@CodeSmith

Quote:

Riiight. That would explain why whenever uA1s go on sale, they get sold within a couple of days.

Of course, because of the very limited number of uA1s available and the long waits between production runs. The number available never did rise to the level of waiting buyers but even in this seller's dream situation the project couldn't become self-sustaining. According to Alan Redhouse himself, the A1 project wasn't financially viable (I guess he was including uA1s in this statement), and the "Amiga enthusiast" market is too small to support the project alone, and production wouldn't continue unless a large bulk order was placed, presumeably to finance production. Given all this, I'm not sure how the scheme could be considered a success. Whether the few hundred or thousand or whatever remaining, waiting "enthusiasts" were able to buy theirs doesn't seem to be the issue so much as the fundamental underlying problems Eyetech had to face and finally give in to.

Since it was the licensing arrangement that this project was built on, and that essentially prevented alternative supply sources -- again Alan himself said this market was too small to support competing suppliers -- I think it's reasonable to say the licensing scheme was a failure.

I suppose the rationale for the scheme was reasonable enough at the beginning in that it offerred a guaranteed monopoly to the parties willing to risk the initial investments, but, as we have seen, that was a two-edged sword, and the absense of hardware for AOS4 for many months now is the other edge of that sword.

-- gary_c

Last edited by gary_c on 07-Sep-2006 at 07:14 AM.

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