An Interesting Thing Happened On My Way To The Mailbox
AMIGAphile Volume 1 Number 1 (JUNE 1992)
I always assumed that everyone had an opinion about everything. I never imagined some of the opinions I received relating to Amigaphile, the Amiga, and Commodore. Many of these are straight forward and some are just meant to be fun but there are others who are very serious about their machine. I have found that in general, Amiga owners have a good sense of humor and don't tend to take criticism too harshly. However, when they are asked to stand up for what they believe in they jump right in with both feet.
"HELP! I'm an Amiga owner, and I feel so ALLOOOONNNEEEE! :-) (well, okay, I'm not THAT desparate, but I AM still interested in your survey.)"
"At least someone is doing something to support Amiga (the only true computer...)"
"I await with anticipation for further developments in this user group! The A600 WAS a mistake."
"I just read your note in comp.sys.amiga.misc. And it's quite true what you said. Here In Finland we have quite many Amigas, but it is considered only as a game machine. So I'm interested on your idea."
"I think the Amiga is a great computer for the home and lots of fun. I wish that I could get more respect for the Amiga, but I've found that among "those in the know" or people who are computer literate, the Amiga is "awesome". People who really know will tell MS-DOGS that the Amiga can in 1/2 Mg of RAM do full multi-tasking OS and Workbench that takes a PC at least 4 megs, and a RISC Workstation 8 megs. The Amiga OS is small and efficient. Who wants UNIX (memory and disk hog) when I have to use it at work, it's okay. But at home "I want my AmigaDos!"
"I don't understand what you're asking for here. Is it my opinion of how well Amigas are selling? That's hardly useful or even serious information. If it's my opinion of their sales dept., see marketing. Sales wise, there's over 3 million Amigas, vs something like 10 million Macs and 40 million PC clones. Something like 75% of Amiga sales are in Europe, though. What Commodore needs to make an inroad into the US is an Amiga 1000-type box with an 020/030, 1 meg fast/1meg chip ram (internally expandable to at least 4meg fast), a harddisk, and a display enhancer for <$1000. Hmmm-I've almost described an A3000. Well, that's what they need... It's hard to sell people on Amiga 500s with flicker and no harddisk when VGA 386s with 24 bit color are sub $1000. While MS-DOS is still completely brain-dead (and most MS-DOS applications user-hateful) and Windows will never match WorkBench's elegance and ease of use ("Screens?" what's a "Screen?"), PCs are certainly catching up to Amigas. It makes me sick. Good luck with Amigaphile!"
"Amiga is the great machine with great potential, but Commodore does not seem to know how to sell/advertise it. It seems to me like the users are doing the commercial for them. Sometimes I imagine how great the Amiga would be if it is owned by other company such as GVP. (Only my own opinion)"
"I try to maintain a balanced view of the Amiga. The Amiga is a wonderful machine. I've sunk a great deal of my personal resources into developing my home system. But it's not the only machine. It appeals to people like me who are technically inclined to be hackers, explorers, and hobbyists. It's not the ideal business machine, and I doubt that it ever will be. But if IBM had bought Amiga instead of Commodore, however many years ago, the world would be a different place today, and there would be no need for Apple computers at all."
What other computers do you own? An IBM compatible. "it's a laptop - something CBM's too braindead to develop"
Now that you've seen what others think.... What do YOU think? I'm interested. Write and tell me. Like I said above, everyone has an opinion. I've also noticed that most people don't mind sharing them.
