Workshops
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Workshops
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»"They" always were afraid that costs will amount at any point. I'm not quite certain, wether they were afraid to be forced to admit errors, but I'd rather bet onto the cost factor. At some "Products Purchased >>from Third Parties" the contracts probably had offered no other solution (E.g.: Commodore Desktop Video Master by Intelligent Memory).
We always heard them say, that we were much too socially minded and that our "social engagement" would not earn any money for the company. Certainly the management could never be convinced of the fact that fair trading might have as well an advertising-effect in favour of the enterprise.
During my time there complaints had accumulated about the Amiga 2000-A. Many customers complained about Commodore's statement, that this device might be expandable without limitations over the next few years and thus they would be on the safe side in the future.
As we all know, the "A" model was quite soon superseded and the "B" successor was released (for clarification: the denominations A to D never came from Commodore themselves, but from outside. I suppose, that for the better distinction of the individual models dealers selected these markings).
My folder about A2000-A filled up more and more and I asked H. Jost, how Commodore wanted to proceed. In the beginning he refused to undertake anything in this respect, later on his opinion was, that each single case should be "worked at individually".
I suggested completing the whole affaire in one go and in co-operation with Hans Ebrecht (Commodore Braunschweig) we submitted to him a statement of expenses, in which we could offer the current A2000 at the cost price while taking back the A-models. The question what to do with the 2000-A was quite simple to answer, too. Either Commodore hands them over for a "price per Kilogramm" to companies such as REX-Datentechnik etc., which themselves might offer "unchecked" circuit boards for xx DM, or part of the chips (CIAs etc..) could have been returned into production.
Under the line Commodore would not have lost a single dollar. A publication in an Amiga magazine would have been completely sufficient and the Amiga users concerned would have been favourably surprised. But unfortunately H. Jost rejected this, though everything was specified exactly. We estimated maximum 3,000 devices actually still beeing in use. From this we simply deducted half of it, because not every user would jump to the offer (there certainly existed A2000-A configurations, which ran problem-free). If defective devices were omited, the quantity would have been foreseeable. Nevertheless "they" had the opinion, it would only cost Commodore's money.
I pointed out that in any way the solution by "individual cases" would result in taking part of further A2000-A users in this campain as soon as the news spread, because someone certainly would send a letter-to-the-editor to an Amiga magazine.
It was of no avail. They continued trying to clarify the things as individual cases.
Ok, so I started to tackle the letters of complaint. In fact I exchanged one computer with the result that the customer received an A2000, which apparently did not come clean from the shelf (with the "could occur" I was not quite satisfied).
Unfortunately I could not recognise that in before, since the device was not delivered from Frankfurt. The result was, that the "new" 2000 turned into smoke as soon as the customer switched on the power and thus he hadn't a 2000 anymore. Later on the main board resp. the computer was exchanged again and finally worked, but only after the customer had intensely quarreled for several weeks.
With this special case in hand I again stepped up to the management and rejected the "individual case method" for the future, if those became the results of it. I recommended the concerned users to send letters directly to the management and to explain their case. Now I received these letters via the management again on my desktop. I commented this with the remark, that a solution only was possible with help of the management, who still crossed those plans.
This not beeing enough, the Amiga-1000 users came to Commodore (me) feeling totally betrayed. Paid lots of money and then hang-calmly!
Wilfried Haering and I visited the " IG-1000 " (community of interests of the A1000 user - at that time in Neu Isenburg, Germany). Actually we had to take the blame for the decisions of Commodore. To cut it short, we could not offer any help, the A1000 was history. Here as well we tried to induce the management at least to provide the A1000 users a A2000 at cost price but without any success.
In the bulk the matter became to nothing, they called for the anger of the relevant users, but somehow that did not matter in any way. My personal frustration graph ran up steeply after this incident and the campains concerning the A600, C65 etc. You were powerless and finally I perceived, that Commodore could not continue on this way.
Ralph Conway had to deal with Amiga and Video (animation, general Multimedia). Among others he tried to settle with the Desktop Video-Master application package, which evidently did not work adequately. The package was sold at that time for appr. 1,400 DM and brought Commodore more annoyance than advantages and the effort for the expenditure of substitutes was in no relation to the gain. Unfortunately in the case of warranty additionally Commodore was the address, thus not the manufacturer of the product was held liable.
The devices just had technical problems. In 8 out of 10 instances there either was no picture signal or the quality of the "scans" was simply bad. Some devices could only be used, if they were plugged into the parallel port of the powered up computer (no further comment necessary).
In repeatedly held meetings this topic was discussed, but all there is to be said about it, we were just not "tough enough" for this world.«
To be continued...
