[Rant] Was the Amiga a flop? | ANN.lu |
Posted on 10-Oct-2002 08:45 GMT by Anon | 60 comments View flat View list |
In a Slate article the author predicts demise of the Tivo, drawing a parallel with the Amiga's fate.
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Was the Amiga a flop? : Comment 51 of 60 | ANN.lu |
Posted by Glenn on 12-Oct-2002 10:47 GMT | In reply to Comment 18 (bah!): Actually, Windows3.11 was a flop and windows 95 is in the process of flopping!
Glenn
Florida |
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Was the Amiga a flop? : Comment 52 of 60 | ANN.lu |
Posted by John Block on 12-Oct-2002 11:07 GMT | A technology led company which did not invest in technology. |
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Was the Amiga a flop? : Comment 53 of 60 | ANN.lu |
Posted by Don Cox on 12-Oct-2002 12:43 GMT | In reply to Comment 50 (KARL): "What I am saying is Commodore flopped not the Amiga."
I don't think Commodore flopped. I think Gould and Ali deliberately
closed it down, first extracting every dollar they could into their
own bank accounts.
They probably would have liked to sell it as a going concern, as that
would have given them even more cash, but they overdid the extraction.
Neither of them is living in poverty (if they are both still alive).
Neither of them had the slightest interest in the products the company
was selling. |
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Was the Amiga a flop? : Comment 54 of 60 | ANN.lu |
Posted by Anonymous on 12-Oct-2002 12:58 GMT | In reply to Comment 34 (Mike Veroukis): A TiVo is not a digital VCR. That misunderstanding is why the article author expects TiVo to flop just like the Amiga. He thinks most users will never understand what TiVo is. He could be right. TiVo is a different way of watching TV. You tell TiVo what you like and don't like (by pressing 'thumb up' and 'thumb down' buttons while watching) and it seeks out more of what you like. You can tell it to keep everything from a series ("Oooh, Buffy - TiVo record all Buffy") and it doesn't distinguish between live TV and recorded TV. So you stop waiting for adverts and just hit "pause" when you need a toilet break.
It completely changes people's TV behaviour. They won't watch anything they don't like, and they no longer "surf around". A 22 minute show (that you're used to thinking of as half-an-hour) takes a new TiVo owner 25 minutes to watch. An old hand takes 20 minutes, makes a sandwich and misses nothing, micro-rewinding to catch that subtle visual gag in The Simpsons, skipping an obvious cliche in a sitcom.
If you like TV enough that you pay for extra channels you probably ought to buy TiVo. If you buy video box sets to watch episodes that you missed, and then never watch them again then you should buy TiVo. If your TV watching is confined to flicking through a few channels when bored [like me] you don't need one.
TiVo service is needed because no significant countries throught of requiring their TV networks to include decent metadata with the TV signal. So in order to know that there's a movie starting on BBC4 which stars Madonna (who you have previously rated very definitely "thumbs up") the TiVo has to regularly call home and ask for TiVo-specific metadata. This costs money.
Without the metadata the TiVo is just a very expensive, if slightly cooler looking, digital VCR. |
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Was the Amiga a flop? : Comment 55 of 60 | ANN.lu |
Posted by Mike Veroukis on 12-Oct-2002 13:21 GMT | In reply to Comment 54 (Anonymous): TiVo does sound cool, and not that geeky either. it seems to do things quite intuitively. I'd consider it if i was a huge TV watcher, which I'm not.
- Mike |
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Was the Amiga a flop? : Comment 56 of 60 | ANN.lu |
Posted by John Block on 12-Oct-2002 14:03 GMT | Other advantages would be:
Not having to find space on a tape
Finding programs without winding and rewinding and swapping tapes.
Disadvantages:
Limited hours
If you want to hold on to a program, it blocks up space, while a video can be put on the shelf.
Dependancy on a company for the data. |
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Was the Amiga a flop? : Comment 57 of 60 | ANN.lu |
Posted by strobe on 13-Oct-2002 00:55 GMT | And tape doesn't have a limitation on hours?
If you want more hours buy a larger hard drive.
The only disadvantage is the subscription. I'm waiting for a computer-based solution. They are available, but the quality is lacking.
Ideally a firewire dongle DVR |-) (there is one available, but its expensive) |
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Was the Amiga a flop? : Comment 58 of 60 | ANN.lu |
Posted by John Block on 13-Oct-2002 10:27 GMT | In reply to Comment 57 (strobe): Just had a quick search and read that you can put in two 120gb hds giving 306 hours
This is 1.27 hours per GB
Or using long play (4hour tape holding 8 hours) 38.25 video tapes. |
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Was the Amiga a flop? : Comment 59 of 60 | ANN.lu |
Posted by Bobbie Sellers on 14-Oct-2002 16:54 GMT | Most of the comments have been poorly informed as to what
actually happened with Commodore Business Machines. The majority
shareholder, Irving Gould didn't understand the computer business
and wanted it to be a cash cow. He got people in like Sidnes from
IBM, noted for his part in the IBM PC Jr. one of the real flops of
all time. Sidnes extended his magic across product lines causing
the A4000 to be produced with IDE instead of SCSI, and cutting off
development of the next generation of Amiga graphics chips for the
AGA which was extremely under powered for the market.
Gould had to switch CEOs a lot but eventually he got a CEO,
Medi Ali, who would do as Gould bid. Ali had the highest salary
of all CEOs in the Computer Business as the Company was carefully
piloted down the tubes. The CBM corporate offices had been moved
offshore(the Bahamas, I believe) long before to avoid the inquiry
that USA courts would require. The chip manufacturing site had
spilled tons of toxics and needed cleanup. Before this could
happen Gould had made personal loans and loans thru his
businesses to keep CBM in debt to him and his businesses.
Finally with the legitimate debtors not being paid and the
Gould controlled debts beginning to demand payment and Ali's
enormous salary there was no money left. The bankruptcy happened
and was adjudicated offshore. Gould got whatever money was left
and an enormous number of CD32 machines, more than 100,000 which
were sold off at about $70 USD around the world. The majority of
the legitimate debtors were left with bad(uncollectable) debts.
None of the Amiga machines produced by CBM really flopped,
but they offered too little in the A1200 and the A4000
a few years later than they should have.
The business was taken down by greed.
Of course a lot of this is my personal opinion based
interpretation of what observably happened.
later
bliss (doing the web on A2000b/060/CV 64 3d) |
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Was the Amiga a flop? : Comment 60 of 60 | ANN.lu |
Posted by Don Cox on 14-Oct-2002 17:13 GMT | In reply to Comment 59 (Bobbie Sellers): That matches what I think happened at Commodore, except I didn't know
about the CD32s.
Gould would have wanted any business he ran to be a cash cow. He was a
money guy, only. Also, at his age you are not interested in building |
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Anonymous, there are 60 items in your selection (but only 10 shown due to limitation) [1 - 50] [51 - 60] |
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