If C= had produced an Amiga incompatible wonder computer would you have bought it?

[J-Golden]

I voted yes.  The thing that I loved about the Amiga was it's hardware and if Commodore kept putting out excellent pieces of kit, then I'd stay in!

[stevenlcroucher]

C128 sold badly and wasn't a huge improvement

I came across something on commodore.ca the other day where Bil Herd replied to a message about the C128.  He stated the C128 was only created because Commodore needed to be seen to be doing something before they released the Amiga.

[bloodline]

You were 13.  Man, I am feeling old........
I though you might be older.
Your avatar picture reminds me of what some of the British New Wave Rock Stars from back in the early 80's dressed like.

Yeah, we were part of a new "new wave" it didn't take

Actually the Acorn Archimedies is basically the best Commodore could have done at the time and we can see how well it worked out for Acorn...

Once a computer hits mass market, software support is vital... The Amiga, Mac and IBM-PC were all trading on software by the mid 90's .)

[Haranguer]

I didn't get an Amiga because of brand loyalty.

Back in the early 80's, my mother was a teacher, and, as such, she was invited to the major technical college in South Australia at the time (the Levels) to see a revolutionary new computer, the Lisa.

While she was there, she was told about an even more revolutionary computer called the Lorraine, and she told me about it when she got home.

Shortly after that I got my first computer - a C64.

I got an Amiag when I got the opportunity - a secondhand Amiga 500 with 3 meg of RAM and a 20 Meg hard drive.  I didn't get it because it was a Commodore.

I got it because it was a Lorraine, or, at least, a descendant of the Lorraine.

Lorraine, of course, was the original name of the Amiga 1000, long before Commodore got hold of it.

Had Atari succeeded in their attempt to get the IP of the Amiga rather than Commodore, I'd have bought an Atari Amiga.  Brand loyalty doesn't count for much in my book.

Interestingly, before they went broke, Commodore were intending to drop Amiga OS and produce a PC that ran M$ Windows NT.  I wouldn't have bought one of those.

[rebraist]

I didn't get an Amiga because of brand loyalty.
 
Back in the early 80's, my mother was a teacher, and, as such, she was invited to the major technical college in South Australia at the time (the Levels) to see a revolutionary new computer, the Lisa.
 
While she was there, she was told about an even more revolutionary computer called the Lorraine, and she told me about it when she got home.
 
Shortly after that I got my first computer - a C64.
 
I got an Amiag when I got the opportunity - a secondhand Amiga 500 with 3 meg of RAM and a 20 Meg hard drive. I didn't get it because it was a Commodore.
 
I got it because it was a Lorraine, or, at least, a descendant of the Lorraine.
 
Lorraine, of course, was the original name of the Amiga 1000, long before Commodore got hold of it.
 
Had Atari succeeded in their attempt to get the IP of the Amiga rather than Commodore, I'd have bought an Atari Amiga. Brand loyalty doesn't count for much in my book.
 
Interestingly, before they went broke, Commodore were intending to drop Amiga OS and produce a PC that ran M$ Windows NT. I wouldn't have bought one of those.

This is the proof that there was a time when amiga wasn't a religion but a computer.
And when people bought it they did it for its power(it was a descendant of lorraine), not due to religious belief.
For the same reason i think that if this question would have been made in the early 90s, nearly everyone would have answered YES.

[Franko]

This is the proof that there was a time when amiga wasn't a religion but a computer.
And when people bought it they did it for its power(it was a descendant of lorraine), not due to religious belief.
For the same reason i think that if this question would have been made in the early 90s, nearly everyone would have answered YES.

The Amiga isn't a religion, it's a simple case of folk recognising something a bit special & different and favouring that to all the other same old, same old...

Seriously doubt if this question had been asked in the 90s nearly everyone would have answered yes...

why... well like the huge leap the C64 was from the VIC 20 and then the giant leap the the Amiga was from the C64. Commodore would have had to come up with a new machine that was so amazing and so far ahead in time and everything in existence that with even the best technology at that time it would have been impossible...

It would also seem a lot of folk here were too young at that time and the only reason they had an Amiga was because they were given it as a Christmas or Birthday present, so really it was down to the parents (wiser) choice than some spotty 13 year old wanting the latest machine just to play Doom on...

For those of us who were old enough to purchase things for ourselves most weren't influenced by the fact at that time (early 90s), that there were now other machines out there capable of competing with the Amiga or indeed bettering it. The simple reason being we knew that even since it's first launch the Amiga was something different and special in comparison to the PC route which may have been better hardware wise but it was nothing but mundane...

[bloodline]

@Franko

Amiga is a religion, it has all the features of one:
1. Belief that Amiga supporters are superior to others.
2. Belief that, despite evidence the the contrary, Amiga's are superior to other systems.
3. Arcane symbols and rituals.
4. Various worshiped "prophets".
5. Calm moderate supporters & insane fundamentalist loonies.
6. Rival sects, with slightly differing interpretations of the central ideas.
7. Powerful and corrupt leaders.
8. A firm belief in a Second Coming or a better time just around the corner.

I could go on...
7.

[Franko]

@ Bloodline

No it's not.. :p

And yes you "could go on" (as you usually do) but why bother... you aint gonna convince me to your faith...

PS: I would have responded to each point in turn, but I'm busy just now picking me nose...

[Fransexy_]

@Franko

Amiga is a religion, it has all the features of one:
1. Belief that Amiga supporters are superior to others.
2. Belief that, despite evidence the the contrary, Amiga's are superior to other systems.
3. Arcane symbols and rituals.
4. Various worshiped "prophets".
5. Calm moderate supporters & insane fundamentalist loonies.
6. Rival sects, with slightly differing interpretations of the central ideas.
7. Powerful and corrupt leaders.
8. A firm belief in a Second Coming or a better time just around the corner.

I could go on...
7.

That can be applied to any human activity. You are not listing the characteristics of a religion but the Behavior of the human race

[Rodomoc]

So a new gen Amiga not compatible with the originals? Seems if Commodore lived, that is what would have happened anyway. I might have bought such a thing provided it was better than other competing options and if it was well supported and if it were affordable. Back in the day I used to frequent an Amiga dealer down the street from me often. But as great as the big box Amigas were, I ran a pc compatible at the time due to cost. I had an A500 I bought used as well and it served me well for game playing mainly. So about the only way I would have been able to get the next greatest (and non compatible Amiga) would have been if it were in an A500 board format. I was poor at age 24
 
Now if the C65 was released I would have bought one for sure. The reasoning being I was a total Pet4032 and C64 burnout. C65 specs still cool to me today. Someone should FPGA that baby, resurrect the latest DOS they were playing with, and I would become again an 8bit burnout. Sorry for the off topic here.

[B00tDisk]

So a new gen Amiga not compatible with the originals? Seems if Commodore lived, that is what would have happened anyway. I might have bought such a thing provided it was better than other competing options and if it was well supported and if it were affordable. Back in the day I used to frequent an Amiga dealer down the street from me often. But as great as the big box Amigas were, I ran a pc compatible at the time due to cost. I had an A500 I bought used as well and it served me well for game playing mainly. So about the only way I would have been able to get the next greatest (and non compatible Amiga) would have been if it were in an A500 board format. I was poor at age 24
 
Now if the C65 was released I would have bought one for sure. The reasoning being I was a total Pet4032 and C64 burnout. C65 specs still cool to me today. Someone should FPGA that baby, resurrect the latest DOS they were playing with, and I would become again an 8bit burnout. Sorry for the off topic here.

The C65 was super cool.  I remember Grapevine Group had them listed for sale in AmigaWorld magazine after C= went under and I thought "Well what possible purpose could buying one of those serve?"

GAH!  WHY DIDN'T I BUY ONE?  OR THREE?

(They go for $10k on ebay x-( )

[JimS]

I don't think I would have jumped ship in 93. By that time, for good or ill, the pc was pretty much the standard. That was not the case when I bought my 1000 in 87 or so. Back then, jumping from the Atari 800 to the Amiga was a big leap in power, but there was no particular reason to pick any of several contenders except for the focus each machine had. Amiga with multimedia, Mac with publishing and the PC with early business stuff.

[B00tDisk]

I don't think I would have jumped ship in 93. By that time, for good or ill, the pc was pretty much the standard. That was not the case when I bought my 1000 in 87 or so. Back then, jumping from the Atari 800 to the Amiga was a big leap in power, but there was no particular reason to pick any of several contenders except for the focus each machine had. Amiga with multimedia, Mac with publishing and the PC with early business stuff.

I think if you go read infoworld magazine (the entire catalog of issues is online at google books) you'll find that as early as '87 the PC was pretty entrenched as a business machine.  As terrible as it was, Windows 1.0 had been out for two years and late '87 saw Windows 2.0.  VGA Standard came with the IBM PS/2 in April of '87.  

Meanwhile, by 1987, Apple had released the Mac II with a faster CPU than the A2000 and support onboard SCSI as standard (you had to buy a card for the A2000).

C= was starting their long, slow-motion fumble by then by not following up the Amiga's stunning debut with more improvements, instead content to rest on their laurels and let 3rd party devs come up with a use for the Amiga (and support hardware likewise).  OCS should have been gone, but ECS was still three years out.  

Things were a lot more dynamic than "Well the Amiga ruled the roost from '85 to '94 then C= fell and suddenly PCs appeared." (I know that's not what you're suggesting but there's a lot of that sentiment around - and I say that as someone who scoffed at the PC world from '87 to '94!)

[Belial6]

Franko, keep in mind that if Commodore had won the PC wars with the Amiga, the Amiga would not have been something a bit special & different and it would have been same old, same old...

[Franko]

Franko, keep in mind that if Commodore had won the PC wars with the Amiga, the Amiga would not have been something a bit special & different and it would have been same old, same old...

Even if that had been these case and Amiga had won, it would never have been the same old, same old. As the with the Amiga's OS there has never been anything like it before or since...

The Amiga still to this day has the smallest, most efficient and least resource hungry OS of any comparable home computer...

Compare it to Mac OSX 10.5 nearly 200,000 files just for a basic install and even with 2.5GB of memory it still has to use the HD as virtual RAM, no other computer even comes close to matching the Amiga's highly efficient OS...

[B00tDisk]

Who gives a damn?  Terabytes of HD space, gigabytes of RAM, gigabytes of video card RAM.

S100 bus-based IMSAI users with 5mb hard drives, 24k of RAM and paper-tape readers would have viewed Amiga OS 1.3 as effete.  

Mac OS 1.0 ran in 128k; the A1000 shipped with 256 (but needed 512mb for apps as a practicality).  Was MacOS 4x better than the A1000 then?