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Amiga Update (1995-10-23)
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/\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || Amiga Update -News and Rumors
/__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ ||(A Very Ocassional Newsletter)
/ \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ ||
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AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga Technolgies, GmbH
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951023
R E P O R T O F G E R M A N T V S H O W
Following is an eyewitness description of a German computer TV show
which aired yesterday. It should be of interest to Amigans trying to
keeping track of the new Amiga Technologies as it gears up and gets
things moving.
It was obtained last night from the Portal communications system. If you
have access to satelite TV, you might even be able to catch the show
described when it's rebroadcast today.
The information is from a viewer in the Netherlands.
Brad
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This morning, Sunday 22nd of Octobre, Gilles Bourdin and Manfred Schmitt
appeared on the third German television station WDR (West Deutsche Rundfunk)
announcing the rebirth of Amiga.
The presenters seemed pleased to announce this item of about a quarter of
an hour (or at least one, since at the end they use to hold up their thumbs,
saying "one bit for ..", one of them said _Atari_ (a little spitefully it
seemed), the other said Amiga).
First Gilles Bourdin appeared telling about the Amiga, it's multitasking
capabilities since 1985 and it's video/sound capabilities. The A1200 was
shown with a demo of Scala MM300 (smooth scrolling stuff with sound, but
not that awesome for the seasoned Amiga veteran :). This was shown on an
Amiga 1438S monitor (=Microvitec 1438 + builtin speakers).
Then they moved to the Amiga 4000 (desktop model, no tower in sight). It
was sitting in front of a bigger monitor (17" I think) also with the label
Amiga on the front, in the middle on the bottom. It seemed to have a lot of
icons and Magic Workbench installed, although not too much colour.
They didn't demonstrate anything on it, just told that it has the same
capabilities as it's smaller brother, the A1200, and you can expand it with graphic cards, MPEG and whatnot, just like a PC.
Nothing was mentioned in the way of what processors were used and what
configuration was installed, except that the A1200 had a 170 MB HD.
Gilles made a relaxed and cheerful impression and they talked some about
MS Windows 95 = Mac 89 = Amiga 85 :^) Lastly Bourdin made the announcement
of AT/Escom being present at the Cologne show, taking place on 10-12
november (World of Amiga 95)
After that a Commodore multimedia PC (midi tower) was shown, with a small
(but good looking) keyboard (MIDI, I guess) attached. The Qwerty keyboard
had two small speakers built in on either side at the top. They didn't show
anything of it's capabilities, just mentioned it. I'd guess it does
everything a normal PC does, bundled with some 'multimedia' software.
Then the camera moved to Manfred Schmitt, sitting with the other presenter.
He first asked Schmitt to tell what happened to Commodore and why Escom
purchased them. Manfred told him that Escom purchased Commodore
and the Amiga (he seemed to stress that), because of two reasons: Firstly the
names Commodore and Amiga have the second largest brand recognition
after IBM in Europe and have a good name, and also due to the size of this
recognition it is more difficult to change that recognition or image. (Sounded
like a tongue in cheek reference to the Amiga's bad reputation overseas)
{Note: He may mean recognition overseas, rather than reputation in the sense
of quality, etc. Brad}
Secondly: although Escom is one of the biggest customers of Intel/Miscrosoft products on the European continent and they have
quite good relationships with aforementioned vendors, Escom regards them as
being monopolistic and therefore harmful to the market as a whole in the
long term. This is quite a big thing for a computer industry representant,
he might burn some bridges there :)
The presenter then asked if they were planning to break that monopoly with
the Amiga, and Manfred replied to the effect of: "certainly" :^)
But he also stated that he regards the PC as a workplace tool, for
word processing, spreadsheet and the like, while the Amiga is more suited for
multimedia purposes. He again stressed it's capabilities regarding multitasking,
video and such.
{ Note: I regularly use both Microsoft "Word" and SoftWood's "Final Writer"
for wordprocessing. I much prefer to use "Final Writer" on the Amiga whenever
I can. Brad}
Also the efficiency of the Amiga was spoken of, the way it's OS can run
in 512 KB, if need be from a floppy drive. Schmitt stated that today you
need 8 MB for Windows and 2 MB for an Amiga, and again stressed how
much advantage the price difference between a multimedia PC (2000+ DM) and
an Amiga (implying 1200, below 1000 DM) makes. Also the way the custom
chips make the design cost effective. That was good marketing ;)
The whole interview emanated a modern, 'lean, mean, fighting machine' image.
Then they talked some about the recent purchase of [can't remember the
name, sounded like Hageka or Hakema] the telecommunications company.
The presenter asked a lot of quick questions whether the Amiga would also
be utilized in the communication business, to which I couldn't get a firm
impression, Manfred Schmitt gave some answers, but they were kind of
vague promising. (That and that I just got up and nearly fell asleep
again by this time..).
At the end Manfred Schmitt again stressed the Amiga's capabilities
(they seemed to talk little about Commodore :) and the position of
Intel/MicroSoft and the Amiga's future. The presenter vaguely implied
he was guessing it seemed) forthcoming news next year regarding new
models to which Manfred answered with a subtle smile..
The presenter then closed the show with stating that in the future there
will be more Amiga items.
Manfred Schmitt made a relaxed impression too, it was a good interview.
I might be forgetting something here and there, since I'm still sleepy,
but thought you would like to know that finally they have come out of the
bush a bit and started marketing the damn product, even though nothing was
said we already didn't know. At least the general public now gets the
message (the show is quite popular in Germany, at least among the computing
public). BTW, I love those guys, they slagged off Windows 95 pretty badly
about a month ago, due to it's installation-horrors, unstableness and
bloatedness :^)
The show will be aired again tomorrow, Monday 23rd Octobre at 06:00 and
23:45 CET. You might also catch it on the Astra satellite, though I don't
know which channel that would be (WDR).
N E W D I S T R I B U T I O N M E T H O D
Starting with this issue of the newsletter I'm using a new mailing method.
This is due to an increase in the subscriber list. Please let me know that
you received this copy. All you need do is use the reply function of your
mail reader to tell me "I got it". Thanks!
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_ __ _ <>_ __ _ || Brad Webb - available at:
/\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || webb@malamute.med.ge.com
/__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || bandr@globaldialog.com
/ \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ || Portal -- XJumpdisk
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