What a letdown it all was...

[Ral-Clan]

I've been an Amiga user since 1987 and followed the whole Amiga crash, rise, crash, etc. very closely throughout the years.

I've recently seen some of the Amiga-St. Louis convention videos taken around 2000-2001.  Bill McEwen is interviewed in a lot of them and even pitches the new Amiga and AmigaDE on CNN and a few other shows.  He also makes some impassioned speeches to the Amiga community at the conventions.  This was the first time I've really seen him speak.  He could carry a room, and entertain an audience.

He's a good speaker and seemed so enthused and honest.  Man, I would have been taken in by him if I'd met him personally.  He even seems like he believed in what he was doing.  And I guess Amiga Inc. did produce a real product (AmigaDE) at first.

What the hell happened (well, I know what happened). But what happened with HIM? When did he go from this to the kind of person who would try to scam the Kent Hockey Area?  What the hell?  I can't even imagine how can he remain and employee of the empty, false claim-making company that is now Amiga inc and still face his family and neighbors every day?

Maybe it was never genuine in the first place, but watching those videos he sure seemed that way at first.

[number6]

I've been an Amiga user since 1987 and followed the whole Amiga crash, rise, crash, etc. very closely throughout the years.

I've recently seen some of the Amiga-St. Louis convention videos taken around 2000-2001.  Bill McEwen is interviewed in a lot of them and even pitches the new Amiga and AmigaDE on CNN and a few other shows.  He also makes some impassioned speeches to the Amiga community at the conventions.  This was the first time I've really seen him speak.  He could carry a room, and entertain an audience.

He's a good speaker and seemed so enthused and honest.  Man, I would have been taken in by him if I'd met him personally.  He even seems like he believed in what he was doing.  And I guess Amiga Inc. did produce a real product (AmigaDE) at first.

What the hell happened (well, I know what happened). But what happened with HIM? When did he go from this to the kind of person who would try to scam the Kent Hockey Area?  What the hell?  I can't even imagine how can he remain and employee of the empty, false claim-making company that is now Amiga inc and still face his family and neighbors every day?

Maybe it was never genuine in the first place, but watching those videos he sure seemed that way at first.

Nothing is black & white.

People speculate that Petro is only writing his book because enough time has passed to take the sting out of what he has to say.
I don't think you'll hear the next chapter (the years following Petro) until some time has passed.

#6

[Argo]

Petro is writing a book! I'll have to add that to my list and Commodore/Amiga books.

[portarinos]

Well, if you speak German then it should be a good read. It seems it won't be written/translated in English unfortunately.

[hishamk]

What the hell happened (well, I know what happened). But what happened with HIM? When did he go from this to the kind of person who would try to scam the Kent Hockey Area?  What the hell?  I can't even imagine how can he remain and employee of the empty, false claim-making company that is now Amiga inc and still face his family and neighbors every day?

Maybe it was never genuine in the first place, but watching those videos he sure seemed that way at first.

Facing the family is the easy part. Just look at all the war-mongering presidents and dictators, murdering Mafia dons and Wall Street sub-prime mortgage repackagers. Their families know exactly what they're doing, yet they turn a blind eye (which usually evolves into illusions of self-righteousness and grandeur -- self-delusion) as long as the money keeps flowing. Now I'm not sure there's much money in Amiga, Inc. but you never know.

[Kronos]

But what happened with HIM? When did he go from this to the kind of person who would try to scam the Kent Hockey Area?  

Nothing really changed with him...

1st you need to forget about Amino ever "doing something", AmigaDE was just Tao's Intent with a boingball sticker and whatever was added later done by 3rd party developers.

Given the info and witnesses that has surfaced in the past 13 years it becomes quite clear that the initial idea was some sort of investment/IPO scam.

Remember that in early 2000 we still hat the .com boom running where some technobabble and impressive office-space was all you needed to make your company worth billions on the stock market.

Bill&Barry missed that boat and resorted to smaller scam (PartyPack,tshirts) and later probraly even money laundering (the whole Itec/KMOS thing).

[number6]

Petro is writing a book! I'll have to add that to my list and Commodore/Amiga books.

Hi Argo,

There's a little more information here:

Latest News About Viva Amiga & Petros Autobiography...

#6