AAi WorkBench Volume 2, Number 5-6 May-June 1987, don'tcha know Pre-KEEPS (pre-paper, nonfinal) version compiled by Andre Frech Contributing members: Gerald Owens, Scott Powers, and the Usenet Gurus Tuesday, May 5, 1987 at 7:30 will certainly be an interesting time for all. Of course, we will be meeting at the Boggs Chemistry Building, Lecture Room B6A, at the Georgia Institute os us (he's our New England correspondent.) For further information call Andre Frech (404-565-6363) or Ron Heimbigner (404-394-0577), both after 8pm Eastern time. Since this newsletter will not be out before the May meeting, an announcement for the June meeting is in order. Conditions are the same as above, except that the date is June 2, 1987. Now if you could figure out your new W-4 form these directions shouldn't be difficult... April's meeting went into overtime on the 7th, which was a tuesday, not a yardage marker (there isn't any such thing as a 7th down!) Mary McCullough of Disk Publications flew from Dallas to display the New Aladdin, which is a new concept in interactive video magazines. The crowd's favorite section consisted of an interview with Ron and Nancy. A review of The New Aladdin is still pending due to limited manpower but we hope it will appear in the next issue. Any takers for a review column? Please form a line over here, thank you. Ron Heimbigner wooed the crowd with new and unusual public domain software, which we hope will become a regular feature each month. Robotroff, ping, jive, and melt were mighty popular, and jive continues to be a perennial winner on Index II, our electronic bulletin board. Speaking about bulletin boards (bbs for short), two are up and local to the Atlanta area. Index II is run by Rory Didas and can be reached at 404-991-3569. It contains room for several megabytes of downloads and boasts a rather active discussion group. Spotanae is back up and running after its rather unexpected sojourn, and its number is 404-943-0447. Both operate at 1200 baud, although the latter has line noise in a few isolated areas. Stay tuned in the next couple months for AAi's own bbs, operating on a 30 megabyte machine with 2400 baud capability! We have finally reached the purchasing stage and need to choose a name for the system. Your ideas would be greatly appreciated. We are hoping that the two existing bbs'es will continue their fine service to the Amiga community as discussion boards and that the AAi board will become a repository for software and a read only Amiga Usenet node. In the News... Absoft Corporation has announced the availability of their new AC/BASIC compiler for the Amiga. AC/BASIC is a high speed BASIC compiler, compatible with the AmigaBASIC (Microsoft) interpreter. Absoft, also the developer of the Microsoft BASIC compiler for the Macintosh, claims that most programs developed under the AmigaBASIC interpreter can be compiled with no code change and will run up to 30 times faster. Additionally, AC/BASIC provides full support for the Amiga interface and includes several powerful features not offered with the interpreter, including: BLOCK IF, CASE statement and STATIC as a keyword. The AC/BASIC compiler requires only 56K of RAM and will run on an Amiga with a single disk drive. It generates native object code for the MC68000, does not require line numbers, supports both BCD and IEEE math, 32 and 64 bit floating point and allows development of stand alone applications. There is no charge for redistribution of applications developed with AC/BASIC. AC/BASIC retails for $195 and is not copy protected. For more information contact Absoft Corporation, 4268 N. Woodward, Royal Oak, MI 48072 USA. Phone is 313-549-7111, Telex 235608. New Horizons has released ProWrite Word Processor for the Amiga. ProWrite is a "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG: pronounced wissy-wig) word processor, meaning that your printout looks exactly like what you see on your monitor. You have a choice of fonts in different colors, and the ability to incorporate graphics in the text. The menus are mouse driven and ProWrite is multitasking and compatible with Flow, the Amiga Idea Processor. Prowrite requires a minimum of 512K and Version 1.2 of the operating system software. Information may be had by contacting New Horizons Software, P.O. Box 43167, Austin, TX 78745 or phone 512-329-6215. Desktop Astronomy has made its arrival with the Amiga. No, you can't create your own universes yet (maybe in the next release...or maybe the Amiga 9000!), but Infinity Software introduces Galileo, a full featured astronomy program for the 512K Amiga. With a data base of 1600 stars, Galileo can scroll any portion of the sky for constellation identification, rise and set times of planets and stars, and display the positions and pathways of planets. The sky can be shown from any point on Earth for any date in this century, and show each star in 1 of 9 levels of brightness. Galileo retails for $84.95 plus $3 shipping. In this galaxy, contact Infinity Software, Thais Mazur, Vice President of Marketing, 1331 61st St., Suite F, Emeryville, CA 94608, or phone 415-420-1551. Two Amiga workshops are scheduled for various dates throughout this year and the next. Lincoln College in Illinois has its Fifth Annual Commodore Computer Workshop with Jim Butterfield on July 19-25, 1987. Average tuition and incidental expenses run about $350, and for more information contact Mary McLaughlin, Director of Continuing Education, Lincoln College, 300 Keokuk, Lincoln, IL 62656, phone 217-732-3155. AmiExpo is The Amiga Event. It is a three day conference meeting in Fall 87, and Winter and Spring 1988. Seminars are more Amiga intensive and many papers and important speakers will be present. 1-800-32-AMIGA will get you more information, or write to AmiExpo Headquarters, 211 E. 43rd. St., Suite 301, New York, NY 10017. Scott Powers, who has become our MVP (most valuable player) in Germany, recently sent us a German version of "Run" magazine and a magazine called "68000er" (actually spelled like 68oooer...sounds like a deflated chip!) Scott tells us: " 'What does Commodore do with all its profits?' Research and development, you may answer. Well some may go that way, but Commodore of Germany also sponsors a soccer team here. That's right, a soccer team! How much does Commodore love the sport of soccer you may ask! Would you believe they spend more than 4.5 million dollars a year on the team, that's right, 4.5 million dollars. ... The CBM logo is splattered all over the chests of the bavarian leather-shorted players. So next time you read about Commodore's financial crunch maybe it should be harder to swallow." Well Scott, we do enjoy a degree of muckraking, and at this point no one is really surprised if the director of CBM were to say, "Let them eat cake!" Speaking of upper management, front page articles in Computer Systems News and Electronic Engineering Times (both 4/27/87) report that Thomas Rattigan, CEO of Commodore International, was ousted in a "series of soap opera-like events that unfolded last week" reported CSN. Rattigan was responsible for bringing CBM out of five quarters of financial red with the acquisition of Amiga. Yet analysts were startled to hear that Rattigan was removed from Commodore's offices by security personnel last monday. The flustered CEO promptly filed a 9 million dollar lawsuit, charging that the company had breached his five year contract. New management plans to quickly revamp the marketing and management structure and make operations more streamlined, placing emphasis on advertising and dealer support. Finally we may get some positive action, and not just disappointing media butchery. In fact, this is what Usenet (aka: encyclopaedia Usenetlaetica) guru Gerard Lachac has summarized: Date: 29 Apr 87 11:36:33 GMT Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. First of all, Bill Rizzi writes: > Gould, who is majority stock holder (something like 20%), has >little operations experience and investors don't seem to find that to >their liking. Additionally, Ratzinger (sp?) who had been recently lured >from a position with a major company has done an impressive job in bringing >Commodore back from the brink of bankruptcy. It seems that Gould was >displeased that sales had not rebounded as well as the company books. >This does not bode well for Commodore unless Gould brings in someone >else who is respected by investors and who can get the advertising and >sales up to speed. > > A real shame ... Gerard issues this rebuttal: Not as much a shame as it might be. There is another side to this story. What follows is a thread of messages I pulled off Plink about the recent fiasco at Commodore. After I read these I began to wonder. Read it and you'll know what I mean. (My apologies to the authors of the messages whose names got chopped in my attempt to clean the text) I checked out yesterday's WSJ and also looked at today's. Yesterday's sounded extremely pessimistic, but today's was less so and also very informative. Apparently, the whole thing is due to a power struggle between Gould and Rattigan. About 6 months ago, Rattigan was given a 5 year contract, but starting in January, his responsibilities have been whittled away (according to him). The whole thing came to a head when Rattigan called for a special meeting of the board to try to overthrow Gould and get control, but underestimated Gould's strength. When the board didn't react the way he wanted and he found most of his people fired, he was forced to resign. Rattigan has now sued CBM for 9 million dollars. Besides Rattigan,Nigel Shepherd, N. american product manager, the treasurer, controller, and computer sevices manager were also fired. On the other side, people say Gould was unhappy that Rattigan was giving interviews and releasing information about new Amigas months before they could be delivered. He was also unhappy that North American sales were not pushed more. Apparently, he was the one who sent Amiga design operations to West Germany, where his man, Henri Ruben, supervised final design. Rattigan couldn't have much control in Germany, they said. Rumor says that administration will be cut about 40% in favor of marketing. Nigel Shepherd: "Sometimes personality conflicts override good judgement." The new manager of North American operations was in that position before. He is said to have good relations with bankers. CBM is still negotiating restructuring of loans. Uncertaintly has hurt the situation. (New manager is Alfred Duncan.) This is my interpretation as a result of a brief reading in the library. Please excuse any misinterpretation on my part. Fascinating story, don't you think? Rita I have been talking with a few Amiga people I know, asking for their views on Rattigan's firing. Here are a few items for your consideration: --Rattigan has been presented as the model manager who was bringing CBM back from the brink, but that image is somewhat questionable. The question which should be asked is this: Given the products that Commodore has, is this the best they could be doing at the time? I would tend to doubt it. Granted, the financial losses have been stemmed, but that was mainly a matter of cutting personnel. The profits CBM has shown have still been rather slim. --There have been some disturbing behavior shown recently by CBM under Rattigan (who, as CEO, must take direct responsibility for the total operation), especially in: 1) ADVERTISING: Every quarter, CBM has promised that from now on, they "would not let another quarter go by without Amiga advertising." (That was a direct quote, by the way.) But every quarter so far, we have seen even less advertising than previously. Actually, the last major ad campaign for the Amiga was the "Maserati of personal computers" series that ran about a year ago. 2) MARKETING PLAN: At least for the Amiga, there has yet to be one consistent plan, merely a lot of flailing about (the latest example of which is the "desktop-publishing-is-the- future-of-the-Amiga" line). 3) SIDECAR: What happened to it? CBM still claims that it is being held up by the FCC, when it is well known (and confirmed by a "highly-placed source" in CBM manufacturing) that it passed FCC approval some time ago. Meanwhile, what might have been the breakthrough product for the Amiga now appears destined for a quick dump on the market, then to be taken out of production. 4) 64 EMULATOR: Again, a "lost product." It is known that a third-party company developed such an item. It is also known that they were in negotiations with CBM, either to get permission to market it themselves, or to sell it to Commodore (where, it was rumored, it was to be bundled with the Amiga 500). Now, Commodore denies knowledge of the existence of any such emulator! Once again, this could have become a breakthrough product; by bringing out such an item, Commodore could have accomplished what Apple has failed with the II series and the Mac: a link between their two product lines. Such an arrangement would have benefitted both lines; but the impression many have is that CBM (under Rattigan) got to the emulator and, in essence, killed it. 5) 2000 DELAY: Finally, we get to the matter of the A2000. Introduced several months ago, the 2000 was supposed to be out by May, and to carry a price tag of $1495. Just two weeks ago, dealers were informed that the release date would be pushed back to at least some time in July, and the price would be raised $200. From what I hear, the reaction was highly negative, and re-awakened fears of the many times Commodore would deliver product months after its scheduled release date. I have heard informed estimates that, regardless of Rattigan's departure, when news of the 2000 delay and price increase hit Wall Street, CBM stock would likely drop to where it is now (around 9). This may have been the single biggest reason for Rattigan's dismissal, as many are placing CBM's entire future on the A2000, and any blows to its credibility could be highly damaging. It could be said that, taken together, these fiascos show Rattigan to be less than the miracle worker he has been presented as being. One may wonder how well Commodore (and the Amiga) might have done had all these problem areas been taken care of properly. As one of my sources has speculated, we might now be looking at an installed base of 500,000+ Amigas, rather than the 150,000-200,000 actually sold. But there is a darker possibility that some people have spoken of: Especially considering the haste in which the dismissal was made, it may be possible that Mr. Rattigan (and others?) may have been planning a coup d'etat--a takeover from within. According to this theory, the lack of advertising, the Sidecar vanishing act, and especially the A2000 delay may not be the result of incompetence, but of deliberate strategy: by temporarily "sabotaging" CBM, they may have been hoping to force stock prices down to a level where a buyout would be possible, plus have all the products ready to release as soon as the company changed hands. There have been two schools of thought on this: one holds that Rattigan would have been planning this with his self-appointed management team, all on the inside; the other, that he would have been planning this in union with another company (some, obviously, have identified this company as Atari, but I have my doubts--could you imagine Rattigan and Tramiel trying to run a company TOGETHER?). I, myself, am not endorsing either the "incompetence" or "takeover plot" theories yet. But there are a couple of facts which might point to the latter. First, the way in which a number of other executives got terminated along with Rattigan. Second, Gould installing HIMSELF as CEO. This is a real surprise--generally Chairmen don't like having to get their hands dirty along with the "hired help." It has been speculated that the only reason Gould would do so, rather than promoting one of the other executives, is that he is unsure of the loyalty of the Rattigan-installed regime. Well, all this is a lot of speculation. Since the firing decision was made by the whole Board of Directors, and was "for cause," obviously some people know the truth of the matter. If there were good reasons (such as the ones I enumerated) for this decision, then Commodore should spell them out publically, rather than giving people this "differences in management philosophy" B.S. (when was the last time you heard of a company calling out security guards because of a "difference in philosophy"?), and do so right away, rather than letting the uncertainty go on for weeks or months. To do otherwise might truly be fatal. Good News from the Front Leo Schwab, creator of Robotroff, Guru Meditation Number 49424D53.75636B73 (spell it out), and other marvelous Amiga hacks, brings us news of -=RJ Mical's=- Latest Creation. Take it away, Sir Schwab: I spoke to -=RJ Mical=- this evening. He is indeed a father. The child's name is Alexander Joseph Mical. No word yet on whether or not it's surrounded by -= =-, or any other symbol. -=RJ=- happened to mention in passing that they have the same middle name. "So from where did you derive Alexander?" I asked. "Well, we wanted a conqueror......" Timothy Rue (AAi member)