Workshops
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Workshops
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.....the A3000T/040. An A3000T without 68030/68882 CPU/FPU onboard, but with a Commodore A3640 (68040/25MHz) CPU board instead. Unfortunately in Version 3.0 without the latest Super-DMAC and the latest Ramsey.
It also had Kickstart 2.04, the "wrong" ZIP-RAMs and the SCSI chip from WD in version "02" or "04". The result was, that the computer was totally unstable. It was a success when it ran for 15 minutes without nuking files while saving or just crashing.
The problem couldn't be fixed back then, because there were no updates for the CPU board (yet). Some trouble could be fixed by using a Buster -11 (see the manual for the A3640 in the A3000D and A3000T), but Dave Haynie always denied a direct correlation. He always said that the computer would boot, no matter which Buster was used. We had a quite heavy dispute about this, but I never got a real explanation why the Buster wasn't the reason even though it worked better after replacing it.
Anyway....the 3000T/040 couldn't be sold. There were 1 or 2 internal prototypes which eventually were sent back to Braunschweig because they were unusable (we didn't even know before that there was a A3000T board without 68030/882).
Nevertheless, Helmut Jost entertained the thought of selling this computer at the Commodore fair in Frankfurt. At a little meeting of the Amiga-/PC-/Marketing department (before the fair), he promised not to sell the A300T/040, because I pointed out that we would automatically get trouble with our customers.
I also proposed to have a technician corner to be able to help users directly. Regrettably we were also the whipping boys for the A300T/040, because this box was sold by ROTSTIFT directly vis-a-vis of the Commodore stand (for about 4,700 DM (approx. 2398 Euros)).
About 2 hours later, we got the first complaints. I was fed up and sent them directly to Helmut Jost. On my question, why these things were sold anyway, he only answered that ROTSTIFT sells them, not Commodore. And there was the deal that ROTSTIFT couldn't complain to Commodore, so they got the problem off their backs. Of course the people went to ROTSTIFT, but then they came to us, since we were the manufacturers of this computer.
H. Jost did not give a damn, he even laughed about it and thought that he had made a great deal. On that day I again got the feeling that I might loose the grip.
.....the Commodore decorative pins. 4 piece were a set. Commodore wanted to do their users a favor and give them away at the fair in Frankfurt. But as the costs summed up to a 6-digit number (30,000 of each kind were produced = 120,000 all together), they had the great idea to sell them. Preferably as sets, and if separately, then for 5 DM (approx. 2.55 Euros) each.
They were sold by the nice girls at the info desk, who had to make a list about the sold pins...not a very long list...of course, if they had given them away for free..... but buying....
So they were stored, given away, sold otherwise or whatever.
They never had the desired effect, but did cost a lot of money.
....the general problem of explaining to our marketing department and the corporate management which configurations made sense. An example: The KAWAI Funlab Keyboard, we was meant to be sold with an A500 and 512KB RAM, although 1MB was required to get the thing working at all.
They wanted to leave it to the customer to get the RAM expansion, to keep below a certain price for the package. That the package in its current state wouldn't work at all, seemed of no interest to everyone involved.
....the exchange campaign "Amiga"-CDTV for an A500 and surcharge. Unfortunately the CDTV was advertised as a full AMIGA substitute which brought us a lot of problems.
It went even so far that customers wanted their old Amiga 500 back. Of course this wasn't possible, because they were sold eastward or flogged per kilogram inland.
The problem was that nobody said something about the differences between the two machines. Some most customers had the (legitimate) idea that the CDTV would act exactly like a Amiga. We were called to make some clarifications when the campaign was already up and running.
Too late, of course. Most people complained that the CDTV was not as extensible as the A500 and not 100% compatible to all programs. It was prepared for too many options ("you can connect a hard disk", "you can use a turbo board, too", "when these products are available"). For a long time they weren't, and when they were, they were just too expensive.
The campaign wasn't running for long, the were just too many problems. The idea behind it (to promote the CDTV) was okay, but again they did it the wrong way.
....the irresolution which products Commodore should produce and sell themselves and which one to leave to the "third parties". An example: The A2630 turbo board for the A2000. It sold in great numbers, after C= had lowered the price remarkably. According to Helmut Jost, this was only possible because the board was to be removed from the product range and they "had" to sell out the stocks.
I have to disagree, because at this time, there were not many CPU boards as compatible as the A2630, and an adequate price reduction would have helped the sales. "He" also didn't want to make a faster/different CPU board.
This would be a job for other manufacturers, so he said. Sadly he didn't always live to that idea and not for all products where this decision would have made sense.«
To be continued...
