CompuServe Thread

#A2500/A3000 Pt 2

23 messages in this thread
#114406From: William HirtMar 18, 1988 4:35 PM
[A/exit ..Continued… for Biotechnological Research and Commodore are working together to develop the workstation whichc will be based on the Amiga 2000 with Transputer. The workstation is aimed at the chemical, pharmaceutical and food industries, and is considered ideal conditions for graphics applications and display of molecular structures. Chairman Gould announced no plans for Commodore to increase its' computer prices due to DRAM price increases. We will continue to supply our market at prices now in effect. It was also announced that enhanced graphics chips with non-interlace mode will be available for the Amiga 500 and Amiga 2000. Commodore is the leader in the West German microcomputer industry, with a market share of over 50%. With professional systems, Commodore ranks in 2 nd place in Germany, and is unchallenged in the home market. European press reaction to the conference has been very positive. Some of the headlines from the show include: "Commodore and Nixdorf Grow, Grow, Grow" and "Commodore Attacks the Professional and Business Market". End of press release. This should people something to chew for the weekend!!!!!
#114445From: Richard Rae/SYSOPMar 18, 1988 8:27 PM
Hmm, so now I have to decide if I want to keep my 1000 and hold out for a 3000 (as I'd planned all along), or if I want to spring for the 2500. Decisions, decisions. 8) Well, at least I won't have to make this decision for a while yet. <Chuckle>. Rick
#114501From: William HirtMar 19, 1988 2:21 AM
Rick, Makes me glad I decided to upgrade to the 2000 last year during the trade in offer. I figured this was the direction things were going in. In fact, Commodore called me last week asking about my trade-in 1000. Apparently they're checking to see the trade-in value that was sent to them matches what was given the person buying the machine. Fortunately, my dealer here handled everything exactly as the plan called for. Bill
#114511From: Roy S. LauferMar 19, 1988 6:52 AM
Now that we have new models to salivate, and be impatient about, we can now make up a whole new set of bogus rumors of what the Amiga 4000 will be like ! ;-> -RSL-
#114973From: David MastersonMar 21, 1988 10:15 PM
I expect that the A3000 when it makes to market will be a fairly significant upgrade (like 32 bit bus, 68030 on board, etc.). That's a guess, though, and not what I'm interested in. Does anyone know if the A2500 models in this announcement are just a repackaging of the A2000 with a 68020 board (and perhaps a 80286 bridgeboard)? If so, is there any idea of whether Commodore will unbundle the capabilities embodied in the A2500 so that A2000 owners can upgrade piece by piece? What I'm most interested is the version of Unix that the A2500 will have and what (at a minimum) it will take for me to get it. I don't really expect an answer to that at this early stage in the announcement, but I hope the Commodore dealers in the audience are paying attention to know what to demand from Commodore. 😉 David Masterson
#114974From: Marlene Zenker/SYSOPMar 21, 1988 10:19 PM
David, it looks like the A2000 is capable of being whatever the 2500 models turn out to be. I don't think there will be a problem with as you call it a piece by piece upgrade. Marlene
#115004From: John DraperMar 21, 1988 11:26 PM
David, If the numbers they gave are any indication, it may be Unix SYS V, rev 3. I sure hope not, but that 'Unix 5.3' does not bode well. Regards, Larry.
#115035From: Don Curtis/SYSOPMar 22, 1988 1:10 AM
Larry, Why not? SVR3 is the latest from AT&T (acutaly SVR3.1.1) and seems solid enough to me. Or are you a BSD fan? Don
#115040From: John DraperMar 22, 1988 1:25 AM
berzerkely, definitely… I am a fan of things like long file names. perhaps once Sun gets the merge done, we will see a unified Unix that has the best of both worlds. I can just hear the howls of outrage at the thought of cramming things into 14 character filenames. Regards, Larry.
#115042From: Don Curtis/SYSOPMar 22, 1988 1:28 AM
Larry, Since Sun and AT&T are working together…I suspect you'll see the outcome much more like SRV than you'll see it like BSD. The only thing I see from BSD is perhaps the shell. But who knows…anything is possible. Don
#115045From: John DraperMar 22, 1988 1:33 AM
Hard to say Don, since the way the whole thing sounds is like Sun is going to have a LOT of say in it. Doesn't really matter for a lot of things, the differences being mostly religious anyway, but there are a few things that simply CAN'T be allowed to survive. Regards, Larry.
#115135From: Scott BallantyneMar 22, 1988 9:50 PM
Urk, hope not, let's standardize on Mr. Korns fabulous shell thingy…
#115162From: Don Curtis/SYSOPMar 23, 1988 12:19 AM
Scott, Personaly, I don't like the Korn Shell…but the shell is that, just a shell. You can load almost any shell ontop of any kernel…so that's not as important as the kernel itself. Don
#115173From: Scott BallantyneMar 23, 1988 1:23 AM
Ah well, each to his own. After years of using csh I find ksh a breath of fresh air. sdb
#115178From: David MastersonMar 23, 1988 1:30 AM
I doubt CShell will make it into SVR4 as THE Shell. KSH that's being used inside of AT&T is much better for the casual (and advanced) user. It will be outstanding if they generalize the command editting even more (right now its grounded in Emacs and VI). SVR3 seems to be better for the commercial world than BSD (don't ask me why — that's what I keep hearing). We should know "Real Soon Now" ;-)). David
#115181From: Don Curtis/SYSOPMar 23, 1988 1:52 AM
David, Actualy, we just use the standard shell that comes with the AT&T 3B2-400/600s (Bourne shell) and to be honest, the only thing I miss is command line history and editing. Beyond that, I've gotten quite used to it and like it. So far, after about 1 1/2 years of using it….I haven't found anything (that I need) I can't do. Of course, I'm one of those strange ducks that still uses vi as my editor. Don
#115239From: David MastersonMar 23, 1988 6:00 PM
VI!!!! Wow!?! (Look of pity) <sigh> David p.s. Did you know that MicroEmacs 3.9e or MicroGNU 1b work quite well under SVRx on 3B2s?? Did you know they're on the FF disks?
#115116From: Rodney SomersteinMar 22, 1988 8:09 PM
Larry, I am an AT&T reseller, minis only, so am very familiar with Unix. Other than the file name length, I don't see much advantage to Berkely over SVr3. AT&T is supposedly planning on adding many of the features of Berkely to future releases of Unix, so the file name length will probably increase. It is much more of a 'standard ' than Berkely is, since many companies customize Berkely rather than keep features that they don't like. Rodney Somerstein 73167,2165
#115136From: Scott BallantyneMar 22, 1988 9:52 PM
Using both pretty much daily, I have to say I don't see that much difference, specially now since there is socket support in atandt + streams in bsd. Anyway, all my filenames are 4 characters long (:-). sdb
#115176From: David MastersonMar 23, 1988 1:25 AM
SVR3 would probably be a better system for the business world than BSD, but its hard to say. Hopefully Commodore will be keeping an eye on SVR4 which should be the merged AT&T/SUN version of Unix. David
#115036From: Don Curtis/SYSOPMar 22, 1988 1:12 AM
David, It would appear that the 'piece by piece' approach is not only possible…but probable based on the text. It would take the '020 board and a 40 Meg HD coupled with the A2090 (don't know if the D rev is needed or not…suspect not). Plus the UNIX of course. Don
#115225From: William HirtMar 23, 1988 2:49 PM
After reading Marco Papa's response to this question on Usenet and some of the responses from CBM, I would bet the 2500 is just a 2000 with the added boards/ software and I wouldn't see why all of it wouldn't be made available to 2000 owners. What I think will happen is that the price on a basic 2000 will drop when the A2500 is released and may drop some again after the 3000 is released as CBM positions each machine at different price levels/capabilities. Besides CBM has a made a big deal about the 2000 being an upgradable/ expandable machine and I really think they mean it.
#115240From: David MastersonMar 23, 1988 6:03 PM
All I can say is good!! What I want is the Unix compatibility (any Unix). I work a lot in the Unix arena and think this might help me position the Amiga as a low-cost alternative to MAC-II, Sun, and Apollo. David