Workshops / background reports / book introductions

Workshops / background reports / book introductions

1. The fall of Commodore from my point of view - part 7 (by Rainer Benda)

Even though I already described the end :-)..... let's go some steps back.

The A4000 wasn't developed and released as purposeful as it might have seemed.

At the time of the C65 and the A600 (which was meant to be called A300 originally), Commodore wasn't able to present an AA machine. There was a developer meeting in Frankfurt (those were meetings where registered hard- and software developers could attend to get informations - if there were any available - or to voice their opinions about anything regarding the Amiga, their wishes to the developer support etc.).

I myself attended to 2 or 3 of these meetings in Frankfurt (there were also some outside of Germany). This wasn't really my job (on the other hand, there wasn't a real definition anymore, I worked whereever there was need...). On one day, my colleagues from ESCO were present, as well as Uwe Trebbien (developer support) and myself (1991).

Commodore internally(!) planned an A300 (before it was renamed to A600), an A300+ (later A600HD) and two variants of the "A1000+".

Who now thinks this was a successor of the A1000, is wrong. The A1000+ was planned as a budget variant for ECS and AA.

It was a slimline desktop case (pizza box), not a keyboard case like we know it >from the A500/600/1200, but with no real upgrade possibilities either, since the case was too small. Zorro boards were not an option. The case would have been sufficient for a floppy drive, a harddisk and maybe a processor board. We have never seen a working machine, or further technical details. In Frankfurt, only some metal cases and front covers arrived.

Besides some general questions, the developers wanted to know when some more powerful machines would be released. ESCO answered that this would take at least 12 months, and that the management was considering to release another ECS machine with a faster processor, more RAM, etc., to shorten the waiting period before the new AA-computers (this was the A1000+ in the ECS version). But this wasn't said that directly at that meeting.

Of course, the disappointment was huge. Obviously everyone had thought that Commodore was a little further...it stirred up a quite intense discussion and finally the question came up, whether another ECS machine made sense. ESCO tried to scatter the doubts by proposing a vote, whose result should also be presented to the management. The question was if another ECS machine was wanted.

The result was that they rather wanted another ECS Amiga than to wait 12 months without any new system.

Then I spoke up (who else :)) ). The result of the vote was discussed again, with my objection, that development and marketing of another ECS machine would only take time and bind capacities. In my opinion, Commodore wouldn't assign additional personnel for the "AA" and it might happen that it would take a lot longer until we got a real new Amiga, than Commodore had planned. Furthermore, the decision for a ECS machine would have been a signal against "AA", as it would have shown to Commodore USA that we could once again last another 12 months without new technologies.

The reason for my concern was the C65 business. 8 people worked on this projects, who had better spend their time on the Amiga (they themself couldn't do anything about it), and I was sure that it wouldn't be any better with "AA". My colleagues >from ESCO tried to convince me of the contrary, but failed. Instead the developers wanted to hold that vote again, this time with the result that Commodore should better spend their time on "AA" than developing another ECS machine.

I was pleased (I have to admit), the internal paper went back into a drawer, the A1000+ was dropped and we waited for 12 months.

The days passed by and eventually the AA prototypes came to Germany.

They looked ugly (grin), brown case, black front cover, but they worked as they should. Unfortunately, Commodore USA had Bill Sydnes (the one who thought that IDE was greater, better, nicer), someone they fully trusted.

Actually, "thanks" to him, we have IDE in the A4000 instead of SCSI and a desktop case nobody really liked. The main reason was the cost. I always had the feeling that Commodore started "AA" without really wanting to. The AA computer had a budget PC desktop case, an IDE interface and everything except the OS was made as SMD. My repeated proposal to put the CIA-8520 chips into sockets wasn't applied. At first they said they would have had to change the board layout and this wasn't possible, then the costs were the reason... and anyway the dealers should make profit, too (from repairs). For whatever reason, they were soldered.

Originally, Commodore wanted to release the A4000 in 4 variants: as 68020 and 68030 (when you take a look at the 68030 processor board from a Commodore A4000, you can see the labels of the A4000 prototypes), optionally with 1 or 2 MB CHIP-RAM and with ECS/AA.

The smaller ECS-"4000s" were to be called "A2200/2400", but fortunately never appeared.

To be able to deliver it at all, the A4000 was made with the Super-Buster Version "09" (the 12 months were long gone). At this time, this wasn't very important, because there weren't any Zorro-III boards available anyway. Unfortunately :-) the AmigaPlus got one of those for testing and Ottmar Röhrig (at this time working for the A+ as editor) mentioned the in last paragraph, that no Z-III DMA was possible with the "09" Buster, but Commodore was working on version "11". As a result, users, who already had bought the A4000 also wanted to have the Buster "11". Bad for us, but understandable.

We accepted the complaints and delivered the Buster as soon as it was available.

This test :-) did cost Commodore a few bucks extra. In additon, the buster had no socket in the beginning, and the A4000 had to go to the workshop for replacement. Later A4000s had a socket for the Buster.

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The A4000 wasn't going to save Commodore anymore. It was better, but was too expensive and Commodore didn't sell high numbers. Then the Buster thing, which made users unsure whether to buy the A4000 at all. In my opinion, "AA" was important, because a lot developer depended on being able to convert their PC games with 256 colors to the Amiga without being limited to ECS and 32 colors (or HAM). Commodore didn't survive to see "AAA", even though Dave Haynie already had working prototypes. The A4000 Tower was a nice computer, but never really without problems and "too expensive"...it never reached its target group.

We as a department always passed our ideas as well as the developers, regarding "our" idea of an Amiga (after the A3000), to the management, always hoping they would listen to us. With no success.

Things like RTG (Retargetable Graphics), 24Bit, 16Bit sound and much more just didn't come. This is also a reason why I condemn the appeals of some Amiga magazines, asking the readers to compile their favourite Amiga, hoping someone would hear their calls. No matter if it was during the time of Commodore, of Escom/Amiga Technolgies or of Gateway 2000. In my opinion, it just will not happen, because up to today no one of the people in charge did understand "THE" Amiga.

Beside the fact that Commodore was unable to be really "innovative", Commodore was also overestimated from the inside and the outside. You could have got the impression that Commodore had millions of employees in dozens of countries and you would just have to snap your finger to get a product...Commodore never was this way. I'd rather put them in the category of "console producers" .... some experimental development with fast profit as the goal and little interest in long terms.

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A mail from Holger Lubitz (lubitz@linuxservice.de):

On page 8 you wrote:

To be able to deliver it at all, the A4000 was made with the Super-Buster Version "09" (the 12 months were long gone). At this time, this wasn't very important, because there weren't any Zorro-III boards available anyway. Unfortunately :-) the AmigaPlus got one of those for testing and Ottmar Röhrig (at this time working for the A+ as editor) mentioned in the last paragraph, that no Z-III DMA was possible with the "09" Buster, but Commodore was working on version "11".

[...]

I think your memory is deceiving you here.

Even though Otti was still working for the A+, I had reduced him to graphics and video. I did this test, together with Mick Hohmann (he was testing the software, I the hardware), who got the thing somehow from Uwe. We got it under strict NDA but with the hint that this won't last very long.

Approximately half a day before print, we got the permission. The A+ had layouted everything on spec and so we were able to get it into the issue. We were the first. (And we really had the best intentions. I didn't tear the A400 to pieces, in spite of all the unpleasant things, but instead judged it as midrange, where the price requires compromises. The price (at the level of 040-turboboards) was like that, too. I didn't mention the DMA problem, just because there were no Z3 cards available and we didn't know which version would be in the release version. The boxes with the black front covers had only version -07. And incidentally I had placed the plans for LAN and DSP as "desireable", the plans we knew from the DevCon and that the "one up there" didn't want them - to give ESCO arguments (but unfortunately it didn't work).

Otti tested the computer (AFAIR the same) one month later for the c't. I myself delivered the box to him in Hamburg.

Now I could append a retribution with the AmigaPlus, which had good employees but a bad management. It happened like it had to: Brandl stayed, Rene, Claus and Jörg had to go.

Some time later I went voluntarily. I could do without the successors. Especially the editing office who suddenly wanted to centralize everything we freelancers had been doing among ourselves. But this would go to far.

Holger

(You may cite this if you want.)

My comment:

I think I can remember quite well, that it was Otti would had "signed" the test. Wolfgang Trompetter was quite upset that he had mentioned the Buster "problems" in the last paragraph. But I can't swear, because I surely don't have this issue anymore, so it might have been in the Amiga Magazin or another magazine.

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A mail from Ralph Schmidt (laire@basis.owl.de):

There are a few mistakes in your new page:-)

The developer meeting was in May 92 (I was there, too).

Regarding the vote...it was frightening that there were people in the Amiga developer scene who wanted a A2000 ECS sucessor instead of AA.

(I was strictly against ECS - furthermore I can recall a A1000+, only a successor of the A2000, I think A2200 was mentioned as the name, since A2400 was the name for the A4000. The A3640 board in the A4000 came from this machine.) Also the worrying situation at the game market wasn't taken seriously.

I can recall how Hirsch & Wolf denied a worrying tendency in the game market. The Amiga market died not only die because of the "stupidity" of Commodore. The Amiga "scene" ... dealers, pseudo developer and professional developers just didn't want to see it.

Then about the A4000

It came at the end of Septmeber 92 ... not 12 months later. The Buster09 problem (the Buster-11 probably had even more) appeared in Novemeber 92, during the development of the Fastlane at phase5. Then for months it was denied, ignored and played down. Then, surprisingly the A4091 was presented at the DevCon in February of 93, and they said it would only work wiht a new Buster. At this DevCon, phase5 got a Buster rev *10*, which could do Zorro3, but only for 30 minutes (possibly a heat problem).

If I remember correctly, the A4091 came in May with rev11, which still had massive bugs. The DSP in the A3000+ died around February 92, I think. Apropos AAA... it died December 93 ... then some svga/rtg project was developed for a few months.

Ralph Schmidt,laire@popmail.owl.de(private),NextMail welcome

My comment:

With regard to the time that has passed by (the whole business with precise time tables went through my head long enough), I tried to concentrate on fitting correlations and the facts.

I don't think it makes much difference whether the A4000 came 11 or 13 months later. :-)

The A1000+ in the slimline case probably wasn't an issue at the DevCons, because it was top secret and even we shouldn't know about it. It was more an exception that we knew.

Regarding the Buster: In many ways it was helpful, even though it wasn't bug-free even in Rev. -11. I think I remember that there were plans for a -12, on which Dave Haynie wanted to work (or should), but that didn't happen anmyore.

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A question from Chris Classen (Jones@JAMIGA.INSIDER.ORG):

- Was it because of the A4000 that the A3000 sold so badly (everybody seemed to be waiting for the A4000)?

Answer:

The A3000 and the A3000T were aimed at (semi)professional customers and this was reflected in the price. At the release of the A3000T, it costed more than 10.000 DM. Within the first 6 months, the price dropped down to less than 8.000 DM. They didn't reach the target group, and if they did, the price was "professional" but the support from Commodore wasn't. Of course, this couldn't work. You can't send a company to an Amiga dealer when they wanted support. It was merely an attempt to make a lot of money with a good product, once again without worrying about anything "after". Also the A3000T did cost twice as much as the A300 Desktop. So much, only to get a Tower with more space? It didn't do any good to the sales either.

But the A3000 had its own problems. Flickerfixer onboard...now you have to tell the customer what this is for anyway. No every user had had an Amiga before. The observatory Hamburg etc. were customers of the A3000UX (Unix) machines. Commodore could support them (and a few others) but any further effort weren't possible form C= directly.

The A4000 had no part in this.«

To be continued...