In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Tarquin Mills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes >Malcolm Cadman wrote: >>Peter Graf wrote: >>>Tony wrote: >>> >>>>Microdrives especially killed the QL. He tried to push the speed up to >>>>100k - and they never worked reliably. Unfortunately, the 3.5 disks at >>>>the time were simply too large and power hungry. >>>>If only....... >>> >>>......the QL would have been more successful than the Macintosh, there'd be >>>a million active QL users, and Motorola would be producing 3rd generation >>>850 MHz 68060 CPU's ;-) >> >>A floppy disk drive would certainly have made it more successful - if >>people would have been prepared to pay for it. Around 1/3 to 2/3 again >>added to the selling price ? >> >>I remember my first double disk drives for QL were around 200ukp, and >>then there was the disk interface too :-( > In 1987/88 the Amiga A500 and Atari ST took off and went on to sell in >the millions. Amstrad (Alan Sugar himself) said who wants a 16 bit >computer, as a child reading computer magazines and looking at the >graphics of the 68K based machines I knew why. I wanted one to replace >my ZX-Spectrum. I fell Amstrad missed a opportunity to repacked to the >QL in the same form and do the same as Commodore and Atari. I.e. add a >normal keyboard, a 3.5" disc drive, upgrade the processor to a 68000 and >most important of all add better graphics. As the QL with (QDOS) already >existed (with an user and software base) it would have saved development >time. Amstrad position is made more understandable by the quality of the >CPC and his PC strategy. While on the subject of not created computers, >Oric developed a 68K computer but could not get to work (see >http://freespace.virgin.net/james.groom/oric/oricfaq.htm). Then their >was the Spectrum Loki.
You are right, Tarquin, that was a really important time when Alan Sugar / Amstrad took over the rights to the Sinclair / QL. If he / Amstrad had properly 'revamped' the QL, he would have had a very competitive product in the personal computer market at that time. He could have sold a million or two ... Yet AS is ( was ) a hard nosed business man, he ( quite rightly as history now shows ) saw that PC's were the 'mass' market way to go. Where are 'personal computers' now ? ... on the margins. The market is dominated by mass produced PC's ( alias business / home machines ). Does anyone know how many millions of PC's have been sold, and how much money has been generated by the PC Market in hardware / software, etc ? So, AS was right to make the decision not to develop the QL ! Only his own efforts with PC's eventually came to a halt some time later too :-) -- Malcolm Cadman
