We continue a looks back over nearly
30 years of errors
Ever since Commodore took over the original
Amiga company, the E format has been beset by mistakes in development and
marketing that in some cases, even at the time (with a lack of hindsight,) took
your breath away.
The A300
This has to be the biggest error that
Commodore made in the mainstream markets with the Amiga, with even David
Pleasance (Managing Director at Commodore UK) referring to the handling of the
machine as "complete and utter screw-up" (though often misquoted as
though he was referring to the machine itself.)
The machine was originally intended to be
released as a replacement for the Commodore 64, which the company was desperate
to retire after ten years on the market, as the economics of making it made
little sense, even though there was still a demand, especially in Europe.
The plan was to market the machine at a
slightly higher price than the C64, but at least $150 less than the A500/A500
Plus had been, at around $225-300. It was the first machine to use all surface
mounted technology (SMT), the first of the small machines to have a built-in
IDE hard drive interface and, to keep the price as low as possible, no numeric
keypad.
The
machine was originally intended to be released as a replacement for the
Commodore 64
The Amiga 300, as it was called, was due to
launch in spring 1992, below the A500 Plus, refreshing the 16-bit line ready
for the 32-bit Amiga 1200 (with the more advanced AGA chipset) to be launched
in the autumn, as the aspirational home computer. Commodore UK planned to go
into Christmas with a good supply of Amiga 1200 machines at $600 RRP and Amiga
600 starter machines at $300
Bundles were organized, with a launch set
of Lemmings and Deluxe Paint III in the offing, while Commodore UK set up its
own manufacturing facility in Scotland, in a former Timex factory, for SMT
machines (later to include the A1200).
Commodore
UK planned to go into Christmas with a good supply of Amiga 1200 machines at
$600 RRP and Amiga 600 starter machines at $300
Just as the machine was about to enter
final production, Commodore International pulled the rug from under it. Irving
Gould and Medhi Ali, at the top of the company, forced a U-turn. The A500 plus
was becoming more expensive to manufacture so it was terminated early, and they
went for the quick buck rather than having a consistent strategy snatching
defeat from the jaws of victory.
Even in full knowledge that the A1200 would
be along in a few months, the A300 was re-targeted as a replacement for the
A500 Plus. To maximize profit potential in the short-term, the machine was
priced the same as the A500 Plus - $450, invalidating the whole point of the
project. To ensure it was seen by the general public as an upgrade from the
A500, it was simply rebadged as the Amiga 600 (early motherboards still had
A300 printed on them!)
Even
in full knowledge that the A1200 would be along in a few months, the A300 was
re-targeted as a replacement for the A500 Plus.
Commodore's international sales teams then
had the machines forced on them, including an irate Commodore UK. To make
matters worse, the machine, unsurprisingly, didn't sell well, and as a result
the top execs vetoed the original manufacture date on the Al 200 until A600
stocks were run lower. The end result of that was a shortage of A1200s over
Christmas 1992 and lots of customer disappointment.
More next time.
Whoops!
A quick apology, gremlins got into the
system and a couple of errors crept into Amiga Mart in issue 1263.
Firstly, of course, the Amiga 500 never had
a built-in TV modulator, as the A520 modulator was an external option that was
later included in A500 bundle boxes (as stated in the paragraph after the
error).
Relokick 1.3 and its peers at the time were
in no way emulators. They simply replaced core parts of later Kickstart ROM
code with those from Kickstart 1.3, which allowed some games and other software
to boot that otherwise tripped up on machines with Kickstart 2 and above a bit
like replacing Windows 8 code with something from XP.
