Will there every be another computer like the amiga?

[Tenacious]

A different point of view.  The original post got me feeling all philosophical. Grin

Why?

Why do we need this validation?  I'm OK with the rest of the world desiring a different computer solution  than what I value.  (Keeps the bugs out!)

Most of the ppl who log in here have many Amigas, enough to last beyond the next time/date bug.  Our 1990s investment has also been updated with standards and technology that were unforseen when the machines were designed.  They're still fantastic and the rest of the world is fickle, grin.  Improvements, especially important ones, are still coming.  

Also, most ppl here have other platforms for standards that are inconvenient on Amigas.

There are ppl who say (justifiably) that Amiga is dead.  All my machines have a bright future.  They have already lived far past many other younger machines.  I'm not too far from content.

My 2 cents.

[Hell Labs]

Accept it can't be called an Amiga, Hyperion only has "AmigaOne" name.

Are you serious? Do you think I could, for example sell a product called "SonyOne PlayStationOne"?

So was the Teron mobo that Eyetech dished out.  I didn't call that an "Amiga" either.  Technically, none of them can be called an "Amiga" as that is the sole property of AI.

AI.

Amiga Inc.

The company that has cesed operations and no longer exists? How can you own something that doesn't exist? At any rate Hyperion have the rights (technically a perpetual, worldwide licence) to everything. They are marketing it as a new Amiga. It is a new Amiga.

For most folks, an "Amiga" was a 68K with a custom chipset.  That was pretty special back then.

Back then as in pre 1990. AGA sucked in comparison to vga, was very late, and came at a time when the mainstream had almost switched to PCs. It's not special now. It does nothing a 15 year old graphics chip can't do. To me, an amiga runs amigaOS or something that is, for all intents and purposes, an amiga. No chipset? Good. Saves development time and cost, and UAE is that way. 68K or the chipset isn't what gives it the "feeling". That's maybe the wedge case, but mostly the operating system.

It's a dual G4 SOC.  For $2000 USD, I'm not too impressed TBH.

I'll go slow, maybe you'll get it this time:

IT.
IS.
NOT.
A.
G4.

@KThunder: Nah your pda isn't an amiga system. Nah my pc with WinUAE isn't an amiga system. They, arguably, become an amiga when the emulator is launched, and stop being an amiga when it is closed. What I can say for certainty, is that they deserve to be recognised as amigas if all they do is Amiga stuff. Amilithon rig? Amiga. Stripped winxp that has winuae set to replace explorer.exe? Amiga. x86 machine that only boots aros? Amiga.

[Methuselas]

That, in a nutshell, is why in the last 15 years, linux has not taken a lead over Windows, and never will. That is also why a custom chip/ hardware computer will never outsell an X86 or ARM processor box (and the only reason the ARM is gaining ground is because people have no clue its not X86).
Companies will only take chances on proven and cheap technology, that they know they can flog to the average joe out there. Plain and simple.

I think this about sums it up on why both OS4 and MorphOS are doomed to fail.

[Crom00]

Arm is selling becuase they've been adopted into the cell phone market really well. Fast enough and low power. They're also cool with licensing terms. When's the last time you saw a licensed intel x86 cpu?

[Hell Labs]

I think this about sums it up on why both OS4 and MorphOS are doomed to fail.

If anything they'll fail when the last of the amiga users dies out. The rate of replacement is too low. Sure, people my age are tinkering with them, but that's one in how many million?

[jorkany]

AI.

Amiga Inc.

The company that has cesed operations and no longer exists?

What makes you think they have ceased operation and no longer exist? Because their website is down? Don't get me wrong, I hope AInc. really is history as they appear to be, but beyond their site being down I don't think you have much more evidence that they are truly "gone".

How can you own something that doesn't exist? At any rate Hyperion have the rights (technically a perpetual, worldwide licence) to everything. They are marketing it as a new Amiga.

A-eon is not Hyperion.

It is a new Amiga.

If so, then that's pretty sad. Back in the mid-80s when I thought about where the Amiga might be in the 21st century it sure was a lot more than the X1000.

I'll go slow, maybe you'll get it this time:

IT.
IS.
NOT.
A.
G4.

How do you know it's not a G4? The specifics haven't been released yet. It could very well be a G4, but that doesn't matter. What we do know is that it will be some PPC variant which might just as well be a G4. Dammy's premise is that PPC on the desktop is on the decline (to put it mildly) - it could be the best PPC ever devised and it still wouldn't make any difference.

You might recall the fellow a few months ago who polled not only the Amiga forums but also Linux and a few others to try to determine the interest in a new PPC motherboard (not OS4 specific). His results indicated that there isn't enough interest to make producing such a motherboard profitable. From what we know of the X1000 it isn't even designed to appeal to a general "PPC audience" if there was one, which there isn't. In the 80's the Amiga had appeal because it broke new ground in the consumer marketplace. It showed people that computers could bring excitement and creativity into their daily lives.

Nowdays everyone has a computer, they are part of the landscape. If the X1000 is to live up to the kind of legacy that the real Amiga had it will have to be a lot more than your typical PC or Mac, so will OS4. So far Hyperion and Co. don't seem to be able to muster that kind of creativity. The AmigaOne, the SAM, the X1000 - are little more than the red-headed stepchild of the real Amiga. If I'm wrong then let me know when it begins displacing other products in sectors outside of the fanboi community.

[Tension]

No.

[Belial6]

A non-windows home computer/games system could be built again.  The trick would be for someone like Acer to partner with Adobe and at the same time start building a good gaming SDK.

My son plays a lot of flash games.  While a lot of the games are crap, there are actually a lot of them that are really quit good.  When I say a lot, I mean A LOT.  Basicly what would be need would be:

* Acer supply the Revo in a game system case.  It is mostly there now.
* Adobe to add gamepad support to flash.
* Have the default setup so that a non-chatty Linux loads and boots into a full screen flash dashboard
* Write a decent dashboard in flash that can run the flash games and act as an 'app store'

With this approach, Acer could have their own game system ready for market with an extremely small team, tiny budget, and the system could be released at under $200.

Now, this approach could be massively improved from there with a little forethough.  Things like, making sure that the system can boot from a USB port would greatly increase their market, as geeks could buy the system knowing that they could always repurpose it to a generic PC.  For the general user, they would get a good gaming system, and for the enthusiast, they could boot into the simple game system, or plug in a usb drive and have a system they could run whatever they want on.

Anyone could write software for the system, and there would be a huge library from day 1.  Since the initial environment being flash, would be 100% abstracted, they would not be locked into an x86 world, although they could stay there as long as they wanted.

They could follow up the initial release with added functionality like the ability to run C64 software, DOS software, Amiga software, etc...

The possibilities go on and on.  The key is to keep everything abstracted.  Heck, they could even go so far as to use a Wine, or ReactOS image running on a PC emulator to package up Windows games.  By doing it that way, they don't tie themselves down to x86 and they don't care if future versions of the software have regression errors.  They also don't have to care if ugly hacks are necessary to get the specific title to work, since the entire OS has been stripped down, and tweaked for the specific app.

[Hell Labs]

What makes you think they have ceased operation and no longer exist? Because their website is down? Don't get me wrong, I hope AInc. really is history as they appear to be, but beyond their site being down I don't think you have much more evidence that they are truly "gone".

They don't answer the phone, there was only ever one person working in the "office", they had no products beyond 1990s era abandonware that they probably bought the rights to for nearly nothing, and they havent got their website - the one thing capable of generating them money- back online. That all points to a clar lack of amiga Inc.

A-eon is not Hyperion.

No, but they are buisness partners producing hardware for Hyperion. Try to keep up.

If so, then that's pretty sad. Back in the mid-80s when I thought about where the Amiga might be in the 21st century it sure was a lot more than the X1000.

What are they supposed to do then? porting to x86 would be a legacy support nightmare, and this is probably the best PPC motherboard being designed and made new. This is not their fault. If anything, the holy church of commodore fucked that one up before the 1990s even rolled round.

How do you know it's not a G4? The specifics haven't been released yet. It could very well be a G4, but that doesn't matter. What we do know is that it will be some PPC variant which might just as well be a G4. Dammy's premise is that PPC on the desktop is on the decline (to put it mildly) - it could be the best PPC ever devised and it still wouldn't make any difference.

Lets play this fun new game called reading.

The X1000 processor currently has very limited availability, and you've  probably never seen one in the wild, so don't worry too much about it. For now, please be content with knowing that it's a dual-core Power  Architecture™

The G4 is everywhere. this one currently is nowhere. Therefore, not a G4. Point me to a dual core G4.

You might recall the fellow a few months ago who polled not only the Amiga forums but also Linux and a few others to try to determine the interest in a new PPC motherboard (not OS4 specific). His results indicated that there isn't enough interest to make producing such a motherboard profitable. From what we know of the X1000 it isn't even designed to appeal to a general "PPC audience" if there was one, which there isn't. In the 80's the Amiga had appeal because it broke new ground in the consumer marketplace. It showed people that computers could bring excitement and creativity into their daily lives.

In the 80s the amiga had appeal because thats what the other kids at school had. The majority of amiga users don't know it was a computer. It was just a games console with a keyboard to them. Sure, if you were working in a TV station in an NTSC country, you might have seen some VT2000s. Thats it. People who used amigas as actual, general purpose computers were few and far between.

Nowdays everyone has a computer, they are part of the landscape. If the X1000 is to live up to the kind of legacy that the real Amiga had it will have to be a lot more than your typical PC or Mac, so will OS4. So far Hyperion and Co. don't seem to be able to muster that kind of creativity. The AmigaOne, the SAM, the X1000 - are little more than the red-headed stepchild of the real Amiga. If I'm wrong then let me know when it begins displacing other products in sectors outside of the fanboi community.

So your saying machines that are better than the classic amiga are somehow worse? "detachable keyboards! networking! dvd-rom drives! a CPU that goes faster than 50mhz! the horror! the horror!"

The amiga can never be mainstream again. It never really was. The 500 and 1200 were treated by the general public as "toy computers" or "games consoles". the 1000 was less popular than voluntary HIV (yes. that is a thing. people are actually willingly catching aids). The 2000,3000, and 4000 were never popular at home.

[scuzzb494]

The history of home computers during their brief period from say 1981 to 1994 was dominated by computer and computer manufacturers operating system being one entity. With the exception of the Mac nothing really survived after Commodore went to the wall. Microsoft dominated because they didn`t make hardware. [ I discount consoles ]. And that is how it is today. More likely is the prospect of an independant OS manufacturer creating an Amiga style interface to run on most standard machines without the need for custom chips. The chances of there ever being another true Amiga is probably zero. Times have moved on and the demand is just not there. Sad I know, but at least some of us lived through the era of 81-94 and can reflect on just how truly wonderful a period it was if you loved computers. ' We were spoilt rotten '.

scuzz

[tone007]

The G4 is everywhere. this one currently is nowhere. Therefore, not a G4. Point me to a dual core G4.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/04/08/18/motorola_developing_dual_core_powerpc_g4_mpc_7447a_successor.html

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?code=DRPPCDUALCORE

"G4" is a Mac name.  A dual-core PPC chip exists from the same manufacturer and it's compatible.  Sure, we could be pedantic and say it's not a G4, but it probably would've been if Apple hadn't abandoned the PPC architecture.

Either way, PPC, hot technology half a decade (or more) ago!

[Hell Labs]

This new dual core chip probably would have came under the name G6. It's all marketing.

[tone007]

I doubt they would've put it a model above their expensive G5, that would've been horrible marketing.  It sounds like it was supposed to be a lower power solution for laptops, at the time "Dual G4!!" probably would've sold laptops just fine.

[dammy]

Are you serious? Do you think I could, for example sell a product called "SonyOne PlayStationOne"?

Go read the settlement paperwork, it plainly states Hyperion has rights to AmigaOne but Amiga is reserved for AI.

AI.

Amiga Inc.

The company that has cesed operations and no longer exists? How can you own something that doesn't exist? At any rate Hyperion have the rights (technically a perpetual, worldwide licence) to everything. They are marketing it as a new Amiga. It is a new Amiga.

You can call it anything you wish, Hyperion and it's partners are restricted to AmigaOne designation.

Back then as in pre 1990. AGA sucked in comparison to vga, was very late, and came at a time when the mainstream had almost switched to PCs. It's not special now. It does nothing a 15 year old graphics chip can't do. To me, an amiga runs amigaOS or something that is, for all intents and purposes, an amiga. No chipset? Good. Saves development time and cost, and UAE is that way. 68K or the chipset isn't what gives it the "feeling". That's maybe the wedge case, but mostly the operating system.

I'm old school, tight integration of OS and hardware is what made the Amiga special.  X1000 does not share this status any more then ASUS mobos.

I'll go slow, maybe you'll get it this time:

IT.
IS.
NOT.
A.
G4.

Oh, G3 class cores?

[dammy]

This new dual core chip probably would have came under the name G6. It's all marketing.

Your saying the cores are not comparable to the G3, G4, nor G5 cores?  It will be very interesting to see who invested their $ with IBM (and I guess Freescale) to create a new PPC core.

[persia]

Probably not.  The Amiga was able to do things in video and sound that other computers weren't even able to dream about.  

The AmigaOne has standalone microprocessors that are good for robotics permanently tied to the machine, not really an advance anywhere.  VIdeo, naw, sound, nothing to write home about, graphics, Fugetaboutit!!!  You can't even sync your music collection.

There will never be another Amiga, we are not in an industry that works that way anymore.  Everyone has a computer in their homes now.  They carry computers around with them.  It's a much more mature industry.  

Let's face it, if you are a developer with a world beating idea where are you going to go?  To a machine that number in the hundreds with an almost non-existant development environment or one that sits in everyone's home?  Or to a rich development environment like iPhone/iPad/Ipod.

Indeed the closest thing to a game changer was the iPhone.  Windows Mobile sucked, it was Windows on a small screen, hard to use, hard to understand.  Apple created a simple device that just worked.