Apple's revival is based on Stevie's Return (to the Dragon's Nest) and purchase of NEXT. NEXT OS was a decade ahead of its time when it came out (around the same time when Amiga started making waves). Does this sound familiar? It was based on, gasp, 68K architecture but designed in a platform-independent way because it grew out of FreeBSD (Mach). Stevie was taking advantage of open source before anyone else knew what it meant *and* he was keeping the OS portable. Portability and clean design (software and hardware) are at the heart of Apple's philosophy. I am by no means a hard-core Apple fan, but I have learned a lot from them
and their products.
As of OS 4 (and 4.1 if it is really in the works), I tend to ignore it because it does not offer any tangible advantage over OS 3.9. PPC is a dead platform and I do not intend to throw a lot of money after an obsolete Blizzard/Cyberstorm card. Instead, I will just buy another Macbook Pro because I can actually *use* it. Amiga in its present situation, let's face it, is merely a curiosity from the 68K era. With a lot of games
Productivity applications seem very dated. Platform is largely without support from a major corporate entity. This is why it is so puzzling to me that AROS did not take stronger hold. But, not all things Amiga make sense all the time
Can someone post a short list of OS 4/4.1 advantages over OS 3.9? PPC card costs about as much as a half (!) of a top-of-the-line MacBook Pro and I *really* want to know the *real* price of the upgrade. For a monitor connection, I found a great RGB-to-SCART cable which produces a very nice picture on somewhat expensive LCD TV. The "good picture" alone will cost you about $500 on Amiga (with or without flickerfixer witchcraft). Talk about having a choice how to burn five Benjamins.
In another post, I wrote that Amiga's pricing was always an issue. It was just too expensive towards its "demise date" -in comparison with competition. I don't know about others on this forum, but I do look to spend a *reasonable* amount on hardware/software (for selfish and business reasons). This is why I did not buy a Mac G3/G4 when it was released, but much later when it was a bit vintaged. Mac G3/G4 machines offered little more than a colorful plastic shell, with the same sluggish OS. I understand that Apple had to do what it had to do to keep money flowing in for further development, at the time when Woz was too busy with Kathy Griffin and writing his book which left no time to help out with motherboards.
For my money, OS X Leopard is the first *serious* OS from Apple in years because, for once, its timing was perfect, platform fast and secure for the near and mid-term future (going multicore) and SDK simply the best out there. Nothing on IntelMac is half-a$$ed, semi-done or experimental. It is the real deal, the pinnacle of decades of semi-finished, very cool and underpowered products. Stevie is a genius because he made so many mistakes along the way and capitalized on them while keeping the Cool going.
The biggest issue with Amiga may not be the hardware but software. Without a software market, there are no new applications and no need for new hardware. It is a vicious circle, a catch-22 in a Devil's Kitchen (in einer Teufelskueche - this is just for bloodline
If German (electrical) engineering could not save Amiga hardware platform, who can? German industrial design saved Apple because it provided a template for the "new" Mac look (of which I have "Braun's" originals laying around in my home). But they are not easy to "copy".
Did anyone manage to copy the BMW ("beemer")? How about a Porsche? PPC Blizzard/Cyberstorm cards? You get my point
And we know that Stevie even enjoys German-made washing machines because they have such a cool user interface.
Real artists ship. And steal. In quantities. Amiga needs a good "thief". It also needs to move out of her (evil) dad's basement after all these years, get a haircut, fake boobs , whatever it takes to get "stolen."
:-D
