Takers - One Woman's Opinion of the Amiga Mini

[commodorejohn]

Yes but its an architecture that has survived in the desktop and laptop market, unlike ppc.

PPC is dead dead dead.

Wait, how does "is not in use in desktops or laptops" equal "dead?" Just saying something doesn't make it so.

God forbid someone choose x86 so they don't have to pay 3,000$ for a computer that a 50$ used mac mini matches.

I don't have to pay $3000, I paid $10 for a Power Mac G4 at the recycle center that exceeds that Mini

[commodorejohn]

Aw man, I paid $7 more then you!
What a rip!

For that kind of markup, it should've been CUSA-badged! ;P

[commodorejohn]

Well I'm happy to report that a little birdy told me the new Amiga Mini has been doing great. Sales of both barebones and built systems are doing well....so it means Amiga as a brand name, is coming back into the public conscience in a big way. With more people using Amiga Forever and the like, sales of Amiga-related software would no doubt I believe, bring much needed attention (and cash) to those developers.

I'll grant you that there's apparently one person stupid enough to shell out gobs of cash for something worth half that (wish I knew their name, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell them,) but your "little birdy" says a lot of things. Around this time in the C64x release cycle the "little birdy" was talking about distribution contracts with Wal-Mart that guaranteed tens of thousands of sales. So, uh, I'll believe this when I see it.

Reading from all this though, one thing I cannot fathom is, why all the flames if CUSA does create/sell a PowerPC with AmigaOS inside it?

They're not doing any such thing...not even in the "Barry wildly tossing out potential ideas that will never actually be followed up on" sense...

I mean think about this. When people talk of Apple IIs & Macintoshes compared to Apple MacBooks, most folks understand that Apple IIs & Macintoshes were 'classic' systems i.e. legacy systems and realize that modern Apples run on the latest Intel chips. Yet when folks like myself here talk of legacy Commodores and Amigas and they are put it in the same sentence as USA, Intel and x86 port, everybody gets their feathers a little ruffled. What's the big deal? I don't understand it…

Because here's the thing, the Mac is and always has been a software system, and the hardware is unimportant aside from the most basic sense that it's what the software runs on. That's part of the original Mac Team philosophy. From the original System disk that shipped with the 128k Macintosh all the way up to the last revision of Mac OS 9, that software system was preserved, so that a dual-G4 system running at 1.25GHz is perfectly capable of running software from the 128k days, as long as it's well-behaved software (and it usually is.) Even on OSX, when they moved to BSD internals (something some Mac fans still aren't happy about,) they kept a compatibility layer for it to run classic Mac OS software transparently, in the same user environment. That's respecting a legacy.

The Amiga's design legacy is a bit different - not only the software, but also the hardware is important. Instead of the OS abstracting all of the hardware away, the two are designed to work in concert. That's part of what's so neat about it. Preserving that legacy is harder, since emulating the hardware is trickier - but the "next-gen" Amigoid OSes are trying, at least for well-behaved software (which is unfortunately less common than on the Mac.) They're actually making some effort to keep that legacy alive. CUSA? Isn't. And no, bundling an emulator with a completely unrelated system on completely unrelated hardware doesn't count for squat.

[commodorejohn]

The problem right now is not the hardware….the hardware we already have in the form of x86. The problem we have now is the rather stubborn attitude of those who are still holding onto the past glory of CBM and dedicated hardware, and not willing to release AmigaOS to the great heights of further evolvement as it should be.

That's an absolute load of crap. The Amiga OS has no less than three ongoing projects to keep it alive and updated as best as can be managed with the original architecture on a broad variety of newer hardware (including x86 PCs,) two of which are commercial developments by small companies and one of which is developed and supported entirely by Amiga fans. None of its contemporaries come close to that level of devotion. Commodore fans aren't holding the Amiga back, they're the sole reason it's still alive.

Taking the Apple analogy further from an Amiga viewpoint, if Mac OS wasn't evolved since 2000, it would still be using PowerPCs and a probably dated OS today, albeit with new softwares. Imagine iLife or iPhoto under OS9 lol.

...and? There's nothing magic about OSX or x86 that makes iLife better than it would be on OS9. I use OS9 semi-regularly on my old Macs, and it's perfectly decent for many purposes. A little balky, yes, and it's missing support for some new technologies (argh, no WPA support,) but it's not as if it's some kind of primitive mainframe operating system from 1970 or something. Apple went BSD because they felt it'd be easier than moving OS9 past a few key architectural stumbling blocks (cooperative multitasking and lack of memory protection, f'rinstance,) not because it was infinitely superior and transcendently perfect.

CUSA really wanted to use AmigaOS I'm sure, but it's all these 'potential lawsuits' that is keeping them at bay….and keeping the Amiga community at bay from moving on also...

I don't buy that. But even supposing I'm wrong and they ever were seriously considering supporting AROS or somesuch, the fact is they didn't. They went ahead with a series of projects that repurpose the names of classic computers (and the VIC-20, *rimshot*) for products that are completely unrelated, in hardware or software. If they were really at all committed to the idea of carrying the torch for the old Commodore, they'd have let Hyperion take their ball and go home, given up on getting the trademark, and forged ahead with their plans. Instead, they gave up on the thing so they could leverage the name. Any good intentions that they may have had mean nothing if they didn't follow through.

And I do feel software compatibility is important to the survival of the platform. Being 'incompatible' and totally working against a software industry now practically built on Intel boxes (with the exception of consoles), is crazy. Why not honour the past through emulation, and develop a future for the platform via AROS/Linux and custom chips via add-in boards/dongles?

I never said that wasn't an option. I'd extend due consideration to an OS that runs legacy Amiga software in emulation the way OSX does, placing it transparently in the same user environment. But CUSA just bundles WinUAE with an operating system that doesn't look, act, or work anything like an Amiga - that's a lazy token gesture, not any sign of real commitment.

Also it isn't just the likes of myself who have said about adopting the x86 platform for the Amiga is probably the right way and right choice, there have been others. Let me give you a quote from Casey Bakker on the Natami forum on what he had to say on the matter:

That quote says nothing whatsoever endorsing a move to x86, it just notes (correctly) that the PC market outpaced Commodore's lackluster R&D between 1985-1994. So did Apple's, and they didn't move to Intel until eleven years after Commodore broke up.

[commodorejohn]

They're not going to do that, that would require time and effort.

[commodorejohn]

What's really funny is my £500 PC has better sound and 3D graphics capability than their Amiga Mini :roflmao:

Exactly! And you wonder why…..because the PC clone had 'inadvertently' over the years, become what the Amiga should have been…

And the award for "not reading the sentence fully and thus missing the point hilariously" goes to...Middleman!

..have fully open architecture, meaning the ability to upgrade parts on a constant basis (and now cheaply) via ISA/PCI giving the user flexibility.

...wha...? Are you even reading what you're writing? God knows I love old-ass PCs, but seriously, holding up ISA, with its jumper configurations and interrupt conflicts, as an example!? PCI is more like it, but let's take a moment and note that the Amiga had an autoconfiguring expansion bus a decade before PCI came out. And what the hell can't you upgrade in an Amiga? The one irreplacable bottleneck is the actual bus itself, and that's no less true on any PC you care to show me.

[commodorejohn]

Well, color me amazed, it's a clear and straightforward statement of fact from Barry! Of course, it's a statement of facts we already knew...

Gotta love the "oh, can all you rabble just move on as we Enlightened Ones are doing" talk.

[commodorejohn]

I don't understand why anyone would want the old brands to come back.  They're just trademarks.  It's the combination of unique hardware and software that made my childhood computer so great, and that magic is gone forever.

I wouldn't expect Beatles fans to get excited about some bush league garage band bringing back the name, regardless of the quality of their music, because that would be straight up retarded.  And yet, here we are.

This has always baffled me as well. It's like the Holy Name is so valuable that it legitimizes quite literally anything it's attached to. I mean, some people around here were taking iContain seriously when it had the "Amiga" named tacked to it. I've joked before about shelling out to Uncle Bill to license the trademarks for such things as Amiga tampons, but I find myself having to wonder whether some folks wouldn't actually buy in, just for the sake of The Name...

[commodorejohn]

One thing for sure the new Amiga's will get, is that it won't lose out any longer to the development of computers over the last 20 years since Commodore went down.

In the same way that if you buy a Scion xB and scrawl "Studebaker" on the side with a crayon, it's a new, updated Studebaker, sure...

With the highest level of software compatibility, including the work done on emulation and OSes, you'll get an Amiga that can run all of the games and stuff including tech that is now available.

The only "work" CUSA has done on "emulation and OSes" is throwing a handful of preexisting desktop components on top of Mint in an attempt to make it look like OSX, and bundling Amiga Forever. If that's "work," me screwing around with XFCE for an afternoon is about equal to "developing a custom OS." Oh hey, I think I just figured out the next revision of "Commodore OS"!

People keep saying an Amiga shouldn't be an x86 system, but I think otherwise. Packaged with the right software and hardware combinations including case designs, it'll be a killer I think...with a nostalgic name to boot...

Even putting aside the x86 debate, that's a whole lot of talking out of your ass. There's no case design, nostalgic or otherwise, going on here - they buy an existing Mac Mini knock-off and etch a name on it. Big freaking deal. Their "hardware and software combinations" are generic i3 and i7 setups that they can't even figure out the power requirements for (and that should probably never have seen the inside of an HTPC case to begin with,) slapped with a lightly-customized Mint and a bundle of a bundle of UAE. And the only sense in which any of this is "killer" is in relation to one's wallet.

I never thought it would be possible, but they somehow managed to come up with a product even less enthusing than the C64x...

[commodorejohn]

Yeah, and rgmarett's idea is, while a lovely rendering, nothing more than a picture of a case design that's a lightly-modified A1200, with no information whatsoever about what's inside. (So much for "not a replica!") Get back to me if it turns out to be something other than a bog-standard PC board running a lightly-customized Mint or priced anywhere even remotely close to what a similarly-specced machine can be had for anywhere else.

[commodorejohn]

Think about the possibility of "Apollo" going 2-3Ghz (or more!) ASIC some day (hello Thierry! ). The 68k-architechture would get a super speed boost!
And it's also cool the 68k is further enchanced by the Natami-team

Well, let's not get too far off into dreamland here, but it would be neat to see it running in proper silicon someday

Well, just like you would use a car, many will use a computer. A Commodore Amiga computer even...but so, enthusiasts will always have their special thing and be proud of it, but general public uses a pc Amiga as a tool to get the job done. Commodore USA is not about retro hobby market, it's about making real business with a little bit of that Commodore spirit. And no other modern pc computer manufacturer offers a single bit of that spirit.

That is absolutely untrue. (For one thing, if CUSA is "not about the retro hobby market" as they've continually claimed, they sure do a lot of promoting to it. Almost like they can't sell to anyone else...) There is nothing Commodore, spirit or otherwise, about this outfit or their products. They don't embody anything about what made the machines good, or even any of the things that made the company successful (vertical integration, competitive pricing.) Nothing whatsoever.

What we need is either a port of OS4 to x86 64 and 32bit flavour with multithreading and multiprocessing Kernal. Or Amithlon+++ with the same.

If it were that simple to support SMP on the Amiga OS, they'd have done it already. The problem of the whole system being a free-for-all of pointers passed around like needles at a junkie convention and that being the entire basis for the message-passing system isn't just going to go away because you picked a different CPU to do it on.

But between A1000 and A4000 they made no improvement to the machines A/V until 1991. Improvements like more colours on screen in 320x200, more blitter bandwidth, HAM8. All could have been done before A500+. Sound was never improved, even dual Paula config would have been welcome in AGA.

Commodore failed to realise they were fighting two fronts. Mac+PC for £2000+ and £150 SNES+SEGA and finally. More money was lost to console sales than 486PC Doom £1000 setups, and by 1988/9 there were non x86 computers/consoles with 256 colours vs the A500 using 2.5 year old A1000 chipset for 5 years was a joke! (and a pig ugly case)

Oh, no argument there (well, except that I like the A500's case,) my point was just that holding up the eventual introduction of an autoconfiguring expansion bus to the PC world as The Very Reason that PCs won out is silly when (A) that didn't even happen until after Commodore was gone and (B) the Amiga had one from the get-go. I will in no way dispute that Commodore's post-OCS R&D sucked.

(Oh, also, saying the TG16 had 256 colors is a bit of a stretch - it had 16 palettes of 16 colors, not a true 256-color mode.)

[commodorejohn]

Add this to the list of nostalgia-baiting remakes that don't live up to their inspiration.

Ah, that warms my heart, it does...

[commodorejohn]

i7 isn't going to get you much over a single-core CPU, though, when the OS can't do SMP - not unless you figure out a way to efficiently parallelize emulation of a single CPU across multiple cores.

[commodorejohn]

Why this thread has 9k views is beyond my understanding.. once again i ask who cares about one person's opinion?

Well, you, for one...