#Open Letter to CEI
3 messages in this thread
Please let the folks at CEI know the price point of reviving a three
legged horse. There are many other horses up for auction/sale.
Industrial users that need 1200's & 4000's are looking to other
platforms to ply their trade. The new 040T or whatever system needs BIG hard
drives (at least 540mb), 14 megs of ram, composite video, CD-ROM, speakers,
monitor, operating system plus freebee software, pcmcia compatibilty, (oh, 2
more slots too), and….
…IT MUST COST LESS THAN $2000…
(pardon my shouting).
This is 1994 and P5's with MPC/2 are now crashing the $1800. barrier
and will soon be $1400. in '95.
Bridgeboard or Emplant compatibility is great, however it is not what
these machines are about. Every machine must come with a hard drive and a
serial port or pcmcia to exist in today's world.
Software devlopment has come to a virtual standstill. I will take
years for the the platform to be viable. The major players have seen the end
and are retooling to other platforms. Who will want to support the platform?
At what price? Does the market see a value in all of this? The present
players do not see the potential boon in having "a going out of business sale."
It is inevidible. Also, no more software with dongles. This is the only
platform that uses them.
A laptop would be great, a.c. powered is fine too. The 1200 with an
040, 10megs ram, and a SMALLER power supply, so they both fit into a breifcase
would go a long way in today's business marketplace. (Wow, who thought of
putting pcmcia on it?) The 1200/040 needs to be competitive at $1000.
(By the way tell them I can use about 575 right now!)
Forget the 030 chip based boxes – these are competitive with the 386's
and MAC Perfoma boxes. $600 now. (yawn)
Forget the CD32 as it is currently configued. In order to use it in my
world I have to buy all these third party things that cost LOTS of money to
make it a real whopper!… Put the CD-32 guts in the CDTV with an 040, 400mb
hard drive, and pcmcia. I don't want a floppy drive.
There are big gains going on in the PC and MAC arenas as you well know.
In order to get the >A< machine's credibity going again, they need to represent
VALUE now!
It is ridiculous that CEI 4000/030's that cost $3000. Tell CEI that
the industry wants VALUE! If the pipline is going to open again, get
industrial users to support their efforts by providing VALUE. ( Did I say that
word again?)
By the way are there any spare parts left in this world?
The best method of distribution is to break right into the major PC and
MAC mags with a single full page ad, and create a mail order distribution
network right out of Miami. Sorry dealers, but you all have gotten real jobs
now right? Did you really sell all that software?
So this thoroughbred horse will probably be fitted with an artificle
leg. There may even be an audience willing to pay a premium to to see it trot a
little, and hear the story of how it really truely raced in the Derby. But the
only true future will most likely be that of a draught horse. Like all
stallions that fall and break their leg, their masters save them from the glue
factory for a life of servitude to be sold at the auction for pennys on the
dollar. There are many, many, many draught horses that lived long lives. They
represent VALUE.
From a shadow of fortune 500 industry via cserve.
Tom –
If what Jim Drew said about the A4000's costing 2.5x what it should have
because of Commodore's bad purchasing and manufacturing decisions (like
paying $200+ for power supplies in bulk), then a 6MB A4000/040 with a
200MB hard disk should be going for around $800 now, rather than $2000.
Perhaps CEI can make some simple cost-saving decisions before resuming
production and surprise us with amazingly lower prices (or is that wishful
thinking? <g>)
As for the CD32…why in the universe should it have a 400MB hard disk and
an '040?! The thing's a _game console_! Now, if you mean a special kiosk
multimedia machine, sure — but game consoles will NOT sell at $900.
I'd really like to see processor slots and a variety of boards on all
machines. That way, if you just needed, say, a LightWave render farm
node, you could buy an A1200 with a 68040/40 card (yes, I am aware of the
heat problems that would ensue; this is just an example). Or, if you
wanted a mid-size system, you could pick up an A4000 with an '020 or '030
board.
(Before y'all jump on me, saying, "What about the third-party boards?", my
reasoning is that it seems that it would be cheaper to do it this way.)
>> Also, no more software with dongles. This is the only platform that
>> uses them.
I agree with the first sentence, but don't AutoCAD and 3D Studio use them?
I once opened up my dad's angiogram (medical stuff) PC to install a
Bernoulli drive. I was puzzled when I saw the CMOS battery on the
_outside_ of the back of the case. When I opened it up, I saw why —
there, affixed to the inside wall where the CMOS battery should have been,
was a parallel-port dongle — _hard-wired_ to the internal parallel port
leads!! The first thing that went through my mind was, "Gee…doesn't all
this extra equipment qualify as a dongle _anyway_?!" Seems stupid to me.
There's also some sort of dongle on a corneal topography machine of his,
though I haven't seen it.
– Jim, on AutoPilot!
Greetings Tom,
Indeed the phrase "Power without the price" must be a part of the
marketing strategy at CEI. Please remember that the prices that is being
charged for hardware now is 'extreme' and not due to any wishes from CEI.
Right now, Amiga 4000s are gold. I have seen systems come from Europe
'stripped' of all but 2MB chip memory 030 systems at $2995! The sad thing
is that the market is that strong that these machines sell at the these
outlandish prices!
Anyway.. lets hope that the next 30 days tells us something positive.
Good hearin' from you Tom–as always.
-mark=
Otto Pilot Engaged..