CommodoreUSA CEO Interview Answers

[Duce]

A waste of time, as expected.  Just more horn tooting, veiled insulting comments about the community, and marketing mumbo jumbo.

Credit where credit is due, at least their word was kept and some questions were answered.  Shame the PDF format makes any discussion of individual topics quite difficult, but running it through an online PDF to Text converter yields:

http://pastebin.com/kt9Z6chh

Any formatting errors are due to the PDF to Text converter, so don't blame me - it is a verbatim batch process.

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Not all PDF readers copy and paste well.

[Duce]

I just tire of the yammering on about these "new Commodore" and "new Amiga" machines on sites like A.org, and I for one hope I never see another thread about either of them now that "the air has been cleared".

We got guys busting their asses - the Natami guys, Mike and crew with the FPGA Arcade board, stuff like the ACA boards, ZorRam.  MorphOS, AmigaOS, and AROS all offering very nice offerings of the Amiga experience.  We have more choice than we ever had in regards to "The Amiga Experience", really.  While we may fight and bicker between the camps, at the end of the day we do all truly know we are on the same boat.

Yet we waste our time dancing around with this C-USA nonsense - commodity hardware with a rebadged Linux distro, from a company that clearly has no intentions in offering anything to anyone wanting something that actually resembles an "Amiga".

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  I understand the retro market.  I do understand why someone buys a C64x.  I do understand and fully realize there are people that will buy the "Amiga Mini" in some attempt to revisit their glory days back when they had a real Amiga.  I'm entirely comfortable with the concept of "a fool and his money are soon parted", and I'm entirely comfortable in the fact their products are not for me.  I hope C-USA makes a good PC that people are happy with if they purchase one.

Why the angle keeps getting spun that it's the "haters" that have kept them as a topic on true Amiga sites, that one baffles me.  I wonder why they are even mentioned at all - they are a commodity PC assembler/rebadger, and Gateway has more true Amiga street cred than C-USA.  It baffles me why every time C-USA so much as squeaks out a muted fart, the powers that be here are front paging it.  All I can come up with is they are trying to drive pageviews, and I see that as costing this site and others like it a lot of the old timer traffic.

People come here primarily to discuss the Amiga.  How you define "Amiga" is up to you.  It might be legacy, it might be FPGA, or AROS, MOS, AOS, or emulation.  Whatever floats your boat.  Isn't a damned thing Amiga about anything that will ever come out of Commodore USA other than engraving on a Chinese case filled with x86 components, running Linux with a custom skin.

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If the majority of Amiga owners were game players, I sure wasn't one of them.
I used my systems 99% for productivity and creative purposes.

Not trying to beat a dead horse here, but need to say what I forgot to say earlier.

Kudos to Barry for going through with it.

Cheers to Transition for getting the Q&A done and posted while jerk offs like me say nasty things about the whole deal being a farce.  At the end of the day Transition, people only chide you if they feel your site is being milked for PR purposes, or in some instances your integrity and the integrity of A.org is being tread on.  Nothing personal, buddy - in time I'm sure you might even see it as a backhanded form of respect, lol.

[Duce]

Only more reason to support the little guys keeping the original lineage alive - again, how you define that is all up to you.  Enjoy what you have, don't spend a dime on what you feel taints the good name.  Either way, it's not going to change the business plan of Commodore USA.  They can live in the delusional world that they are the next boutique brand, but people based in the real world will simply not even consider what they offer, much less us old timers.

90% of what Barry said simply showed me they are so out of touch there's not much hope regardless of what nameplate they are slapping on stuff, though I laughed at the mentions of Apple and Alienware in the Q&A session.
All I read was 30 pages of disdain for the dedicated Amiga fanbase, so don't give them the satisfaction of giving them any press.  We are irrelevant to them, for God's sake make them irrelevant to us.  They have absolutely no intentions on doing anything to benefit any of us - they are simply plodding along selling stickered PC's as "next gen Amiga's".  Don't buy them if you don't agree with this ideal, and if you'd prefer to make your own "Amiga", there's 100 guys on here that can tell you how to do it for half the cost.  Isn't a single component in the Amiga Mini that cannot be bought off the shelf.

Support the guys like Jens, and the AmigaKit type vendors - the guys keeping the legacy/Classic Amiga market alive.  If I had the options of cool HW when I had my old A4000 that I would now if I'd kept it, I'd be in paradise.

The FPGA crews.  Mike @ FPGA Arcade, Natami crew, Minimig, etc.  These are the guys getting their hands dirty, doing the soldering grunt work trying to bring you an affordable blast from the past.  These guys are an inspiration in a world when all our legacy gear is getting near 20 years old.

Pick up a $50 Mac Mini and give MOS a whirl.  It doesn't cost you a damned thing to try it, it's very capable and even if you dislike MorphOS you still have a more than capable OSX or Linux machine for day to day tasks.

Take a OS4 machine for a whirl!  While the cost of entry is higher, it's a great OS.  Many guys like myself would be happy to set up a VNC session into one of our PPC OS4 machines if you want to tinker around with the OS for a bit.

AROS - Completely free and runs on hardware you likely already have.

UAE variants - extremely easy to setup, and works a treat.  Same goes for Amiga Forever, reasonably priced and a good solution if you are inclined towards emulation.

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C-USA:

Enough.  We all read 30+ pages from your CEO, telling us not to buy if we didn't like it, 30+ pages stating any real Amiga innovation is not on the horizon.  30+ pages of patronizing insults and delusional grandeur from a CEO that seems to have read the Steve Jobs bio a couple times too many.  You don't need us, you don't want us, we once again are told we are not your target market.  Why you still here?

You are a commodity PC vendor that sells machines running Linux.  We're cool with that, but now that your CEO has stated there are absolutely no intentions from your company that will ever benefit users looking for the unique Amiga experience as we know it, stop the spam and go away before the dedicated users of A.org get sick (and leave due to it) of the constant drone of being preached to by a INTEL PC ASSEMBLER PUSHING LINUX....

Putting an Amiga sticker on a commodity case filled with commodity parts, running Linux does not make it Amiga in all eyes of the world.  Just like how a delusional person can put a Mercedes decal on a Honda and convince himself he's driving a luxury car, I guess it's all dependent on your perspective.  Yet some people still have thriving businesses selling Mercedes stickers to Honda owners - I suggest you go after that comparative market in your chosen field.

I wish you guys the best in your business, but no one comes to A.org to read about a Linux PC in a stickered case.  No one.  The fluff to real meat ratios of posts here are getting atrocious - all I care about is people not leaving A.org because of it.  Enough, ok?  We know where to find you.

Except, it isn't anymore.  Barry told us your products will never be what we're after, we were told there will never be anything other than stickered commodity PC's as the "vision" of the C-USA Amiga.  I'm cool with that, but man - for the love of this place I just wish Commodore USA would go away.

I'd be tarred and feathered if I started spamming ad's on A.org for my side hobby company that builds high end gaming PC's on a per order basis.
Why?  They are completely irrelevant to anything Amiga.  Just like C-USA is now irrelevant to us, by Barry's own admission.

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This CUSA stuff is so 2010 (or was it 2009?)  Let's move on to something more interesting.

This.

Barry gave his answers, I'm sure we're all appreciative he cleared things up.

He also readily stated they are a PC vendor selling x86 Linux PC's that to even be remotely Amiga related, one must purchase a third party emulation package.  They are about as much of an Amiga as Dell is, unless you consider a case etching the true progenitor of the brand lineage.  

They simply are not relevant in the least anymore, this is Amiga.org.

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For a new topic, how about what everyone plans on doing with their FPGA Arcade systems?

I'm anxiously waiting on the daughtercard option so I can run my BBS on it ( need ethernet), even got a case for it already, the Antec Skeleton Mini case.

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I like the case a lot, had my SAM in it for a bit.  Think I paid about $85 for it on sale at Newegg.

PROS:  size, real small.  Looks are real, real cool.  The open skeletal form of it is real neat visually.  Lightweight (a little over 5 pounds), and top mounted fan keeps things real cool.  Front IO panel connectors keep systems tidy and accessible, and the sliding mobo tray is nice.

CONS:  the same open nature of it that I find to be nice eye candy also can make the thing a dust collector - your components are literally quite out in the open, so I'll probably never put any actively cooled mobo in this.  Drive bays are somewhat limited, 1 5.25" and 4 2.5".  Half height expansion slot and mitx mobo size requirements are a limiting factor to some.  Price can be considered a little steep for such a small case.

They do also make a full ATX version of the Skeleton case.  There are a lot more functional cases on the market, there's no doubt the primary goal of this one is visual impact.

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I run Zeus BBS on a SAM 440.  The BBS software itself runs just fine on the PPC hardware/OS4, but the problem (and the reason I want the FPGA board) is that many older doors simply won't run well on the PPC machine :/

Working on porting DLG BB/OS to OS4 as well, and eventually to MorphOS perhaps.

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Find it amusing that the magazine clip Vox posted is scathingly critical of the "new Amiga" that C-USA are offering.  Hope C-USA isn't posting that article in their Media relations file, because the author of said article is just as critical of the Amiga Mini as anyone here is, if not worse.

The words C-USA and Innovation shouldn't be used in the same sentence in regards to this Mini.  I'll give credit where credit is due on the 64 series, that case had some merit to retro guys.  There was something new and unique there, but not on this one.

The Amiga Mini?  Components I can purchase off any store shelf.  A $40 case, some commodity PC components in it, and a rebadged version of Linux.  
Not even an emulator with ROM's.  Nada.  Zip.  Zilch.  A Linux PC.

I'll respect it for what it is, and that's a PC - but man am I sick of people heralding an Intel based PC running Linux as the "new Amiga that will save the Amiga name!" when there's absolutely nothing "Amiga" about it, nor is there anything innovative.  An Amiga decal on a Dell, same thing.  PC components in a PC case.  Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm far beyond getting cranky about people defiling the Amiga name - after
years of seeing people like McBill and others farm it out like a $5 prostitute, I'm not a big, ardent defender of "the name".  What does annoy the living hell out of me is otherwise bright, intelligent people heralding things as a "rebirth" or a "great new innovation", when the stark truth is:  it is a COMMODITY PC WITH A LOGO ON IT, RUNNING LINUX, AT 2x THE PRICE.

The Amiga Mini has about as much to do with the Amiga as a Dell with an Amiga decal stuck on it.  Period.  There isn't enough whitewash in the world to get past the fact they are charging a 2x markup for an Amiga etching on a $40 mini-itx case that has been discontinued.

If their products are what you are after, by all means, it's your money and I truly hope you enjoy your systems.  There are more reputable and far cheaper "boutique" brands out there, however - or you could build your own in about an hour at half the cost...

Once again, I implore you to support the "little guys".  The Natami crew, FPGA guys, the authors and vendors of emulator programs, MorphOS, AROS, and OS4 - which do actually bring something unique and niche to the table.

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No Dammy, the Amiga Community couldn't get 500 people together to unite under the promise of a product from a company with absolutely no track record or credibility.  A company that for years has slandered and insulted said community, a company that brought in weird escrow terms and conditions like they were doing us some grand gift, a company that for the most part never "innovated" anything, yet with the drop of a hat, they are now an inventive company wanting to give us what we want - assuming we fork over the money, in advance.  Assuming what they would have delivered would have been anything more than poor quality chinese components with Amiga stickers.

Why would people, after reading horror stories of people having to rip apart their brand new C-USA Commodore 64's to install additional/better cooling, or watching them be told to add a laptop cooler to get the machines to run cool - want to have ANYTHING to do with any product they were innovating for the "Amiga Community?"

You have a very selective memory, and an even more selective view of what is reality and common sense.  If you cannot see why people were rightfully hesitant on that challenge to the community, you're living on a different planet than the rest of us.

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I bet the Amiga online community could very easily get 500 people together to tell C=USA to go to hell.

Start the petition and tell me where to sign.

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After reading 30 pages of lies and half assed explanations in Barry's Q & A session, Dammy - why would ANYONE in the community want to have anything to do with C-USA?  A company that has done nothing for us?  Eh, let me correct myself - they were kind enough to send me veiled death threats via PM one time when I voiced polite opinions.

Yeah, maybe I'm the lone guy that found it "odd" that a 30 million dollar ad budget is now suddenly pinned on the ad agency.  Just like how I found it odd the claims of being partners with Disney and everyone else, and now C-USA is being portrayed as "a small company that made some mistakes".

No, lol.  You can't have it both ways, you can't put on the big boy pants and be condescending towards the entire community for YEARS, saying you are gunning for Apple, then flip the switch and be the little guy, trying to eek out an existance while gladhanding false apologies.

I'll ask you again, Dammy - you state how you have no business relationship with Commodore USA.

HOW DO YOU ENJOY YOUR COMMODORE USA PRODUCTS?

Surely you just aren't a talking head, surely their offerings are swell enough for you to get out YOUR wallet, no?  I've asked this question a dozen times, and I'm willing to bet my left nut C-USA hasn't got a single dime of your hard earned money - why the press drive then?

Unless you own one, bought with your own money, you are getting very redundant around here doing the dog and pony show for them, Dammy.

[Duce]

Trolling?  Pointing out facts isn't trolling, Dammy.  Poking holes in hazy (and hysterically funny) logic isn't trolling.

Libel?  Is not one thing I have said here that cannot be backed up by things directly uttered by C-USA here or elsewhere.  Anyone with 10 minutes of free time can do the legwork.  Complaints of machines running extremely hot and other issues were on their own forums, and yes - people did screenshot said posts before they were removed.  You are accusing me and others of slander, Dammy - and that's just not true, and it's not appreciated.

Didn't answer me, Dammy.  How's that C-USA machine of yours treating you?  A guy that fervently supports a company like you do, you know, you not being an employee or anything of the sort, surely bought one and can offer a glowing review of it?  I'm honestly curious how you are enjoying your purchase, Dammy - please share.