The Scottish Play: Iwin foolishly utter the 'C' word (long)
Martin Curran
"A farce to be performed wherever Amiga users shall gather together"
Stage Direction: A desolate moorland. A storm is brewing,
Three crones mutter darkly over a parchment
scored with lines, disturbingly reminiscent
of the Euro symbol.
Characters/Models: (Please note, not official names)
MacDuff (iMac colour schemes - Chainmail or Sackcloth)
The Three Witches (Astonishing new biological chipset constructed
from dubious EU meat residues)
Lady Macbeth (A machine so treacherous you daren't even boot it up)
Scene One:
Macbeth paces the castle ramparts, a mind in turmoil, a crescent sign
spins without remorse before his vision, he tosses a chequered ball
from one hand to another...
* * * * * * *
Is it me, or has everyone taken leave of their senses?
Have the painful years of wandering in the wilderness finally taken
their toll?
I'm not talking about the wisdom of resurrecting the Amiga 'Classic',
rather I'm staggered that anyone would want to resurrect the name of..
the name... It's no good, I can't say it. I _must_ try...
The name of - COMMODORE!! (Oh please god, forgive me).
I would sooner scream "Macbeth!" till my lungs burst, and the
acting community attempted to tear me limb from limb. Anything.
Rather than utter a name so cursed that it used to crease up
the vilest dullard with laughter, whenever mentioned in 'technical'
company. We cut to the year 1991 or thereabouts:
Vendor: Excellent. So that's your extended warranty arranged for your
printer sir.. Um, would you be interested in covering
your computer also? What do you have?
Me: Ah.. Well, OK. I've got a Commodore Am--
Vendor: <Spluttering and half stifled laughter> W.. Well! there's
NO BLOODY WAY we'll deal with THEM. No chance.
[Pretty much his exact words if I recall]
Or..
Ponytail: <Demonstrating impossibly expensive software at CGI show>
So what are you using?
Me: An Amiga.
Ponytail: Well we've all run ZX Spectrum's as well, at one time,
haven't we? <nonchalantly flips his ponytail and grins>
...This Pentium 75 with 24-bit graphics card, 16Mb of
RAM, blah, blah... a real workstation computer, it'll
run <overpriced 3D app>...
Lest you all forget, at least in this country (England, a small island
somewhere near London), even at the _height_ of it's powers; the
Commodore 'brand' (no laughing at the back please) had ZERO
credibility. Quite frankly it was considered a joke.
These perceptions stick. Even if the NG Amiga is special it will have
to overcome the stupidity and snobbery of 'real' computer users. You
know.. the users of todays 'games machines'.
Don't you remember the good old days? The Amiga was that most
contemptible of devices, a _games machine_ a toy. That and the
splendid marketing of the brand that dare not speak its name ensured a
healthy inferiority complex for most Amiga users, even with its
successes (grudgingly admitted to in the press on rare occasions).
Even when Babylon 5 was first running in the UK, no effort was made to
capitalise on the Amiga angle. And the Commodore name is a brand that
you want revived and associated with a 'new' Amiga?
In fact, in all seriousness, if you check out a Guinness Book of
Records published in the early 90's you'll find Commodore have a
formidable entry under 'Sitting on Hands'. Years without a break. A
record that remains to this day.
Unfortunately their record for 'Foot Shooting' was disqualified
in a regrettable fit of enthusiasm, which resulted in several Guinness
judges retiring hurt.
Commodore in fact is a corruption of the Sanskrit word for 'blindness
and death by stupidity' (originally tribal criminals were forced to
shoot themselves in their feet with poison arrows, but this got
rapidly out of hand with entire tribes decimated).
And now in 1999 'Commodore' is to be reborn.
Truly, you couldn't make it up.
Whatever Iwin may or may not do, re-animating the horrors of the
Commodore brand is a plot so horrific and grotesque that even
Stephen King would turn it down.
OK, you can all get back to re-branding Commodore as a sexy desirable
name. Whilst you're at it you may care to tackle World Peace, tune up
a few perpetual motion machines, and find a nifty way to squeeze
Bill Gates and his prodigious wallet through the eye of a needle.
Good luck.
Martin Curran
Colin Thompson
I hope Iwin reads this and understands the depths to which we revile the
Commodore name. It's a BAD move.
--
Colin Thompson LAPCO Paintball www.lapcopaintball.com 858-693-0068
Robert M. Cosby
>
> <realy funny Shakespeare spoof snipped>
When someone trying to be creative writes various scenarios like this I
usually just roll my eyes and skip to the next posting. But this was
truly funny! Congrats!
>
> Is it me, or has everyone taken leave of their senses?
>
> Have the painful years of wandering in the wilderness finally taken
> their toll?
>
> I'm not talking about the wisdom of resurrecting the Amiga 'Classic',
> rather I'm staggered that anyone would want to resurrect the name of..
>
> the name... It's no good, I can't say it. I _must_ try...
>
> The name of - COMMODORE!! (Oh please god, forgive me).
>
<snipped acute critiques of CBM>
>
> Unfortunately their record for 'Foot Shooting' was disqualified
> in a regrettable fit of enthusiasm, which resulted in several Guinness
> judges retiring hurt.
> Commodore in fact is a corruption of the Sanskrit word for 'blindness
> and death by stupidity' (originally tribal criminals were forced to
> shoot themselves in their feet with poison arrows, but this got
> rapidly out of hand with entire tribes decimated).
LOL!
>
> And now in 1999 'Commodore' is to be reborn.
>
> Truly, you couldn't make it up.
>
> Whatever Iwin may or may not do, re-animating the horrors of the
> Commodore brand is a plot so horrific and grotesque that even
> Stephen King would turn it down.
>
> OK, you can all get back to re-branding Commodore as a sexy desirable
> name. Whilst you're at it you may care to tackle World Peace, tune up
> a few perpetual motion machines, and find a nifty way to squeeze
> Bill Gates and his prodigious wallet through the eye of a needle.
>
> Good luck.
>
> Martin Curran
I tried to get my company (JDR Microdevices, San Jose, California) to
support the Amiga for their retail mail-order and store. JDR is one
those rare mail-order outfits that -deliver- what is promised. They have
a 100,000 sq foot warehouse because of the huge volume. At first JDR was
quite willing to merely add that the hard drives in the catalog were
compatible. So far so good... However when we invited Commodore to visit
us and see about directly marketing the Amiga we were told that CBM was
not interested in mail-order. I assume this was due to some probles with
lame mail-order outfits but the West Coast CBM reps jaws dropped when
they saw what we had to offer. <sigh> Once they got a look at our
operation they could hear the cash registers ringing. Another thing: JDR
suppors what it sells directly so the Amigas purchased from us would
have had an 800 number for tech support. CBM weren't interested.
At CBM the Truth shall make you free (to look for another job)
Coz
Jason Le Vaillant
> Commodore name. It's a BAD move.
Who is "we"?
CUL8er,
Jason
Joe Cosby
Martin Curran hunched over his computer, typing feverishly;
thunder crashed, Martin Curran laughed madly, then wrote:
>
>
> In fact, in all seriousness, if you check out a Guinness Book of
> Records published in the early 90's you'll find Commodore have a
> formidable entry under 'Sitting on Hands'. Years without a break. A
> record that remains to this day.
>
LOL
> Unfortunately their record for 'Foot Shooting' was disqualified
> in a regrettable fit of enthusiasm, which resulted in several Guinness
> judges retiring hurt.
>
LOL LOL
> Commodore in fact is a corruption of the Sanskrit word for 'blindness
> and death by stupidity' (originally tribal criminals were forced to
> shoot themselves in their feet with poison arrows, but this got
> rapidly out of hand with entire tribes decimated).
>
LOL LOL LOL
Stop it, I'm going to get sick.
> And now in 1999 'Commodore' is to be reborn.
>
> Truly, you couldn't make it up.
>
> Whatever Iwin may or may not do, re-animating the horrors of the
> Commodore brand is a plot so horrific and grotesque that even
> Stephen King would turn it down.
>
I'm inclined to agree. I would love to see a competitive Amiga,
but I get this sick feeling about the 'return of the Commodore
curse'... which is worse than the Macbeth jinx, the Curse of
Tutankhamen and breaking several mirrors by hurling black cats
through them; put together.
Just seeing the C= logo on the IWin website made me wince.
C= could never see beyond the C-64.
Honestly, at the risk of sounding like a religious fanatic, I
wince every time I see the C= logo. To me it symbolizes the worst
perceptions and aspects of an unexpanded unaccelerated Amiga 500
trying pathetically to compete with a 1991 PC compatible. The
promise is there, but for heaven's sake -act- on that promise.
So to speak. Or something.
"Double double toil and trouble..."
Personally I think all those pictures of King Tut on the old
DPaint boxes are where the curse started.
--
Joe Cosby
Amiga Fanatic
Keith Blakemore-Noble
something about "Re: The Scottish Play: Iwin foolishly utter the 'C'
word (long)"...
> > I hope Iwin reads this and understands the depths to which we
> > revile the Commodore name. It's a BAD move.
>
> Who is "we"?
"We" are the knights who say...
... NI!!!!!!!!!
HTH,
Keith
--
http://www.BuiltWithAmiga.org Member of Team *AMIGA* and ICOA
Martin Curran
Cosby) wrotd:
<stuff snipped>
>
>LOL LOL LOL
>
>Stop it, I'm going to get sick.
Glad you enjoyed it ;-)
I see from Robert's post that Commodore were just as
incompetent on your side of the pond. Truly, to be as
consistently bad as that, takes an almost supernatural
brilliance.
>Personally I think all those pictures of King Tut on the old
>DPaint boxes are where the curse started.
Hey, I'd never thought of that ;-)
Makes you wonder whatever happened to Dan Silva... <spooky>
By the way, are you two - Joe and Robert related? (Apologies if
you've been asked this a billion times).
Martin Curran
Joe Cosby
Martin Curran hunched over his computer, typing feverishly;
thunder crashed, Martin Curran laughed madly, then wrote:
>
> By the way, are you two - Joe and Robert related? (Apologies if
> you've been asked this a billion times).
>
We've been trying to figure that out. Possibly, although if so
not genetically but via an adoption a long time ago.
Robert M. Cosby
>
<snip>
>
> I see from Robert's post that Commodore were just as
> incompetent on your side of the pond. Truly, to be as
> consistently bad as that, takes an almost supernatural
> brilliance.
CBM was -worse- over here. They didn't sponsor any football teams. The
few ads the did were atrocious.
>
> >Personally I think all those pictures of King Tut on the old
> >DPaint boxes are where the curse started.
>
> Hey, I'd never thought of that ;-)
>
> Makes you wonder whatever happened to Dan Silva... <spooky>
Brendan Frasier played him in "The Mummy".
>
> By the way, are you two - Joe and Robert related? (Apologies if
> you've been asked this a billion times).
>
> Martin Curran
Actually Joe and I have discussed our possible family ties. Turns out
the state of Ohio is where we both have family. Incidentally, I'm the
good-looking intelligent one. ;^)
Coz
Joe Cosby
"Robert M. Cosby" hunched over his computer, typing feverishly;
thunder crashed, "Robert M. Cosby" laughed madly, then wrote:
> >
> >
> Incidentally, I'm the
> good-looking intelligent one. ;^)
>
Then you shouldn't get so bent out of shape when people drool on
you a little.
It's just saliva.
Philip Kaulfuss
> Makes you wonder whatever happened to Dan Silva... <spooky>
He went on to do 3D Studio. Not sure what he's up to right now.
--
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Philip Kaulfuss | Website: http://www.boehme.demon.co.uk |
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