What will drive the New Amiga?

[mrmoonlight]

Hello

Can anybody hear me??? I'm starting to wonder...

Rather than trying to invent something new, why don't we capitalise on what we do well already.

1. Easy to use.
2. Fast to start and stop (more time doing and less time waiting).
3. Silent (could be completely silent if we tried harder).
4. Cool (in terms of "thermal"), PPC CPU's run cooler anyway but besides that we do not need to push the MHz barriers to get work done.

 
Is there really anything else out there that starts quickly, runs quietly and is easy to use???

Regards
Darren

Hi ,well done Darren and well said (Come on guys and girls.... Lets stop complaining about what we don't/cant have and start thinking harder about what we have/do well already.}
 
     Give me the stylish 1200/600/500  any day so near to being perfect ,the children adore it ,Games and music    that's what the youngsters of today want ,they don't need another towering tin can standing on the floor ,they like different and the amiga 1200 has a fashion statement of its own ,so little to do to make this Gem rock again,just my thoughts ,best wishes Brian.

[Iggy]

Starting arguments with skeletons is cool, it's time to start digging up old threads.

Ubuntu wasn't even released back when the previous post was made.

Digging up old threads to try to figure out if we've managed to put off Cammy.

After all, having females around is a relief.

There is something deeply burdensome constantly associating with male computing troglodytes.

[persia]

[gertsy]

Love that episode. So left o field. But can gnomes build the new Amiga for us.?

@Iggy. I love the way you manage to make me and probably lots of others cringe in one post. Well disassociated from us troglodytes. True colours exposed.

[danbeaver]

Originally the hardware drove sales in the form of graphics (paint, ray tracing), games, and the NewTek Toaster.  Now I see the software in the form of the OS driving sales.  Let's vote:  how many people enjoy using Sudo, Administrative privileges, or other crap to run their computer?  How many folks do backups because on those systems you can't just copy your boot partition to another location with a copy command?  How easy is it on a Win/Mac/Linux system to run a simple script by clicking an icon (iconX)?  Change your startup commands? Change an early startup menu to select boot drives and such?  Configure almost all aspects of your user interface (i.e., not Macs)?

OS4.1 is fast, modern, backwardly compatible, and beginning to support more than just USB, PCI and SATA drives; it runs well on even 15+ year-old CPU's and looks beautiful.  Just think about it.

[danbeaver]

Well it seems "Content" in the form of software to run on OS4.1/2 will be the driving factor, as per Trevor's talk at AmiWest 2014.

[I'd like to go to an AmiEXPO again -- those were fun and enlightening too!]

[slaapliedje]

Originally the hardware drove sales in the form of graphics (paint, ray tracing), games, and the NewTek Toaster.  Now I see the software in the form of the OS driving sales.  Let's vote:  how many people enjoy using Sudo, Administrative privileges, or other crap to run their computer?  How many folks do backups because on those systems you can't just copy your boot partition to another location with a copy command?  How easy is it on a Win/Mac/Linux system to run a simple script by clicking an icon (iconX)?  Change your startup commands? Change an early startup menu to select boot drives and such?  Configure almost all aspects of your user interface (i.e., not Macs)?

OS4.1 is fast, modern, backwardly compatible, and beginning to support more than just USB, PCI and SATA drives; it runs well on even 15+ year-old CPU's and looks beautiful.  Just think about it.

Ha, all of those are pretty easy to do on a Linux machine.  I have to say that's a lot of the reason why I like it, it's rather Amiga like.  Though I have to say it'd be nice to get something for the Amiga that would make it use 'cp' and 'ls' instead of 'copy' and 'list'.  without having to do aliases by hand.

But I see what you mean.  I wish I could get a PPC for my A4000D, so I could run OS4, but they're very cost prohibitive right now.  Pretty much any PPC hardware is at this point.  Of course I'm also weird and am probably more interested in playing in the Operating System than I am with any software for it.

slaapliedje

[gertsy]

Originally the hardware drove sales in the form of graphics (paint, ray tracing), games, and the NewTek Toaster.  Now I see the software in the form of the OS driving sales.  Let's vote:  how many people enjoy using Sudo, Administrative privileges, or other crap to run their computer?  How many folks do backups because on those systems you can't just copy your boot partition to another location with a copy command?  How easy is it on a Win/Mac/Linux system to run a simple script by clicking an icon (iconX)?  Change your startup commands? Change an early startup menu to select boot drives and such?  Configure almost all aspects of your user interface (i.e., not Macs)?

OS4.1 is fast, modern, backwardly compatible, and beginning to support more than just USB, PCI and SATA drives; it runs well on even 15+ year-old CPU's and looks beautiful.  Just think about it.

How about an OS and hardware combination that automatically keeps a recovery volume up-to-date with all the patches and updates applied to your operational OS. And one that automatically recognises that you've plugged in a 4tb high speed USB drive and asks you if you'd like the OS to keep backup copies of your files on it;transparently and non-intrusively in the background. That would be a cool OS yeah?

[danbeaver]

@slaapliedje  
Define, "cost prohibitive right now."

@gertsy
The first part of your question could be handles with a script set to run (whenever) that first runs and then copies the System Update function (complete with Roll Back) and one's OS partition on a regular interval; I'm not familiar with what happens in the case of (USB signals in) the second, but a USB trigger could, again, run a script to do just that.

Most of my Amiga DOS scripts are linked to an icon (IconX) and I run them on demand, such as switch network printers, or do a partition backup.  I know DOS scripts sound lame in this day and age of  Python and stuff, but I find them quick and simple solutions myself.

[Gulliver]

Nice thread necromancy

Going back to the original post this is what I think of it:

The Amiga has since Commodore demise, been driven by its user community, not by any company. That is the main reason it is still not completely dead as a platform, despite all the harm these companies made (and still make).

The sad part is that there is no new Amiga. Lets face it, the computing world has moved on, and Amiga is just a tiny part of its history. Yes, there is still hardware and software development, but nothing earth shattering, or worthwhile for the average Joe.

The Amiga will die when we die. There is no new generation, just old farts, and every now and then some few curious newcomers, but the gross of the community is built of old users that refuse to let it go.

Its sad, but it is what it is.

Another old fart

[TeamBlackFox]

Unlike some users here, I see the necessity for various security features such as sudp, privilege separation and permissions. Yeah, its a PITA, but I would rather run BSD, Linux and IRIX, which are at least *somewhat* ready for a security-conscious person, than AmigaOS. In addition, on the aforementioned OSes I can easily setup shell and Perl scripts to run automatically using the system function crontab but if I need to run them on demand all I need to do is make sure their location is in my shell's PATH.

Similarly I have access to significantly more advanced filesystem,. I have never seen an Amiga filesystem support soft updates, for example, and those are safer and easier for me to use, as well as faster and less likely to lose data. I don't know how Amiga filesystems store logs, but it looks like SFS is a 32-bit only equivalent of ext3, PFS and AFFS ( FFS is the BSD name for UFS,so AFFS is standard for Amiga ) are equivalent to the original UFS and ext2, that is no logging or soft updates so the filesystem has to undergo periodic checks on boot and while in use for file fragmentation and possible crash operations. I like soft updates because they ensure disks are atomically written, don't require an fsck before mounting and guarantee filesystem integrity.

Also, just me here, but I like IRIX Magic Desktop just as much as the AmigaOS look. In some ways the GUI is even more flexible, such as the native GL-acceleration allows for transparency and desktop effects without relying on DRI, which is basically a nasty hack over X11. The desktop of IRIX is one of the reasons I continue using IRIX, as it has the right amount of usability and customisable look, using the .Xdefaults file.

Using an NG Amiga would require a damn convincing reason to spend 6 times what I would pay for a top of the line SGI, for comparable performance, that's why I await 4.2+ and SMP/64-bit support/memory protection

[ElPolloDiabl]

I like the people who say this OS is a lot like Amiga. Somebody make a poll that asks:
I like Linux, but I wish it was more like Amiga.
I like OS4, but wish it would run on x86 or 68k.

Amiga should concentrate on playing catch up. Lets have a lot of software ports. It might get equal with Linux.

[danbeaver]

I like the people who say this OS is a lot like Amiga. Somebody make a poll that asks:
I like Linux, but I wish it was more like Amiga.
I like OS4, but wish it would run on x86 or 68k.

Amiga should concentrate on playing catch up. Lets have a lot of software ports. It might get equal with Linux.

Then just run Linux.

[agami]

I have a full-fledged business and marketing strategy for the introduction of a new Amiga-inspired platform into the market. I have had it for a while actually.

Some of you may say "Well why don't you share it with us?" or along those lines.
The answer: Unlike an idea, execution is the critical piece for the success of any venture. Ideas are a dime a dozen; Why you could have the world's greatest idea, and it can still fail because of poor execution. On the other hand, some not so great ideas have been successful due to how they were executed. Most of us have seen examples of both.

I am working toward executing this plan in the coming years, and when I do you will be amongst the first to know about it. As you might be able to appreciate, there are only a few windows of opportunity to launch new platforms; Talking about it now leaves it open for someone else to make a mess of it and drastically reduce the chances of a second attempt.

This is not subterfuge and it is not 1st of April. It is possible to create a commercially successful computing platform that would co-exist with Windows and Mac OS X.

[ElPolloDiabl]

Is it a Linux based games console?

[danbeaver]

I have a full-fledged business and marketing strategy for the introduction of a new Amiga-inspired platform into the market. I have had it for a while actually.

Some of you may say "Well why don't you share it with us?" or along those lines.
The answer: Unlike an idea, execution is the critical piece for the success of any venture. Ideas are a dime a dozen; Why you could have the world's greatest idea, and it can still fail because of poor execution. On the other hand, some not so great ideas have been successful due to how they were executed. Most of us have seen examples of both.

I am working toward executing this plan in the coming years, and when I do you will be amongst the first to know about it. As you might be able to appreciate, there are only a few windows of opportunity to launch new platforms; Talking about it now leaves it open for someone else to make a mess of it and drastically reduce the chances of a second attempt.

This is not subterfuge and it is not 1st of April. It is possible to create a commercially successful computing platform that would co-exist with Windows and Mac OS X.

I hope it does rain through your "window of opportunity, " then your idea will be all wet.