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Amiga Update (1997-04-01)
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_ __ _ <>_ __ _ ||
/\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || A M I G A U P D A T E
/__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || -News and Rumors-
/ \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_|| (An Occasional Newsletter)
BACK FOR THE FUTURE ||
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AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga Technologies, GmbH
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970401
8 M E G S O F C H I P R A M - S O O N !
C O U R T C H A L L E N G E T O G A T E W A Y S A L E
N E W A M I G A L O G O !
A N O T E T O N O N - U S A R E A D E R S
Editor's thoughts and introduction;
We have some very interesting stories for you today, especially so in
the wake of the recent sale of Amiga Technologies to Gateway 2000. We
think you'll find some of the information presented to be a real eye
opener.
Because of the interconnected nature of some of the stories, we
recommend strongly that you read this issue in its entirety. Readers
outside the USA are especially urged to read the final article in the
newsletter. In fact, it would probably be a good idea for many of our
USA readers to check it out, too.
We hope you enjoy this issue.
Brad Webb,
Editor
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8 M E G S O F C H I P R A M - S O O N !
8 Megs of Chip Ram Soon To Be Available for AGA Amigas
Exclusive to Amiga Update
by Colin Thompson
1 April 1997
For years, the Holy Grail of Amiga hardware designers has been to
break the mythical 2 meg Chip Ram barrier.
As most of us know, the AGA's Alice chip, which controls Chip Ram
addressing cannot see more than 2 Megabytes of RAM . Therefore all
Amigas have been limited to this tiny (by today's standards) amount of
Chip, or "video" Ram.
This 2 meg limit has always been thought to be unbreakable. Recently,
Cloanto, the makers of Personal Paint, introduced a daring new
concept: A new blitter that uses fast RAM in addition to CHIP RAM. In
theory, this would break the 2 meg CHIP RAM limit. However, the new
blitter only works with Personal Paint. While this is a boon to PPaint
users, the new blitter is not a system wide cure.
If any of you A4000 owners have looked under the hood of your beast,
you might have spotted a jumper on the motherboard, labeled "2MB/8MB
CHIP".
Hundreds of unsuspecting A4K owners have changed the jumper to 8K,
rebooted and were immediately disappointed when they found that their
computer did not magically have 8 megs of Chip available.
So why does the jumper exist? According to Dave Hanie, Commodore was
planning on an 8 meg option for the 4000 and 1200, but decided at the
last minute to stay with a piddly 2 megs. Cost was cited as the
reason. In my view, shortsightedness was the real culprit.
Commonly held Amiga lore says there existed only a handful of the 8
meg Alice chips, and they were breadboarded prototypes.
Here's where this story takes a right turn.
When Escom bought Commodore two years ago, the deal was held up for a
long time until the value of Commodore's holdings could be evaluated.
This meant that a physical inventory had to be made at all of
Commodore plants and sites worldwide.
The inventory was eventually completed and the sale was concluded.
During the following turbulent year, Escom experienced many troubles
and was forced into bankruptcy. But before the bankruptcy, they tried
to liquidate anything of value it had on the shelves, or in the former
Commodore warehouses.
A few "blind auctions" were held during 1996. Bids were solicited for
lots of unopened boxes of surplus and outdated Amiga hardware and
software. By this time, Dale L. Larson, a famous "ex-Commodore
engineer", had opened his own company called Intangeble Assets
Manufacturing. Dale had put in bids on many lots and was eventually
awarded several, based on his high bids.
Time went by. Dale eventually announced he had located several boxes
of Boing Logos, leftover from the A1000 days. The logos proved popular
with Amiga affecionados. With his inventory of Boing Logos running
very low, Dale marshalled his employees to perform another search of
all the boxes he had purchased from Escom.
They found no more Boings, but they did notice 18 large wooden
crates, marked "AmigaBasic Manuals".
There was no room to store the crates inside the volumnous IAM
warehouse, so they had been pushed outside onto the lawn, awaiting
their final journey to the local dump.
Since the crates were located on the well manicured bluegrass turf,
Dale instructed IAM's Turf Grass Manager, Barbara Wray to crack open
one to make sure they were really filled with books. No one had
actually checked the contents.
What she found were thousands of chips, tightly packed in plastic
containers. The markings on the chips indicated they were made by
Commodore in 1992 and were of a type "8374-8". That's an odd Alice
chip. Puzzled by the discovery, Dale ordered all the crates opened. It
turned out that half of the boxes held these cryptic Alice chips and
the other 9 crates held a huge number of what turned out to be 8 meg
CHIP-RAM SIMMs.
What they had uncovered was a veritable treasure trove of secret
Commodore chips that were intended to give the A4000 and A1200 eight
megabytes of Chip Ram!
Where did the chips come from? Who authorized the production? Why
didn't anyone know they existed? How could such a large corporate
expenditure be hidden? Could the cost of manufacturing these chips
have placed enough of a financial burden on Commodore to cause it's
downfall?
These questions added up to a mystery for Dirk Pitt to solve.
The important thing is that there now exists 937,489 matched sets of
8 meg Alice/8 meg CHIP-RAM SIMMS, waiting to be sold to a receptive
public.
So, how soon can you get your AGA Amiga upgraded to 8 megs of Chip
Ram? High-level sources within IAM reveal that they are putting
together a game plan to get the chips distributed to Amiga Repair
Stations throughout the world. They are not ready to announce the
existance of these chips, let alone offer them for sale to the public.
I asked Tom Weeks, a hardware guru, how much he would charge to
install the surface mounted chips. He estimated it would cost about
$100 per computer. No suggested price of the chips has been announced.
When I called IAM and asked them about the existance of these chips,
I was told they had no knowledge of them.
Ha, I know better. And now, so do you.
For the technical wizards among you, the 8374-8 CHIP replaces the
8374 in location U211. The CHIP-RAM SIMM replaces the old one in
location U261 on the A4000.
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C O U R T C H A L L E N G E T O G A T E W A Y S A L E
Malarky, PA, 1 April, 1997 -
In a surprise development just after close of business on the first,
a spokesman for one of the losing groups bidding for Amiga
Technologies announced their intention to challenge the sale to
Gateway 2000 in the German courts.
The group, calling itself the "ARouse Initiative", is headed by
legendary Commodore founder Jack Trammiel. Full partners in the
organization include Irving Gould and Mehdi Ali, sometimes referred to
as the Captain and First Mate of Commodore at the time the company
sank, and Alexander Haig. Long time Amiga market watchers will recall
General Haig as a member of the Commodore Board of Directors, as well
as the Whitehouse Chief of Staff for a brief period under President
Ronald Regan.
Speaking for ARouse, Mr. Trammiel stated "It's time for someone who
knows how to compete in this industry to once again take charge of the
Amiga. Had we won the bidding, we intended to put a management team in
place to restore this computer to its rightful place in the world.
Everyone saw what we could do when we took over Atari and created the
ST line. You watch - we'll equal that triumph in no time." Mr.
Trammiel announced the group had planned to install Sam Trammiel, who
is also his son, as president of Amiga Technologies.
Rumors circulating at the press conference indicated Mr. Gould and
Mr. Ali became partners in ARouse at least partially due to their
experiences with Commodore. Over time, they had become aware that a
few Amiga and Commodore owners were unhappy with their management of
the company and they wished to make amends. Neither could be reached
for comment.
In his short speech to the hastily assembled press representatives,
Mr. Trammiel indicated that MicroSoft had briefly considered
purchasing a minority interest in ARouse. The software giant backed
out just before the sale was final, citing potential conflicts of
interest. "Given the Amiga's well written, efficient and user friendly
operating system, MicroSoft was unsure how their existing customers
would react to their involvement with such a product" stated Mr.
Trammiel.
Few details of the court challenge were made known. We were informed
that The ARouse Initiative has hired the prestigious Washington, D.C.
legal firm of Dewey, Cheetam and Howe to represent them in the
litigation.
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N E W A M I G A L O G O !
"Amiga Update" has learned that Gateway 2000 has developed a new logo
for the revived Amiga Technologies, which will be renamed Amiga
International. As part of a clever promotion designed to tie in with
their popular advertisements featuring cows, Gateway will fall back on
the original Amiga "boing" ball logo, but with a difference.
Gateway spokesman Erin Blarney put it this way "we thought we'd take
the boing ball logo, the very first logo ever for Amiga, and redo it
as a cheese ball. We have a bouncing cheese ball animation which we
intend to include on some of our television advertisements. One of our
cows, probably Bullet, will be shown watching the bouncing cheese
ball. The first 1000 units - in honor or the original Amiga 1000 - to
be manufactured under Gateway auspices will all be equipped with the
cheese ball logo. We expect these models to become collector items,
especially in Wisconsin."
The Amiga Update representative at the announcement was able to view
the animation which will be added to selected TV commercials. She
reported "it's really quite well done. I'm told they did it on a Video
Toaster equipped A4000. The only concern I had was the sound. Instead
of a nice 'boing' as in the old animation, this one had a sort of odd
'squish' sound. It was really quite disgusting".
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A N O T E T O N O N - U S A R E A D E R S
There is a custom in the US concerning the first of April (indicated
by 970401, or 1 April, 1997, 1/4/97 or similar) which may not be known
to all our readers outside the US. This day, called "April Fool's
Day", is a time for pranks and mischief of all kinds. Our advice is to
regard all stories and information, even that presented in well
regarded, serious publications - like this one - with deep suspicion
if the issue is published on April 1.
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Amiga Update on the net: some issues available at:
http://www.sharbor.com/amiga/news/ (in html format)
http://www.amigacom.com (in ASCII text)
Australian Mirror Site: http://www.comcen.com.au/~paulm/index.html
All back issues available (in ASCII text) at:
http://www.globaldialog.com/AdventureCentral/AU.html
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Copyright 1997 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified.
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