Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: jarrody2k on June 18, 2006, 01:25:08 PM
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Hey folks,
After reading the umpteenth flame thread, I've come to understand there are 2 distinct camps in the Amiga community... no, not AmigaOne and Pegasos... optimists and pessimists.
The pessimist label the optimists gullible and fanatical. The optimists accuse the pessimists of defaming and discouraging the last few efforts to reinvigorate our uncertain platform. The perennial feuding between the two camps are getting old.
Though, time seems against the optimists. Coming into the second half of 2006 without a finished operating system or a working 'box' to go with it (some may argue this). With nearly every fanatic jaded after a decade of bankruptcy and vapourware, positivity in the community is getting lower.
I still think there is room yet for positive thinking, creativity, new strategies and directions for 'Amiga'.
I guess I want to ask, do you think optimism helped the Amiga 'cause'?
Do you think there are still positive outcomes for the Amiga platform? (In whatever way you may call positive)
Just food for thought.
Cheers,
Jarrod
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Optimism ian't a problem as long as it's tempered with realism. What has IMHO hurt the Amiga scene in recent years has been an almost fanatical adherence to dogma and idealism while throwing any realism to the wind.
Following certain decisions taken back in 2001, the current situation was practically inevitable - a lot of people could see it coming but were shouted down.
Now it's too late to fix the problem, even if there was enough will to do so - and there isn't. Maybe that's pessimistic, but it also happens to be the cold harsh truth. Sure, maybe some guys with a soldering iron and a spare room to work in will produce some new hardware and maybe they won't but either way it won't reinvigorate the platform. The best they can do is persuade the few hundred people still in the market to cough up again - you're not looking at a concern that will be able to stay in business for more than two or three years. It's a sticky plaster over an open wound that won't heal, that's all.
It's a shame, but I think the die was cast years ago.
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Hey Bill,
I have to agree with most of that. Without resources you can't get far on any engineering effort. And resources rarely come for free, unless you're open source. Which I guess puts some fuel behind AROS.
bhoggett wrote:
Sure, maybe some guys with a soldering iron and a spare room to work in will produce some new hardware and maybe they won't but either way it won't reinvigorate the platform.
Though Kudos has to be given to one guy with a soldering iron... Minimig may end up being Amiga's best legacy! Sure its a vanilla Amiga (or parts thereof). But the dream of a handheld machine with loads of old classics ready to run doesn't seem too implausible?
What exactly 'Amiga' in this decade is really up to debate. But its developments like this that are really exciting. Sure it isn't finished yet, but its surely more feasible than a whole new desktop.
Cheers,
Jarrod
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For me the Amiga as we know it is still alive but only as long as users like us keep it alive. Emulation has come a long way but still will not run the amiga hardware. The Amiga One was a nice try but again is not compatable with alot of the old software or hardware and apears to be a short lived creation as there are no plans to continue making them.
Thanks to people like Amigakit we still have support for Amiga and parts are still available. As long as users try to keep there Amiga alive it will continue.
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I agree mostley with Bill and jarrody2k
Eventually OS4 hardware comes out, but hardly this year.
I lost interest and I will probably never get my hands
on any hardware that runs OS4. Amiga Inc's silence
tells alot about how interested they are in bringing
in more users to Amiga OS. The embedded "thing" is bullox
to me.I have zero / nada interest in such things.
AROS seems to get better and better so I'll keep my eye
on that and continue using my XP. IMO Amiga will stay hobbyist forever with a very tiny userbase.
Signed,
The Pessimist.
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IMO Amiga will stay hobbyist forever with a very tiny userbase.
Signed,
The Pessimist.
It is fair to say that current Amiga technologies don't lend themselves to widescale adoption. Though minimig still has my vote for most potential. Apart from a handheld gaming device, it may even be a cheap way to do basic kiosks or displays.
For instance, the trains here still use old Amigas for displays, and for lack of parts they want to upgrade. Assuming the minimig would be quite cheap to produce (naive assumption: how much are a few fpgas?) they could slap their existing software onto a memory card and not have to upgrade. I'm not sure of the exact capabilities of the minimig - whether it can do composite out or what inputs it has etc. - but this sounds feasible.
Surely there must a whole bunch of simple display devices that don't need bulky, high-maintenance PCs?
Surely there are still avenues for 'Amiga' to continue in different forms and contribute to our lives. ;)
Cheers,
Jarrod
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Just to add that my earlier assessment does not include the minimig project. IMHO that belongs in the retro scene and as such has nothing to do with revitalising the Amiga as a platform, even if it may well find a successful niche for itself. This also means it is not a target for the criticisms I expressed earlier.
AROS is the software equivalent of the soldering iron produced hardware project. It won't revitalise the Amiga as a platform simply because its developers are not interested in establishing - never mind expanding - a user base. The only criticism I have of AROS is that it is often presented as an alternative to AmigaOS4 and MorphOS - indeed some make it out to be the only future for Amiga-like operating systems - when the truth is that it is no such thing.
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Well as is my custom, here is my two cents:
First off, For a platform that should have died off completely several years ago, we the user, have kept it alive by being a community of folks who help each other. This is a wonderful trait and it should remain the mark of an Amiga user. This sentiment should remain fostered IMO.
I became interested in Amiga back in the early 1990's and actually commenced to saving to buy one. About the time I was half way to my goal ($1500) Commodore folded and I was left with the choice of buying a PC -- for the money I had saved, Apple II's were too high.
I will try to keep this short, however, I ended up with my first computer which was actually a Tandy 1000 TX. Graduated to a PC where I ran my BBS, and then around 1994 bought a Macintosh Power PC (PowerMac 7500) stayed on that platform through until I bought a new PIII (self built) PC and ran Windows 2000 and XP... switched to an iMac and used that and upgraded to a Mac Mini last year. Somewhere in there became interested in Amiga again (the idea of OS 4 being developed brought me in) and fast forward to today where I am learning about Amiga with my A1200, about to obtain a second A1200 and plan to run a BBS from one of them -- once I establish cooling to my liking... and I run my current PC (PIII 1GHZ running Linux (Ubuntu 6.06) while I wait until Amiga may be a viable platform.
In the case that Amiga does not make it's comeback, I continue to use my A1200's in a hobbyist fashion (as well as to play the games I missed so much (Sierra Online games). And for real work, my Mac mini and my Linux box work great. There is actually very little I can't do on my Linux box.
Since I am a big believer in open-source, I am watching carefully MorphOS and AROS as well.
I realize that this post was lengthy and I hope it was not boring to those who read it!
My Main point in all this is: The Amiga Community is a shining example of what all computer users should strive for. We need to foster the sense of users helping users and as long as we do this and the hardware is available we have our platform and our unique perspective on what the Personal Computer is all about. This is a good thing and lets not loose it!
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tonyvdb wrote:
Thanks to people like Amigakit we still have support for Amiga and parts are still available. As long as users try to keep there Amiga alive it will continue.
Hey tony,
Here's a question then: Considering user groups, websites (like this) and shops (like AmigaKit) are part of the Amiga community, do you feel that the promises and the pre-releases of new platforms for Amiga has helped to at least keep the community alive?
Cheers,
Jarrod
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bhoggett wrote:
Just to add that my earlier assessment does not include the minimig project. IMHO that belongs in the retro scene and as such has nothing to do with revitalising the Amiga as a platform, even if it may well find a successful niche for itself. This also means it is not a target for the criticisms I expressed earlier.
Does Amiga need to exist as a new desktop to live on?
AmigaOS was great for its time. Perhaps to this day would still be considered very agile and still relevant to the modern desktop. But as with BeOS we really don't have the resources to compete with Windows (or the more mature Linux solutions) in terms of being a viable and supported desktop alternative.
Minimig may not be an improvement on software, and mainly an efficiency improvement in terms of hardware, but it is a cheap way that Amiga can be deployed in all sorts of gadgets for the modern world. I'm no electrical engineer, but such a product could have a low cost of manufacture, a tiny footprint and much less potential for component failure than a full-blown modern PC?
Cheap genlock/kiosk displays and a hand-held gaming device are two potent and viable (?) things that could result from the work of minimig. People can think of more?
I guess my biting question is this: What makes the 'retro' Minimig less of a continuance of Amiga than AmigaOS/Pegasos? ;)
Cheers,
Jarrod
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irishmike wrote:
First off, For a platform that should have died off completely several years ago, we the user, have kept it alive by being a community of folks who help each other. This is a wonderful trait and it should remain the mark of an Amiga user. This sentiment should remain fostered IMO.
So you would say that the benevolence of the Amiga community is the main reason Amiga has stuck around. Do you think any of the 'newer' developments of AmigaOne and Pegasos have helped to keep things alive?
If these two developments did not exist, do you think the comradery between hobbyists would have been enough anyway?
Cheers,
Jarrod
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@jarrody2k
it seems you misunderstand my post. There were likely factors other than the community, but the support of user to user is IMO (as stated) that the main factor that has kept Amiga alive for 20+ years is the attitude that no matter what the users were going to keep the platform alive because the users loved it. So more like -- the company that made this has abandoned the product and so I will seek support from other users and so on. This is not the *only* factor for sure, but I do feel it is the *main* reason we are here today. It is just one guy's opinion though :-)
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Jusr curious, and this might not even be the thread to ask this, but this thread brought the question to mind so I'll ask it here.
If the MiniMig is all the classic Amiga hardware coded into one chip, couldn't that chip be placed into an AmigaOne for applications that absolutely require custom chips? Then you could run system friendly apps with OS4, and old custom chip apps off the MiniMig?
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Hi Gojirax,
Gojirax wrote:
If the MiniMig is all the classic Amiga hardware coded into one chip, couldn't that chip be placed into an AmigaOne for applications that absolutely require custom chips?
A MiniMig emulation card would be awesome! Perhaps even a hybrid with the CatWeasel? That said, UAE/Amiga Forever as a software development is probably a more flexible (and at this stage more complete) emulation of the Amiga.
But I guess the potential for cycle exact hardware emulation is there!
Cheers,
Jarrod
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Hey Mike,
My questions weren't rhetorical by the way. And I wasn't really boxing your opinion. Was just posing some hypothetical questions. I really am trying to understand whether Amiga One/Pegasos have really been positive for the Amiga community.
Sure they don't have the final results yet (and there certainly aren't enough resources to do this sort of thing quickly) but I do wonder if there anything else to take from the new developments?
Cheers,
Jarrod
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jarrody2k wrote:
bhoggett wrote:
Just to add that my earlier assessment does not include the minimig project. IMHO that belongs in the retro scene and as such has nothing to do with revitalising the Amiga as a platform, even if it may well find a successful niche for itself. This also means it is not a target for the criticisms I expressed earlier.
Does Amiga need to exist as a new desktop to live on?
To me that is an absolute must. Of course it could go
embedded, beat the **** out of symbian and exist on
every phone in the futre (or NOT) Anyway, that is not
the Amiga I learned to use so it makes no difference
to me (Btw I hate cellulars.)
AmigaOS was great for its time. Perhaps to this day would still be considered very agile and still relevant to the modern desktop. But as with BeOS we really don't have the resources to compete with Windows (or the more mature Linux solutions) in terms of being a viable and supported desktop alternative.
IMO competition is not the problem, Amiga is not up-to-date yet so competition is out of the question.
Focus should be on the basic stuff
-getting it out to users easily.
-make it interesting for old developers to try it out without having to invest a great deal of money
-not chaining it to special hardware that only makes more excuses to NOT inverst money in Amiga again.
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jarrody2k wrote:
Does Amiga need to exist as a new desktop to live on?
That depends on how you define "live on". Is UAE sufficient for the Amiga to live on? Probably. Is it enough for the Amiga to be revitalised? Obviously not.
AmigaOS was great for its time. Perhaps to this day would still be considered very agile and still relevant to the modern desktop. But as with BeOS we really don't have the resources to compete with Windows (or the more mature Linux solutions) in terms of being a viable and supported desktop alternative.
True, but I don't think competition with the big boys - in ANY market - is an option.
Minimig may not be an improvement on software, and mainly an efficiency improvement in terms of hardware, but it is a cheap way that Amiga can be deployed in all sorts of gadgets for the modern world. I'm no electrical engineer, but such a product could have a low cost of manufacture, a tiny footprint and much less potential for component failure than a full-blown modern PC?
I've never understodd this apparent belief that the embedded market (particularly kiosks and similar stuff) is a problem just begging for a solution.
It isn't. It's a more dynamic market and is expanding more than the desktop, which means there are comparatively more opportunities, but at the same time it is a cutthroat market with some very experienced well funded players who already have product in place.
Sure, people can try to squeeze in Amiga solutions in there, but my estimate of the chances for success would be significantly less than 1%.
Cheap genlock/kiosk displays and a hand-held gaming device are two potent and viable (?) things that could result from the work of minimig. People can think of more?
Gaming devices already exist, though of course a minimig might be able to fill a niche for a handheld Amiga - but again this won't offer the market opportunities of other handhelds because no one is going to write new 'Classic' Amiga games.
Kiosk displays... any savings on hardware would be eaten up in software development costs. Migration costs to and from an Amiga based system would be huge too. It really doesn't make a great deal of sense.
I guess my biting question is this: What makes the 'retro' Minimig less of a continuance of Amiga than AmigaOS/Pegasos?
How long is a piece of string? The short answer is simple: it has virtually no potential for creating a market for new software. Then again, AmigaOS4 and MorphOS are in similar positions due to the decisions I mentioned earlier in the thread.
I'm not sure your question is specific enough to be answered. It can only be commented upon.
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My questions weren't rhetorical by the way. And I wasn't really boxing your opinion. Was just posing some hypothetical questions. I really am trying to understand whether Amiga One/Pegasos have really been positive for the Amiga community.
Without Pegasos I would have lost interest on Amiga long ago. It was certainly positive to me but not necessarily positive to you...
I dont care what is "positive" to the Amiga. I only do care what is the best to me.
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I guess I want to ask, do you think optimism helped the Amiga 'cause'?
From the year 1996 onward every year was supposed to be the year of Amiga... Magazines wrote how things are getting better and new hardware is in sight.
In the end nothing happened and those believing to hype left.
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It's too bad that Commodore couldn't have benefitted from Microsoft being "big bad company" like Apple did in 1994-95. Apple Computer was on the virge of being snuffed out by stiff competition from the Redmond Giant and then a court decided that Apple was the only viable alternative to their product so they basically told Microsoft that if Apple went under, they would regulate them heavily because they would have snuffed their ONLY competition in the market. A few deals and so on later (and unfortunately part ownership), Apple lived on to make one of the greatest comebacks in history. They are the largest manufacturer of Portable MP3 devices on the planet!
I just wish there had been some kind of transfusion like that which could have kept Commodore afloat. I realize there was some management issues within the company and likely those would have had to been rectified, but the fact is that Commodore was not the only competition to a given company back then, so the place is history is wrong for this to have worked.
Just my thoughts. Not really very relevant to the thread in general. Just wishful thinking :-)
POINT: If there had been development on Amiga for the years the platform has been absent from the mainstream market by the developers who worked on it (like Apple or Microsoft) then I think indeed Amiga would have been "Top 3" instead of the current (IMO) "Top 2" (MS and Apple).
Who knows, Commodore could have been where Apple is today.
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bhoggett wrote:
jarrody2k wrote:
Does Amiga need to exist as a new desktop to live on?
That depends on how you define "live on". Is UAE sufficient for the Amiga to live on? Probably. Is it enough for the Amiga to be revitalised? Obviously not.
True. I guess the optimistic success would be when people previous unfamiliar with 'Amiga' technology, or previously not using it, begin to use the technology by their own desire or need.
Cheap genlock/kiosk displays and a hand-held gaming device are two potent and viable (?) things that could result from the work of minimig. People can think of more?
Gaming devices already exist, though of course a minimig might be able to fill a niche for a handheld Amiga - but again this won't offer the market opportunities of other handhelds because no one is going to write new 'Classic' Amiga games.
Kiosk displays... any savings on hardware would be eaten up in software development costs. Migration costs to and from an Amiga based system would be huge too. It really doesn't make a great deal of sense.
Hehe, I don't think the 'kiosk market' is a desirable thing. Given that most modern kiosks are digital displays, the MiniMig doesn't sound a reasonable choice. Also a good point with the software effort, even if a large order of displays were needed (much like with the train stations) the software conversion could be a deal-breaker. Though, the local stations here *are* based on old Amigas... not exactly a huge profit to be gained, but it is something.
An Amiga handheld gaming machine would be pretty cool. There are certainly enough retro fans around to make a MiniMig product a very profitable thing. And really, look at some of the most profitable games on the DS and PSP.. basically 2D games!
Sure it ain't the suave of Sony, but some well placed marketing could mean a number of ex-fans (and just pixel gaming fanboys) would snap them up. ThinkGeek.com seems to be a place that would be ideal for selling a handheld MiniMig. It might out-trump the handheld Sudoku (please!)
I guess my biting question is this: What makes the 'retro' Minimig less of a continuance of Amiga than AmigaOS/Pegasos?
How long is a piece of string? The short answer is simple: it has virtually no potential for creating a market for new software. Then again, AmigaOS4 and MorphOS are in similar positions due to the decisions I mentioned earlier in the thread.
I'm not sure your question is specific enough to be answered. It can only be commented upon.
And that is all I want ;)
So I guess from your point of view, the Amiga dies with its software development?
Cheers,
Jarrod
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itix wrote:
My questions weren't rhetorical by the way. And I wasn't really boxing your opinion. Was just posing some hypothetical questions. I really am trying to understand whether Amiga One/Pegasos have really been positive for the Amiga community.
Without Pegasos I would have lost interest on Amiga long ago. It was certainly positive to me but not necessarily positive to you...
I dont care what is "positive" to the Amiga. I only do care what is the best to me.
Hey itix,
Of course I can't extrapolate just you to the community at large, but certainly you are evidence that the further efforts of the Amiga hardware/OS options has maintained interest and enthusiasm of the user-base.
Jarrod.
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Manu wrote:
IMO competition is not the problem, Amiga is not up-to-date yet so competition is out of the question.
Focus should be on the basic stuff
-getting it out to users easily.
-make it interesting for old developers to try it out without having to invest a great deal of money
-not chaining it to special hardware that only makes more excuses to NOT inverst money in Amiga again.
Hope in AROS then?
Jarrod.
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Gojirax wrote:
If the MiniMig is all the classic Amiga hardware coded into one chip, couldn't that chip be placed into an AmigaOne for applications that absolutely require custom chips? Then you could run system friendly apps with OS4, and old custom chip apps off the MiniMig?
You need to map the addresses correctly - not the way to go...
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jarrody2k wrote:
So I guess from your point of view, the Amiga dies with its software development?
No, the Amiga will always live on as a retro platform, just like the ZX Spectrum or the C64.
But in my view the one and most important factor outside the retro scene is the userbase. Think of it as a species of animal, and what happens in nature: there are two crucial population points - one high, where the population level is so high it can no longer be supported by the food available and so will start to drop, and the other low, where the population is so low it cannot reproduce fast enough to balance out the natural death rate, even if food is plentiful. The latter leads to extinction.
The same with a userbase. If you can build a userbase that's big enough to motivate sufficient development (be it commercial or open source), you have a thriving or at least active platform. If your userbase has dropped so low that it simply doesn't generate enough development, the platform won't have enough about it to attract new users so you're on the slippery slope to nowhere.
This is what happened with the Amiga scene several years ago. The opportunity was there to focus on making sure the userbase that existed then, poor though it was compared to the good old days, would not diminish further - and maybe the trend could have even been reversed slowly. Instead, the focus was put on the short term interests of a few companies and individuals, at the cost of losing even more users and fragmenting what little was left into even smaller distinct platforms. The result is that all of the different platforms have dropped below the survival threshold and no longer have a rescue path.
AROS is slightly different in that it was not really part of the above scenario, but it too cannot balance the userbase/developer equation. At the moment AROS is only used by its developers, and because the developers don't acknowledge the needs of potential ordinary users, this is unlikely to ever change - in turn resulting in the fact that the developer base cannot increase to make more software available for it, which in turn would attract users. Catch 22.
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that minimig thing is kool...
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I'll buy AForever 2006 this month. Why? because it runs on my x86 pc and it's not expensive.
Amiga Os 4.0 for ppc??? why not intel? Why not the best n'cheap processor, the processor of the ppl?
Why dont they do a 50euro amiga os 4 for x86 with some good old demos and games ready to run?
I heard Amiga os 4 is only 64mg and works 100% in ram... so it should be damn incredibly fast on my 2400mhz...
Please everybody wants amiga os4 port to x86 and with a sort of cygnus library so i can load good linux software, like firefox and open office. Just that and amiga will rise again.
Why? no registers, easier and faster than linux/windows, few disk access so more economy and durability of hard-drives... and it's different.
BR
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AROS is slightly different in that it was not really part of the above scenario, but it too cannot balance the userbase/developer equation. At the moment AROS is only used by its developers, and because the developers don't acknowledge the needs of potential ordinary users, this is unlikely to ever change - in turn resulting in the fact that the developer base cannot increase to make more software available for it, which in turn would attract users. Catch 22.
You keep saying AROS is nothing but developers, yet I am not a developer. I also know of others who are clearly not developers either. So clearly, we *users* of AROS do exist within the AROS community.
Dammy
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Realism. It's that really bitter, hard pill to swallow. It's the one that makes people wonder if Elvis is still alive and stuff. So many people want to believe, they shut out anything that will distract them from inevitable.
I guess I'm going to say this to the people. If you were able to be in the scene during the lifetime of the Amiga, be happy for the memories. Your nostalgia will keep you afloat.
As for those that were too young to be able to afford to be in the scene, or just managed to discover it, treat it as the great piece of history that it is.
Unless someone with a lot of lot of money came along to fight and bribe off lawyers, business execs, and other money gunners in the business, Amiga will never exisit at any other level then just the twinkle in the eyes of hobbyiests everywhere.
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bhoggett wrote:
AROS is slightly different in that it was not really part of the above scenario, but it too cannot balance the userbase/developer equation. At the moment AROS is only used by its developers, and because the developers don't acknowledge the needs of potential ordinary users, this is unlikely to ever change - in turn resulting in the fact that the developer base cannot increase to make more software available for it, which in turn would attract users. Catch 22.
I guess returning to our original theme: Would you say AROS increasing its user base is either optimistic or unrealistic (or somewhere inbetween)?
You say that currently they are on the wrong course, but given better direction is it still possible for AROS to claw back more users?
Jarrod.
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dammy wrote:
You keep saying AROS is nothing but developers, yet I am not a developer. I also know of others who are clearly not developers either. So clearly, we *users* of AROS do exist within the AROS community.
Hey Dammy,
A survey would be something ideal for the AROS website. Some quantative results on the make-up of the AROS community would be useful.
In fact, being an open source project, it would be possible for a vote-driven wish-list to be established. Sure free workers aren't going to always be told what to work on, and there may be some more lower-level stuff that needs to be made first... but it would give the AROS developers at large an idea of what is wanted by the users.
Perhaps then more people and perhaps commercial enterprise (which needs to happen) may start using the platform?
Jarrod.
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cybernoid wrote:
I'll buy AForever 2006 this month. Why? because it runs on my x86 pc and it's not expensive.
Amiga Os 4.0 for ppc??? why not intel? Why not the best n'cheap processor, the processor of the ppl?
It almost feels like AROS is the answer to everything. ;)
Jarrod.
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justthatgood wrote:
Realism. It's that really bitter, hard pill to swallow. It's the one that makes people wonder if Elvis is still alive and stuff. So many people want to believe, they shut out anything that will distract them from inevitable.
Optimistic thinking is certainly a road to disappointments. Amiga has had its fair share, and then some. But has optimism has any benefit for the community... if only to maintain interest?
Jarrod.
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Is the Amiga really dead for all but a few hundred users?
When decade old hardware brings in the money it does on eBay its hard to call it dead. But as I sift through old
SCSI drives and see amigaguide newsletters from the paast
15 years raving of the salvation around the corner- or
ascii buffers of me making an ass of myself on fidonet only to be corrected by Asha- right up to buying my stupid
$50 coupon and t-shirt I think maybe its time to say "It is what it is".
The pessimists and optimists are both wrong.
There's no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but
why be miserable over a platform in a world where
all but one exist in relative obscurity?
It is what it is.
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jarrody2k wrote:
A survey would be something ideal for the AROS website. Some quantative results on the make-up of the AROS community would be useful.
In fact I think this would be a very good idea. A survey to see how many regular AROS users there are, how many of them are developers, what those who are not developers use AROS for, and perhaps also a survey to see what would make the 10-minuters* become actual users.
I think the results would be quite enlightening. I think AROS is probably the only OS which supports more architectures than it has users. :-D
* - the people who try AROS for 10 minutes, then find it doesn't do much and put it away for several months before they repeat the process
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I haven't entirely returned to the Amiga scene after leaving it in 2001-ish. I've got a few Amigas, but I'm waiting on some parts to repair/upgrade them before I dig in.
I've seen enough activity in the community/platform to spark a genuine interest again.
I'm sure there are more like me, and more that would return even if as a hobby as soon as it delivers on a few features like OS4 (For more than AmigaOne, or a moderately reasonably priced AmigaOne) and JAmiga/AmiZilla etc...
I'm not in a huge hurry, my 10 prior years as an Amiga user taught me that, so it's still fun to tinker with and see just how much of my computing I CAN do on the Miggy.
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bhoggett wrote:
* - the people who try AROS for 10 minutes, then find it doesn't do much and put it away for several months before they repeat the process
I think I might give AROS a try when UAE is patched to use the AROS calls. Having UAE run smoother would at least give me cause to run it.
Jarrod
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On the optimism side and not in the OS4 camp, I LOVE MY A4000T!!!!! Every time I look at it, it inspires me. Why? Be cause I'm never done with it.
I'm a hack, plan and simple. I've dremmeled, hot glued, ROMed and heh, velcroed so many things in an Amiga that I always say, "What can I do next?"
If it weren't for that, I'd never make my external HD chassis for my XBox (Chex-Box or Boing-Box cause it has UAE-X on it, he he) FROM scratch and so many other projects.
I got so into it that I formed and kept an Amiga Hardware SIG until I left my home state.
Amiga has always been a symbol to me of self expression and expansion, not an OS or a box. It has been the Box and OS and what we could do with it compared to other platforms that has made it the physical icon of that concept...
So, try it. Try to think how creative you would have been WITHOUT owning an Amiga... ME? I'm building a 1/2 terrabyte NAS server off of a Linux platform specifically for Samba, which I only learned about thanks to my Amiga.
"Think out side the Boing Ball."
J-Golden
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J-Golden wrote:
Amiga has always been a symbol to me of self expression and expansion, not an OS or a box. It has been the Box and OS and what we could do with it compared to other platforms that has made it the physical icon of that concept...
[...]
"Think out side the Boing Ball."
J-Golden
Hey J,
It's a good point. People (including myself) have been fixated with how current Amiga technology can relate with today. We are finding more and more that what made Amiga great, was not a bunch of custom chips with particular ingenuity, it was culture of innovation and flexibility in design.
The fact that Amiga and its OS to this very day can be bent and warped to all different tasks is testament to the power of creative design.
But in this form, Amiga is already out there! Much like your XBox which is now an arcarde machine, a home theatre and boundless other things... like Nintendo DS (and Wii) with its crazy new controllers... PSP/PS2 and its ever vigilant community of hackers, making demos etcs. There are a number of 'games machines' being used beyond their original purpose.
Amiga may have preceded all of them... the platform may be dead, but the desire to innovate is still there.
Jarrod.
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Nice post J-Golden ;) You hit on a lot of my fun with the Amiga as well.