Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: swoslover on May 21, 2008, 10:17:32 PM
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We need a rich, Amiga lover anyone know any?
Perhaps Roman Abramovich used an a500 in his youth!
Then we can have some new ppc cards!
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Yes, that would be nice, but a Philanthropist would be better...
Pete :-)
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Hey, I'm all about rich people writing me large checks. Problem is, at this stage, they'd probably think the Amiga was a spanish girlfriend (in the loosest of terms) and demand services that I'm just not willing to provide.
Wayne
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We need a rich, Amiga lover anyone know any?
My name's Rich, and I'm an Amiga lover :-).
Does that count?
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Ask Bill Gates! He's leaving Microsoft in July! :-)
This could be a crazy idea, but ... !
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Dick Van Dyke?
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I had an idea like this once. Like, "hey, what if there was unlimited money?" I wondered if that was true, would it really matter as far as development of the "future of Amiga".
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Wayne wrote:
Hey, I'm all about rich people writing me large checks. Problem is, at this stage, they'd probably think the Amiga was a spanish girlfriend (in the loosest of terms) and demand services that I'm just not willing to provide.
Wayne
Oh come on Wayne, give it up for the team! It is for a good cause after all, take one for the Gipper! :lol:
All the money in the world won't make any difference in the wrong hands. Bill McEwen is proof of that, he has swindled hundreds of people and blown probably hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process and what do we have to show for it?
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To me it looks like Amiga Inc is just a shell company for holding onto the trademarks / patents relating to the Amiga and any other Commodore tech that Amiga Inc bought. It's a shame that those Trademarks / Patents arent due to expire any time soon.
Who would have thought 18 years ago when the Amiga was in its prime, that the only place where you can (supposedly) get your Amiga repaired in North America (that I know of), would be Doomy? :-o :cry:
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:idea: We should start a not for profit corporation and fund it with donations made via paypal, and simply buy amiga inc outright! :)
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pkillo wrote:
:idea: We should start a not for profit corporation and fund it with donations made via paypal, and simply buy amiga inc outright! :)
Why give those criminals money? We have our own Hardware... MiniMig and UAE.. we have our own OS... AROS... Amiga Inc. own nothing of value.
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Amiga Inc. own nothing of value.
Yes they do ! Patents and rights !! :rtfm:
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CLS2086 wrote:
Amiga Inc. own nothing of value.
Yes they do ! Patents and rights !! :rtfm:
Patents on technology that can't even be made any more... valueless.
Right to what? The name? What does the name actually matter?
You would do well not to use that smiley with me... you are welcome to disagree with me, but I am well read on the subject of Amiga.
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Well, if I win the lotto...
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Believe me..this is one of the reasons why I play the lottery..If I win a couple of Million..I would def. contribute to the Amiga.
Rich
ny
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The best think is to attract a Saudi-Arabian businessman. One other solution is Bill Gates. Don't laugh with that. :lol: :lol:
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bloodline wrote:
CLS2086 wrote:
Amiga Inc. own nothing of value.
Yes they do ! Patents and rights !! :rtfm:
Patents on technology that can't even be made any more... valueless.
Right to what? The name? What does the name actually matter?
You would do well not to use that smiley with me... you are welcome to disagree with me, but I am well read on the subject of Amiga.
Calm Down! Sheesh! You sound like a prima donna.
These patents might not hold any value to you, but to a lawyer, its a potential revenue stream i.e. they can sue your ass off if you try to infringe upon them. A lot of law firms deal with nothing but Patent IP prosecution and do just fine.
The name, the brand "Amiga", has something in spades that perhaps Minimig, AROS, etc lack. Recognition. Picture your average 30 something joe walking into Curry's or Dixons. He may or may not have owned an Amiga at one point. Anyway, which is he more likely to recognise? Amiga, or Minimig?
Ive been thinking a bit of where the Amiga is going and what hopes it has of being resurrected. To be honest, the conditions that made the Amiga popular back in the 80's and early 90's are gone now. The Amiga sold in a price range that the PC could not compete. Nowadays you can buy PC's for cheaper.
And hoping that it could be bought up by an Indian or Chinese firm and sold to the markets there? Aint going to happen. You could get a PC for the same amount of money and have Linux installed on it. Bang all you want about how great OS 4 and AROS are, but Linux is more mature and has a lot more support, momentum. Theres no way an Amiga based OS could be a selling point.
And it wont take off in the third world either. As One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) has demonstrated, people in these countries have more pressing concerns (ie food, water, some electricity) than owning a cheap laptop.
The future doesnt look bright.
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mfletcher wrote:
You could get a PC for the same amount of money and have Linux installed on it. Bang all you want about how great OS 4 and AROS are, but Linux is more mature and has a lot more support, momentum. Theres no way an Amiga based OS could be a selling point.
And it wont take off in the third world either. As One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) has demonstrated, people in these countries have more pressing concerns (ie food, water, some electricity) than owning a cheap laptop.
The selling point of the Amiga is that it uses less resources needing less electricity from using slower processors, less memory and smaller storage requirements. A modern Amiga using (fewer) standard "PC" parts could be produced in quantity for cheaper and marketed as a "green" computer. Amiga still beats Linux in ease of use too. Obstacles are of course, lack of modern Amiga applications as you mentioned, and Amiga Inc. killing everything Amiga related. Nothing a rich Amiga philanphropist can't take care of. I'm building my fortune now with my net worth doubling about every 3 years as I was in early on oil and agriculture :idea:.
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mfletcher wrote:
bloodline wrote:
CLS2086 wrote:
Amiga Inc. own nothing of value.
Yes they do ! Patents and rights !! :rtfm:
Patents on technology that can't even be made any more... valueless.
Right to what? The name? What does the name actually matter?
You would do well not to use that smiley with me... you are welcome to disagree with me, but I am well read on the subject of Amiga.
Calm Down! Sheesh! You sound like a prima donna.
Maybe I am!
These patents might not hold any value to you, but to a lawyer, its a potential revenue stream i.e. they can sue your ass off if you try to infringe upon them. A lot of law firms deal with nothing but Patent IP prosecution and do just fine.
Except all the patents that covered the Amiga are both of no modern technological value and expired... You do realise that Patents only have a life of about 20 years... Technological, the Amiga is to modern computer what the Gloster Meteor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_Meteor) is to the F22 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F22)...
The name, the brand "Amiga", has something in spades that perhaps Minimig, AROS, etc lack. Recognition. Picture your average 30 something joe walking into Curry's or Dixons. He may or may not have owned an Amiga at one point. Anyway, which is he more likely to recognise? Amiga, or Minimig?
It would make no difference now. The Amiga brand has no market value... Even the Commodore brand has more value, though clearly given the fact the last company to use the brand has just gone bankrupt, it isn't worth very much.
It would cost a fortune to give the Amiga brand recognition now... it's been out of the public eye too long, and even then, it was never a mass market (computers were niche in those days) or premium brand.
Ive been thinking a bit of where the Amiga is going and what hopes it has of being resurrected. To be honest, the conditions that made the Amiga popular back in the 80's and early 90's are gone now. The Amiga sold in a price range that the PC could not compete. Nowadays you can buy PC's for cheaper.
This is all very true... it's also true of the technological problems that the Amiga was designed to solve...
And hoping that it could be bought up by an Indian or Chinese firm and sold to the markets there? Aint going to happen. You could get a PC for the same amount of money and have Linux installed on it. Bang all you want about how great OS 4 and AROS are, but Linux is more mature and has a lot more support, momentum. Theres no way an Amiga based OS could be a selling point.
And it wont take off in the third world either. As One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) has demonstrated, people in these countries have more pressing concerns (ie food, water, some electricity) than owning a cheap laptop.
The future doesnt look bright.
There is no future for the Amiga as a mass market machine. But it has massive hobby potential, the popularity of Minimig has proved that.
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bloodline wrote:
There is no future for the Amiga as a mass market machine. But it has massive hobby potential, the popularity of Minimig has proved that.
You might be right, but otoh, you might be wrong: a fast Amiga with HDMI output and an HDTV digitizer might sell really well as a set-top box! An amiga-based tv recorder that could also play existing video games, and which promoted the development of new software by not locking up the tools and documentation would be hot.
The end cost of a system like that could be lower than that of buying an HD tivo and a Wii, assuming you build the whole thing with commodity-grade PC hardware and just provide the legacy application support via software emulation.
IMHO, there's still room in the marketplace for more than one product per application.
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pkillo wrote:
bloodline wrote:
There is no future for the Amiga as a mass market machine. But it has massive hobby potential, the popularity of Minimig has proved that.
You might be right, but otoh, you might be wrong: a fast Amiga with HDMI output and an HDTV digitizer might sell really well as a set-top box! An amiga-based tv recorder that could also play existing video games, and which promoted the development of new software by not locking up the tools and documentation would be hot.
The end cost of a system like that could be lower than that of buying an HD tivo and a Wii, assuming you build the whole thing with commodity-grade PC hardware and just provide the legacy application support via software emulation.
IMHO, there's still room in the marketplace for more than one product per application.
Really? I popped the lid off my set-top box/HD recorder I have here... the box contains a single chip (which is built by Broadcom and handles everything! HD video and 5.1 stereo sound) + 16meg of RAM + a 80gig HD... the whole thing cost £99 two years ago... There is no way any Amiga based system could ever compete with that!!!
If you honestly think a late 80's hardware/software solution has any place in the modern market then you really need to look into the state of the industry!!!
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No system that relied on antiquated hardware designs could succeed in this arena of course. But you didn't understand me; I'm not talking about selling souped up minimigs in a set top box. I'm talking about selling a modern PC in a set top box, and taking advantage of the intellectual property related to the Amiga that still has some residual value: the software.
A Wii or PS3 goes for US$400 and an HD TiVo goes for US$200+, so that's $600. It's totally possible to build and sell decent computers for that price. Heck, at volume you can do it for 75% of that price - Dell does. Given the rights to and possession of the IP involved, it would be more than possible to develop a system that was Amiga-like but built around existing Intel processors and PC chipsets.
With the ability to run 68k and PPC Amiga software in emulators that worked like Apple's Classic environment for OS X but with greater transparency to the end user, you'd immediately have a large base of applications and games that could be distributed to end-users digitally, at little cost. Build in a few nice apps (like an iMovie work-alike that you could run from a handheld remote and an MP3 player tht can talk to your iPod) and give them away with the system, and many people would buy it.
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I still think there is a market somewhere between the Apple and PC markets.
Not everyone wants a PC or Mac, even where they do want a Mac they may not want to pay Apple prices.
A cheap alternative to a PC is something which I believe could be a marketing possibility.
TBH though I can't imagine it will be long before either Sony or Microsoft shift apps with their consoles.
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Sony I can see doing that; not Microsoft, though. They need you buying a console _and_ a copy of Windows for your PC.
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What if you could buy windows as well?
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pkillo wrote:
No system that relied on antiquated hardware designs could succeed in this arena of course. But you didn't understand me; I'm not talking about selling souped up minimigs in a set top box. I'm talking about selling a modern PC in a set top box, and taking advantage of the intellectual property related to the Amiga that still has some residual value: the software.
Right... ok, But I'm not convinced that the Amiga platform has any software to offer... Remember it has been 15 years now since the Amiga was a viable commercial platform... The Open Source community has filled the space the Amiga could have competed in.
A Wii or PS3 goes for US$400 and an HD TiVo goes for US$200+, so that's $600. It's totally possible to build and sell decent computers for that price. Heck, at volume you can do it for 75% of that price - Dell does. Given the rights to and possession of the IP involved, it would be more than possible to develop a system that was Amiga-like but built around existing Intel processors and PC chipsets.
Well... yes, that would be the only way, if there is a way...
With the ability to run 68k and PPC Amiga software in emulators that worked like Apple's Classic environment for OS X but with greater transparency to the end user, you'd immediately have a large base of applications and games that could be distributed to end-users digitally, at little cost.
Apple used software translators as stop gaps only... I own several Macs... but all my software is intel... The Amiga platform has been out of action too long, and that is the problem... If you are going to use Emulators to offer the entire software base, then you may as well run the Emulator on a modern OS, like Linux for free (My set top actually uses Linux!).
Build in a few nice apps (like an iMovie work-alike that you could run from a handheld remote and an MP3 player tht can talk to your iPod) and give them away with the system, and many people would buy it.
Ahh... this is where it falls down... In order to make the Amiga platform attractive you need to write new apps... but the Amiga lacks even basic standard modern OS features... SMP support, Multiuser, Journaled File system and Memory Protection... Retrofitting them into AmigaOS would render it incompatible with all old Amiga software even at a source code level. So why waste time try to bolt alien concepts onto AmigaOS... when you could use a free well-proven alternative like Linux.. which already has all the software already written, often free and open source?
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swoslover wrote:
We need a rich, Amiga lover anyone know any?
Perhaps Roman Abramovich used an a500 in his youth!
Then we can have some new ppc cards!
Would you only want a PPC card for your aging system or a whole new motherboard with access to newer equipment? I know the retro appeal of Amiga is why some people stay. I'm hear for that now too but I'd really love to buy a new motherboard that ran AmigaOS.
I know I'm dreaming but if someone with deep pockets got a license for AOS 4, when the legal battles are over, and funded a new hardware board with some kind of backwards compatibility, wouldn't Amigans buy that? Maybe not, I'd like it though.
Otherwise, NatAmi and Clone-A are our best hope for hardware to carry us as our systems start to die. I've already been through one A4000.
-Nyle
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Perhaps a hobbyist with loads of resources could recapture the excitement of the Amiga with some up-to-date technology? Market it for the hell of it and enjoy it for what it is?
Having someone invest in our tough little classic would certainly be something I'd follow with great interest.
But we have excellent emulators, I still have hope for AROS, we have the Minimig and perhaps the Minimig 2 or the Extra Super Minimig someday?
There's plenty of fun things to follow even without the influx of serious money.
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Boot_WB wrote:
My name's Rich, and I'm an Amiga lover :-).
Does that count?
Only if you have a mate named Phil who is an anthropologist.
... OK, that was a really bad joke. :-D
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I'm sorry, but for some of the suggestions in this thread, we don't need a philanthropist, we need a psychiatrist.
It's a hobby that's getting on for 20 years old guys, enjoy it for what it is now and what it was. Minimig, Natami, etc. have a place in that they allow more modern hardware to run 1990s software without a floppy drive of a type that's almost extinct now.
The Amiga hardware is as obsolete as a Sega Megadrive, Super Nintendo, Atari ST etc. I don't think anyone is seriously going to build a 21st Century piece of kit with backwards compatibility to 1990s Amiga hardware on a production scale, it's too small a market these days and any investor will want projections on payback and profits which just couldn't be predicted.
No-one is prepared to take that financial risk, that's why these home brewed projects stay as little more than that. A-Cube a taking a risk with Minimig that may not pay off longer term, that's more than likely.
Sorry, I'm not wearing rose-coloured glasses tonight.
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WotTheFook wrote:
I'm sorry, but for some of the suggestions in this thread, we don't need a philanthropist, we need a psychiatrist.
I think it's more of a backburner idea. I what-would-happen-if nice idea kinda thing. It's ok to dream. Maybe you have your nightmare glasses on tonight. :-)
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The Amiga hardware is as obsolete as a Sega Megadrive, Super Nintendo, Atari ST etc.
So is the C=64 as well, but that don't stop people from developing software and hardware for it. What is so wrong in doing the same for the amiga.
If some rich "philanthropist" finds out he wants to make some amigha hardware. Would that stop you from buying it, just because its idea is 20 years old... Who knows maybe some amiga guy wins in lotto....
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Oh wow, an AA meeting. First step, admit the problem.
My names Rob and I'm an Amiga lover.
Boot_WB wrote:
We need a rich, Amiga lover anyone know any?
My name's Rich, and I'm an Amiga lover :-).
Does that count?
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persia wrote:
Oh wow, an AA meeting. First step, admit the problem.
My names Rob and I'm an Amiga lover.
Boot_WB wrote:
We need a rich, Amiga lover anyone know any?
My name's Rich, and I'm an Amiga lover :-).
Does that count?
Wouldn't this be more of a AAA meeting? :lol:
-Nyle
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pyrre wrote:
So is the C=64 as well, but that don't stop people from developing software and hardware for it. What is so wrong in doing the same for the amiga.
Yes, but on C-64 people are not delusional in thinking that it could be a "real" mainstream platform, unlike Amiga people who seem to think that the platform could in any way compete with modern computers. The C-64 is a nice hobby, just like the Amiga, but as we all know neither will ever be a mainstream platform again.