This is an interesting thread to see the many different opinions, ideas and how other members see the Amiga community and how they see themselves fitting into one or another part of it.
For me, I first learned about the Amiga from a magazine article in Popular Electronics (or was it Popular Mechanics) around the time either just before, or right after the release of the A1000. I had been interested in getting a personal computer for a while, but had not taken any steps toward seriously buying one. When I read about the capabilities of the Amiga in contrast to what an IBM compatible PC could do at the time, I was amazed and my interest in getting a computer was tripled. Due to my financial circumstances at the time, I was forced to focus on work and my family instead of pursuing any computer interests. About a year later I changed jobs and started working with PCs and about 3 months after that I met a coworker who owned an Amiga. He worked part time, went to college and was majoring in computer science. He had spent all his money to upgrade to the newly released A2000 and also had the incredibly slow first bridgeboard (XT8086 I think at 4mHz). He brought it to work one day to show me after he found out how interested in it I was. After seeing it, I had to have one and he found me a used A1000 with a monitor, extra floppy drive and several games and programs included, or I could spend about the same amount on a new A500. I went with the A1000, and as I have said many times before on these forums, buying and learning to use my Amiga had a profound positive effect on the rest of my career and allowed me to advance much faster than my peers in a field that is not generally thought to have anything to do with computers.
The astounding hardware capabilities of the Amiga are what got me interested in the first place, but the amazing people that the Amiga brought together as a community are what keep me here. The community has shrunk greatly over the years, but for the most part the spirit and passion of those who remain is still very strong.
I see the future as a continuing development of projects like the Minimig and Clone-A to feed the retro scene and I am sorry to say that in my mind OS4.x and AROS don't seem to me to be going anywhere. My hope is that someone will take the core philosophy or spirit of what the Amiga was in its first incarnation and create something brand new and revolutionary and inspiring. Throw away all the old technologies that limit current designs and come up with something completely new and original that is not shackled by the past. No, it won't be backward compatible with the Amiga or any other system, but it will be so much better than anything currently available that it will be a "no brainer" to switch to and develop on for the future.
With that wish for the future, the Amiga community in my mind will continue as just a hobby for those that enjoy the old classic Amiga way of doing things. I love this place and will be around for a long time to come.
