Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

8
NEWS
Any hopes that the 1200 would be
released for under E200 have been well
and truly quashed with the news that the
relaunched model will cost 099. This
means the machine will reappear at E50
more than when it left the marketplace in
the summer of last year. The reason given
for such an increase is the cost of higher
charges for rushed manufactunng, casing,
and the increased cost of DRAM_
The 98020-based 1200 is expected to
hit UK high streets at the end of
September with a maximum of 60.000
allocated to British distributors.
The biggest shock, however, are the
prices rumoured for the re-release of the
4000T - alter an American distributor
announced that they were to sell the
4000T for $3,500, Amiga Technologies
fired back saying that this simply wasn't
the case and no price had been decided
upon yet.
Since then, a meeting has taken place
in Philadelphia where several key figures
from Escom/Amiga Technologies including
Petro Tyschtschenko, Senior Vice
President of Escom and General Manager
of Amiga Technologies, and many distributors
from round America, attended to
discuss the Amiga's future in the US.
Apparently at the top of the debating list
was price.
The rumoured cost for the 4000T will be
in the $2700 region - the reason given
was the expense of parts being put
together costing that much.
A surprising plan also unveiled is that
the 4000T will receive no advertising from
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It has been confirmed by Petro Tyschtschenko.
Senior Vice President of Escom and General
Manager of Amiga Technologies, that the Amiga
will not be appearing in any of the Escom shops
dotted rourfd the country. The reason for this decision
was explained by Tyschtschenko: "We used
to stock the Apple range in our shops but it was
unsuccessful. We would need people who were
Amiga educated but the Escom shop staff are very
much geared towards the PC."
Instead, it looks like the main bulk of sales
will be made through the independent retailers
and any chain stores that decide to come on
board.
Amiga Computing
OCTOBER 1995
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Oil RR PHILLIPS
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Amiga Technologies in the States on its
relaunch - Tyschtschenko told Amiga
Computing that any advertising would be
handled by the distributors themselves.
There will be some 1200s winging their
way to the US of A. Johnalhan Anderson,
the new general manager of Amiga
Technologies UK, explained: The States
will be taking the 1200 in small numbers
but we've found the American consumer
prefers the lower-style type computer and
not the look of the 1200."
As for the 40001's relaunch into Britain,
according to one UK company, White
Knight Technology, they were told by
Silica, the distributors, that the high-end
machine will definitely be released in the
040 version at the confirmed retail price of
£1,900 + VAT. It will come with 2 meg chip
RAM. 4 meg FastRAM and a 1.2 gig SCSI
2 hard drive.
The fact that for this price there will be
no monitor or CD drive included in the
setup has drawn gasps of horror from both
sides of the Atlantic. Also, the 060 version
to be released later on is rumoured to cost
an estimated E2,150 + VAT. No-one at
Amiga Technologies was able to give a
definite answer on pricing at the time of
going to press.
Tyschtschenko also commented that
they still weren't sure how they were going
to market the 4000T on its arrival in the
UK: 'The US market is very buoyant and a
good market for the 4000T, but we're still
planning what we'll be doing for Europe -
Fes a very niche market for the machine."
Meanwhile, the manufacture of the
new lite for IllytaPro
The much-heralded landscape package has
received a useful ally in the form of GeoMomh. The
utility is a landscape morph ing program that allows
the user to create surrealistic fly-by animations.
There are several types of morph available:
Linear morphs where the entire landscape changes
at a constant rate, accelerated morphs where the
Change accelerates or decelerates, and 'wipes'
where the change starts at one side or corner of the
landscape and sweeps across.
machine is taking place in a factory near
Bordeaux in France by a company called
Solectron. For your £399, Amiga
Technologies is throwing in software as
part of a bundle to go along with the
machine. The Scala MM300 has been
announced as a package that will go with
the system, but it's doubtful the package
will ever appear for the floppy-based 1200,
Anderson commented: -
There's including the Scala n system o with a floppy-
pbased o 1200 i n with t no hard drive it would be
iimpractical. n The 1200 with a hard drive
though is much more practical and useful.'
Questions are still being asked about the
size of hard drive that will be provided a
figure floating around currently is 170Mb.
Bad news, though, came in the shape of
the CD32 - apparently there are no plans
presently for resuming the console in the
States or the UK other than being possibly
used as a key technology for kiosk
displays. This was verified by Jonathan
Anderson, but he hastened to point out that
there are deals going on with various
companies including a Canadian bank to
use the CD32 in the commercial arena.
The future of the FMV cartridge is looking
decidedly shaky as well if reports are to be
believed.
There was a meeting between the
general managers of all the European subsidiaries
on 3 August where many matters
such as pricing, distribution and much more
were resolved. Any official news will have
to wait though until the press conference to
be held by Amiga Technologies on 16
August. More news next month,
•
_-•
• SENA
NEW
• NNW
• MEM
GoollOorph: Brirsoing now lite to VistoPro
Grow or shhnk trees, empty or fill lakes, change positions of rivers, make clouds that move
and change. plus alter treelines. snowlines and sea levels on the fly. GeoMorph requires
Vista Pro 3 and a system with hard disk and a minimum of 4 meg. Costing $69.95, interested
punters should call Chaocity on 001 805 925 7732.
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