lol, just lol.
And when I think back about the minor qualms I had about having to once again pay for 4.1 FE after paying $100+ for an eternally "in beta" 4.1 update 1-6, the absolute hellscorn I got from some people when I said I felt it was a bit of a "cash grab" and a bit of a screw over to current OS 4.1 customers and faithfuls like myself, and the hateful PM's I got about it, I gotta chuckle.
People told me I was a negative plague amongst the NG Amiga scene, that "it's only $30, after all". $30 isn't much, but it was about $30 more than I wanted to pay after effectively paying $100+ for my original copy of 4.1 and being a paying beta tester/developer for the last 7 years. I recall one person telling me "you're the problem with the Amiga scene" because I dared question things. Welp, this "problem with the scene" has an extra $30 in his wallet to spend on good beer this weekend, I didn't buy 4.1 FE, and if I did, I'd be let down badly right about now.
It doesn't make me love my SAM and OS4 any less, though - and I hope talks are well underway so development continues on it, because I will continue to use it. I like it. You might not - and that's just fine. You, or I, for that matter - might not have ever cared for Hyperion's strong armed, egotistical manner of handling the franchise, but that's moot. I'm not a big fan of Microsoft's internal monopoly and politics either, but I use their products 99% of the time. I have no plans to get rid of my SAM (or MOS boxes) anytime soon.
I just hope the rights to OS4 get into the hands of someone that has some sense. The sense to realize that $3000+ PPC machines are not going to keep the OS4 scene thriving. You've cut off your nose to spite your face, and that pains me when the OS in itself is such a joy to use. But for 90% of people, it's not a $3000 joy - but I bet if you offered OS4 for PPC Mac, copies would fly off the proverbial shelves.
To whoever ends up with the rights - do the right thing. While PPC Mac's are not growing on trees anymore, please realize that you would sell many times the copies of the OS if you simply ported OS4 to the Mac PPC. The $3000 boutique style "super computer that can't even run an office suite" model isn't working. Cost of involvement in the OS4 platform is far too high to get the developers knocking on your door. You (and I) will be left behind for the cheaper platform, even in such a niche market.
No one is buying these to run paint programs, or silly ActiveX style desktop enhancement suites. No one is buying these to run rendering programs that run faster on an 8 year old PC. What people would really like to do is use these machines all day, every day, for their daily tasks. Word processing. Web browsing. Social media. The same things we do on our mainstream machines. $3000 machines isn't going to get us there anytime soon, but you will always, always have a market for them should you make them. You may not sell 10,000 a quarter, but you might also increase OS sales 50 fold if the darned OS ran on cheaper systems.
Nothing to me was more disappointing with my SAM purchase than the day I had to reach for my $50 cellular phone to look something up on the internet because the browser on the SAM would crash.
