Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: locutus on January 03, 2004, 04:51:16 PM
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I was discussing this with someone on IRC some while ago.
How many Amiga users are there nowadays anyway (depends on how you define 'Amiga user' anyway).
It seem to be enough for some company's to sustain themselves on.
Does anyone know some numbers on this ?
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about 20.... :-)
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:lol:
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(depends on how you define 'Amiga user' anyway)
There lies the problem.
Semi-unrelated, but I thought it was interesting, checking out the site stats for amiga.org, how IE users "only" accounted for ~50%, rather than the ~90% on most sites. I thought that was quite impressive.
IE users: You should be ashamed, visiting a semi-technical website with such a Fisher Price browser! Repent! :-)
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mikeymike wrote:
(depends on how you define 'Amiga user' anyway)
There lies the problem.
Semi-unrelated, but I thought it was interesting, checking out the site stats for amiga.org, how IE users "only" accounted for ~50%, rather than the ~90% on most sites. I thought that was quite impressive.
IE users: You should be ashamed, visiting a semi-technical website with such a Fisher Price browser! Repent! :-)
Yeah, sorry about that MikeyMike, I haven't figured out how to get IE to spoof IBrowse yet :-D
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mikeymike wrote:
IE users: You should be ashamed, visiting a semi-technical website with such a Fisher Price browser! Repent! :-)
I identify Opera as IE6 because I couldn't get to some sites identifying as anything else.
Changed it just now tho :-D
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Well do most Amiga users here use Amiga as their primary machine? I have an A2000 that I quite enjoy and am building another A1200 tower (060) for demos, etc. and to mess with AmigaOS - but my primary machine is a dual G4 Mac running OS X - alot of my recent browsing time on the Mac has been looking at Amiga sites - but I do not use the Amiga to do the Amiga browsing.
Maybe I am odd or a 2nd class Amiga user because of this. (Tho I was right there in '85 with an A1000!)
blakespot
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locutus wrote:
How many Amiga users are there nowadays anyway (depends on how you define 'Amiga user' anyway).
Probably a couple of thousand active users, using a broad definition but not counting those who only use emulators to play retro games.
It seem to be enough for some company's to sustain themselves on.
Name one.
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An educated guess (and it's *only* a guess) would be the following:
People using an original Amiga on a daily basis: 1500.
People with A1 waiting for OS4, or who will buy an A1: 1200.
MorphOS users, and people waiting for Pegasos II: 1200.
"Contributing"* UAE users: 1100.
Amithlon and other emulator users: 500.
Potential AROS users: 800.
Users who still hang around the Amiga community, but who have no Amiga hardware, except in a cupboard, and use Windows or Linux: 3000.
(* Contributing: who use these systems on a daily basis as replacement Amigas, not just to play favourite Amiga games now and again.)
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Probably a couple of thousand active users, using a broad definition but not counting those who only use emulators to play retro games.
Unfortunately I'm one of these users who only uses an emulator at the moment. Having used an, A600 and A1200 in the past (sold the last one in Dec '98).
However, with the release of OS4 I'm planning to get an A1 - if/when OS4 is release........ ;-)
It should be this core of ex-users Aminga Inc target when the new OS is released - should give a steady boost to initial sales.
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I identify Opera as IE6 because I couldn't get to some sites identifying as anything else.
You realise that completely undermines any effort to get web designers to test using any other web browser...
However I can't believe that Opera's default setting is to ID as IE.
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If the daily activity of this site is to be taken into consideration, my best guess would be about 100 or so people left.
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Wayne wrote:
If the daily activity of this site is to be taken into consideration, my best guess would be about 100 or so people left.
I would say that it isn't probably much higher than that :-/
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meh are you asking to be flamed wayne? I think its increadibly big headed of you to use this site as some kind of gauge of amiga users still active.. but what do I know...
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The problem for amiga-users is the web-browser. I am a die hard Amiga-fan an the Amiga works 24h/day, at least as the routing machine for the home LAN. But when ever I want to surfe into the internet I use the PC. (Mozilla Firebird) If we had Firebird for Amiga/Pegasos things might look different...
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Ryu wrote:
meh are you asking to be flamed wayne? I think its increadibly big headed of you to use this site as some kind of gauge of amiga users still active.. but what do I know...
Well I would say that this site counts for at (the very) least half of all Amiga traffic on the internet, doubling the number of visitors to this site would probably give quite a good figure.
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locutus wrote:
I was discussing this with someone on IRC some while ago.
How many Amiga users are there nowadays anyway (depends on how you define 'Amiga user' anyway).
It seem to be enough for some company's to sustain themselves on.
Does anyone know some numbers on this ?
If anyone wants to get their PC to look like the old Amiga's try this site:
Workbench Themes (http://member.nifty.ne.jp/semishigure/jokedesktops.html)
You need to d/load a program called window blinds to use these but at least it can remind you until the new OS4 arrives.......
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I'd says about there are now more than last year. With the older Amigans (like moi :-D ) showing interest in coming back.
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AccyD wrote:
locutus wrote:
I was discussing this with someone on IRC some while ago.
How many Amiga users are there nowadays anyway (depends on how you define 'Amiga user' anyway).
It seem to be enough for some company's to sustain themselves on.
Does anyone know some numbers on this ?
If anyone wants to get their PC to look like the old Amiga's try this site:
Workbench Themes (http://member.nifty.ne.jp/semishigure/jokedesktops.html)
You need to d/load a program called window blinds to use these but at least it can remind you until the new OS4 arrives.......
If you want to get your PC to look and work like an amiga then I suggest the AROS Operating System (http://www.aros.org). :-D
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Hello
What about the users of AmigaDE/AA/ MS Game Pack?
Anyone buy this product for Windows CE/PocketPC?
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@AccyD
To remind myself of AmigaOS I just run MorphOS.
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downix wrote:
@AccyD
To remind myself of AmigaOS I just run MorphOS.
There is a slight difference in download time between the two!!
Even for me on ADSL - god knows how long you must wait on dial up for AROS to d/load.
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That was probably the most daft thing I've ever seen you say, ever, Wayne.
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by AccyD on 2004/1/3 13:58:49
Even for me on ADSL - god knows how long you must wait on dial up for AROS to d/load.
Why not just try the boot floppy out instead? That shouldn't take too long on dial-up. =)
Dammy
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AccyD wrote:
Probably a couple of thousand active users, using a broad definition but not counting those who only use emulators to play retro games.
Unfortunately I'm one of these users who only uses an emulator at the moment. Having used an, A600 and A1200 in the past (sold the last one in Dec '98).
Actually I was counting people like you. The ones that don't count are the retro gaming brigade, because they don't represent any form of "market".
However, the new systems will give an initial boost to sales...
...and then nothing. That's the trouble with this market. It's impossible to envisage it ever becoming a steady market for anyone, because there's nothing to take it closer to the mainstream, so once you've satisfied the die-hards, you have no one else to sell your stuff to.
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Well I for one was out for MANY years and I'm coming back. I must confess it's more of a hobby right now because I'm still putting the 4000D toegether so I can use it. I plan on getting an A1 when OS4 is out, but I don't consider myself a diehard because I did die once, now I'm just back from the dead
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well not sure on a size of the community, but id guess a few thousand active amiga users left. Far as using it to browse the web, i use my pc or mac most of the time cause the amiga browser just lack too much as browsers go. Art wise i still use my miggy, and for word processing and about everything else. kinda sad the state of our beloved computer now, sometimes a bit depressing too. no matter what news comes out i cant help but keep feeling like we just keep falling behindand prob will never catch up, but hell im still gonna buy my a1 and miggy stuff anyways:) :-D
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@bhoggett-
That's probably the most insightful statement here. There are a relatively fixed amount of people worldwide who might be compelled to shell out some big bucks for a new Amiga system.... and then, no more.
Now... Where is that number? I might guess that it to be in the 800-1200 range... but, honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it went down even as low as Wayne suggests - look at the companies he's worked for - he should know!
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re: bhoggett
Name one.
Elbox, Individual Computers, E3B ?
They do Amiga hardware, tough i have to admit i dont know how much of their cash income is from Amiga stuff.
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>by Wayne on 2004/1/3 20:08:33
>If the daily activity of this site is to be taken into consideration, my best guess would be about 100 or so people left.
There are several dozen active Amiga users in Finland itself... I wonder how many drinks you had when you came up with this number :-)
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of course the viable platform argument was lost a long time ago...probably around 1996 the platform lost viability and sustainability.
However, we have bottomed out and I believe the community is at a new sustainable level.
if you count all users... the germans and the english speaking world...the 10 people who use aros ;-), AmigaOne owners, Pegasos I owners, uae, Classic Line, and people like me who just post for apparantly no reason..(because we don't own any Amiga, don't use an emulator, don't use aros, and have even lost any sense of being uncomfortable about it).. I think that number is closer to 3000. I don't know that that number is important as its too diverse a group to reach with a product.
I do think an Amiga OS 4 or the Pegasos II, can be a viable product, however. It's just that they will have to attract new users. There are lots of people interested in new OS's and new fun computer systems.
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Would be interesting if all the major sites would make their statistics available online, like this:
amiga-news.de stats (http://www.amiga-news.de/stats/)
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wow, did I say 3000 users, I meant 6000 users ;-)
impressive stats, and they aren't the busiest amiga site...
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MarkTime wrote:
impressive stats, and they aren't the busiest amiga site...
Probraly just as busy as a.org ....
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reflect wrote:
That was probably the most daft thing I've ever seen you say, ever, Wayne.
Geez, give the guy a break. You should take what people say with a pinch of salt sometimes. Perhaps he wasn't being 100% serious!
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I use my Amiga regularly but never to surf the web. I have used it to do some downloading from Aminet but anymore I don't even do that. Amiga browsers suck.
Mostly I use Safari and OS X for the net, but also Linux and Mozilla.
Can't wait for the MicroA1 and OS 4 :-D , but its going to need AmiZilla to survive unless iBrowse does a miraculous transformation. . . . . . :-o
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Looking at those stats, and the article views on amiga.org and amigaworld.net - the OS4 pre-release CD annoucement got around 7000 views combined - the first OS4 screenshots attracted 50000 unique visitors, sales of AmigaOne and Pegasos combined must be around 2000, and there must be countless numbers of people still using old Amigas who are not visibly active, or have a PPC upgraded Amiga and will upgrade to OS4. None of these figures are particulary accurate or indicative, and the only important community size figure is probably the installed OS4 userbase (which is currently 0, sans beta-testers). If I had to guess real community size, I would say 10000. If I had to guess installed OS4 userbase just after OS4 final release, then probably 3000. These are my opinions, nobody else's ;-)
Incidentally, this graph (http://recall.archive.org/search?query=%22amiga%22&afterMonth=0&afterYear=1996&beforeMonth=4&beforeYear=2003&oldword=%22amiga%22&login=&extGroup=Do+you+Mean%3F&capGroup=%A0%A0%A0+Amiga&staticGroupOne=amigas&staticGroupTwo=amigos&staticGroupThree=amiga&staticGroupFour=fotos&dynGroupOne=siendo&dynGroupTwo=fotos+transexuales&dynGroupThree=femenina&dynGroupFour=conocer+amigos&dynGroupFive=Divertidas&dynGroupSix=Fotos+X) (on the right) may be of interest, it shows web-interest in the Amiga peaking in 1999, and tailing off ever since (now hovering at ~10% of that peak). One of those links shows a search category for AmigaOS 5.0 :-)
Chris
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I agree on the browser part, using google and aminet is about it you want to do with a Amiga browser :-( .
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No one knows the size of the user base but you just have to take away the "we will buy anything Amiga" die hards and port beggers/petition idiots to see what sort of bad shape the Amiga market is in.
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They do Amiga hardware, tough i have to admit i dont know how much of their cash income is from Amiga stuff.
Yet that is exactly my point. For the argument that the platform provides enough of a market to sustain businesses to be true then they must get their income from the Amiga market only. Furthermore, you have to ask yourself if all the people involved rely on the Amiga business for their living, or whether it's just a part-time business-cum-hobby.
In most cases the Amiga market does NOT provide a sustainable level alone, but the businesses involved are either doing it on a part-time basis or else subsidising their Amiga involvement from somewhere else.
Take E3B for instance. You work it out how many of their cards they'd need to sell to break even and cover Michael's living expenses for a year, not to mention the R&D and production costs. Now work it out if you think he's actually sold that many cards...
See?
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I remember reading an article in the New York Times in 1999 in which they estimated the size of the Amiga community at 500,000. Obviously, there was no indication given of how they had arrived at this figure (someone's head seems like a probable source), but I recall being shocked at how low it was - in hindsight, I was no doubt being very naive. As was pointed out at start of thread, it all depends on how one defines an "Amiga User". However, considering that there were over 5 million Amigas sold in the UK alone, you would only need 0.2% of these to still use their Amigas to reach a figure of 10,000. I admit that this is probably way over the top but I reckon that there must surely be over 20,000 people worldwide who still use their Amigas on occasion - admittedley not as their primary computers - but, nevertheless, use.
Also, for this site to regularly attract 30 new members a week suggests that there may be a larger active Amiga community than one might at first think.
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ROTFL!!!
500,000 in 1999? More like 50,000 and I'd regard that as optimistic.
I doubt there are still 20,000 active Amiga users left. Even 10,000 is highly optimistic and unlikely to represent the actual market, which IMHo is no more than 2,000-3,000 at best.
Like I said earlier though, those 2-3k systems will be sold very quickly, and then what?
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I'd have to say less than 10,000 that actualy use their Amiga's as their main computer, infact, its prolly less than 8 or 6 thousand. But there are plenty more that turn their Amiga's on for a game or a pain programe that they enjoy.
And then theres even more that have Amiga's but dont use them, such as myself. I've only got an A500. But i'd say theres prolly less than 5000 people who are willing to upgrade or purchase an A1. That'll increase as OS4 goes through its revisions, but we're gunna have to get cheaper hardware. I know that may not be too possible atm unless the pegasos can get a an A1 licence, but that may never happen.
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Actually I would like it if this site was able to work 100% with an Amiga browser!! It doesn't. Like to upload a avatar or do some changes I need to use IE 6 :( I use IBrowse 2.3 on my Amigas.
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Do they visit AO regularly?
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100 people wayne?? , oh ok..
so i am now pretty rare... COOL..
ok i will sell myself on ebay then..
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btw this is a pathetic thread and this is why everything is as it is atm , everyone slaggin off everyone, where is all the glory from the old days?...
pps: 1999 was the last true amiga year , ALOT of people left back then , and them who didnt leave ...left in 2001 when amithlon came..
yeah yeah yeah i know i am naive...oh and yeah dont listen to me as i only use amiga...
as a last note, yes we need a proper browser STILL after all this time but i dont see how all the PC lovers at this site will benefit from it unless they run it on "WIN UAE"
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@Abou27
5 million Amigas in the UK ?
By this rate it will be 100.000.000 in the year 2010 :-o
Well under 2 million is what was actually sold.
@lempkee
Yes I know you refuse to see that reality, but NOONE left because of Amithlon
in 2001. But a real lot of SW-buying users left in 2002 when Amithlon was axed
by the incompetent&creedy.
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You need to use ie to upload pictures to the gallery although that dont even work for me and i installed suse linux 8.0 on 1 of my laptops before i could try that. :-?
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Actually I would like it if this site was able to work 100% with an Amiga browser!! It doesn't. Like to upload a avatar or do some changes I need to use IE 6 :( I use IBrowse 2.3 on my Amigas.
I used IB2.3 to upload my Avatar.
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I used IB2.3 to upload my Avatar.
Which avartar ? :-P
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Which avartar ?
LOL good point.
The one in this thread. (http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=2722&forum=17#33814)
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Semi-unrelated, but I thought it was interesting, checking out the site stats for amiga.org, how IE users "only" accounted for ~50%, rather than the ~90% on most sites. I thought that was quite impressive.
IE users: You should be ashamed, visiting a semi-technical website with such a Fisher Price browser! Repent! :-)
I agree, but I am usualy visiting this site from my jobs desk. WinXP :-(
Can't do anything about it :-(
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@Ryu and others
Your answer, and those others who take these type of cheap shots is exactly the kind of #### that really makes me re-think whether this site really needs to be here any more.
------------
guess ( P ) Pronunciation Key (gs)
v. guessed, guess·ing, guess·es
v. tr.
To predict (a result or an event) without sufficient information.
To assume, presume, or assert (a fact) without sufficient information.
To form a correct estimate or conjecture of: guessed the answer.
To suppose; think: "I guess he was wrong".
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Based on the fact that I see about 100 different names per day on this site, I *guessed* that there were only about 100 active Amiga users. That is my *guess* based solely on that fact. What is it that makes people like yourself decide it's a good idea to insult others simply for making a ####ing guess?
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Wayne wrote:
@Ryu and others
Your answer, and those others who take these type of cheap shots is exactly the kind of #### that really makes me re-think whether this site really needs to be here any more.
If they don't like this site they can go back to AW.net :-x
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oh the pain bloodline the pain... for your information I rarely visit AW.net.. however I am almost always logged in here. So dont try to flame with the usual AW crap.
@Wayne, sorry if you felt insulted by my comments I was mearly pointing out that some people around here would find your comment inflamatory. And for the record I believe you were taking a cheap shot at us remaining active amiga users by your original comment in the first place.
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Ryu wrote:
oh the pain bloodline the pain... for your information I rarely visit AW.net.. however I am almost always logged in here. So dont try to flame with the usual AW crap.
@Wayne, sorry if you felt insulted by my comments I was mearly pointing out that some people around here would find your comment inflamatory. And for the record I believe you were taking a cheap shot at us remaining active amiga users by your original comment in the first place.
Don't take it so personally!!! :-o