#Australia Upbeat!
8 messages in this thread
Hi Allan, good to hear from you.
You have hit the nail on the head with your observation re the
generally poor displays in some retail stores. I agree that it does
not leave a good impression to see a computer that is not working
properly. But you have to agree that this problem is not limited to
the Amiga.
I have seen many PC's in terrible condition for display…and yes,
even the 'upmarket' Mac is not invulnerable to this type of neglect.
The guys in the store know that this is not on… after all, they
have to sell them…so they do try to ensure that stock is displayed
in a proper condition. However, if it is busy, the staff have an
obligation to look after customers first. They may fix the computer
after hours or when they get time, get it into working condition, put
demos on again etc. only to have some kid stuff it up first thing
next morning. If it is a busy day, that means the computer is in
poor condition for the rest of the day.
Overall, I am happy with the display quality here. It could be better
but I would much rather have the occasional poorly displayed Amiga
than no Amiga at all in these stores.
How to stop this display problem? The easy answer is to kill all
children<g>
As to the user groups leaving demos etc…I do that now. I make sure
they are installed and the sales staff are very appreciative. But
two weeks later…the disk has gone…the hard drive has been
formatted…the mouse has been stolen…etc.
As to software availability…I saw Amiga software support dwindle to
almost nothing over time. It has improved a lot and I am seeing a
lot more now than I did six months ago. The trouble is that the
software we are seeing is mostly games. What we need are some of the
more serious applications. But I would rather see games than nothing
at all.
As to feeling upbeat… Commodore have an excellent reputation in the
major retail marketplace in Queensland for great service and saleable
product. We are ranked equal with IBM and Apple in these
categories. I'm proud of that. Sure, there are some individual
stores who have staff that simply are not interested in the Amiga and
there are one or two who still say that Commodore sucks as a
company. But as I mentioned before…there is no one platform (or
company) that enjoys across the board enthusiasm.
Hey!…It could be worse! We could be Amstrad!<g>
As to WOC 94…I don't know.
Dallas
Dallas,
>How to stop this display problem? The easy answer is to kill all children
<g>
Maybe their hands could be manacled behind their backs on entering
the store? It seems the first thing everyone wants to do on an Amiga
in a store is the Vulcan nerve pinch. Thus nothing on screen five
minutes after the store opens.
>Hey!…It could be worse! We could be Amstrad!<g>
Wash your mouth out with soap and water! Such language!
I like your message header. Despite the current Commodore situation in
Australia, I do feel somewhat upbeat. Nothing like a bit of blind
optimism. Any truth in the rumour of Pat Byrne wanting to buy the
company?
Regards, Allan. Life is just a tyre swing
on AutoPilot, Sydney, Australia
Go easy on the kids. Didn't you used to do this sort of thing when
you were young ? When I was a kid I used to wander around computer
shows typing things on teletypes and getting them to repeat by
feeding the tape from the punch into the reader (bet that shows my
age).
There was a bit in the Daily Mirror about a Mac on display that swore
at people who touched the keyboard. The shop blamed it on someone who
had bought the machine back to exchange it, they claimed he had
hacked into the system while he had it.
I remember fun with print statements on C64s. I guess it is a
natural thing for kids to do. (sigh)
Karl:
As a former Apple II+ user, whenever I went into a KMart and saw a C64 on
display and "running", I would write a looping program that basically said
PRINT "Don't buy junk. Buy the best! Apple II" <grin>
And I wasn't a kid either. Well, not chronologically anyways.
Stuart
Same here, although I was more likely to do it to an Apple. <G> Likewise,
on age. <BG>
-Karl Speaking from the Rubble.
Denny's Mischevious Teen Years, circa 1979:
Radio Shack used to run a BASIC demo program on their b&w TRS-80
Model I and III units. I used to go in and quickly type in a short
subroutine that would print TRASH-80 instead of TRS-80 about every
five minutes, but only for about 10 seconds, so that by the time
someone showed the salesperson it would be back to TRS-80. 🙂
More fun, but harder to implement, was the elaborate rewrite of
Commodore's PET demo that some high-school buddies and I would take
in and surreptuously load on on the PET 2001s in the store in the
Burnsville Mall in Minnesota. It would get to a "type your name"
prompt — present in the original demo — but as soon as you'd hit a
key it would print a "Key pressed too hard.. ERROR!" message,
followed by "CHIP Failure" and eventually it would start making the
speaker hooked to the User Port scream a horrible noise before
finally filling the screen with random characters and then suddenly
blanking it. <grin> Certainly scared the bejesus out of the largely
computer illiterate browsers of the day. Of course, we'd be watching
this from a store across the mall aisle. 🙂
And to think — today I set an example for hundreds of thousands of
novice computer users who read a certain national computer magazine.
<evil grin>
(Hey, I was 14 at the time 🙂
Hi Allan,
I have no idea what Pat Byrne is doing…but if I had the money, I'd buy
Commodore Australia.
Dallas