11 February 2024, 00:53 | #3181 |
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That's no surprise; MacOS is still a disaster zone and it's no joke to say that we have to warn our users when there's an update that all their 3rd party software will likely fail to run.
Kudos to Apple though, they usually get stuff fixed in short order with a point-release update. They also do some pretty braindead stuff though; the most frustrating was dropping the system sample rate to 8khz when BT audio devices were enabled a few years back. That resulted in so many support calls. |
11 February 2024, 01:38 | #3182 | ||
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Windows wasn't that great before NT and NT was not that usable before Windows XP. So during the 90s all major operating systems were still very vulnerable to misbehaving programs The Pink -> Taligent -> CommonPoint disaster is of course very famous ... literally hundreds of developers over 7 years - and in the end a half finished product that underwent a further transformation into a Java framework to be at least somewhat useful ... Why Copland was such a disaster and could not get finished is hard to understand since Apple had something just like it already running and working since 1988: A/UX In essence a System 7 on top of UNIX - just what the "Bluebox" of Copland was supposed to be. There was also a version for other Unixes: MAE even featuring a 68k emulation layer for SPARK and PA-RISK So why not just take a BSD kernel, replace X11 with something more direct add a GUI and be done? |
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11 February 2024, 09:32 | #3183 |
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Yes but this is a point that can be more easily forgiven to Microsoft because this in an OS which have to deal with a lot of different hardware. Apple had the control of the whole. Someone know if MacOS 9 used a MMU?
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11 February 2024, 13:18 | #3184 | |
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(But that was missing in some models like the Mac LC) |
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12 February 2024, 10:45 | #3185 |
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Problem was, Commodore engineering were already slow without the intervention of the clowns like Mehdi Ali and Bill Sydnes, who made the things even worse. From 1987 to 1992 there was no significant update on the A500 released in 1987, instead they showed on CES like events new OCS/ECS machines with Zorro slot, or 68030 cpu added. There were also disasters like CDTV project which sunk 90M$, C64GS ended up commodore to cannibalize the unsold boards to place in C64C machines which was still selling. No need to mention working on a new 8-bit machine in 1987 to 1991 "C65" which market had no interest. All flops. CDTV sold a few 100s in US, and 30k in UK, 20k in Germany surprisingly. US people totally dismissed it. Then geniuses Mehdi/Bill thought the future was PCs and did nothing on Amiga for 6 months. After that realized that the PC market was overtaken by Taiwanese attack of the clones. Then came the infamous A600 from Bill Sydnes, which further detoriated the situation for Commodore. In the mean time, to promote A600 sales they cancelled the still selling A500plus production, which on its own shooting directly on your head not even on your foot. A1200 was done in panic mode, using A600 as base machine and shoehorning some AAA/AA working chips on it. It is no miracle that it was not enough/too late/future proof. Games like the Wing Commander/Wolfenstein 3D/Alone in the Dark made the PC gaming took high off together with powerful 386/486 CPUs. And finally, Doom was the final nail in the coffin, since the bare A1200 could not run it. Overall story is similar to what happened to Nokia/Blackberry phones. If you don't innovate and be in line with customer expectations, end result will be what happened to commodore in 1994. Overall, still Irving Gould was the main responsible person that this all happened under his ego/hunger for holding grip on power/watch.
Last edited by oscar_ates; 12 February 2024 at 16:31. |
27 February 2024, 17:53 | #3186 |
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There was a really interesting article from the Village Voice from 1994 posted on Reddit today https://www.reddit.com/r/amiga/comme...e_changed_the/
I thought this was a great quote from a Commodore sales rep to sum up Commodore management "we're a 90-day company," valuing short-term profit over long term strategy. I'd also never heard the Star Trek story which is pretty crazy, a great read. |
27 February 2024, 18:52 | #3187 | |
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I just imagine these ungrateful engineers reading Bruce fierce defense of Commodore management. Strangely they doesn't blame only the users for Commodore demise. Last edited by sokolovic; 27 February 2024 at 19:21. |
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28 February 2024, 06:55 | #3188 | |
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28 February 2024, 08:00 | #3189 | |||
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I found this reference to an 'Amagination' store from 1999:- Quote:
By 1993 Commodore needed to move stock rapidly or they were dead. If the 'dealer network' was holding them back then I don't blame them for changing an anticompetitive sales policy. AFAIK Commodore NZ didn't have any such restriction. You bought the computers from Commodore and sold them however you liked at whatever price you liked. The only problem I had in 1993 was getting enough A1200s to sell. |
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28 February 2024, 10:33 | #3190 | |
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With respect to the "we're a 90-day company" thing, Commodore was a public company trading on the stock exchange, which required quarterly reporting so investors would know how the company was doing. But the big retail chains preferred to buy stock for Christmas in October and November, while Commodore's fiscal year ended in June. As result they would 'pre-sell' stuff throughout the year to maintain a steady sales volume for each quarter. As for 'short-term profit over long term strategy', that's the result of companies being expected to maximize shareholder value. Unfortunately courts have ruled that maximizing short-term profit is effectively a fiduciary requirement, often further distorted by CEOs getting stock options or bonuses for increasing the stock price. That's what happens when you let anybody buy a share of your business! [ Show youtube player ] |
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29 February 2024, 23:25 | #3191 | ||
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01 March 2024, 02:34 | #3192 | ||
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Still not making much sense. Quote:
The other suspicious bit is 'complete with a programmer "to make it do whatever the hell Paramount could possibly want,"'. So they wanted more than just the machine? I'm not saying this story is BS, but something doesn't seem quite right about it. |
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01 March 2024, 09:57 | #3193 |
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01 March 2024, 10:15 | #3194 |
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I have heard the story about the Star Trek movie lots of the time and don't see any reason to not believe it. The computer isn't just a stage prop, it's basically the central piece of the scene and, if I were making a movie, I'd make sure I have been granted the rights to use it from the computer company. Since the 1980s things have changed and movie makers are actually taking money for product placement but they learned there was this opportunity exactly from this Star Trek episode.
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01 March 2024, 10:56 | #3195 |
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A very similar case is Silicon Graphics, which got featured in Jurassic Park (also included Thinking Machine!) and Twister.
In both cases they provided complete pro-bono work to 'make it do whatever hollywood wanted'. While SGI is a different target market it definitely was a great marketing ploy for likely not all that much money. |
01 March 2024, 14:09 | #3196 | |
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Worst of all, in the movie, Nedry use a MacIntosh Quadra, probably provided courtesy of Apple. Jurassic Park was so massive in 1993, I can't even understand why Commodore didn't use this showcase of Amiga habilities in a marketing campaign. Can you imagine A4000 were also used in 1997 Titanic ? A computer released in 1992 without any real support since 1994 was used in one of the biggest movie production at that time. Last edited by sokolovic; 01 March 2024 at 14:17. |
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01 March 2024, 20:02 | #3197 | |
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In Titanic, they used Amiga + Lightwave for pre-vis only. No final effects were made on it though AFAIK. |
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14 March 2024, 13:10 | #3198 |
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No, not at all because:
1) Internal IDE. No more stupid GVP on the side of my A500 crashing when I bumped it. 2) PMCIA 3) Smaller form factor.. WAY smaller than an A500 with GVP. 4) AGA graphics 5) DBLNTSC mode for BBS'ing. 6) FASTER (Not significantly but enough) 7) Newer WB roms I didn't play games all that much, so for me the A1200 was awesome. My PC friends were alll amazed by the Amiga. The multitasking was far better than windows at the time. |
14 March 2024, 13:56 | #3199 | |
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The very fact that the Amiga could be used in its production, long time after it stopped to be supported anymore is a testimony of how advanced the machine was. Strangely they didn't chose to use a superpowerful 1997 PC (or a SNES) for the pre endering. |
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14 March 2024, 15:15 | #3200 |
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