while back, but the mere fact that his early companies
when under doesn't mean much in terms of what we as consumers can expect.
An awful lot of highly successful business types went under scores of times
before hitting on a business that finally took off. Chances are that the
businesses you mentioned went under more for lack of operating capital or
really skilled management rather than that the products they offered were
unacceptable to the market place. Don't be terribly shocked if Ed Lippert
doesn't turn up with a winner yet.
Bill Perez
San Juan, PR
If he turns up at all, I'd probably have to be physically restrained – he
destroyed my first Amiga based company, singlehanded.
And those products you like – SCSIDos 3, Kronos – guess where the work was
financed? Guess who didn't get paid?
Ed's likely to stay in hiding. If he's smart.
Ben
Ben:
I didn't intend to ruffle your feathers. Personally, all I'm responding to
is my appreciation of the products which came out of the Lippert ventures.
And, certainly you'll agree that most of the time that small businesses go
under there's an element of under capitalization involve, and often as not,
a good deal of lack of business experience at the management level. That's
why many successful entrepenuers fail a number of times before they hit
success.
Incidentally, Breck Ricketts, who apparently was invovled in the Kronos and
LazerXpress projects, told me a while back he was working on the Virtual
Page approach to be used with a new laser printer. He also indicated he was
working on the same approach for MS-DOS. I don't know how he is doing,
since I haven't had any trouble with the Kronos and have not needed to call
him. I hope he follows through, since I think that the Virtual Page concept
is really terrific.
Bill Perez
San Juan, PR
Ah, my feathers aren't ruffled. Well, not at you, anyway. :^)
Breck's a good guy. Ed is at the absolutel bottom of my doodoo list, in
some very scarce company.
Ben
Ben:
I really don't know anything about Lippert, except what I read here when
C-Limited went under. But I began dealing with Breck shortly after that
when I had problems with my virtually new Kronos and had nowhere to turn.
He and another fellow working with him were extremely attentive and they
eventually fixed the controller. Later, my local dealer had been stuck with
a LazerXpress printer and I was one of the few, if any, owners of a Kronos
on the island. Breck produced a "personality module" for the Kronos,
allowing me to buy the printer at an excellent price. Recently, I had
trouble getting a new SCSI hard disk formatted and Breck was very patient
in talking me through the necessary adjustments to the software to make the
thing run.
Breck has been a lifesaver to this owner of a fine, but orphaned
controller. I hope his projects, particularly the development of a new
Virtual Page laser printer, is a great success.
Bill Perez
San Juan, PR
Ben,
(regarding Ed Lipp…err, whatshisname showing up at World of Commodore
Toronto, and you being physically restrained) Does that mean YOU'd be at
woc TOO? MY Ben, who brought me this WONDERFUL display device and software?
<gasp>
* I * may be the one to be ohysically restrained. B^>
Blaq! – via Whap!
heh heh heh. No, I don't think so. :^) No plans (or time allocated) at
present. We're releasing a new product on the first of December, and I'm
tying tesseracts in a mobius strip trying to get everything ready for that.
It just means that Ed's managed to aggravate more than anyone else in the
Amiga community – which takes some doing.
Ben
If _anyone_ associated with C Ltd has anything to do with this portable,
they'll not get another dime from me.
-sja
Steve..
I'll get the names of all the people from the company showing it. 🙂
Jim
– Signed, sealed, Whapped!
Sounds like another bad case of Ricketts…
Jonathan
Jonathan – from Albany, NY, via whap!
> First thing I want to know is the name of the principals of that
> company. That city's name should give Amigaphiles the willies. 🙂
No only that: "NEWer TECHnologies"?!
. . . . . JimDoc
If this is real – then I may be first on my block, unless my wife gets hers
first, that is. :^)
Ben
If it's real, I bet it's gonna cost a pretty penny…
Pretty pennies are for pretty things, neh?
Ben
Rumour is that it will be in the $2000-$3000 range for the model 10…
nothing confirmed yet, sorry!
– via Whap!
$2000 for a portable Amiga 500 with a monochrome screen? WAY TOO EXPENSIVE!
It should be under $1000.
I'd rather get an A3000/25-100 for that price. Count me out if it's that
much.
Darin SPC Technical Support
(Sorry for the negative attitude, but it seems that Amiga products that
everyone wants are always over priced, and things that no one wants are
affordable. My opinions only.)
Darin, perhaps you could sit down and do the math for creating such a
product.
Remember that the Amiga market is tiny; costs to engineer something like a
portable can be extremely high, and somehow, presumably thru sales, these
have to be paid for. And since dealers – and distributors – all want a cut
that is a percentage of the retail, the developer had better make the "to
distributor" price something that covers the cost. Even if the unit is
direct, you still have to cover the costs.
One presumes this isn't an AMiga 500 MB repackaged into a suitcase. One
assumes this is a portable Amiga, with it's own tiny little MB, chips moved
as appropriate. As the person who has to do the cost math here for our
products (and we are VERY efficient compared to other AMiga developers) I
can tell you that such a device would be well over 1000$, if it's worth
buying.
The first IBM portables weren't cheap, either.
Ben
Gee, Ben, I thought we were all in this for the fun of it. Now you've
ruined everything by mentioning profit. Software should be priced like
paperback books, right? Why, if ImageMaster were just $5.95 I bet you'd
sell a TON of them, and you'd make it up in volume!
Yeah. Thats the ticket. :^) Volume!
Ben
Hmmm…
A portable Amiga, with high volume.
Just add mini headphones, a CD-ROM, and you get a
CDTV-AMIGA-GAMEBOY-DISCMAN
pick it up at Walmart for $89.99
– Whapp!ng from the North Coast Michael
5.95 !!! Why, I can buy disks for 50 cents!!!! 🙂
andy
Ben,
Right, economies of scale will push the price up on this. As long as it
maintains its NTSC/RGB output, the 030 model would make a darned nice
little portable presentation machine, and people will pay top-dollar for
that.
I'd love an Amiga laptop. But if I get an extra $3000 (hahahah) it's a lot
more likely to go towards a 3000T than a portable 68000 Amiga, especially
when I could buy a 3000/16 and a PC laptop for the same money.
This sounds neat, but since I doubt Commodore has created a CMOS version of
the Amiga chipset for these guys, battery power will probably be very
short-lived, if it's even possible. For a general use laptop, the
price/performance and lack of modern battery operation will probably make
this more an item for a very select professional Amiga market than a
generally-popular machine.
I always miss my Amiga's capabilities when I'm using a laptop on the road,
but when you consider the price/performance of MS-DOS or even the Mac
PowerBook laptops, I'm afraid I'd have to be able to justify this purchase
by NEEDING the Amiga's capabilities on the road.
I don't fault the developers if the price IS $2000/3000. It's perfectly
understandable given the market and development considerations. I'd kill
for a $1500 hd-equipped, long-battery-life Amiga laptop, but only Commodore
could afford to do that. And it probably doesn't make marketing sense.
Hard to say, Denny. Remember, the first Mac laptops were done by 3rd party
vendors, not apple. (weren't the 1st 3rd party PC laptops done by 3rd
parties too ? 🙂 )
Yes, it might end up as a transportable, rather than a laptop. But still ,
I could use one. It would make a nice presentation box.
andy
Hey andy, you're in CDTV dev, right? It's been a while since anyone asked
about the A2000/A3000 compatible CDROM drive that would run CDTV. I
thought I understood that Commodore was going to release a standalone CDROM
drive that would run the CDTV apps? If so, any timeline?
Would it be an internal CDROM (ie. in the 5.25" slots, if available)?
–jp–seattle–
We've shown the A690 at World of Commodore in the UK. No announcement has
been made about a cdrom that hooks to the A2000/A3000. This doesn't mean
such a thing isn't coming, but merely continues the policy of not
commenting on items that may or may not be in developmant.
andy
andy:
I presume the A690 is a CDTV-compatible CD-ROM drive for the '500? If so,
where does it go, on the Expansion Bus?
If it does go on the expansion bus, then could it run on a '1000, if the
edge connector is flipped somehow?
Roger
And a good policy it is, too. :^)
Ben
It was worth a shot. Thanks anyway. 🙁
–jp–seattle–
I was reading the ad's for one of the Mac laptops from a 3rd party vendor.
Not only do you get the laptop, but you also get a Mac+ so you can transfer
the rom's. After the Rom's are transferred, you have your laptop, and can
use the Mac+ as a paperweight, which is appropriate 8^)
John – K7KB (via Whap!)
Isn't that the one with the 'docking unit' concept ?
andy
John,
Two of the companies that make Mac-clone laptops (Wallaby and another one)
have a licensing agreement with Apple. Apple sells them 256k ROMs to use
in their laptops. I'd like to see ReadySoft look into such an agreement.
About a year ago there was an announcement from a company in California
called NuTek (no relation) that they had successfully & legally cloned Mac
ROMs and that they were going to sell them to all comers. They said they
had the capital to fend off Apple lawsuits but I haven't heard anythin in
about a year.
-Chas
I read about the NuTek ROM's some time ago, and as you, have not heard any
more about their challenge to Apple. Maybe they were not as successful in
fending off the Apple lawyers afterall.
John – K7KB (via Whap!)
You mentioned A3000T. I haven't heard anything about that in quite a
while. Supposedly released. Does anyone have one? Getting one? Want
one? Just curious….
Speaking of 'towers'…. I saw an ad for the new Macintosh 'tower' model,
just announced. 20mhz 040, upto 64meg ram, many slots, 24bit video on
board, etc, etc. I wonder what the cost of that thing is? 🙂
–jp–seattle–
> I wonder what the cost of that thing is?
Where do you think they go the name Macintosh Tower? 😉
– Whapp!ng from the North Coast Michael
NCR. 🙂 That is, if they really used the name "Tower". It wouldn't be
the first time Apple has licensed a name. They licensed the name "Classic"
too…and not from Coca Cola! 🙂
Steve
John,
I've got one….. (A3000T that is…) I'm just waiting for C= to finish
their ethernet software before I install it at the office. The reason I
bought it, before you ask, is as a file server for our little Amiga network
with room for a tape drive and a removeable drive and big hard drives. Its
a very well put together machine, it even came with THE roms !
The only downer is they didn't build a stereo amp into the box !
Andrew.
*—-> Wino's BBS +44 71 824 8863 – via Whap!
I wanted a Tower but I couldn't stand the wait. I went with the "Power-Up"
program and saved money instead!
Denny,
As 85% of Amiga's are sold in the European market and the Amiga is very
strong there, portable Amigas might make a dent and move enough to make
this a good marketing idea. And I believe most of the sales are for
A500's. This might entice CBM to think about it.
I don't see much use for it as portables are best for business applications
and there is definately a serious lack of strong business software (in
relation to IBM and MAC, for all of you ready to throw flames).
JohnB 76256,3436 – via Whap!
I'm not sure what demand there would be over here for a portable Amiga,
although I would imagine there'd be just about enough to justify a product.
.. as long as the display is PAL sized and not NTSC!
Mike (Whapping from the UK)
Sure would be great to take to club meetings if there were a large display
available.
Betty
Betty,
Presuming a large display were available….what's the advantage to
talking a portable vs taking an A500?
From what I've read here…that's about all the portable appears to
be, a slightly expanded A500.
Don
I would kill for a reasonably priced Amiga portable, and CBM could
certainly come up with one in the $1500 price range. As the price of color
displays come down, I'm hopeing we will see one soon.
John – K7KB (via Whap!)
I'd like it monochrome – with a real monitor plug for big time work.
The vast majority of the productivity stuff I do just requires resolution
and (sometimes) grey levels. Color's wonderful, but for business (which is
where a laptop primarily aims) monochrome is fine (and cheaper).
If we're talking portable display studio… still, most sites like hotels
and things will happily rent you a projector for a limb and some attractive
young family members. I wouldn't want to lug a monitor around, and color
LCD's of the size that fit in a laptop aren't up to the job af quality
presentation. Yet.
Ben
Well I would be happy with a monochrome laptop with a RGB port also, and
when the price of color LCD's drop, have the option to install one. I guess
we will just have to wait and see what this company has up it's sleve's,
product wise and who is in charge 8^)
John – K7KB (via Whap!)
Agreed. I'd like an Amiga laptop even with a monochrome display.
I need the preemptive multitasking ability on the road more than I need the
color display.
re: An Amiga portable
In theory, it already exists… sort of. After seeing what ICD has done in
the way of their 'prima' product, I got to thinking. What if someone
redesigned the top half of the A500 case to accommodate an internal power
supply and possibly a folding/popup LCD display?. Technically, it would be
an external expansion device since any active componentry would still be
outside of the 500's standard shielding (FCC approval needed of course),
but it is doable. I figure such a repackaging could be done in a way that
would only add about 2" to the A500's overall height, and maybe 3-5 pounds
in weight..certainly within acceptable norms for a 'portable' class
machine.
1: Hopefully a color LCD (but cheap-just don't ask me where to find one)
2: Where do ya put the mouse?
3: For shows, great, but do you really see someone on a crowded flight
putting this on their lap? (to afford it they probably will be in
first class so I guess they will have the room).
Hey, Lets develop the display technology further, then networking. This
will get more amigas out there. The more installed base, the more chance
that people will want a portable. Networking will help get the machine in
businesses, where most of the portables are used.
This is my humble opinion – before you flame me about this: PC games are
getting better (and a lot more titles) because there are more of em out
there. Business build numbers and numbers decide what to produce (and how
much can be made).
JohnB
> where do ya put the mouse?
I was thinking along the lines of a mini fold-down trackball, or something
like that. As for someone putting it on their lap on a crowded flight…
well, I suppose it would be cumbersome in that respect, but then we are
talking 'portable' as opposed to 'laptop'.
Generally, I've always considered portables to be slightly bigger brothers
to laptops, and I have yet to see any portable that is comfortable to use
on an airline flight.
As for an Amiga _laptop_, I have to agree with Denny. I just don't see it
being practical until a CMOS chipset is available. Especially if such a
laptop is going to use a 32 bit processor with a memory system that it can
use. Battery technology just isn't there yet.
Denny, You said "…it probably doesn't make marketing sense". Well,
considering that extremely little of what the US marketing company does
makes sense, I think you've somehow, in a perverse fashion, predicted that
CBM _will_ come out with a laptop!
<grin>
-sja
Steve,
I thought that right after I posted that message. 😉 What we need to do is
start a lot of discussion on all the networks begging CBM not to release a
laptop, ESPECIALLY not an inexpensive one. (grin)
As an IBM reseller I can tell ya that the current laptop isn't cheap
either! That portable Amiga sounds very good to me! think of the market
that could be created for mobile desktop productions… As it is now if you
want to use a pc for proposals or demos at a customer sight, ya gotta lag
around a pc compatible or one of those MAC boxes. If they can package the
amiga sound and graphics into this portable it will be a great marketing
tool.
As long as the price stays under the MAC portables it'll be a solid
"portable multimedia" tool (Ugh! I hope that doesn't start another horrid
industry name…).
Keith…
Ben,
If they can't bring it out for under $1,000…they more than likely
shouldn't bring it out at all.
The computer market is very soft right now…and a $1500 to $2000
portable, monochrome A500 more than likely wouldn't sell well enough to be
profitable.
Don
Don,
Actually it sounds like a great item to take to shows. I'm a little tired
of lugging the A2000 and A3000 around to various shows. A portable (with
an external RGB jack) would be a great benefit.
Finally, if they can find a way to put an A2000 video slot on it -whether
by an external cage (albiet small cage) or internal they could sell a
million as portable Toasters. Of course, external TBCs and SFCs would be
necessary.
Heck, you could pop in an AT-Once board and hook an AMAX-II externally and
have an Amiga/PC/Mac laptop!
-Chas
Charles,
Presuming "normal" limitations…how much easier would it be to lug
a portable to a show than it would be to lug an A500. That of course,
presumes the portable would essentially be an A500 type configuration.
Don
Actually it could be quite easier, since the portable *can* be operated
without an external screen and it is posible to operate without AC power,
such as on the way to the show.
Also, the Model 30 would be nice since it is supposed to be a 68030/882
based machine whereas an A500 would have to be upgraded.
Besides, A500s don't have handles!
I think I'll have to wait an see the final specs before making a final
decision, but if the Model 30 is priced along the lines of an A3000/25 I'll
probably end up buying one.
-Chas
I'll be surprised if this thing has any kind of significant battery life,
though. The Amiga custom chips are pretty power-intensive. Those MS-DOS
laptops that get three hours are almost entirely CMOS.
You're right, Don. A portable Amiga (or any product) isn't worth what it
costs. It's worth what people are willing to pay for it. When that price
is substantially above what it costs to make a beautiful thing happens – a
market is created. I don't see those conditions for a low-end portable. A
"custom, hand-built" high end model could have some potential because there
are a few people for whom price is no object. A production run of one can
be profitable in that case. — Art
You're entitled to your opinion. I disagree. I, for one, would buy a good
Amiga laptop instantly.
I suspect tht goes for a lot of developers and so on who have to travel a
lot.
Ben
Ben,
I'm not saying it's a bad idea. In fact, I think it's a good idea.
I'm just saying that I don't believe there would be enough of them sold if
the price were in the $1500 and above price range.
What would you call respectable sales? Enough to justify the cost
of developing such a machine? 5000, 10000, 100000 units?
And what's the development of such a machine? And the production
costs? What's a reasonable profit margin?
What's the potential sales volumn at $1,000 vs $2,000 each?
Don
If the unit is being made by a third party, as the rumor seems to indicate
– then respectable sales would be a lot smaller number.
If I were doing it, I'd approach it this way;
I'd relayout the MB, so it would fit nicely in a lapcase. I'd find a case
manufacturer and OEM them pups. I'd buy a500's and rip chips out of them. I
figure the cost, per unit, not counting engineering time, would be in the
$600-$800 range, in quantities between 100 and 500. I think they could be
sold in the 1k-2k range, and you'd likely make money before someone came
round and did you "one better".
I think sales of 250 would be break even, and above would be profit.
However… if you priced the thing above 2k, you'd break even sooner, and
it's safer. Most bean counters are very conservative (with pretty good
reason) and so I think you'll see a high price.
I don't think that it would be worth going to an ASIC group and whacking
things into chips. I don't think that swoggling the PALs around would gain
you much, but some… I think what you'd have is a portable that needs a
wall socket when you were done.
If this is close to the scenario, I'll still buy one. :^)
Ben
Ben,
The thing I wonder about is how they interfaced the LCD screen. Like, is
it memory-mapped? What resolutions/bitplane-counts are supported? Etc…
the usual suspects.
kev
Ben,
One would think that Commodore would be willing to sell chip sets,
or at least A500 motherboards at quite a discount. After all…they worked
out the NewTek Toaster deal.
Don
> If they can't bring it out for under $1,000…they more than likely
> shouldn't bring it out at all.
My two bits worth: go with the higher price, but scrap the 7mHz 68000
completely. $2K for a 68030/68882 at 25mHz ain't bad.
Hopefully the prices will be alittle easier to take than the Mac 170
notebook…
wmc