Re: The Apple ][ was cool!

[Jeff Thomas <a2forever@usa.net>]

Rubywand wrote:

> MagerValp writes ...
> >
> > >>>>> "R" == Rubywand  <rubywand@swbell.net> writes:
> >
> > R> Commodore and Atari "lost the plot" in 1985 when they abandoned
> > R> their 65xx machine user bases. Neither the ST nor the Amiga was
> > R> ever serious competition for PC.
> >
> > What? The Amiga and Atari ruled the home computer market during the
> > late 80s and early 90s.
> >
>  ....
>
>      Unfortunately, no. Things would have been a good deal more interesting had
> either machine captured a big chunk of the home market; but, it never happened.
>
>      Although Amiga was a better computer than ST, it was a much bigger
> mistake. By 1985 there weren't all that many Atari users; but, Commodore had a
> chance to easily move many thousands of C64 users up to any new 65xxx-based
> 'Super C64' it might introduce. Instead, Commodore came out with a totally
> alien 'color Mac'.
>
> Rubywand

The worst mistakes Commodore ever made were in the early 1990s. (Read below
to find out why). Luckily, Apple was quicker to embrace new technologies than they
did.

According to an official Commodore brochure over 10 million Commodore 64s & 128s
were sold by 1990.

Firstly in 1990, Atari successfully managed to create a similarly specified Amiga
�knock-off� (4,096 colour palette, 8-bit stereo sound, �Blitter� (GFX) chip
variant, 1Mb Ram standard, etc), the Atari 1040STe.

A price war broke-out between the two companies. Eventually, Atari leaves the
market and focuses solely on the game console market with the Lynx and Jaguar.
Commodore wasn�t left �undamaged�, the biggest mistake made was the unannounced
launch of the Amiga 500Plus in December 1991, which had a newer chip set and
operating system (Workbench 2.0). The biggest problem was �software�
incompatibility � suddenly more than half the games didn�t work.

By now, more and more games, were pushing the limits of the Amiga (5 year old
technology) like �Alien Breed�, �First Samurai�, �Mega-lo-Mania�, �Agony� and
�Monkey Island 2: Le Chuck�s Revenge� spanning eleven-disks meaning lots of
disk-swapping!

The PC was becoming faster and finally got some �decent� graphics thanks to Super
VGA (256 colours from a palette of 256,000 colours) and emergence of SoundBlaster
as the Digitised sound standard, helped create a growing games market. By default,
the PC version of games could be installed on the hard drive (whereas most Amiga
games were never designed for that purpose).

Commodore�s response to the PC threat? The Amiga 1200 for the home user. Graphics
got a badly needed boost from 32 colours (of 4,096 colours) to 256 from a palette
of 16.7 million. 2.5� Hard drives (and more expensive) were now shipped standard.
The floppy drive remained the same, single-sided format. And the sound chip stayed
the same, 8-bit 4 channels. Lastly, the processor chip was only 14Mhz.
Better technology was available at the time, but Commodore refused to use it �
citing costs as the reason.

Even Workbench seemed like child�s play in comparison to Windows 3.1 on the PC.

Top selling PC titles converted to the Amiga 1200, were mostly hitting the
limitations of the machine. Games like Wing Commander, Dune 2, Sim City 2000,
A-Train, etc.

What really got people flocking to the PC camp (and taking PC gaming seriously),
was the arrival of �Ultima: Underworld: The Stygian Abyss�, then the first-person
shooter �Wolfenstein 3D� in 1992. Next came, �Doom� and those many clones � nothing
could match it. And flight simulator buffs wanted �Falcon 3�.

In 1993, CD-ROMs, Sound Cards and Super VGA were becoming more common in PCs.
Multi-media was the new buzzword with games appearing on CD-ROM, and the Amiga
forever falling further behind with lots of promises of newer machines since.

The Amiga 1200, still �never� had an �official� Commodore CD-ROM drive even by 1994
when the company went bust. Sales from the Commodore 64 had now dried up.

Where is the Amiga now? Taken over, by Gateway 2000 in America. Sadly, no new
computer systems since (despite promises) � only updates to the operating system.
And the Commodore brand name? Tulip Computers (one of the largest European
manufactures of PCs) in Holland brought that and now are called, yip� Commodore.