Hi Dave, >I've received a couple of emails from people, and it's made me a bit >worried. People are asking me if they should hold off the purchase of an >upgrade, or Q60, based on something that may be released in the future. >[...]
Thanks for recognizing this problem. People holding off decisions about a hardware purchase, based on ideas or announcements has always been a major problem for Q40 and Q60. I had a lot of discussions with users who wait because the hope for something on the other side of the fence (where the grass is always greener). Part of this problem may have it's roots in the fact that the concept of the Q40/Q60 could not be easily fitted into the old QL scheme. There was a golden rule which said: "A *complete* QL style computer can not succeed." The last attempt was the Thor, and it was not successful. While the GoldGard, which was only a partial QL extension, had a very good success. Since then, all QL hardware developments only changed portions of the system, or supported emulation on Atari or PC. Even Miracle never risked a complete QL style mainboard. For some QL users it had the effect that they compared Q40/Q60 directly to the PC mainboards they knew, including the price, excluding that a PC has no 68060 or other QL similarities. Of course a PC mainboard is cheaper, and of course it has more MHz (now GHz). For some other QL users it had the effect that they compared Q40/Q60 to QL CPU cards they knew, including the price, excluding that a (Super)GoldCard has no highcolor graphics, sound, fast peripherals, and so on. Of course a (Super)GoldCard is cheaper, and allows use of old hardware. For some other QL users it had the effect of waiting for some Miracle announcements (like QL Graphics or UltraGoldCard) and the GoldFire, which fit better into their "partial upgrade" scheme of thinking. And, last, but not least: For some QL developers (including Tony Tebby, Marc Swift, Thierry Godefroy, and several others) the Q40/Q60 had the effect of writing major QL software again. Unfortunately the personal effort of a few developers can not replace a bigger user base. Peter
