What will drive the New Amiga?

[bhoggett]

A good set of points, Wayne. I'm far less convinced that there is a sensible and detached cool head amongst the power corridors to turn things roud though. Everyone is just too entrenched in their own political corner and too afraid of diluting the perceived power they now hold.

As for the mainstream, I doubt the Amiga has either the innovation or quality to break back into it, either at desktop or digital device level, and this applies as much to AmigaOS4/AmigaOne efforts as it does to MorphOS/Pegasos ones.

The problem isn't that there are no more opportunities left in the digital markets, it's just that there's a whole long queue of other developers who are closer to that goal and have better resources than either of the Amiga contenders.

As for AROS, it is barely on the first rung of the ladder to be seen as a real OS, and a far way from there to be even noticed by the mainstream. To talk of AROS as a mainstream contender today or in the next few years is ridiculous.

When that changes, I'll be more than happy to acknowledge it, but for now Wayne was right to ignore it.

[bhoggett]

If they sold 1000 boards last year, assuming they didn't do a perfect job, they can improve the job they are doing and sell 1500 this year. Then you have growth. You continue growth long enough, you have a platform.

And there you have the first major hurdle.

The Amiga scene is full of fanatics, so while you may have an encouraging initial sales figure, what you then see is everything levelling out and sales drying off as you saturate the existing market. Assuming that you'll attract another 1500 in the second year is ever so optimistic without much basis. Assuming that there are 50,000 ex-Amigans just dying to return is delusional at best.

Stopping the exodus for longer than a few months would be a start, then looking to grow the market by a few hundred for a few years. The trouble is that technology moves a helluva lot faster these days, and the chances of Amiga technology keeping up well enough to even keep people from leaving again is slim indeed.

[bhoggett]

@Wayne

How do we move beyond the existing community? The biggest issue is the creation of software which brings people to the platform. Right now there is no incentive for any PC user to buy one.

The short answer is: "I don't know". I don't even know if there is an answer any more.

A few years ago I would have said "Concentrate on one relatively innovative thing and do it well". That's why I was quite taken by the idea of dropping all hardware interests (since there are thousands of specialist hardware manufacturers out there that are going to handle hardware innovation much better) and concentrating on creating a light, efficient and above all hardware agnostic OS. Not just write once run everywhere, but compile once and run everywhere. That failed because the underlying technology wasn't geared up to it, and the priorities of the developers of that technology were focused elsewhere. Next step would have been to encourage developers with free developer information and masses of support. The SDKs were woefully inept and sold at a ridiculous price (the excuse being "well, Microsoft are doing it..."). The "support" required a morass of NDAs and SDAs and the sort of secrecy that would put off any serious developer straight away. Not the way to do things at all.

The Pegasos/MorphOS situation is slighly different, but no less dispiriting. To my mind there is no direction, no real focus to grasp on to and build on. The technolgy isn't really innovative, nor are the concepts, and once you strip away the enthusiasm and self-congratulations  for having actually released something there is little that stands out.

If the question is: "how do we make the great unwashed take note of the AmigaOne/Pegasos and make them buy it?" my answer would be "you don't". These products are simply not good enough. Neither are AmigaOS4 or MorphOS.

To break into the mainstream, you'd need a complete fresh start and total rethink from scratch. I don't think that's remotely likely to happen, so I don't think the mainstream is attainable no matter what is done with current resources and products.

[bhoggett]

@dammy

Comparing Linux to AROS is like comparing Microsoft to AmigaOS: not realistic.

Sure, Linux succeeded after starting from scratch, but do you have any idea how many other wannabe operating systems, many of them very neat in terms of what they wre trying to achieve, disappeared without trace? Dozens. Maybe even hundreds.

There's nothing to suggest at this time that AROS will ever cross the boundary between being a geek developer's OS to something that can be useful on a daily basis even on a basic level, like QNX. Linux is in another league altogether. It filled a niche early on, in that it provided a replacement kernel for the GNU project to adopt when the HURD was not yet remotely usable. AROS is not so lucky, and frankly no one would notice if it simply disappeared. The developers need to up their output and their numbers considerably before any of your advocacy would be remotely justified.

@BigBenAussie

I think your post illustrates quite clearly why Amigas will never be a success again. Far too many people are stuck with the 1985 mentality, and believe that attempting to turn the clock back will bring back success. The idea that there will again be custom microcomputers that revolutionise what is available on a desktop at low prices is laughable, as is the thought that people would once again get tied to the custom hard to expand system mentality of 20 years ago.

The success of 20 years ago was to a large extent due to the favourable conditions and lack of real competition. PC's were a joke in terms of gaming or animations and they cost an arm and a leg. Elsewhere there was only the ST or the 8-bit micros to worry about. A market ripe for the taking.

Not so today. You won't beat PCs for price, and most likely not for performance, software or games either. Without massive investment in R&D, you won't beat them on technology either.

Living in the past won't make Amigas great again. Something fresh, visionary and innovative is needed, and the need is to look to the future for answers, not the past.

[bhoggett]

@BigBenAussie

First of all, I don't call myself "Defender of the Faith". That's a ranking based on the number of posts here on Amiga.org, and nothing to do with me.

Secondly, what you are talking about is a vague re-creation of 1985, without any real specifics of how you are to acheieve this miracle. Yes, I read your post and it contained nothing of substance, just vaguaries like "feel" and "fun computing" etc.

People are not queueing up to buy microcomputers any more. Yes, believe it or not, microcomputer style systems are available and have been for some time. They may be based on PC technology, but the consumer wouldn't know anything about it because everything is pre-installed. Guess what? They didn't sell very well. You know why? Because people are no longer willing to spend money on restricted systems that offer no upgrade path.

There is nothing in the current Amiga systems to  attract new users, even "consumers" as you call them. Amigas run sweet FA, and no developer in his right mind will work to develop Amiga only software that is only likely to reach a market of hundreds at best.

I think this niche you are talking about is an imaginary one, only found in the minds of a few people stuck in the past.

Yes, there are people who agree with you and yes, it IS a bad thing. Why? Because those people only exist within a section of the existing community. No one outside the communtiy would be remotely interested in what you propose, and those are the people that have to be targetted, not the existing community who would buy whatever is put under their nose anyway.

[bhoggett]

getting to more honourable pursuits... The exciting part of watching demos was seeing how cleverly the chips had been programmed and what impressive results were achieved.

Demo coders don't always make good programmers, or good program designers.  It's a long standing myth that a platform that attracts a lot of demo coders has therefore a great resource of serious programmers. This is certainly often not the case.

This brings me to another point about amiga that can draw us through to success - We have the opportunity to have a platform that can utilise the hardware on graphic and audio cards etc to much greater detail than PCs and Macs do...can't we?

How? What magic pixie dust is going to do that?

Graphics and audio hardware does what it is desinged to do. How well a system can use it depends on the quality of the drivers, and that in turn depends on proper support from the hardware manufacturer. Now, how will Amigas make better use of these cards than anyone else, when they can't even get the manufacturers to take any notice?

People don't hack hardware directly any more. It would be lunacy to even try.