What if?

[bhoggett]

I've moved on - can't see myself switching back to AmigaOS now. Lack of applications and the additionsl expense, not to mention that I would have no interest at all in a custom piece of hardware that would be obsoleted as soon as their manufacturer went out of business. It wouldn't matter if it was a $99 computer - it's too late.

Six years ago it might have been a different story, but even then I wasn't keen on a new hardware platform. It didn't make any sense then and it doesn't now.

[bhoggett]

The disqualifier was whether or not a device was reliant on mechanical devices to work; Computers were not- that is, the storing, the analyzing, and the calculating could all be done electronically.  If it required mechanical parts to operate then, by definition, it was not a computer.    

So, can you run your Vista box without a mechanical hard drive?  My A1200 can.        :-P

Who came up with that piece of crass stupidity?

Just how useful is you A1200 without hard drive or floppy? How useful is a C64 without a disk drive or tape deck? Or indeed without a joystick as well?

To be honest, this is the real reason why the Amiga was never revived - incompetence and corruption notwithstanding. Too many amongst the Amiga die-hards are just not capable of thinking progressively and just live in some rose-tinted view of the past.

Personally, I think the Amigs should now be allowed to rest in honour. The name and brand have been dragged through the mud for long enough by people who claimed to have the community at heart but in fact just served their own inflated egos.

[bhoggett]

The term "PC" has nothing to do with any plot to undermine other platforms, nor is it anything to do with Americanism per se. It's simply a natural progression "IBM Personal Computer" -> "IMB PC" -> "IMB PC Compatible" -> "PC Compatible" -> "PC". It's really that simple. Machines like the C64 were also "Personal Computers", though they more often got referred to as "Home Computers" as a distinction from the business orientated models. The Commodore PET was classed as a "Personal Computer" too.

However, through colloquial use the terms "PC" has for a long time meant machines descended in a direct and compatible line from the original IMB PC Compatibles and their design. Moaning that people should not assume an x86 Windows compatible system when someone says "PC" is just being anal.

Macs are PCs too but no one is going to refer to them that way. It's either "my computer" or "my Mac" etc.