Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: sim085 on December 01, 2008, 03:24:14 PM
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Hi,
I have been pondering on this for quite some time now; What does the community want from the Amiga brand. I have personally divided the people into three groups. There are those that are just happy to use their old system and feel that anything new with the Amiga brand will never be a real 'Amiga', there are those who want to build new 'Amiga' machine using technology similar to that used 20/15 years ago, and finally there are those who wish Amiga be similar to Apple. So my question is ... what does the community really want from Amiga?
Note that the above is not to criticize or anything like that. I am just asking to understand better.
Regards,
Sim085
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Sex in a box.
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A nice Natami to become a reality and have a powerful PPC card for that to be able to run OS4.x and MOS on it too.
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What does the community want from the Amiga brand.
These days? Nothing. It was good, but now it just looks like a cruel joke. Wont be stopping me from using what I already have though.
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An AGA Minimig, or rather an A1200 Minimig.
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my prayers were answered when the Indivision AGA for my 1200 came out..the rest is gravy for me :-D
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Personally, none of them. I wouldn't like the Amiga becoming just another x86 box as Apple did with the Mac. I'd rather prefer a more custom and still powerful machine. The Sam440 is IMHO a step in the right decision, I just hope that in the future a more powerful model will be released.
Varthall
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Can't speak to what the communitiy wants really...BUT If I could travel back in time and tell myself what the future held for the Amiga I'd be both disgusted and inspired...
Disgusted becuase of the wasted dreams and golden opportunites...of C= and others.
and Inspired by the community and things like, MiniMIG, UAE, Natami, Aros, and Clone A, Hyperion.
Amazing how much end users have accomplshed in a fraction of the time compared to the legitamate owners of the brand.
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The way forward is to design something faster, better and new.
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A time machine, I would go back and show Commodore what the future "was" and what it should have been.
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The way forward is to design something faster, better and new.
And cheaper.
Dammy
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Todays Amiga standards seems to be to focus on low performance, overpriced almost home-made hardware, the more exclusive and expensive "the better". The more users you
scare away the better.
Makes no sense to me.
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at manu: but it does perfectly make sense to me.or do you miss all that globalised underage loosers with their globalized pile of stupidity and each vista virus they care to drag along. we have enough of fools ourselves (count me in).
im not into informatics, so please forgive me if this sounds blaspheme, tis my ignorance´. i would stick to 68k and try to improve it till it breaks soft- or hardwarewise. os 4.x is an option. morphos -another. aros on 68k or x64 the the last. and do not try to reconquer the universe as it is doomed either way.
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What I want, from Amiga (inc), is an open path for companies or individuals (some companies remaining in our community are basically obsessed individuals) to move forward with AmigaOS. Amiga Inc. once defined their technology licensing email, but then pretty much ignored any and all who went there. I'm one of those who were completely ignored. At this point, I'm much more interested in an x86 port, just because it's so hard to make any real sense of making Amiga hardware that I want. (laptop...) I want something modern. With low-power options, high-performance options, and portable/mobile options all being possible. (laptop!!) If they want to limit us all to PowerPC, that's OK I guess, but freakin allow someone to do that. I want Amiga Inc. to get out of the way. They've not looked like anything other than a "road closed" sign for quite a while.
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Todays Amiga standards seems to be to focus on low performance, overpriced almost home-made hardware
How do you propose we get any more "proffessional" in your opinion hardware shops interested in doing better than what this one company is doing for this market?
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Personally, none of them. I wouldn't like the Amiga becoming just another x86 box as Apple did with the Mac. I'd rather prefer a more custom and still powerful machine. The Sam440 is IMHO a step in the right decision, I just hope that in the future a more powerful model will be released.
What in particular would you want customized and not the same as a modern PC? What aspects are "too normal" and thus need denormalized and turned into something custom that no one else has? In what ways in particular is SAM440 a step in the right direction, and what changes would take us further in this right direction than SAM does? What changes would take us in wrong directions?
I've got a few ideas on how I myself would approach a system design. I have a degree in computer engineering, work as a chip designer by day, and have absolutely no idea what you want out of your words "custom" or what direction you're referring to by the "right" one.
People, please, if you want something different than a boring everyday x86, please put some effort into what you want, what you mean, why that is, etc. so the people at Acube or wherever have a clue as to what you're going on about. Otherwise they're not very likely to satisfy your custom and nonstandard wishes.
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Simply put, I love my classics and for me, thats where the Amiga story ended. In saying that, I would still like to see what's left of the Amiga handed over to the community as an open source package, so that we, as a community, can decide where to take it. Personally, I'm all for porting it to the readily availiable, cheap and infinately more powerful x86.
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fries.....french fries with heinz and onions.
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Amiga is dead, has been dead for years...
I want MorphOS 3.0 for the Mac Mini, it's the best 'Amiga' OS...
Until that happens I'm happy with my real Amiga's :P
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DJBase wrote:
fries.....french fries with heinz and onions.
Well we all want that don't we :-)
I'd like to see a unified Amiga brand, with some real leadership and direction displayed. Under this brand we’d not only see recognition and support of classics but also a new platform supported (eg SAM).
On the classics front I’d love to see MiniMig marketed properly and expanded to included AGA support (maybe in a cute little retro 1200 case with a DVD instead of a floppy drive ).
:-P
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whenever there was a poll, "Pancakes" would always win. So Pancakes > Amiga.
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DJBase wrote:
fries.....french fries with heinz and onions.
And I want your shirt, so to speak :-)
Seriously, a dark purple shirt with a large amiga tick on the front and nothing else - who would not want one :-D
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NovaCoder wrote:
DJBase wrote:
fries.....french fries with heinz and onions.
Well we all want that don't we :-)
No, you culture barbarians.
It's fries with mayonaise !
:-D
Staf.
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@sim085
What does the community want from the Amiga brand.
Commitment and hard work.
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The magic behind the computer was that you could write your own programs and make your own graphics. The Commodore 64 offered sprites which were easy to move graphics and a simple to use sid chip to make sounds.
The Amiga offered something better but some people found it harder to program.
The problem comes in when you have third party manufacturers gouging the customer base for what PC manufacturers offer for less.
There were magazines teaching programming like RUN, Compute! and Compute!'s Gazette.
Are you telling me that people don't like programming anymore but we want to pay someone else to program for us in vanilla so we can't enjoy programming in color? Where did all the programming go? The Amiga was marketed as an Artist's computer and then the magazine Amigaworld dumped that concept for business because they wanted their ad revenue to come from business so they could make business money.
One of the creators of MOS technology is still in business but the problem is that not everyone sees the need for programming, sound or graphics.
The Sid chip could have been upgraded and Sprites could have been upgraded.
I wouldn't care who provided new hardware even if it couldn't compete but you have to have open architecture and you have to open the computer up to programmers. You have to have sound and you have to have graphics.
If you can't get new hardware from Amiga then this is your last united front to get new hardware from someone else. But if you want to dump these concepts then get a Mac or an X86 box because you can't compete without a faster processor or money.
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I want an open source classic OS. The bits produced after Olaf Barthel ported it all to a Amiga-hosted compilers would be nice, but I'd settle for a mix. ;-)
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AROS with fully integrated 68k and PPC emulation. And 10 million $ on my bank account.
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From the Amiga brand I would like the AmigaOS to continue to OS 5 and beyond and for hardware to slowly but surely catch up to the current PC/Mac levels
I don't really want x86 architecture I like the Amiga having its own identity. A more powerful SAM board in the future would be great or anything along those lines.
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What would I want from the BRAND.....
Good question...
I guess what I'd like is for the current owners to f*** up and die....
Then have it bought by people who actually gave a rats about what the name meant, and what it still means to a whole bunch of folks... and maybe do something with it we could respect.
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Peace on Earth!
Then,
Natami
MoprhOS released for all MacMini's
SAMflex released with AmigaOS4.x at a reasonable cost
Completion of the Clone-A to run the Minimig core at 100% Amiga compatibility
And for next year (Ha, like all, or any of the above will be done in the next 4 weeks),
Redesign of the Minimig to reduce the size further and fit it into the base of a high quality joystick and have it commercially sold to hundreds of thousands, which would get us maybe 5 new people interested in becoming regular Amiga users.
MorphOS released for ALL PPC G4 & G5 Mac computers fully optimized to take advantage of the G5 and multiple cores & CPUs.
Having Amiga Inc. realize that they have done nothing for the Amiga community, and that their efforts have nothing to do with, or are in any way related to the Amiga. Then have them give up on their lawsuits, admit that Hyperion is now the legal owner of the AmigaOS and IP, decide to change their name and move on to their eventual bankruptcy and collapse.
Having the Hyperion & AmigaOS4.x team realize that porting to the PPC Mac's is the quickest, easiest and most powerful solution for future AmigaOS4.x hardware, until they have time to port to x86/64bit.
OR,
Having the Natami become so powerful and fast and able to use modern storage and interface, networking components, that all AmigaOS4.x and MorphOS2.x and Classic Amiga users will come together behind one platform and create new, exciting applications, games and utilities, like the good old days.
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/
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The Amiga "brand" is just that. It could be called Taco for all I care, since slapping "Amiga" on any old thing doesn't make it an Amiga. (Just like slapping Linux on any old thing doesn't turn it into an Aston Martin. *sigh* If only....)
The Minimig is cool, but I'm not really interested in another game system--UAE does that well enough. Netami is a nice idea. An ATX form factor replacement for the A1200 mainboard would be cool, but I guess it would make using busboards funky. Still, it could work well enough with accelerators or even have one on board.
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I want a 100% or at least close to 100% Amiga 500 hardware and kickstart 1.3/AmigaOS 1.3 compatible computer that is not beholden to a single company. We have the hardware. We now just need the kickstart/OS. (Anybody heard anything about the kickstart replacement bounty that was assigned?)
Once that is accomplished, I will be happy. I will be happy AND want an A1200/A4000/AXXXX OS 2.0/3.1/3.9 system that is also open. If we had that, I think that Amigas...Well, actually MiniMig would have a firm hold in the hobbiest market.
Once that was done, I would be estatic, and would want to see what those same people would bring to the next generation.
Basically, I want an A500 followed by progress. I know that an A500 doesn't compete powerwise with the latest and greatest PCs, but I'm not really interested in that. I bought a C64 in a joystick, even though I could emulate the C64 on my PC for free. I bought Pacman in a joystick even though I could have emulated it on my PC for free. Form factor matters. I have many games in more than one form factor. Heck, I have Pacman in a joystick, on Mame, on Gametap, on the 2600, on the PSX, on the PS2 on the XBOX, and on the Wii. The form factor plays a large part in where I play it.
Yes, I could emulate the A500 on a PC. I do in fact. But, I also have a MiniMig. I will likely get a CloneA when it comes out. I will definitely be getting the upgrade board for my C-One.
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Leave me in peace with all that mainstream x86 crap! I want to be different, I want custom chips and all that. Maybe this means to be a little more expensive and have quite a few GB and GHz less than all the rest.
Personally, I would like the Natami to be finished, but as time goes by this sounds like the usual Amiga fairytale reloaded.
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Lorraine wrote:
@ amigadave
Don't ask for much do ya? :lol:
I have always said, "If you are going to dream, dream BIG!"
They are free and usually don't hurt anyone. :-D
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I would like to see something as amazing as the Amiga was at it´s time. This is the new Amiga for me: "Revolution!" (Desert Dreams)
...and no, I don´t believe that this will happens :-( Computers, like cars, are all the same cr@p now. Creativity died in favour of "please sell it quick and easy". There is no chance for Tuckers now, just plastic stuff that looks and feels all the same.
What I expect to see (sooner or later):
-AROS getting better, and running a decent browser
-Something nice from the Anubis guys
-OS4 running in better and/or cheaper hardware. But I bet it will not be up an up to date machine
-Same thing for MOS
-An AGA Minimig
-More FPGA Amigas. Maybe with brand new features
-Hope...
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You wish for little?
I'd be happy to find a decent FPGA designer, or two
;-)
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@chuckT re:programming
you make a good point, but what programming language would you use? In the 80's BASIC was easy to learn but very slow. So if you want to write games, that's out. So then you have to learn something more complicated, and who wants that apart from those interested in programming, rather than those interested in art or animation or music. If you want to create art or animations then think how hard and time consuming it would be to program something I can do easily in Dpaint or Scala. if you want to program art and music and animations, special effects then people have been doing this on Amiga since 1985 and in large numbers: they're called "demos".
what do i want? i want a computer that puts me in control and does what i want when i want it to. AmigaOS is the closest that i have experienced. If it were ported to affordable hardware that would be enough. by affordable it doesn't have to the most ghz, GB etc. we all know a 14mhz A1200 with some fast ram is more responsive than 4 gig ram 3.0 ghz multicore monster running vista, so i couldn't care less about the specs
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THE Amiga magic was mostly based on advanced,affordable graphics and to a lesser degree sound that was way ahead of the competition.
Newtek's Video Toaster sold more high-end Amigas than anything Commodore did.The Toaster was THE editing tool for small and medium projects,and even the yet to be named "pro-sumer" could afford the system.
Much of the Amiga's special appeal was that it could use an ordinary home television or an equally affordable monitor but its success was really tied to NTSC video.The switch to digital TV and the near universal display for computers pretty much takes care of all that.
Time marched on,and the original Amiga is as outdated as a Model A or T.
Nothing wrong with enjoying old "whatever" ,but neither 20 year old cars or computers are going to sell in the numbers desired by any big corporation.
We just need to recognize the reality that Amiga is now,and unless a new super-application that runs only on Amiga appears, a niche market.A niche market generally will have less competition,fewer suppliers,limited choices,and higher prices .
Another reality is that the lone programming genius cannot compete with commercial software corporations in anything but a niche market.The sheer volume of code for many new releases take one or more CDs or even a DVD!Who has the time to write 600MB of high-quality code?
I think all we could expect is what amigadave dreams of:Amiga OS for Mac(and maybe other)PPC computers,newer PPC/Freescale/non-x86 computers running Amiga-like OS,etc.
I'd like to see new PPC upgrade cards at much better prices so all the owners of existing Amigas could at least get AOS 4.0
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stefcep2 wrote:
@chuckT re:programming
you make a good point, but what programming language would you use? In the 80's BASIC was easy to learn but very slow. So if you want to write games, that's out. So then you have to learn something more complicated, and who wants that apart from those interested in programming, rather than those interested in art or animation or music.
There were some games on the Commodore 64 that were hard to beat and they were written in Machine language running at only 1MHZ. How is that possible?
http://www.dessgeega.com/crossroads.html
The downside of Windows or Gamecube is that it is physically faster than I am. I can't physically beat my friend who has been playing video games since he was three years old. I can't physically bend my fingers faster than he can so he always wins at Mario Party no matter what I do. He is faster than the programmable joysticks. That is the reason why I'm not wishing to get another game system since it isn't fun anymore. There are Windows games that you basically have to have a cheat key to win because it is physically impossible for a lot of people to win and that makes it unplayable or unenjoyable.
I think that hardware is physically fast enough that if you manage resources, Basic can be faster and maybe you have to streamline a language like C but believing the argument that it is either Windoze or nothing is like relegating Christmas to the Christmas modemers. (Christmas modemers was a derogatory term given to people who knew nothing about BBSing and they came and ruined message boards because they knew nothing about etequette or they uploaded every file instead of compressing them into an archive. They uploaded programs that didn't work so they could get the 1 to 1 download credit.) I think that I can enjoy a computer more by programming it with my creativity than buying a one size fits all program written with vanilla programming. I want to look at my computer in Multi Colors instead of Vanilla. My programming is red hot and your storebought programs are all rot. I was going to use another word but I didn't want to offend.
I believe that if someone was to take the time to manage the resources of the computer, languages and operating systems could make the Amiga the computer to beat. The fact is that memory has two channels now so instead of the processor waiting for the memory, the memory is waiting for the processor. We can think about the Amiga differently if we are willing to give it different technology and if we are willing to think about how to manage resources.
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I was pretty happy with AI's choice until Sheep Lord screwed up the deal with QSSL. I was happy with AI's alt choice of Linux. Then it all went down hill.
Anubis x86/x86_64/ARM/PPC is the only answer for me. I want full drivers and let the GUI hide the POSIX nature of a modern OS.
Dammy
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I'm probably stating the obvious, but the most important "want" for me is a solid (and hopefully unified) direction for the future of Amiga. OS4.x and SAM440 seem to form a good starting path, but it may all fall apart if AI wins the lawsuit. Then what? Are we going to wait around to see what happens with OS4/5 in the hands of Amiga Inc?
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Agree that SAM is currently most Amiga-like commercial product available,and is the only choice if you want to run the latest AmigaOS version on new hardware.
I'm watching for affordable PPC upgrade card and would prefer SAM-flex with the multiple PCI card motherboard over the present single card model.
Amiga users wish all the lawsuits could be settled amicably and everyone get back to making hardware and software.
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Varthall wrote:
Personally, none of them. I wouldn't like the Amiga becoming just another x86 box as Apple did with the Mac.
Fully agreed here.
Varthall wrote:
I'd rather prefer a more custom and still powerful machine.
The same here on my end...
Varthall wrote:
The Sam440 is IMHO a step in the right decision, I just hope that in the future a more powerful model will be released.
You mean "a step in the right direction", don't you?
"A more powerful model" already has been released - it just has to be suported by AOS:
Quad Core PPC Power Station (http://us.fixstars.com/products/powerstation/)
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re: Quad core option, why dont we hassle them to make an OS4.1 friendly option? :)
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Belial6 wrote:
I want a 100% or at least close to 100% Amiga 500 hardware and kickstart 1.3/AmigaOS 1.3 compatible computer that is not beholden to a single company. We have the hardware. We now just need the kickstart/OS.
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But Kickstart1.3 and Workbench1.3 are available since ages!
:-? :-? :-?
Belial6 wrote:
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Form factor matters. I have many games in more than one form factor.
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:-o
You have games in a form factor?
I thought form factors were for motherboards and cases and the like...
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I still like the idea of a Quad PPC core Amiga. Then Denise and Paula can also have quadruplets :)
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amigadave wrote:
Peace on Earth!
Then...
Sorry, I rate the return of the real Amiga higher than peace on Earth. Peace will be a side effect once everyone is happy with their amigas once more.
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by HopperJF on 2008/12/2 16:06:26
I don't really want x86 architecture I like the Amiga having its own identity. A more powerful SAM board in the future would be great or anything along those lines.
Problem is of course, what's different on a SAM440 mobo then you would find on a x86, other then a different CPU arch? If you really want something different, it's going to have to be anything but a desktop. Unless, of course, you have a billionaire ready to spend untold hundreds of millions on custom chip development and production. And be prepared to eat it all when the ROI on said investment fails to materialize.
Dammy
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some direction. no more lawsuits. all this infighting is just killing whats left. but maybe that is the intention?
we all know what made amiga special to each of ourselves, otherwise why else would we be posting here? :-)
so we are after something that captures that special spark that inspired us all to begin with. and given the current bland crop of corporate regurgitated focus group based offerings, an amiga in some form or another seems the best option at the moment?
Hyperion for the Win! :-)
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The Amiga hardware advantage is long gone (since 1992) and every computer has custom chips in it these days.
This anti-X86 attitude is unproductive, as is that "what is a real Amiga" debate. A real Amiga is what was produced by Commodore and AT before their untimely death. You can still get them and use them for 15 year old stuff. Nothing wrong with that either, if it's what your here for.
The closest you will get to an Amiga now is something which reflects the OS goals, Intuition and the like, however it can't be achieved in a modern way without sacrificing a lot of its legacy. That means the best you can expect is an Amiga-like OS with a similar API. This is pretty much what we have now with Morphos and OS 4.1. If these OSs are to progress they will have to become increasingly more foreign to OS 1-3 die hards.
Anubis is a reaction to the fact that AROS is hampered by legacy, people are desperately wanting modern stuff to run on it, and it's hard to develop fun stuff into it while retaining compatibility with a 15 year old OS.
The saddest part is that for most people, an Amiga was a glorified games console, so most won't even remember Workbench, let alone have programmed anything.
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Dandy wrote:
But Kickstart1.3 and Workbench1.3 are available since ages!
:-? :-? :-?
You have to read BOTH sentences together to understand the statement. You cannot just ignore the first part.
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1) I want Dave Haynie to buy all Amiga IP and start some type of Amiga company.
2) I want free beer and sex on a stick.
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recidivist wrote:
Newtek's Video Toaster sold more high-end Amigas than anything Commodore did.The Toaster was THE editing tool for small and medium projects,and even the yet to be named "pro-sumer" could afford the system.
Much of the Amiga's special appeal was that it could use an ordinary home television or an equally affordable monitor but its success was really tied to NTSC video.The switch to digital TV and the near universal display for computers pretty much takes care of all that.
So what the heck did we buy amigas for here in PAL-land, huh? In UK amiga was mostly a gaming machine, but then again, any computer in the UK was mostly a gaming machine. Sorry, any computer in the UK mostly _IS_ a gaming machine. That's just how the brits are, obsessed with silly games. :-)
But the rest of us?
I know what sold most "high end" amigas in Norway at least - SCALA - no doubt about that. Very much for the same reasons that the video toaster sold amigas in the US.