My evening with Commodore USA, LLC

[KThunder]

So that makes his opinion invalid? Is that what this comes down to, money? 'Cause people who will take anything from anybody as long as they bring the cash, there's a word for them...

He isn't spending his own money to start a company. Barry is.

[Franko]

So that makes his opinion invalid? Is that what this comes down to, money? 'Cause people who will take anything from anybody as long as they bring the cash, there's a word for them...

BARRY ALTMAN... :roflmao:

(Ok... that's two words but who's counting, well probably KT & Dammy... )

[Darrin]

You THINK they are scum, you THINK the model suck, but what the heck do you know.

More than you, obviously.

And I'm very successful too thanks, mostly because I know scum when I see it.

[Darrin]

Then we have Hyperion, who was contracted by Amiga Inc to do 4 months of developing work (some carefully defined work tasks, as outlined by the Friedens themselves) for which they would get a specified sum of money.

The four months passed. *Years* passed. But Hyperion never delivered according to their contract. Instead they simply took the money, held the code hostage for years while hoping for Amiga Inc to die, constantly FUD'ing MorphOS in the meantime in order to sabotage its market (this one is a personal favorite of mine: "The failure of Amiga Inc and the MorphOS team to come to terms is in part due to the fact that Amiga wants to assert their ownership and intellectual property rights over the Amiga OS (for which they paid 4.5 M USD) whilst the MorphOS team happily continues to refute those claims", as it so beautifully pictures the hypocrisy of Hyperion and irony of the situation that came to follow).

Then they try to rob Amiga Inc of their IP, but luckily the resulting "settlement" (cough cough) didn't result in a transfer of ownership of the Amiga IP to this mediocre Linux game porting company, and I'm glad that their products won't be called "Amiga", but amigaos or amigaone. Because Hyperion's ethics stinks, and so does their code, and nobody gave them the right to proclaim "Amiga" to be the degraded mishmash of poor performing code, poor and partly broken Amiga compatibility, relying on the second class Amiga API's and standards, Linux API's, lacking important standards, etc, and tying it to usury priced HW of poor performance and dubious quality. So I'm glad they aren't allowed to sell it as "Amiga"; since this will make it easier to advice people to stay clear from Hyperion's products without necessarily staying clear of "Amiga".

AFAIK, Commodore has a valid agreement with the IP owner to use the *Amiga* brand. This is very legal, and compared to what Hyperion has done during the last years, it's *very* ethical!

Ah, shall we drag Genesi in too?

Hyperion won in court, that's good enough for me.

I don't expect a long-term MOS fanboy to agree with me.

However, what do you think of C-USA's Workbench 5 marketing?  Perhaps they could call it "Morph Workbench 5"?

[KThunder]

More than you, obviously.

And I'm very successful too thanks, mostly because I know scum when I see it.

Have you met Barry? have you seen his company? have you seen his work on CUSA? I'm betting no, Red has, I take his work well over yours, especially since you seem to be saying the same thing over and over without substantiation.

[KThunder]

Ah, shall we drag Genesi in too?

Hyperion won in court, that's good enough for me.

I don't expect a long-term MOS fanboy to agree with me.

However, what do you think of C-USA's Workbench 5 marketing?  Perhaps they could call it "Morph Workbench 5"?

So it is good enough for you that hyperion had a legal right, but CUSAs legal right means nothing? I dont expect an off-his-rocker OS4 fanboy to agree with me.

[Darrin]

Have you met Barry? have you seen his company? have you seen his work on CUSA? I'm betting no, Red has, I take his work well over yours, especially since you seem to be saying the same thing over and over without substantiation.

I've seen what he's made available.  I've seen his threatening letters.  I've seen his stolen images.

First impressions count and the impression is "scum".

The evidence is there and all laid out for us to see.

If he isn't then he has a lot of back-tracking to do and I've seen to evidence of that, just sock puppets bleating on about what a nice guy he is.  Sure...

[commodorejohn]

Why should they provide a differetiated product line? Hyperion etc. haven't, Cloanto doesnt. OS4 is for PPC only, Aros is open source and can be ported to different archs but x86 is the main one.

And when have Hyperion, Cloanto, or A-Eon been held up as exemplary niche computer businesses, exactly? Providing a differentiated product line could give C-USA the opportuntity to do something that they don't: serve more than one segment of the market. There are people here who would be happy to run Linux with an emulator on an x86 box, and more power to them (and to C-USA, if they're just serving that need and not trying to promote themselves as the True Successor.) But there are also a lot of people who'd like to see something else that's closer to the original Amiga, and their options are woefully limited. If Barry is such a successful businessman, he might have the potential to see through some of these community projects to completion and make them available to all the people who want them, not just the few that get their hands on developer prototypes and testing boards while waiting for the real thing to finally be available.

Or, you know, he could follow your example, shrug his shoulders, say "x86 wins, why bother, nothing good ever came of doing something different," and go with what everybody else does.

[Darrin]

So it is good enough for you that hyperion had a legal right, but CUSAs legal right means nothing? I dont expect an off-his-rocker OS4 fanboy to agree with me.

Dear sock puppet.  This has already been answered.  Please look up "ethics".

[EDanaII]

Why don't ya'll just cool it for a minute? You're all arguing so hot and heavy that nobody is listening to anyone.

This is an emotional subject, yes. But nobody's going to get anywhere given the direction the argument keeps spinning into.

Two cents.

[Franko]

Oh well... I'm off to have some dinner and watch a film it's called "How To Lose Friends And Alienate People", thinks it must be documentary on CUSA (Wonder if old KT & Dammy appear in it)...

[KThunder]

And when have Hyperion, Cloanto, or A-Eon been held up as exemplary niche computer businesses, exactly? Providing a differentiated product line could give C-USA the opportuntity to do something that they don't: serve more than one segment of the market. There are people here who would be happy to run Linux with an emulator on an x86 box, and more power to them (and to C-USA, if they're just serving that need and not trying to promote themselves as the True Successor.) But there are also a lot of people who'd like to see something else that's closer to the original Amiga, and their options are woefully limited. If Barry is such a successful businessman, he might have the potential to see through some of these community projects to completion and make them available to all the people who want them, not just the few that get their hands on developer prototypes and testing boards while waiting for the real thing to finally be available.

Or, you know, he could follow your example, shrug his shoulders, say "x86 wins, why bother, nothing good ever came of doing something different," and go with what everybody else does.

Trying to offer a differentiated product line is also a great way to ensure you never get off the ground. It takes a lot of money to do this stuff. He should focus on what has the best chances right now.

[Digiman]

Not yet interested in the "amiga" stuff. If they end up with a nice amiga like UI for linux, Id have interest, and I'd at least consider a PC in a replica A1200 or A500 case.

It wont be an amiga, but itd be fun to own.

Fair enough and I would spend about 100 bucks on such a replica Amiga case, the price of the most stylish PC cases out there now. I would need some sort of hardware to interface with real Amigas I own though like Amiga FDD compatible disk controller card and FDD drive or a CF adaptor kit and software to use with A600/1200s etc as an optional extra too.

I'd want an A3000 or 1000 case plastics alone myself but nothing else except the hardware mentioned above, can get my own dirt cheap PC hardware and install OS and UAE myself thanks.

Here's a thought, how about an Amiga 3000 style case to fit an A1200 motherboard inside to recreate the A1400/A1400CD prototypes. Now something like that for £150 inc external keyboard rehousing kit too marketed honestly would get him a bit of respect. Team up with Jens and get some REALLY cheap 030 cards made in bulk by investing in massive initial production run himself [ie B. Altman investing] up front.

Not really interested in the C64x unless I can use real 9pin joysticks (so another £30 for Stelladaptor at best) the rest is not for me really interesting as it is. I'd rather have seen them licence the FPGA based C64 DTV and put it inside that case and bundle it with a uIEC or something. At least the C64 DTV has something new (256 colour screen mode like C65 prototype).

I suspect at best he will get orders for just the cases, the C64 keyboard is radically different. Do I really care though if my PC has 12 function keys not 10 when I use WinUAE? Nope. So much smaller market there for sure unless you make out it is the second coming of Commodore actual's Amiga from the 90s (which it is not despite woolly marketing).

[KThunder]

Dear sock puppet.  This has already been answered.  Please look up "ethics".

Stop calling me a sock puppet, darrin.

You know nothing of ethics, if you think attacking a company that doesnt even remotely appeal to you is ethical. Barry Altman is starting a company he is doing it how he wants to.

You arent doing anything but sitting back and whining. You aren't trying to start a company, you aren't doing anything for the community.

[Darrin]

Stop calling me a sock puppet, darrin.

You know nothing of ethics, if you think attacking a company that doesnt even remotely appeal to you is ethical. Barry Altman is starting a company he is doing it how he wants to.

You arent doing anything but sitting back and whining. You aren't trying to start a company, you aren't doing anything for the community.

Sure,

Oh, here's a picture of you, Barry and Dammy!


I'm doing lots for the community:  I buy products.  Yesterday I pre-ordered a Chameleon.

I've already pointed out in my business plan how Barry could sell products that would appeal to people.  The question (still unanswered) is why he doesn't.

[KThunder]

I have answered your question several times, you dont seem to actually be reading my posts.
He doesn't have money to do very much hardware development, noone does.
Natami and others are dream projects that more hobby than business.
And he is the one starting the company, putting his own money into it not us. He makes all the choices, and is targetting more than just us, he wants to sell people outside of what we consider the community.