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What would U have done to make the Amiga succeed better?


Keatah

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I'm content to view the Jaguar an overcomplicated mess that developers believe to be a waste of time. And leave it at that.

...

I'm not saying the Jag wasn't an overcomplicated mess,

It doesn't correlate to the Amiga because the Amiga came complete with an OS that handled the custom chipset, multitasking, disk drives, etc... and developers didn't have to directly deal with it.

 

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I suppose to be fair about my gripe about AGA's graphics capabilities, I should mention that there were a number of graphics cards available for the Amiga (in the case of the following video, I can see a number of features with the included software that didn't show up on the PC until quite a while later in programs like Painter):

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwUO4qQ56kQ

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  • 1 month later...

A little late on this thread, but just to chime in that i agree with many of the posts here and 100% of Bill's posts. I do disagree with the passive-aggressive posts about people being dumb or self-absorbed or whatever other silly reasons.

 

The only thing i have to add, since growing up with many home computers such as the C64/C128, Apple II, Atari 800/ST, Amiga, Dragon, etc... I also owned an IBM clone when it first came out and eventually switched over to it full time. It was lousy at games and it's true that IBM Clones were a number of years behind the other personal computers (specifically the Amiga and ST of the time), however there was something to be said for totally non-proprietary technology that was commoditized, upgradable and affordable. I think many of us 'computer folks' were still happy using non IBM Clones and learning and using them. But, I think the big change occurred with regular folks. I think the biggest thing is that non-computer inclined folks were using PC's (and to a lesser extent, macintoshes) at work, and they were trained on those devices When it came time to get a PC for home, they bought what they knew how to use. Businesses trained regular folks on how to use PC Clones and those devices ran the applications they knew how to use (and the applications that businesses themselves needed). If they had questions, they could ask their work "computer guy" the next day.

 

I think at the end of the day, theres a lot more 'non computer' users then there are techies and whatever you can do to get that audience, the better. Heck, look at the amount of iOS users, especially in the US. It's a completely locked down device but it's easy and regular folks can use it without having to know anything technical. Of course, Dos/Windows were pretty lousy interfaces compared to other GUI based computers, but I think teaching people how to use your computer was a big selling point, and most businesses took on that task for the PC's they purchased for their employees to use at work.

 

In the end, I even switched over to the clones for the sole reason that the devices could be upgraded easily and cheaply as I could afford it. If I needed a new video card, I just put one in.. A faster CPU? Upgrade just the motherboard. More memory, swap out a few Sims. While I technically have a completely different PC then i did 20 years ago, it wasn't swapped in one shot, it was upgraded as technology changed in a series of micro transactions over decades.

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I think at the end of the day, theres a lot more 'non computer' users then there are techies and whatever you can do to get that audience, the better. Heck, look at the amount of iOS users, especially in the US. It's a completely locked down device but it's easy and regular folks can use it without having to know anything technical. Of course, Dos/Windows were pretty lousy interfaces compared to other GUI based computers, but I think teaching people how to use your computer was a big selling point, and most businesses took on that task for the PC's they purchased for their employees to use at work.

It was actually easier to train some users to use DOS-like interfaces than GUIs. I encountered lots of people back in those days that had to use a computer for work, but were kind of tech-phobic. They demanded exact step-by-step instructions to perform any given task. It was easier to give such users such instructions when the key presses reliably worked. With a GUI, the windows/icons could be in different locations than they expected and that would get them flustered. Worse it was nearly impossible to talk them through it over the phone because you couldn't see their screen.

 

Today, people are much more tech-savvy, and I rarely encounter people like this anymore. But back then, I encountered quite a lot of them.

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It was actually easier to train some users to use DOS-like interfaces than GUIs. I encountered lots of people back in those days that had to use a computer for work, but were kind of tech-phobic. They demanded exact step-by-step instructions to perform any given task. It was easier to give such users such instructions when the key presses reliably worked. With a GUI, the windows/icons could be in different locations than they expected and that would get them flustered. Worse it was nearly impossible to talk them through it over the phone because you couldn't see their screen.

 

Today, people are much more tech-savvy, and I rarely encounter people like this anymore. But back then, I encountered quite a lot of them.

 

Yup, that makes sense. Just ask if they see the c> prompt and go from there.

 

That said, I'm not 100% sure that people these days are more 'tech savvy' but rather tech terminology knowledgeable. Telling them words like icons and mice and stuff they all understand now, but in a lot of cases I feel like the world has been dumbed down as far as how computers work, and most of that is due to the simplicity of pc's and mobile operating systems. Must be the same way auto people started feeling 30 years ago. It's funny, I saw a clip of that Bits and Bytes show where they have the "old guy" trying to use a Pet and TRS-80 and how 'young me' would laugh at that.. but the funny thing is, if you put a kid in front of one of those computers now (and I have), that same ignorance about how those PC's work would still exist. I can only imagine the WTF eye-rolls I'd get trying to explain Load "$", 8 and OPEN 4,4:CMD 4. :)

Edited by ngtwolf
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It was actually easier to train some users to use DOS-like interfaces than GUIs. I encountered lots of people back in those days that had to use a computer for work, but were kind of tech-phobic. They demanded exact step-by-step instructions to perform any given task. It was easier to give such users such instructions when the key presses reliably worked. With a GUI, the windows/icons could be in different locations than they expected and that would get them flustered. Worse it was nearly impossible to talk them through it over the phone because you couldn't see their screen.

 

Today, people are much more tech-savvy, and I rarely encounter people like this anymore. But back then, I encountered quite a lot of them.

I totally agree. My 80+ year old father-in-law wanted to check stocks online and it was really hard for him to navigate the mouse and yahoo website. If it were Compuserver or something I could have said "when this comes up, press '1' for stocks" then type the symbol and hit ENTER." In a lot of ways it was easier. I also find it amusing that these days on my PC I just go to the start menu and type the name of the program I want to run. I very rarely click icons, unless it's one of the handful of things pinned to the bar. It's kind of come full circle.

 

As for the Amiga, I don't know, maybe they could have provide an Amiga sound/graphics board for the PC, ride the inevitable wave and take the market before Adlip/SoundBlaster/etc. Perhaps they could have supported cross-platform development and eventually migrate native 68k Amiga users over to the PC. Hard to see it being too successful, but who knows.

Edited by BydoEmpire
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Yup, that makes sense. Just ask if they see the c> prompt and go from there.

 

That said, I'm not 100% sure that people these days are more 'tech savvy' but rather tech terminology knowledgeable. Telling them words like icons and mice and stuff they all understand now, but in a lot of cases I feel like the world has been dumbed down as far as how computers work, and most of that is due to the simplicity of pc's and mobile operating systems. Must be the same way auto people started feeling 30 years ago. It's funny, I saw a clip of that Bits and Bytes show where they have the "old guy" trying to use a Pet and TRS-80 and how 'young me' would laugh at that.. but the funny thing is, if you put a kid in front of one of those computers now (and I have), that same ignorance about how those PC's work would still exist. I can only imagine the WTF eye-rolls I'd get trying to explain Load "$", 8 and OPEN 4,4:CMD 4. :)

 

Very true. It just like maintaining a car. If you have done lots of repairs, replaced various parts, you just learn the processes... like my dad whose hobby is fixing his own old 70's/80's cars. Or if you are like me a car is actually a tool I take for service. It lets me go from A to B. I fill it with gas and if I'm advernterous an oil change or very simple fuse or battery replacement. I don't do more than that nor do I want to try anything else more complicated.

 

My 8 year old son can grab a modern laptop and android phone and be all set. He's just started learning how to program his robot in scratch and leaning a few very simple bash/python scripting tricks but he's not able to recompile the applications or kernel for his robot but he'll learn in due time. I had him sit in front of my C64 the other day and he was very frustrated at the keyboard... ie "what is that crazy load something thingy on the keyboard to see the list of games" ?

Edited by thetick1
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.....I think many of us 'computer folks' were still happy using non IBM Clones and learning and using them. But, I think the big change occurred with regular folks. I think the biggest thing is that non-computer inclined folks were using PC's (and to a lesser extent, macintoshes) at work, and they were trained on those devices When it came time to get a PC for home, they bought what they knew how to use. Businesses trained regular folks on how to use PC Clones and those devices ran the applications they knew how to use (and the applications that businesses themselves needed). If they had questions, they could ask their work "computer guy" the next day.

 

I agree 100%. Commodore lost because they never made large strides in the business world. Commodore needed to attack this both on the software and hardware side. Just some effort/money with Lotus, Word Perfect even Microsoft so there were some useful business products on the Amiga. The Amiga then could have evolved with PC adding support for sound blaster, PCI, GPUs and other industry standard hardware. Long term the Amiga hardware could have been a reasonably priced addon PCI card on a PC and not a separate incompatible computer. It probably would have sold very well as a gaming upgrade when the PC was stuck with CGA and extremely pricy EGA.

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I never thought bridgeboards or computer-on-a-card add-ons worked well. I wanted them to, but, alas.. The Jaguar and 3DO did that and never made inroads. Neither did the Amiga PC Bridgeboard. Same thing with the Transporter for the Apple II.

 

The only place where bringing another system into an existing system via upgrade card was successful was CP/M.

 

A big propelling factor in the adoption of the PC was the ability to bring work home, yes, and do it rather seamlessly. And it was the reason I got into the PC, too. Started with schoolwork and grew from there. The labs had PCs and therefore I wanted a PC.

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That said, I'm not 100% sure that people these days are more 'tech savvy' but rather tech terminology knowledgeable. Telling them words like icons and mice and stuff they all understand now, but in a lot of cases I feel like the world has been dumbed down as far as how computers work, and most of that is due to the simplicity of pc's and mobile operating systems. Must be the same way auto people started feeling 30 years ago.

Well I'll put it this way.. I don't see people, not even older people get baffled by their phone as much as I used to see people get baffled by something like the Windows 95 interface-- and that was supposed to be dumbed down and easy to use! People can navigate from app to app, and if you gave an iPhone user and android, they would not be totally lost.

 

Back then, a lot of it seemed like technophobia. Like they were afraid they would screw up the whole computer if they didn't follow precise instructions. And if you tried to get someone to use a Mac or other OS, they'd be like "I don't know how to use that, I only know how to use Windows!"

 

It's funny, I saw a clip of that Bits and Bytes show where they have the "old guy" trying to use a Pet and TRS-80 and how 'young me' would laugh at that..

 

but the funny thing is, if you put a kid in front of one of those computers now (and I have), that same ignorance about how those PC's work would still exist. I can only imagine the WTF eye-rolls I'd get trying to explain Load "$", 8 and OPEN 4,4:CMD 4. :)

The React channel on YouTube has some videos like that. Putting kids in front of old computers like Apple IIs (monochrome display). The reactions are what you'd expect!

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Commodore UK was doing very well and were still making a profit, they survived the bankruptcy. Had they successfully bid for the rest of the company then it may have been a different story today. They were the only ones interested in keeping the Amiga alive. Everyone else was just after the patents..

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I totally agree. My 80+ year old father-in-law wanted to check stocks online and it was really hard for him to navigate the mouse and yahoo website. If it were Compuserver or something I could have said "when this comes up, press '1' for stocks" then type the symbol and hit ENTER." In a lot of ways it was easier. I also find it amusing that these days on my PC I just go to the start menu and type the name of the program I want to run. I very rarely click icons, unless it's one of the handful of things pinned to the bar. It's kind of come full circle.

 

 

Oh, its sad but true. I've been building a Win-98 PC to do some disk stuff for my retro PC's and I couldn't remember where anything was.. Heck, there wasn't even a windows key (obviously CTRL-ESC works, but still). I had to google to remember where the heck the device manager was. :) On my modern pc, I just hit Windows key, type part of what i want, and hit enter..

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My 8 year old son can grab a modern laptop and android phone and be all set. He's just started learning how to program his robot in scratch and leaning a few very simple bash/python scripting tricks but he's not able to recompile the applications or kernel for his robot but he'll learn in due time. I had him sit in front of my C64 the other day and he was very frustrated at the keyboard... ie "what is that crazy load something thingy on the keyboard to see the list of games" ?

 

I think your 8 year old needs to teach my 18 year old.. :) Congrats!

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I think your 8 year old needs to teach my 18 year old.. :) Congrats!

 

Well he's not autistic but with ADHD and bit on the autistic spectrum, I need to keep his interest high and changing. He is just crazy about his Raspberry Pi robot. We need to keep him on track with programming the robot via dragging and dropping the scratch programs as I showed him my retropie SD image running so he'll play arcade games too long on his robot if given the opportunity.

Edited by thetick1
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Commodore was unfocused in general, so some improvement could have been made by just picking a sensible. approach and sticking with it longer than a few months at a time (and maybe lock Irving Gould and Mehdi Ali in a safe). I doubt much would stem the inevitable dominance of the 'crowd-sourced' PC clone market.

 

One thing I thought could have been a good idea was to enter a strategic partnership with NewTek, whose Video Toaster hardware helped sell a lot of big box Amigas. I assume at the time Commodore felt the new 'desktop videographer' market was too small to pursue, in favor of shooting for the next 'cash cow' game console idea, but it had it's own little ecosystem of third-party hardware and software (and magazines) at the time. If C= and Newtek worked together and shared info, they could conceivably improve each others' market and direct hardware developments for faster advancement. (getting the toaster out of just NTSC standards quicker would have been nice) While the Amiga/Toaster might not have dominated the desktop video market it helped create, It might at least have been able to continue beyond the shift away from analog video to digital/nonlinear and HD.

Edited by Feralstorm
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While the Amiga/Toaster might not have dominated the desktop video market it helped create, It might at least have been able to continue beyond the shift away from analog video to digital/nonlinear and HD.

 

They screwed up a licensing deal with Sun Microsystems who were interesting in OEMing the Amiga 3000UX machines and re-branding them as Suns. They met several times to discuss it. Apparently Commodore wanted too much money and Sun went away and did their own. Such a wasted opportunity, Commodore has the best UNIX implementation at the time.

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The Amiga would've faired better if it had launched a more expandable machine first, like the A2000, that would have had its chipset on one or more easy to upgrade expansion card. With a mix of pc compatible and amiga dedicated slots it would have better competed with the IBM juggernaught

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  • 2 weeks later...

The Amiga would've faired better if it had launched a more expandable machine first, like the A2000, that would have had its chipset on one or more easy to upgrade expansion card. With a mix of pc compatible and amiga dedicated slots it would have better competed with the IBM juggernaught

 

That actually sounds a lot like what Jay Miner wanted in the first place:

https://youtu.be/daQNJMZblZ8?t=718

Edited by Nebulon
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The price of Amiga hardware, especially hardware upgrades, were also part of the Amiga's downfall.

In 1993, at one of Earls court computer shows, me and a mate went there to buy "something" for our Amigas because we were getting bored waiting for AGA software.

I had a 4Mb Amiga 1200 + 80mb HD, my mate had a 1200 + 8Mb + 120mb HD. At the show, he spent over £850 on a 040 accelerator + 16Mb ram (I believe) + SCSI. When I finally caught up with him a few days later we both saw how disappointed we were in the performance of £850. True, the 040 was a nice upgrade for the 1200, but at that cost it didn't wow me. And most Amiga hardware was priced at mental prices.

In late 1993, I saw another mate had ditched his Amiga 4000 for a 486 DX2 66, 8Mb, CDRom Drive, SB16, 200Mb HD, SVGA Card, 14" VGA Monitor, etc... and was blown away with it. I couldn't believe he paid less for it than my other mate paid for just his accelerator - though the 486 was pre-owned.

Then in 1994, I decided to sell my CD32 - I only had it 6 months but was bored waiting for decent games. I put the money to a pre-owned Pentium 60, 8Mb, CDRom, SB16, Tseng Labs ET4000, 14" SVGA Monitor. This thing, in 1994, was state of the art and blew away any of my mate's Amigas. When they all saw Doom 2 running on it, they all jumped on the PC bandwagon.

I mean, to me - a die-hard Amiga fan in the late 80s and early 90s (Although I was still a Atari fan and kept my AtariST 1040), the PC platform was a breath of fresh air. To me and my mates, we could build what we want, how we wanted, how much we wanted to spend, and there was so much software out there. I remember walking into a massive PC World in early 1995, and was blown away at the huge wall of PC games, especially CDRom games. These, to me. were such exciting times to be a PC dos gamer.

 

Of course, there is a sort of irony in that, if those who had a Amiga 4000 still had it today, boxed and in good condition, could still sell it for almost what they paid for it 26 years ago. I could probably still get nearly £200 for my CD32, the same I sold it for back in '94. My pimped accelerated Amiga 1200 is probably worth £500, as everything is still in amazing condition and all boxed. Infact, in another 10 years my 1200 will be worth more than my current, almost state of the art, gaming PC.

 

To me, personally, the Amiga, Atari ST, 800XL, C64, Spectrum, never died. Places like this will always keep these amazing machines alive. And, as long as there are amazing people making amazing modern hardware for our old machines then they will never die.

And, no company, or silly corporate decision, can take away our memories we have with these classic machines.

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The price of Amiga hardware, especially hardware upgrades, were also part of the Amiga's downfall.

In 1993, at one of Earls court computer shows, me and a mate went there to buy "something" for our Amigas because we were getting bored waiting for AGA software.

I had a 4Mb Amiga 1200 + 80mb HD, my mate had a 1200 + 8Mb + 120mb HD. At the show, he spent over £850 on a 040 accelerator + 16Mb ram (I believe) + SCSI. When I finally caught up with him a few days later we both saw how disappointed we were in the performance of £850. True, the 040 was a nice upgrade for the 1200, but at that cost it didn't wow me. And most Amiga hardware was priced at mental prices.

In late 1993, I saw another mate had ditched his Amiga 4000 for a 486 DX2 66, 8Mb, CDRom Drive, SB16, 200Mb HD, SVGA Card, 14" VGA Monitor, etc... and was blown away with it. I couldn't believe he paid less for it than my other mate paid for just his accelerator - though the 486 was pre-owned.

Then in 1994, I decided to sell my CD32 - I only had it 6 months but was bored waiting for decent games. I put the money to a pre-owned Pentium 60, 8Mb, CDRom, SB16, Tseng Labs ET4000, 14" SVGA Monitor. This thing, in 1994, was state of the art and blew away any of my mate's Amigas. When they all saw Doom 2 running on it, they all jumped on the PC bandwagon.

I mean, to me - a die-hard Amiga fan in the late 80s and early 90s (Although I was still a Atari fan and kept my AtariST 1040), the PC platform was a breath of fresh air. To me and my mates, we could build what we want, how we wanted, how much we wanted to spend, and there was so much software out there. I remember walking into a massive PC World in early 1995, and was blown away at the huge wall of PC games, especially CDRom games. These, to me. were such exciting times to be a PC dos gamer.

yes the economies of scale in the PC world really drove down the prices, while no such economies of scale existed in the Amiga/ST world. They were cheaper in the beginning, but at some point it flipped and PC parts became much cheaper on a price/performance basis

 

 

Of course, there is a sort of irony in that, if those who had a Amiga 4000 still had it today, boxed and in good condition, could still sell it for almost what they paid for it 26 years ago. I could probably still get nearly £200 for my CD32, the same I sold it for back in '94. My pimped accelerated Amiga 1200 is probably worth £500, as everything is still in amazing condition and all boxed. Infact, in another 10 years my 1200 will be worth more than my current, almost state of the art, gaming PC.

True, I recently sold my 1040STe for about as much as I originally paid for it, and it wasn't even boxed or mint condition.

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I think, like most posters here mentioned before, the Commodore was not focused in their strength that was games and gaming. The most popular computer was C64 and it was used for games, one of the most popular PC's in Europe were Amiga and it was used for games.

The Commodore did not see the writing on the wall, that it was the games that sold the Amiga's. They should have focused more on games and made games console sooner, but they focused more on business and business like machines. They couldn't even see what Video Toaster did for them. (When they released the A4000, they did not tell/work with Newtek about it).

Few companies realized that they have to change like Sony from electronics giant to Playstation, and Apple from PC's to Phones, and Microsoft too.

So, what I would have done? I would focus more on creating best gaming console. Amigas graphics were on par with SNES (which was released in 1991) but Amiga was designed in 1984! The CD32 was great idea, but a little too late.

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True, I recently sold my 1040STe for about as much as I originally paid for it, and it wasn't even boxed or mint condition.

 

My 4Mb 1040 STf, is almost mint and in it's original colour - not yellowed. It's boxed, with the polys, manual and Floppy disks. The monitor is the superb Atari SC1435, and it's mint - hardly used and original colour, boxed with polys and manual. While not worth what they originally sold for, I bet I could get quite a good amount if I put it on ebay.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Back in 1984/1985, the Amiga announced unparalleled sound + graphics. And yet it didn't make a big impact on the computer industry. Everyone was content to plod along with their PC monstrosities. Only some artists and broadcasters picked up on it and used it as a practical tool.

 

I wonder if the machine was ahead of its time and the general populace didn't understand how to integrate its capabilities into their activities? Or could it have been the slightly "off" formats the OS used, like IFF. Or maybe it was made of cheap plastic compared to industrial strength metal like the PC?

 

So, what would you have done back in the day to better position the Amiga platform?

 

I seriously doubt Commodore could have done anything to save the Amiga. The sound and graphics were great for the time, but it was really a games machine made into a computer and not a computer that happened to be good at games. The main computer market simply was not looking for what Amiga was offering.

 

They might have been able to give Amiga a chance had they released the 3000 earlier with some better stuff. It should have had networking built in and a better graphics card that could run in high resolution without flickering. Can you imagine staring at an Amiga for 8 hours while trying to do actual work on it? I know there were workarounds some of this stuff, but they were workarounds.

 

I don't think there were any token ring cards for it, though that is probably IBM's fault. There was also do DLC or terminal emulation packages available for it. I'm not sure if there was a Netware Requester or how well it worked if there was.

 

In short, the Amiga wasn't really answering any problems the market had. By the time the 3000 came out, Windows 3 was out and VGA machines were common and there were cards for everything and lots of support. You could get full time on site service with parts guarantees from any number of vendors and service companies to manage your PCs by this time. There was nothing even remotely similar for Amiga. Maybe getting into corporate was never their goal, but if that's the case, they were never going to survive. Even Apple, as bad as it was, did have service companies with parts guarantees.

 

Then there was the fiasco of CD-32 and the underwhelming A1200, which I suppose as a home machine wasn't that bad but was another product for which the market simply was not asking for. There are many things big and small, some were Commodore's fault, some were not which conspired to kill the Amiga. Perhaps if it had been managed better, they could have survived a few more years, but making it in the long run was simply never in the cards.

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