#Xebec drives
6 messages in this thread
Mr. Daugherty:
I read the thread before this response and it looks like you got
some of your questions answered. But, as general information, our Drives
are rated to be fully operational at room temperature and the manufacturer,
OkiData, does not list any requirements for warm-up prior to low-level
formatting. This is a rather mute question any way, because all of our
hard drives are shipped form our factory fully formatted with almost 10
Megabytes of Demo programs and Public Domain Software on them. Demos
include SuperBase, Logistix, B.E.S.T. Business Management and More. The
Public Domain Software includes many of the best PD programs like PoPCLI,
DOSPlus, KickBench, StarTerm, VT-100 and some of the real show-off stuff
like Juggler and the Ray-Trace pictures.
The net result of all this work is that your customer can take home
a hard drive and be enjoying it within 10 minutes or less!
About our pricing, I'm not ashamed of it at all. As has been
mentioned, we are dealing with a smaller custome base than IBM. It's
smaller than the MacIntosh market too, but I don't hear you comparing
our prices against theirs. We are lower cost than comparable Mac
products. But there are very few `comparable' IBM products to compare
against! A fair comparison would be against an EXTERNAL, SCSI 20 Meg
Hard Drive and SCSI Host adapter for the IBM, cause that's what you
get with our drive! I just spent 45 min with my copy (complementary,
of course, I wouldn't buy it) of PC. The best prices I was able to
come up with were: 20 Meg HD – 389.00
Caes (Ugly) and Power Supply – 109.00
SCSI Controller Card – 149.00
SCSI Host Adapter for IBM Slot – 245.00
Shipping 18.00
TOTAL – $910.00
These are MAIL ORDER PRICES, Not Retail!!! Where's The BEEF!!!!
E.J. Lippert II
C Ltd. – (316) 267-6322
Ed– Yes, for what a user gets from C-Ltd the price is in the right ballpark.
But for most users what they want is just a hard disk that is decently fast and
has all that space online at once. Using that criteria and a quick check in
Computer Shopper I came up with a hard drive kit that includes drive(20 meg),
controller, cables, and software for $375. That is all a PClone user must pay
(+shipping). For the Amiga a hard drive case is needed which using your price
brings the total to $484+shipping.
The first hardware outfit that brings out a hard disk for the Amiga users for <
$700 that isn't a total dog will clean up. Sure they aren't getting a SCSI bus
but then neither are the 1000's of PClone hard disk users and they are doing
just fine.
You want to compare configurations using a SCSI bus, and Perry wants
performance comparisons normalized to drive speed (perhaps to show off a fast
controller and/or driver?). It is only human nature to want to emphasize what
you've worked so hard to develop. But most users are going to only care about
the final result (fast I/O and no more floppy swapping) and not how it was
achieved. Future expansion using the SCSI bus is also a rather low priority on
most user's shopping lists I would guess. What does the average user care
whether the performance comes from an average drive plus a super controller or
from a fast drive and average controller?
Personally I've decided to just continue to do everything in my aMega board for
now and wait for a bit and see what happens in the Amiga hard drive market.
Tom
Tom,
Yep, I guess you caught what I was saying, what the market wants is a
20MEG drive for under $700, (and preferrably under $500). I noticed myself
that hard drive were never popular when they were $5000 for 10MEGs, but when
they got down below $1000, the sales picked up, and when they got below $500,
people started including them in their system, just as they would a extra
floppy disk drive!!!! Of course you can plan ahead by working on the SCSI
controller, however, that can always come later, when there is a need for it!
Mike
I suppose if the number of Amiga users was as large as the number of IBM &
clone users, then companies would be able to sell hard drives for the Amiga as
cheaply. You can always wait for a lower price, since in the computer world
everything gets (or has so far gotten) cheaper, but then you could wait forever
for the "cheapest" and never wind up with anything. I remember when in 1980 I
bought the "state of the art"… TRS-80 III for $2500. Gee, if I just waited,
I could have gotten it today for $300. Supposing I'd still want one today.
I predict that in five years you will be able to buy an Amiga 2000 with a 40
Megabyte hard disk for under $500… but then you wouldn't have an Amiga or a
hard disk for five years!
– Emb
Tom:
Much of what you have said is certainly true. A cheap HD for the Ami
would surely be welcome and no doubt many could care less about SCSI. The Ami
will no doubt have to suffer from higher prices unless the market reaches PCs'
market size. Many of us will be most interested in the extra capability
provided by the SCSI interface. The Ami is the ideal machine to use with that
inteface. 73s,
bill
Ed,
Actually, I guess I have been reading too many "mail order" magazines, I
guess, the price, the controller card, and such is pretty "normal". If I read
too much more, I am going to have to spend some money, so let me say that I
believe that your product is good, the demo we have at work has been working
well, and isn't that "huge" and that I would rather buy a product from you,
since I could get my questions answered here on the forum by you, than from
someone else out there who isn't involved in supporting and marketing their
product! I commend you on your product, and your support of it. Keep it
going…I think your investment in the AMIGA hardware line will pay off…and
soon! Mike