Thoughts on the A1Lite and mainstream markets

[GregS]

I don't think you're going to be able to fit an Athlon64 plus all its cooling equipment into one of those neat little mini ITX cases. I know that AMD has been talking about low-power designs, but I don't think the current Athlon64s or Opterons are part of that plan. Maybe the next generation?

@CodeSmit

You cannot make the Intel family run cool, it just won't do it, you also have all that legacy design, plus one way or another in the end the Intel type overclocked CISC design will have to go.

As we all know Windoze is slow and unreliable and not likely to get better.

But the most important thing is that people know more about computers now than they did even ten years ago, idiot suits can no longer run to an IBM design because it is deemed the only safe course (as they once did in their thousands "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" ).

The fioal price matters, but not as much as some would think. Early purchases pay more for getting ahead quicker, latter ones save a bit of money but then need to run to catch up.

Has it got a market, indeed the A1 and  OS4.0 - well I think it has, history has a way of catching up - the thing to remember is that INTEL/WINDOZE IS A DEAD END - it is not the same story as it was a decade or more ago.

What will be increasingly apparent is that in terms of a mass CPU market the PPC design is well ahead (not denying there are better CPUs) . Here the Linux  family have the server side already established, MacOSx has a place, but a suped up "volkswagen" OS like Amiga is already in a good position to take a lead.

You only have to think a few years ahead and Windoze/Intel looks already dead - after all like George W Bush where can they go after the mess they have made for themselves?

[GregS]

@Hammer - so let me summize - on OS which nobody loves (Windoze) which has never worked well and has always been sluggish, running on a hot-chip design is nevertheless unbeatable?

The Mac has a place - as 2.5 % - well that is a place, I am not supposing it to hugely grow, that is why I mentioned it in passing.  

I just don't understand the logic, just where and how do you propose Windoze moves in the future - each move destroys its immense base. At this stage the biggest liabilty it has is its own "success" - it has no choice it cannot easily transform itself as an OS or its chip dependences. all it can do is add more bells and whistles.

Mac bit the bullet (finnally) and remerged as Mac OSx and in doing so fragmnted even its tiny market share - do you think MS could do a similar thing and not fall apart at the seams.

This is partly about timing and partly about the evolution of the whole industry. This period represents the stasis that the industry has been in for almost 10 years. Except that 10 years has passed and computer use has become ubiquitous - it is not more of the same for ever and ever the effects are accumulative and only one part of this is the technology itself.

The fact is that people have had a gut full of MS, anything that looks half good at the moment has a running chance - in my opinion the A1 and OS4.0 look a lot better than Half-good!.

At some point (and my analysis is that this is rapidly approaching) the elastic band breaks.  Then a lot tumbles into the dustbin of history, including MS.  

From your comments it seems that you have the idea that things just keep on going on, that MS by some act of God has already planned an escape route and that the right time old Billy-boy will make his move - while I am saying he has no move to make, anything he does do will virtually be a change in the OS and then why stick with Billy's Brew when so many sweeter drops are available,

MS is dead - its just that it has a livily  corpse.

[GregS]

@Hammer

To ram my point through;

Can AOS4.0 match Windows and Sound Storm/SB Audigy 2 ZS software suite?
Can AOS4.0 match DirectX 9.0b?
Can AOS4.0 match Windows’s OBDC functionality?
Can AOS4.0 match Windows’s OLE functionality?
Is Oracle 9i available for AOS (middleware issues)?
Are there object oriented case tools for AOS?
Are there object oriented visual development environment for AOS (in the level Borland C Builder/J Builder/Delphi/Visual Studio dotNET 2003)?
Is there even a fully implemented Java VM for AOS?
Is there a Windows 2003 Server** level based on AOS? (**near brain dead server maintenance)
Can AOS deliver multi-user support?
Can AOS deliver roaming profiles?
Can AOS drive wireless LAN?

Should I add some more?

Amiga doesn’t need to compete with Windows/X86 Linux i.e. Alan’s “leisure computing” targeted market should be satisfactory enough.

Well obviously not. But  is there any reason why this is fundementally beyond the Amiga? Did you think what I was saying meant that Windoze would be dropped just because OS4.0 was released?

My point is that MS has no future despite its apparent strength. On the otherhand amiga is tight and light, robust and (hopefully) very stable.

The future, recompiling the amiga on Taos, is something of a permanent solution for software development.

It may not be the Amiga, my point was that MS is in a historic fix and over the next period the opportunity to shove it into the dustbin is already here.

Amiga doesn’t need to compete with Windows/X86 Linux i.e. Alan’s “leisure computing” targeted market should be satisfactory enough.

Yes it need not compete - that is the point surely.  It need not compete because the problem is with MS, so long as the new Amiga  exists, so long as it can be seen for what it is - that is enough to begin with.  The dissatisfaction with MS is also there, so part of this is resolved over time without head to head competition taking place at all.

Remember also the whole small personal computer thing started within the "leasure computing" market - starting there does not mean ending there.

"Love" is not an intangible/rational factor.

Well how about hate - that is how I would describe the MS experience in terms of those that have to use it (I am talking of people who have never heard of the Amiga and barely know the Mac exists).  Intangible, perhaps - irrational - I don't think so.

 

[GregS]

@Hammer

Changing the “real world” is a lot harder than changing the “reality distortion field”.

We seem to be at almighty cross purposes - I am saying that MS is in a blind ally because of its size and domination. That like the last remaining super-power they have nothing to transform themselves into, that despite their strength they have no future.

I am not saying that Amiga is going to be the wave of the future, but that wave is certainly already on its way and Amiga happens to be in a good position.

China has not only rejected MS, but gone for a form of Linux and the PPC, Russia and Eastern Europe are almost Linux by default (server wise anyhow).

Far from missing the information revolution, they are in a position to reap much of the benefit without being caught up in the expensive MS merry-go-round (and it is very expensive, suit-driven and unproductive).

You have to see this as an unfolding thing not a given. Where China goes, the rest of Asia will follow, so to I think the whole of Eastern Europe. They are set to gain the benefits of the new wave of technology precisely because they lagged behind on the first (a far from unusual circumstance in history I may add).

As for the Taos solution, the plan, I believe is to develop AmigaOS up until not only is it all written in vanilla C but that it has precsiely the development tools, drivers etc that allow it to be verstile in the context of this next wave of technologicasl innovation ---- then I believe, the plan is to recompile the whole thing within Taos a processor agnostic system which has the virtue, because of level of abstraction, of keeping software permanently available regardless of processor technology or indeed OS development.

Please get the big picture. For the next big move is not away from X86, but away from processor dependence. PPC offers a stepping stone no-more, and I would say the same for Linux.

The first step is to break away from the money pit that is MS development and maintenence. In short, business that is doing well with this setup will be the last to change, it is the businesses that cannot afford, or find MS a woeful drain on resources, that will be sniffing out alternatives when they become viable, technically, financially and have created a level of expertise (ie amongst kids, hobbyists and the like).

The meaning of revolution being to overturn, not the result of winning in head to head competition.

I was there for the first computer revolution to PCs, I know that business went with IBM/MS/Intel out of fear, and false economies. Ironically the hopelessness of the OS, the incrediable bad design of the PC and the make it faster attitude of Intel all combined to create an explosion in demand for better hardware - just to make the OS and its programs appear half-useful.

The level of hardware development is completely out of wack with the OS and program environment. Hardware is flying to the moon while the OS/program environment glides along in wooden sailing ships. As I said history has the habit of catching up with itself.

Put all this together, the China move, the inroads Linux is making at the perifery, the growing prominance of PPC architecture (especially when linked to China), the be-suited expensive and haphazard MS world in general, the squeezing out of small developers the lack of software innovation as a whole. Then you don't have to be Nostrodamus to read the future (whatever you control in the present).

A revolution in technology is not just a revolution in technology but also a change in who is doing what and how they are doing it. Tens of thousands of talented programmers either cannot get a job, or have a job where they do nothing but hack work, 100s of thousands of would be no-professional programmers are shut out of doing anything substantial on MS (because of the way MS has structured the "market"). Meanwhile 100s thousands of  businesses are dependant on computers which are costly to maintain and unreliable. Likewise a sizable part of planet is ready for the information revelution but has been effectively locked out by MS.

Just how do you read this as putting MS in a good long term position - I don't, hence I am happy to announce it a zombie (the walking dead). There is nothing it can do, no rabbits it can pull out of the hat, no matter how fast and small, that are not immediately bogged-down in the quagmire that is MS - it is a economic question, MS will hold on tightly to anything which is good until it has strangled it - it cannot do anything else - it is simply to big and rapacious to do anything else (a bit like the Bushite US really).

Greg Schofield, Canberra Australia

[GregS]

@lempkee I agree that we won't see one for a good long while, a new market is however developing and when it does then things may shift down quite a bit.

China is going PPC and at this moment the microA1 is I think the only itx in existence, the A1 itself is one of only a small number of PPC boards about and the Chinese will not be buying any of them until the price is competative. However, IBM is out on a limb and the dollar signs are ever-present with the size of the potenmtial China Market - major shifts are due - perhaps Amiga will ride the wind when they come (we are talking of less than 5 years).

[GregS]

@Hammer we may have started off at odds, but I think we might be going in the same direction after-all.

Catching-up is a very powerful force, and yes open source for a number of reasons (free labour and localization/adaption being prime) is a much better option if you are in the position of say China.

A whole set of different dynamics begins. I do not think that Opensource is any sort of long term solution, but it is the right solution for places like China in the immediate future.

I would also say that I undrstand why China is leaning so heavily to PPC. If Intel gained a foothold, the piracy of MS would force it to become its prisoner. The Chinese leadership may be accused of many things, but stupidity is not one of them.

Besides which the cost factor is enormous, hot X86 chips in server farms means that the airconditioning costs alone far outwiegh the cost benefits on the chips themselves. Besides which the G3 is an ideal CPU for using in a wide number of settings and the bonus that a server farm of these could be maintained easily with a domestic air-conditioner stuck in a window.

In fact multi-processing with G3 must have a lot of attractions once this aspect gets nailed down.

Things like .NET are most unattractive to nations building up the infrastructure in communications - for the medium term anything like this in no future at all.

Hammer, I think in all this the Amiga is sitting pretty, it may not be a "cert" but it is fair bet. Linux is not I think what you would really want in say China when the bus ticket sales become computerisied, or the train signals etc. then you want some small and relaiable, easy to understand  OS by an IT section that learnt most of its skills on-the-job.

The time scale I would use is that the signs of major change will be seen within 5 years and within 10 years the foundations for the next wave will be laid - the only thing I find unimaginable is that MS will be anything other than a footnote in the history of computing.

And let us not forget the rest of Asia, EurAsia and India much the same pressures that China is under hold for them as well.

[GregS]

If that's true why have they just spent the last few months wooing AMD and the Athlon64?

@bloodline

I am sure they are wooing every CPU manufacturer in the world, but as far as I can see it will be an arranged marriage. China will go for a stable of CPUs but what they require above all that in that stable there is a good hack which runs cool and is up to doing everything and is very very potentially cheap - the G3 fits the bill while G4-G5 fits the rest quiet nicely.

If you are going to have any leverage then you need to play all your cards.

[GregS]

Tell that to IBM’s Power4. As for "thin and light" X86 refer to Pentium M blades....

@Hammer.

I don't know how to make this any clearer - China will not be going down any path that even gets them close to useing MS - they are not mad. If its X86 then it doesn't matter if it runs ice-cold and is fast as light - the Chinese will not have a bar of it.

Reduce the CPUs by this factor and then they either go for one of their own (I don't think this will be the case) or what?

But if your content to play selective quotes then go for it - say I contradict myself by also argueing that even though a X86 may be cooler it still is not in the running.

The Chinese have made it pretty clear that they do not want, nor can they afford, to go into MSes pocket. Using any form of X86, in short anything compatible to MS would in effect give their technological policies over to Billy Gates - and they ain't going to do it.

[GregS]

You really think they care that much? The computer world is driven by one concept; Cheap and powerfull... that is all.

@bloodline

Actually I think they care a great deal indeed, their future depends on making the right choice and as I keep saying their political leadership may be accused of a lot of things but not stupidity. They know they are standing on the breach of truely major change and they do not want to stuff things up.

They will steer a middle course, settle on a technology which is connected to the rest of world but does not make them subject to the whims of others. Dragon was something they did precisely to show their independence and it will be kept in reserve.

Their problems are not the same as the "wests" they need something which can operate reliably in a small village with a generator as well as something powerful enough to be used as server farm. They will avoid the top-end of advanced design and go for something which is already in ordinary use and it will not be X86.

They are not just looking for a good chip design, but as I said before a stable of chips which already have the manufacturing capacity to feed their market while not dominating other aspects of use.

They will be going Linux, especially if the Japanese have anything to do with it and Koreans and Twainese are likewise minded. They also see this is a contest with the US and MS as part of that. While they are looking at building a very Asian basis for future technology growth.

You have to take everything into account, and when you do things narrow down a hell of a lot.


By the way, I bought my first Amiga because of the AREXX ports and the multi-tasking the A500 looked like a processing whimp compared to the mighty early Mac it stood next to, then A3000 when it was new and the new MacII still did a little better in processing speed - I sold the MacII , I did not sell the A3000 - when it broke I went to a PC to bide my time (my new A1 G4 arrives this week).

[GregS]

Debating the OS or what processor instruction set is present and if Bill Gates is involved or not really misses the point.

@DonnyEMU good points and I will cease and desist.

I do think the new Amiga will have little difficulty in attracting new users (not a deluge but a steady stream),  Real3D and Pagestream are a really good start on the applications front, but only a start.

It may be a little while before unique capabilities are developed - but I can say without hestitation that developers will love the "write crash log" of the "Grim Reaper" it will save a huge amount in support and debugging (just do it again and this time write the "crash log" and email it).

My hope is in XML developments because some sort of parser is already apart of the OS - I think a new breed of integrated word processors is not too far away, XML signatures and file keeping and a whole lot of other housekeeping potential is possible just because of this one thing (not that XML is new but integrated directly into the OS is).

[GregS]

@DonnyEMU, yes this is the stuff that excites me (XAML or XUL) along with all the rest of XML.

I would love to talk about the effects this has on application development especially the fragmentation of applications and mega-applications. Of course it needs a good simple script language to hold it all together (I see SHEEP as a natural successor to AREXX, but AREXX could do the trick).

One of the things which most excites me is an end to off-theshelf-one-size-fits-all applications and the fashioning of task orientated interfaces designed by "advanced" users.

The relationship between the GUI, GUI manager, GUI description, Scripting Glue and compiled code is a very exciting one - let alone that the data itself can be marked-up in the same language (cross purpose editors are something even mor exciting).

I was suggesting such a thing to Amiga Inc sometime ago, but it is still early days. I am a great believer in in generalisied code fragments organisied through a seperate GUI interface as a way of remodeling the relationship between developer and end-user.

.NET solutions have hit on what needs to be done, except without the "net" part - but then old Billy wants his control and thats the hidden anchor in this. But I agree wholeheartedly this is definitely the way to go.

[GregS]

@hammer, I just about give up, I do not retract, but we are in different worlds. You look at current trends, the latest chip designs and OS projects and can find plenty of indication that MS has the world wrapped up forever.

I on the otherhand work with people thorougly frustrated with using MS computers, ordinary folks doing ordinary jobs, hobbyists and the like.

You see business as all-wise and knowning what it is doing and thus always picking the best path for development (at least in the main).

I see business run choatically, corruptly and increadibly unproductive, by people who for the most part have not got a clue about what goes on in their own organization. I see technological development as haphazard, driven often by hype and deception. I see waste and stupidity, where progress comes despite the  the businesses running the show, not because of them.

You see development tools and sophistication.

I see gigantic mechanisms designed to crack a nut, and doing so badly.

You see innovative programmers doing marvellous things in great software ventures.

I see people mindlessly doing hack work on software designs destined never to be deployed.

In short, we inhabit two different planets - no wonder we find it difficult to discuss things.

The MS world is from my perspective a giagantic money-hungry enterprise that has very little to do with practical computing but a hell of a lot to do with money spinning.

I talk with some confidence about a wave of technological revolution already appearing, because I see how despite the magnificant imporvements in hardware, the fantastic potential of software, the stuff that is available to actually use is crap - moreover those forced to use it know it is crap and are not so dazzled by promises of things to come, when they come from the same organization that supplies the crap they work on everyday.

Hammer, no amount of statistics on sales, no figures on processing speeds, no promises of things just round the corner mean much to me when I see everyday that nine-tenths of the software problems which determine the way we use our computers derive from MSes business plans.

Amiga, as I said, is in a good position to lead a change, from the bottum up.

Greg Schofield

[GregS]

@DonnyEMU the stuff you bring up XAML is very important.

However, I would like to move it away from MSes Longhorn. This is something which AMIGA needs now, but not I think in the way MS is implementing it.

I believe, AMIGA could quickly have a much better system in place, not because it would be more sophisticated but because it would be useful to users rather than exclusively developers such as Longhorn seems to be aimed.

Greg Schofield