Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: AndyFC on February 07, 2008, 08:55:24 PM
-
Where X = unknown
Let me explain. I think about what I want to do on a computer:
- Play Games
- Edit Video
- Surf the Web
- Send email
- burn discs
Now, I can (and do) do all of these, very easily and cheaply on a PC with many outlets selling hundreds of different bits of kit that I can use. To do these on the Amiga is generally more expensive, more difficult (subjective - depending on experience) and the range is more limited e.g. I can't play Half Life 2 or Toca Race Driver 3 on the Amiga, run a Geforce 8800GX, connect up firewire devices etc.
So why does the lure of doing these things on the Amiga seem so much more attractive and exciting?
If I had the cash, I'd have Minimig, an A1, a fully expanded 4000T, a home made and fully loaded A1200T and probably many more pieces. But I just can't explain why.
What are your ideas on this?
-
define the x factor? :roll:
-
For me its because i really liked a lot of the games and tools when I was growing up as a Kid. My amiga was my favourite toy and as I got a bit older my favourite tool for doing schoolwork too. Everytime I asked something new of it it did it better than anything else. Coming home from using a Schneider 286 PC with monochrome monitor to an Amiga was ace! :-D
So now that I'm grown up I still enjoy many, not all, of the same games on my Amiga just as I did then.
Nostalgia in part I guess and a desire to go back to something I enjoy after using a PC running windows the rest of the time.
Andy
-
monami wrote:
define the x factor? :roll:
(http://sp8.fotologs.net/photo/40/36/101/annierexia/1180421545_f.jpg)
-
The Commodore 64 was my first computer and there were magazines like Compute, Compute's Gazette, Run, the Transactor, Ahoy, etc., where you could learn programming and they would print programs that you could type in. When you typed the programs in, you were learning what other people did.
The PC is a good product but these large corporations don't want you to take away their jobs and that is why Microsoft threatened Linux and it is why Microsoft patented double clicking of all things. Compute's Gazette published SpeedScript which was a functional word processor and if you bought a $3.00 magazine, you essentially got the program for free. Compare that to what you would pay for the same services you would get for Word Perfect or Microsoft Word. I know that people have to make a living and they work hard on their product but it is a reason why they don't want us tinkering with computers. It is also hard for anyone these days to compete with someone who sits down and writes code for eight hours a day times three hundred and sixty five days a year so when you go to install or uninstall programs on the PC, if you don't walk away during the install, the computer will take away your whole night. You are paying for quantity instead of just quality when you buy a PC. You are paying for Vanilla instead of multiple flavors. I had a problem and called Microsoft and they didn't care because they are all millionares but they basically told me it wasn't their problem, to contact my computer manufacturer and hung up on me. In a forum like this, you get help from real caring people.
The Amiga was a programmable computer and Commodore's early philosophy was they built computers for the masses while Apple and IBM built computers for the classes. That is why I would find it easier to program an Amiga or Commodore computer. In the early days, the PC didn't have plug and play compatibility so it wasn't as friendly as you might think it is today. The Amiga was an open architectured system but the technology advancements drove up the costs of everything in my opinion but some things weren't as expensive as a PC back then. It was mainly third party peripherals that were more expensive like hard drives.
I want a computer that is programmable and friendly and the computer companies aren't delivering that today because it would probably take you two years to learn C language for various reasons.
-
I think it might be that you grow up with this computer and fond childhood memories just won't go away ;-)
It's was also an technology enabler.. ie "From using a Schneider 286 PC with monochrome monitor to an Amiga". With multitasking stereo sound and colour video.
BUT I strongly believe it's about that the modern computers has alienated the users. People don't know how they work, software is huge blob of cpu waste.
* Tinkering friendly, ports and I/O which are easy to use.
* Open documentation.
* Communication that is meaningful. (ie not 1st line "support" :)
* Software/Hardware that does something truly unique and don't backoff from doing something really new/cool/smart.
* Feeling of PC communities being more Bread & butter than Amiga.. "Let's go to the moon".
Let's keep in mind that the days of unsmooth VGA with EISA bus, Resistor A/D sound, arcane system organisation etc.. isn't that far away!
-
A well equipped Model T will cost you as much or more than a new Falcon. The Model T has no air conditioning, cruise control, 4 speed automatic transmission, etc. etc. Yet there are lots of people who would gladly pay almost anything for a Model T. Who can explain? Who cares? The same with Amiga folks. You like it or you don't and no amount of rational will explain this.
You gotta have a hobby, what's wrong with Amigas? They don't hurt people, in fact they are so far from green that you'd really do a lot of harm landfilling them.
So save the Earth go retro!
-
The reason I bought my A1200 back in 1993 was that it was a game console that supported multimedia computer activities as well. It cost me $600 new when PCs were over a thousand, ran MS-DOS, came with standard VGA graphics maximum and sound cards were optional equipment.
Nowadays there really isn't much of an equivalent anywhere in the market. Arguably a Playstation 3 with the optional Linux OS installed comes close except that there's no slot in the belly for add-ons such as RAM expansion and video capture equipment. When Commdore went under they left a void in the market that has yet to be filled.
-
What specifications would a computer that would fill that void have..?, what would you like to be able to do with such computer, that you can't currently?
-
Some people are satisfied with the games/apps on the Amiga and don't need the bloated and more complex OSes and aren't lusting after the latest 3Ghz+ processor. And some people prefer the games/apps on the Amiga over those on other platforms either because they are used to them or they are more efficiently coded or unique. I know some Atari 8-bit games are very efficiently codes in 8K cartridges and I have yet to see better or equivalent versions on modern PCs. As long as there is some uniqueness to your classic machine, you can give rational arguments for their use. They are easier to analyze from the real-time analysis point of view (for one thing). Some species of life while being inferior to human beings have features that humans do not have so that does not make those species obsolete.
-
Yeah, I think it's all about nostalgia and often combined with the "wow" factor it gave us when we first used it...
My first computer was the Vic-20 and I remember it very fondly, along with the C64 and then the Amiga. I love all three machines, although arguably these days they are no more than toys from the past.
It's the same reason people love old cars (their first drive, etc) and music from their teens - I love early Duran-Duran, for example, although I generally don't go around boasting about the fact! :-)
It all brings back the "feel-good" factor from when our lives were simpler and more youthful!
It'll be the same (in the future) for those kids who grew up the the Playstation or N64... Or Subaru WRX... Or The Spice Girls!
Cheers,
Mike.
-
The PlayStation 3 would fit the bill if it allowed homebrew free software to access all of the hardware without having to defeat the hypervisor first and if there was an expansion socket for added expadability.
The Wii would have it if it had a real operating system capable of running productivity applications. It's anti-homebrew countermeasure is cracked so that's a moot point now. It's also a little lacking in expandability.
The XBox 360 would have it if it weren't running a worthless Microsoft operating system, didn't require a PC connected to it to do homebrew games, and supported industry standard OpenGL APIs instead of DirectX. The fact that it can't use the HD-DVD capacity for games is a real drag too.
Right now I'm leaning toward the LimePC since it comes with an integrated GPU on the same die as the processor for good integration. If that GPU is well documented so anybody can develop their own operating system for it without having to shell out tens of thousands of dollars just to get a graphics driver for that operating system. What I need is openness and tight integration.
-
Although a definition of X factor is, by its nature, both ironic and even impossible, here's what Urban Dictionary (http://urbandictionary.com/) has to say on the matter:
Urban Dictionary wrote:
X Factor
Noun.
A) A quality that makes people in possession of it the epitome of cool. When trying to explain why this person is so cool you come up blank. Everyone knows this person and people like being around them.
B) Used to describe someone whos not necessarily hot but you are strangely attracted to.
"Hey do you know Jim?"
"Oh yeah, who doesn't. You know what's weird?"
"What?"
"Despite his shortness and slight chubbiness, I kinda want him..."
"That's cause he's got X factor..duh."
-
If you buy a PC today, it doesn't come with Basic, Pascal, or C. Why? If you bought a Pet, Vic-20 or Commodore 64, you looked at the keyboard and there were all sorts of lines and symbols on the keys. Why? If you didn't know how to program, you could easily put the symbols or the lines in a print statement and put your own creativity on the screen and it didn't matter if you couldn't draw because the computer helped you do it. I use to download off of bulletin boards and they were run by Cnet software or Image software and the users use to draw and upload their pictures onto bulletin boards. I use to download programs that fellow users wrote and run them. Instead of seeing the creativity of your neighbor you have to settle for the time and creativity of a select few who sell programs for $$$$ and they aren't that great because Microsoft products don't get me excited.
My English teacher said there was an author who said,'don't give me a gift unless you make it yourself". My English teacher asked us what it meant and then told us that we would understand what it meant some day. I understand it today and the difference is communism verses freedom, creativity verses plain, black and white verses multi-colored. The difference is quality verses quantity.
Describe the Mac or the IBM as a computer for the hobbyist and see what you get and then describe the Amiga for the hobbyist and see what you get.
-
Caius wrote:
Although a definition of X factor is, by its nature, both ironic and even impossible, here's what Urban Dictionary (http://urbandictionary.com/) has to say on the matter:
Urban Dictionary wrote:
X Factor
Noun.
A) A quality that makes people in possession of it the epitome of cool. When trying to explain why this person is so cool you come up blank. Everyone knows this person and people like being around them.
B) Used to describe someone whos not necessarily hot but you are strangely attracted to.
"Hey do you know Jim?"
"Oh yeah, who doesn't. You know what's weird?"
"What?"
"Despite his shortness and slight chubbiness, I kinda want him..."
"That's cause he's got X factor..duh."
So what is the opposite of X Factor, then? Whatever it is I've got loads ;-)
-
ChuckT wrote:
If you buy a PC today, it doesn't come with Basic, Pascal, or C. Why?
I don't know, but every Mac comes with a full gcc based Integrated Development Environment... I've used it a few times to compile UAE and play around with SDL. It's quite good.
If you bought a Pet, Vic-20 or Commodore 64, you looked at the keyboard and there were all sorts of lines and symbols on the keys. Why? If you didn't know how to program, you could easily put the symbols or the lines in a print statement and put your own creativity on the screen and it didn't matter if you couldn't draw because the computer helped you do it.
If you just want to do simple programming, then I think the Shell of all curently availabe OSs will allow you to script something together... if you want a bit more power, then all modern browsers support ECMA Script... learn your DOM and you can write some pretty cool stuff!
I use to download off of bulletin boards and they were run by Cnet software or Image software and the users use to draw and upload their pictures onto bulletin boards. I use to download programs that fellow users wrote and run them. Instead of seeing the creativity of your neighbor you have to settle for the time and creativity of a select few who sell programs for $$$$ and they aren't that great because Microsoft products don't get me excited.
If you are getting excited by M$, then something is wrong anyway! :-)
Describe the Mac or the IBM as a computer for the hobbyist and see what you get and then describe the Amiga for the hobbyist and see what you get.
I think the iLife suite on the Mac and the massive Developers support tools provided with OSX make it ideal for Hobbiests...
-
Seems what the Amiga/C64 etc.. got for it is inviting to creativity with a low entry barrier. Also there's a strong dedicated community.
I think what commodore did was to take the most advanced technology available, stretch it to the limit. And then sell it for an affordable price.
What would that mean today?, well proberbly something that is possible right now. But our vanilla circuit designers completly lack the drive to go for.
-
It would be hard to beat AMD and INTEL because if you read their history (try Wikipedia), they have a lot of government backing.
Commodore's products were sold in Kmart, Toys R Us, Sears, Bdalton bookstores and Clover. There were some mom and pop stores that sold Commodore computers and you could get them from mail order but a lot of parents didn't trust mail order.
I don't remember if Comp USA sold the Amiga but I don't think they did and I think they were mostly IBM stuff.
It would be hard for a computer company to make the impression that this is a technological computer and to still sell in those markets but to be fair, there are PC manufacturers selling in Wallmart, Sam's Club and a few other places.
You need to get the chip speed up so it could compete with IBM and Mac. I suppose a 900 MHZ chip can do it as long as you have graphics chips running everything else but I don't know you will convince a lot of people to buy it without it having an artistic, programmable and hobbyist edge so that the masses can enjoy being in control. You also have to think about the future as people have six megapixel cameras (and above) and people are buying Terabyte hard drives.
-
One of the other things Commodore had a hard time to address was the Nintendo factor. I know that Commodore was rumored to have an LCD but who did they sell it to to stay afloat? I know that the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Gameboy have nice color screens.
The Commodore 64 and Amiga have been criticized by the public and other manufacturers as being a game machine but when kids find it easier to plop in a disk than to hit run, you have competition from the likes of Sony and Nintendo who basically stole the market and their joystick is much more playable than the old Atari joystick.
-
Also you have to realise that the the computer owning public has changed. The people who in my quaint 20th century terminology, had flashing 12:00 on their VCRs (I can hear my kid now: daddy, what's a vcr?). These folks, the flashing twelvers, own computers now. They can barely use a Mac or PC, they would be totally lost on an Amiga.
It isn't that you are dealing with less creative people, it's that computers are like automobiles or refrigerators, everyone has them. Amiga users were a preselected crowd in a pre-selected number of computer owners. The same percentage of human beings are creative, the distinction is no long what computer they own or if they own a computer but what they use their computer for.
-
My Amiga 2000 was the only computer I purchased big enough for me to drill a large hole in the case and plant a patch of hydroponic tomatoes and ... broccoli.
Thus, it's the only computer I know of that can reduce the chance of prostate cancer by up to 50%.
Fester
(I'm kidding. I never abused my Amigas this way. But I do like fried tomatoes and am quite nostalgic about old computers such as the Amiga. As for broccoli, well, that's just vaporware. :-))
-
Yeah, the 2000s the only computer I know of that would make a decent payload for a Trebuchet.
:python:
-
X factor == have fun :-)
me :-)
ta
Tom UK
-
"If you bought a Pet, Vic-20 or Commodore 64, you looked at the keyboard and there were all sorts of lines and symbols on the keys."
some kind of voodoo?
-
If you buy a PC today, it doesn't come with Basic, Pascal, or C. Why?
It(Windows XP and Vista) comes with "notepad.exe", Jscript and VBScript.
VBScript is installed as default in every desktop release of the Windows Operating System (OS) since Windows 98.
-
It would be hard to beat AMD and INTEL because if you read their history (try Wikipedia), they have a lot of government backing.
Clone PC distribution model was considered to be superior compared non-Clone PC distribution model.
The X86 PC world is unified under a single standard against the fragmented 68K PC world.
-
Hammer wrote:
It would be hard to beat AMD and INTEL because if you read their history (try Wikipedia), they have a lot of government backing.
Clone PC distribution model was considered to be superior compared non-Clone PC distribution model.
The X86 PC world is unified under a single standard against the fragmented 68K PC world.
It's a good thing we voted those bums out of office. It's a pity we couldn't get them out a little sooner.
-
i still got a magical feeling when I use my 64/128/500/1200 & it always takes me down nostalgia avenue :-D for me buying stuff now that I could only dream of getting back in ' the day' gives me a fuzzy feeling inside and I love playing with my 'always on' soldering iron so that ties into modding my beloved machines too :-P
-
So what's missing in the current breed of computing is a setup that is edge technology and is inviting to create things that exploit the technology to the limit ..?
A computer will CELL cpu, DDR3 mem, FPGA graphics would be cool ;)
@SamuraiCrow:
Vote out what/whom?
-
freqmax wrote:
So what's missing in the current breed of computing is a setup that is edge technology and is inviting to create things that exploit the technology to the limit ..?
A computer will CELL cpu, DDR3 mem, FPGA graphics would be cool ;)
I can't see what is exciting about the Cell... also FPGA gfx would be horribly slow...
-
Old topic, but good topic!
freqmax wrote:
So what's missing in the current breed of computing is a setup that is edge technology and is inviting to create things that exploit the technology to the limit ..?
I think you had the best answer/reply as to the X-factor: the Amiga was an enabler of creativity in multiple domains and a proliferator of high-end technology (the WOW factor, and I mean both hardware and software) to the masses at affordable prices.
The Cell and DDR3 and all that is nice and all, but I just don't think it's enough of a technological jump at this point. And that may be because "we" haven't figured out how to program the Cell easily and properly yet, or because even if we did from day one, it's still not enough.
I believe it wouldn't have been enough, even if we had the ability to get the most out of the Cell from day one. I believe what is needed for "a new Amiga", is a huge technological jump. A computer that does something that computers today are trying to do, but not just much better, but in a whole different way. A lame example (and NOT what I'm talking about, but just to give you a flavor) is if all of a sudden graphic card manufacturers dumped polygons as the basic building block for GPUs and moved to say ovals (anyone remember that game with the oval rendered? E something?). Like I said, I don't think ovals are the future, but what I mean is, such a radical paradigm shift is what's necessary to garner that WOW factor. That's what the Amiga did. And note, that technology (blitters for example) was already out there (Apple guys and Jef Raskin talk about blitters in their writings, and I'm sure Evan & Sutherland invented the damn things), but the point is that the Amiga brought it to the desktop at an affordable price. So perhaps if we get GPUs the can do real-time radiosity and raytracing, and I'm talking about thousands if not tens of thousands of complex objects, not just 3 spheres, and it costs like $200-300 each, then perhaps within a year that WOW factor will re-appear.
Note: I know you can do realtime raytracing with the Cell. I've been doing the same with a Pentium for years, except it was not even 10 objects! I'm talking about thousands of COMPLEX objects, so that we can model realistic environments, not produce pretty SIGGRAPH photos.
A few more comments on the very interesting comments in this interesting discussion:
@persia:
Your first post and the part about going retro, that was just hillarious! :-D
@mingle:
I always have this funny feeling, that I may "hate" Britney Spears, but there MUST be a bunch of kids who are going to be writing about her in forums like these in 20 years. I *REALLY* hope I'm wrong, and for 2 reasons: 1) it's just plain wrong :-) and 2) then we're special, because others won't be feeling nostalgia as we do.
Most of the times I feel that we're special in a way, in the sense that most people who were into some other things (I dunno, bicycles let's say, not motorcycles) won't ever lament about those in the future. Then again many would (or do) call us maniacal fanatics and zealots :-) But seriously, what I mean is, certain OBJECTS don't ellicit a feeling of nostalgia or lamentation like certain other objects. For example, we all (?) had pencil cases when we were younger. I remember they were quite the fad. And we spent a lot of time with them, especially the ones with extra pockets and drawers and abilities (mirrors, sharpeners, secret compartments, etc). However, I've not spent more than these last few moments thinking about those cases for the last 20 years! They just don't ellicit that kind of nostalgia. Therefore I think the Amiga is one of those special objects.
One more reason for the Amiga being such an attractor of feelings is that it's a computer, and a computer is a "do many things" machine, therefore it plays a much more wide role in one's life, therefore more memories are associated with it.
Then again, it also had a name and a personality, unlike my old PCs, which I just could never feel a connection to.
And to connect to the above, I DO strongly believe and feel that the character and personalities of the creators (of anything, not just the Amiga) are expressed through their works. The Amiga EXUDES the characters of those who made it, and I LIKE those characters and who and what they stood for (in rough terms, because I don't REALLY know them), but through their work and craft, I know SOMETHING, something important about them.
OK, enough analysis.
@ChuckT:
I'm sorry to be so forward, but through your comments it seems to me that you've not been exposed enough to anything other than an Amiga (and a C64?), and that can be a bad thing as well as a good thing (Microsoft..). Perhaps you're right about the "conspiracy" theories, although I don't buy it, but you're certainly wrong about the hobbyist-ability of modern computers (see examples of what BloodLine said about Macs), and especially about writing software (you'd use C and ASM during the Amiga days, just like today), and even more especially wrong about WHAT PEOPLE WANT from a computer today. Sorry, most people aren't geeks and programmers like you and me. They DON'T EVEN WANT to be! An Amiga, as you describe it, is their worse nightmare. They want something that does what they want with minimal fuss. If they're to program it, I think they're rather have a gun to shoot themselves. Think about this for a moment.
Which leads me to Persia's 2nd post:
Wow, what clarity of vision! It's exactly how things are, at least from my observations.
Now having that insight, the question is, what should a "NeXT-gen" computer be/have/do, in order to be useful to this "old crowd" but also the "new crowd"?? (I know for me today's Mac is the closest thing, but I'm talking beyond even today's Mac)
@Fester:
:laughing:
I BELIEVE!
Amiga! WOW! I want it NOW! Those were my first thoughts after seeing it and learning about it! It definitely had and has the X-factor! :-)